More Than

Sometimes I am consumed with fury.  Other times my heart just breaks.  Again.

There were two of these incidents this week.  I'll tell you about them.  But then, in an effort, to be more...hopeful...I'll share something that's been on my mind that counteracts the darkness and despair.

Picture it.  I am driving down West Michigan- curse of my soul-

(a sidebar here to say it is the most evil of paradoxes that I want to move and flee this neighborhood never again to drive down that particular stretch of road, but know in my heart I will never do it because moving would require me to pack up Cory's room.  I simply cannot.  If nothing else, I know my limits.  Her bedroom is tangible proof that I shared the wonder of her life.  It is space that she walked and danced upon, stomped on and slept in.)

Okay, I am driving down West Michigan, lighthearted and joking with Jake, having just visited my parents before they leave for vacation when what to my resentful eyes should appear but a lone figure crossing West Michigan for the...thousandth time...

This time, it was a man- get ready for it- with earbuds in, not looking in either direction, a fucking man bun on his head, and actually, I kid you not, casually SIPPING A GODDAMN FOUNTAIN POP as he walked across the road in the exact path my girl had fatally set out on six years ago.  The cars?  They slowed.  They braked.  They parted like the Red Sea, their brake lights popping red all across the roadway.   Of COURSE they did.

Immediate road rage.  Immediate flashbacks.  "Are you kidding me?!"
Jake sat beside me shaking his head, patting my shoulder,  and looking miserably at his feet.

There I was mean-mugging a strange man rocking a stupid man bun.  We actually locked eyes, him probably wondering why the hell a mid-forty year old woman was eyeballing him so hard.  I drove the rest of the way home seeing red.  Brake lights.  Flashing lights.  Blood.

The next night after dinner with my sister, Jake and I went to the cemetery to see our girl.  We looked around for rabbits, saw none, caught her up on our week, and then I watched memorized as he said his goodbye.  He leaned forward, taller than me, heavier than me, his shadow falling gracefully and full of life yet to live over her stone, and gently kissed the center of the cross.  That single action said every word about his grief that he isn't yet willing or able to verbalize.  His love for her was so obvious in his reverence, the linger of his lips to her stone, the wistful sound of his voice, "We love you, Cory."  Heartbreak.  Utter and complete.  His.  Mine.  Hers.  All three.

So what to counteract such darkness?

Just thought I'd share Tim's perspective for once.  He's spent the last four weeks tiptoeing around my death-versary-wakened trauma symptoms, after all.  Sometimes, I soak up his help when I need it so desperately that I forget he is grieving, too.  What does that look like, you ask?

I've learned to listen carefully for the rare jewels the males in my family offer up about our girl.  More importantly, I've learned to watch their actions.  I spent the week of the fifth making art, writing, looking at pictures, and listening to songs that I seldom open myself up to.  I remember thinking maybe I would read through her journals, but being afraid it would hurt too much and suddenly realizing that's probably how Jacob feels all the time and why he seldom speaks of her.

So Tim, what did he do?  He ran errands.  He made sure there were groceries.  He picked up dinner more nights than I'd like to admit.  There was no way in hell I was standing in front of my cutting board at the counter that week, that was for sure, head half cocked for a knock at the door.  And in the midst of all these household duties, while I slept or medicated or drank coffee with my headphones on for hours at a time staring into a time when my daughter was within arms' reach, he snuck out to the cemetery.  He never told me he was going until afterwards.  He made three trips in total.  He spent hours knelt down beside her monument, scrub brush in hand, meticulously scrubbing it, taking the time to get the bristles deep inside every letter etched into the stone.  He pulled the weeds.  He made it look cared for.  When he was finished, he suggested we drive out to see her, the three of us, and waited to see if I noticed, which I did, the letters stood out against the stone beautifully.  He told me how long it took him and the lump came without warning to my throat.  "I wanted to make it right for her."

Then tonight, he and Jake were up in her room replacing a pane of glass that had cracked in her window.  When he finished he stood in the doorway of our bedroom and said, "I looked up there and it was just like it used to be.  I could almost see her in the window like she'd be in the summer when I got home after work.  'Hey, Dad!  Did you just get off work?  How's it going?'  And I'd say, 'Hey, Cory!  What are you still doing up?'  He smiled and laid a finger to his lips, and she'd say, 'Shhh!  Don't tell Mom!'"

He chuckled sadly.  I really didn't know a chuckle could be sad until we lost Cory.  He turned away but not before I saw  his eyes and in them was all his grief, all his love, and all the stories he hasn't yet shared.

I know some people say the secret to success in life is simply showing up.  I can tell you this much.  Being a father, being a dad...it's more than showing up.  It's what you do when you're there.

The Learning Curve

I remember reaching out to a friend and mentor about a week after we buried Cory.  This was Cory-style fearlessness because prior to her death I had not yet fully found my voice.  Speaking my despair so plainly, so desperately, to someone I looked up to was something I would never have entertained prior to losing my child.  I had learned through parenting a child with a mental illness to advocate for my child, but perhaps I had not yet learned to speak up when I was the one in trouble.  But something about seeing your child's casket lowered into the ground, inch by heartbreaking inch, has a way of stripping away any semblance of decorum you may have once possessed.

