Loss has been on my mind a lot.
Last January, a son of my family friend was murdered. I did not know about this until almost March, when his mother emailed me. He had gone for a semester abroad to Barcelona and within the first week of getting there, he unknowingly got mixed up in a bad situation and was killed. It was a sort of story you read about in the paper and are horrified, but then you somehow feel that you are shielded from things that bad and so you move on. This was not the case. I know the family. I knew the young man who was killed. I was stunned. He was a junior in college, so smart and full of potential, a son of great people -- and now he was no more. And to such a senseless crime. My mother loved this boy since he was a baby and all I could think about was that somehow she found him up there and has taken him under her wing. I missed her because we would have spent a good deal of time talking about it.
In April, a friend I used to work with who had moved across the country some years ago with her husband lost him to brain cancer. He was only 40. They had adopted three beautiful kids who are all still so young and now my friend is a widow. He had been in treatment for just over a year and it seemed as if things were going well (though I only knew from Facebook updates) but suddenly I got a call from a mutual friend who told me that he had died. I thought about my friend and the magnitude of her loss. It haunted me.
In September, a man was shot and killed literally around the corner from our house. It was a completely random act if violence in our otherwise safe neighborhood. We heard multiple gun shots but did not think they were what they were, only to find out 30 minutes later that it was a shooting. Our neighbor who is a nurse bravely went out there and tried to help the man until the ambulance got there but her efforts didn't save him. We were shaken because it could have been any of us. The gunman was arrested one month later but there is still a shrine at the intersection where the man was killed and I drive by it every day thinking about that day and his family and friends.
In November, a colleague of mine who had been fighting breast cancer died at the age of 45. She was a powerhouse in the Arts Education scene and most everyone felt she was the type of person who would just beat the crap out of cancer but she lost after a year and a half of a grueling battle. She left behind 5-year-old twin sons. I only knew her in a professional setting but because of her huge presence and because some of my dear friends were close to her, this one punched me in the gut. The night before she died, I found out that it was just a matter of time for her and I did not sleep well. I thought about what she must have felt like knowing she was leaving her boys (who she fought to have, not unlike us) and it plagued me. The next morning I found out after volunteering at Yuki's school, in my car, that she was gone. I cried for good 20 minutes before I could drive. I attended her memorial a week ago Monday, which was so beautifully done (theatre people know how to do a memorial service, let me tell you) and there I wept with my friends. For the whole week, I didn't feel good and was walking around only half-engaged in things.
Then last Friday, four days after the memorial service, the Newtown shooting happened which shook me to the core. I had a hard time keeping it together at work and learned from a text message that Philip was going through something very similar. I thought about going to get Yuki right then and there, but was afraid that I would have a breakdown so I waited. When I got to the after-school care, Yuki was not amused because I was early by about an hour and she was engaged in a very exciting shoe box craft project. The situation would normally annoy me but it seemed like a privilege at the time. I let her finish and we walked to a nearby cafe to have a treat and went home and I just sat with her in a near-catatonic state trying to process the news in very small increments in my head.
I have been having occasional anxiety attacks and have cried almost every day as I am certain many parents across the country have. I am so thankful that Yuki is oblivious to it because the only thing that is holding me together is to focus on everyday tasks and to lose myself in the bubble of the safety of our home where everything is still the same.
It must be the cumulative affect since my mother's death that is now hitting me. That, in fact, devastating things that used to seem somewhat distant have now brushed up against me in rapid succession, which made me realize no one is immune. Not even me. My insides hurt from thinking about the poor kids and teachers who were killed and from wondering about the families who have to face the worst kind of loss possible. I think about my friends' kids who don't get to have their parent with them for Christmas. All of that is jumbled up with "When is that going to happen to me?" Because why should I get to continue to have a child and they don't? Why does my child get to have a mom and my friends' kids don't? I am not any better than any of them. And I keep searching for things that I am supposed to learn and to do and irrationally trying to somehow prepare myself and I feel paralyzed.
But then, in calmer moments, I think that I am beginning to understand what it means to live on after dying. I've seen it in people close to me and even in myself. To come out of the other side of pain. To honor the memory and carry on the mission of those who left. To talk and connect and change and grow and love as you move up in the queue. And to know that everyday is in fact a chance to create good memories -- which is what I think every time I call my father. I'm now making memories with him before it's his time. And I supposed that has changed my parenting in the past year too.
I only know to live, knowing at the end, whenever that is, that I did my best in everything I did. And to lean on my husband who would sit next to me silently when I am having a hard time and to hold Yuki's hand in bed as she falls asleep and let myself weep from both relief and fear. I am better because of them. Even if I lose them or they lose me, I have to know that we are all changed for the better because of each other.
And I guess that is what I am taking away from all of this.
I will share with you a poem that was read at my colleague's memorial that struck me. It is by Jane Kenyon, entitled "Otherwise".
