Losses

A teenager at one of my sons’ schools died yesterday. He had been at school the day before. I did not know him. I cannot stop thinking about him or his family. That after all these months into the pandemic, they are suffering a loss greater than anyone should ever bear, in the “best” of times. I look at my own teenager, who is finding his place in the world. It is hard for him sometimes. I remember how profoundly uncomfortable I felt in high school; it was hard. On the surface, both my son and I have/had everything. But the surface is not where real life stews or is experienced; well, not for most of us, I dare say.

I have no idea what happened to this boy, but I know that he was loved by family and friends, that he was valued, that his loss will quake daily in the lives of those who remain.

I have what seems to me, a large number of friends who have lost children. This is a terrible, wrecking awareness. I don’t know what it means. One was killed in a terrorist attack, one seized in utero until she died and had to be delivered, two died suddenly as toddlers from what seemed like the flu, another of a cellular disorder with which she was born. None were older than twelve. All were loved, wholly and forever.

I do not know what to make of these tragic horrors. I have tried to just listen and feed and record and sit. It is a bare minimum, but I haven’t known what else to do. I mean, is there anything? I know that it is something, means something, to show up, to bear witness. I am repeatedly appalled by all who run away instead of toward. But perhaps that is more an indictment of how we allow grief to be expressed in this country, what is appropriate, what is not. We smile and curate and please and make comfortable, and that is a shame, an affront, and a disservice in all too many circumstances.

Many times, often, life is ugly. It is cancer and blood and death and loss. It is divorce and infidelity and poverty and want. It is hunger, violence, desperation, and drought. It is loneliness, fear, and simply wanting someone to ask and then really listen, without interruption, without judgement, without deflection. It is young women performing superhuman athletic feats being abused by their sport’s “best team doctor,” winning gold medal after gold medal, but suffering in the dark quiet of silence and secret until they learn that the FBI has betrayed them and so their only recourse for justice is to sit, more publicly than should be humanly expected, in front of Congress to relay horrific stories of non-consensual vaginal penetration and molestation so that maybe someone will finally mete out some goddamn justice.

Today, a friend had an MRI to see if any of her sixteen brain tumors have shrunk in the face of a daily pill that costs nearly $600. She’s well into her second month of this, she is on Medicaid, and she must take these pills because cancer wrecked her spine, requiring a vertebral replacement and subsequent fusion, rendering her ineligible for chemo until her back has healed. I have not heard from her since just before the MRI. She was terrified; I pushed her to do the scan because information is power, or something like that. We must know if these pills are helping.

My dad is still recovering from his recent surgery, my teenager is navigating a huge high school that he interacted with last year from our basement, and I feel unmoored. Each morning, I help both boys with their hair. This, I can do. I love that they ask, and I feel tethered (though rushed) in those moments when I hoist myself up onto my bathroom counter so that I can have enough height on them to see their heads and help with parts, hair drying, man buns, and product application.

It feels heavy, and hard, this experience of living on a pendulum between youth trauma and older-folks trauma, of trying to be present in each day while realizing all the bad shit that lurks around the corner. That darkness isn’t myth or nightmare; it’s real and experienced, and to not honor that reality seems like the most hideous of invalidations. If you are lucky to have not experienced such things, either be gracious or be quiet.

I drove to WV this morning after dropping Jack off and packing Ol’s sleepover bag for a night at my parents’, a bar mitzvah, and a sleepover with friends. The entire drive was a cacophonous musical of wailing cats and clanging trampoline parts. When I arrived safely, I swallowed gratefully and thought about my freshman roommate, Rosemary, and her advice: “ Sometimes, Emmy, you just have to put on your face and get out there.” That advice has proven so wise and beneficial so many times over the past 25 years. Thank you, Rose.

So, I put on my face and met with an amazing Jack of all trades who is going to fell dead trees for us and also rent us goats to mow the pastures. He wasn’t feeling well so suggested we wear masks, and I was so thankful because that is not the norm here, and then we enjoyed time just roaming the land and talking about fences and baby goats and fainting goats and nasty billy goats, and a castrated man goat named Rambo.

And then I hoed and weeded and planted and mulched and cooked and petted and painted, and then my big boy arrived, with his best friend and darling Tom. And we are here for the weekend, and everyone is laughing and full, and, for a moment, the awfulness recedes.