I remember dialing his number and mentally rehearsing what to say, the way I have done ever since I can remember because my anxiety dictates that I do so.

What I said was, "I'm really trying but I can't do this."  What I clearly meant and what he clearly picked up, perhaps by the tone of my voice was, "I cannot see my way out of this overwhelming pain and I am considering ending my life."  My voice, even over the phone, must've belied my mental exhaustion and near surrender.  Somehow when I pull up that conversation in my head, six years later and replay it, I can hear my voice, simultaneously more passionate than perhaps I'd ever been and yet displaying that eerily flat affect that can indicate someone has nearly made their peace with an impossibly difficult decision and has accepted whatever the consequences will be.

What he said to me was slightly different than what he said to my friend.  I'll share both.

After validating my feelings and expressing his empathy, he pulled out the only card in this world that I felt perhaps still belonged to me from my woefully small deck and laid it between us on the table.
"Think of how you want to model grieving for your son.  He is watching you.  How can you show him how to do that in a meaningful and healthy way?"

I remember holding my cellphone to my ear and looking in the bathroom mirror as I pondered his words.  My reflection showed me a woman who had not bathed in more than a week...a woman who was wearing her dead child's nightgown, through which quite easily her hipbones were visible.  I looked down at my feet, which were black with graveyard dust.  I was not eating; I was not sleeping; the flashbacks of the scene played constantly.  Taking a full breath was an effort.

 I could not argue with my mentor, but I remember distinctly rolling my eyes at this advice.  Model for my child?  Seriously?  Does he not see what I let happen to the other one?  

I should interject here to say I had already decided it would be okay to kill myself and leave Jake in the care of his father.  My thinking, distorted and full of guilt, was that since I had not kept Cory alive, the least I could do was leave Jake in the care of someone with better judgment.

I'm certain my mentor knew that such manipulations seldom work for someone experiencing suicidal ideation.  By the time they voice their intentions to someone...if they do, at all... they have thought long and hard about all the possible implications.  The weighing of these, often done sobbing silently, alone, in the wee hours of the morning, is the type of mental anguish I would not wish on a single soul.

What I think my mentor was trying to accomplish was to give me a vision of myself being successful, give me something to work towards, give me something to inspire any sort of will to continue the hard work of fulfilling the person he thought I could be.  Isn't that what mentors do?

What he told my friend a few minutes later on the phone,unbeknownst to me until much, much later?

"Angie, this is serious.    You need to do daily check ins with her.  Here's the script.  Ask her these three questions:  Are you thinking of hurting yourself?  Are you thinking of suicide?  Do you have a plan?  If she says yes to any of them, do not leave her alone. "

He added one final thought, "Watch her with the road.  The idea of doing it there will probably be pretty powerful."

It's like he could read my mind.

So, here I am, six years later.  I am probably more surprised than anyone to be still be here.  And, although I've  blundered in a few spots, as we parents always do, I have modeled grieving to Jacob in a way I can say I'm proud of...honestly, visibly, meaningfully, and finally, in more healthy ways.

Art and writing?  They've kept me alive.  When I show Jake my art journal or read him a blog entry, he sees a couple of healthy coping options.

Seeing therapists and Dr. Z?  I think more than anything that says to Jake that there is nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it.  It is one of the hardest things to do, with the stigma that exists around mental health.  But it is okay.

I've taken Jake in tow to the cemetery regularly since he was that ten year old little boy whose face looked so solemn, watchful, and shell-shocked in the wake of losing his only sibling.  We take our offerings.  We speak to her.  Since I can remember, we've stood in front of her together, our little triangle of the world united once again- the three of us, against the world.

 It used to be that we held hands, maybe because it was so frightening and surreal to be speaking aloud to a piece of your heart that now resided under ground.  We seldom hold hands anymore; he is a teenage boy, after all, but we stand shoulder to shoulder, our shadows sometimes thrown right over her grave.  I'll start the well-known script with, "Hi Cory." and he'll chime in.  I'll turn to him and ask, "What do you want to tell your sister today?"  A little at a time, I've noticed him coming up with small details of his life to share with her.

Yeah, I think I'm okay with the model of grief I've showed him.  Pretty smart, my mentor.

And finally, I'll share this with you.
Jake, like Cory, has taught me some important lessons, too.  Today when we pulled up to the cemetery, we saw a tiny figure in the shadow of Cory's monument, right over her grave.  At first, we thought it was a bunny statue someone had left for her, but realized as we got closer, it was a real animal.  Jacob was delighted.  "Look who's visiting Cory, Mom.  See?  She's not alone."

She's not alone.

I watched him taking pictures of the rabbit, following it carefully as it hopped along and observing as it foraged for grass and leaves.  He was in wonder of the world around him.

There are still some good things here.