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Last January, a son of my family friend was murdered. I did not know about this until almost March, when his mother emailed me. He had gone for a semester abroad to Barcelona and within the first week of getting there, he unknowingly got mixed up in a bad situation and was killed. It was a sort of story you read about in the paper and are horrified, but then you somehow feel that you are shielded from things that bad and so you move on. This was not the case. I know the family. I knew the young man who was killed. I was stunned. He was a junior in college, so smart and full of potential, a son of great people -- and now he was no more. And to such a senseless crime. My mother loved this boy since he was a baby and all I could think about was that somehow she found him up there and has taken him under her wing. I missed her because we would have spent a good deal of time talking about it.
In April, a friend I used to work with who had moved across the country some years ago with her husband lost him to brain cancer. He was only 40. They had adopted three beautiful kids who are all still so young and now my friend is a widow. He had been in treatment for just over a year and it seemed as if things were going well (though I only knew from Facebook updates) but suddenly I got a call from a mutual friend who told me that he had died. I thought about my friend and the magnitude of her loss. It haunted me.
In September, a man was shot and killed literally around the corner from our house. It was a completely random act if violence in our otherwise safe neighborhood. We heard multiple gun shots but did not think they were what they were, only to find out 30 minutes later that it was a shooting. Our neighbor who is a nurse bravely went out there and tried to help the man until the ambulance got there but her efforts didn't save him. We were shaken because it could have been any of us. The gunman was arrested one month later but there is still a shrine at the intersection where the man was killed and I drive by it every day thinking about that day and his family and friends.
In November, a colleague of mine who had been fighting breast cancer died at the age of 45. She was a powerhouse in the Arts Education scene and most everyone felt she was the type of person who would just beat the crap out of cancer but she lost after a year and a half of a grueling battle. She left behind 5-year-old twin sons. I only knew her in a professional setting but because of her huge presence and because some of my dear friends were close to her, this one punched me in the gut. The night before she died, I found out that it was just a matter of time for her and I did not sleep well. I thought about what she must have felt like knowing she was leaving her boys (who she fought to have, not unlike us) and it plagued me. The next morning I found out after volunteering at Yuki's school, in my car, that she was gone. I cried for good 20 minutes before I could drive. I attended her memorial a week ago Monday, which was so beautifully done (theatre people know how to do a memorial service, let me tell you) and there I wept with my friends. For the whole week, I didn't feel good and was walking around only half-engaged in things.
Then last Friday, four days after the memorial service, the Newtown shooting happened which shook me to the core. I had a hard time keeping it together at work and learned from a text message that Philip was going through something very similar. I thought about going to get Yuki right then and there, but was afraid that I would have a breakdown so I waited. When I got to the after-school care, Yuki was not amused because I was early by about an hour and she was engaged in a very exciting shoe box craft project. The situation would normally annoy me but it seemed like a privilege at the time. I let her finish and we walked to a nearby cafe to have a treat and went home and I just sat with her in a near-catatonic state trying to process the news in very small increments in my head.
I have been having occasional anxiety attacks and have cried almost every day as I am certain many parents across the country have. I am so thankful that Yuki is oblivious to it because the only thing that is holding me together is to focus on everyday tasks and to lose myself in the bubble of the safety of our home where everything is still the same.
It must be the cumulative affect since my mother's death that is now hitting me. That, in fact, devastating things that used to seem somewhat distant have now brushed up against me in rapid succession, which made me realize no one is immune. Not even me. My insides hurt from thinking about the poor kids and teachers who were killed and from wondering about the families who have to face the worst kind of loss possible. I think about my friends' kids who don't get to have their parent with them for Christmas. All of that is jumbled up with "When is that going to happen to me?" Because why should I get to continue to have a child and they don't? Why does my child get to have a mom and my friends' kids don't? I am not any better than any of them. And I keep searching for things that I am supposed to learn and to do and irrationally trying to somehow prepare myself and I feel paralyzed.
But then, in calmer moments, I think that I am beginning to understand what it means to live on after dying. I've seen it in people close to me and even in myself. To come out of the other side of pain. To honor the memory and carry on the mission of those who left. To talk and connect and change and grow and love as you move up in the queue. And to know that everyday is in fact a chance to create good memories -- which is what I think every time I call my father. I'm now making memories with him before it's his time. And I supposed that has changed my parenting in the past year too.
I only know to live, knowing at the end, whenever that is, that I did my best in everything I did. And to lean on my husband who would sit next to me silently when I am having a hard time and to hold Yuki's hand in bed as she falls asleep and let myself weep from both relief and fear. I am better because of them. Even if I lose them or they lose me, I have to know that we are all changed for the better because of each other.
And I guess that is what I am taking away from all of this.
I will share with you a poem that was read at my colleague's memorial that struck me. It is by Jane Kenyon, entitled "Otherwise".
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Comments
Just thank you.
xo
gibs