All Over the Place

Reading a book on grief, I learn that there is no right way to grieve. I have been reading  a lot of books about loss and grief lately, some spiritual, some experiential, all from people who have shared the loss of someone close. What I still am surprised by is how intensely and how many ways my sons and I can be buffeted by the tiniest thing-my son's realization in the shower that each minute takes him farther away from her; finding out that she was a finalist in interviewing for an internship at Laika; the diploma that she received two days before, the coffee cup that she loved to use; a question from a client at work that breaks my heart anew or that I have no patience for. The rude stranger whose comment sends me into spasms of silent sobbing and self-questioning when I arrive home, tight-lipped and lock myself in my room. It makes one son wonder if I am angry with him. Driving home can also cause a complete meltdown if I take the wrong route and see where she went to college, her favorite bakery. The sunflower that she planted is suffering in the fire-thickened smoky air, its sad blooms alerting me that I feel like I failed her, that I am failing her again.

We still haven't had a memorial for her. Covid and sheltering in was the first reason for postponing. Then I had surgery. But people have recently pushed me to coordinate this, citing their need to process their own grief. It's insurmountable and guilt wracking. It "should" be done. I feel selfish not wanting this finality, and my sons, their father doesn't really want to even discuss this, each for their own reason. How can we think of saying goodbye to her? She was not supposed to end. She was supposed to send her lavender blooms to friends around the country. She was supposed to protest racial inequality, to go to protests. She was supposed to interview at Laika, to create art and music. To help me wrap the bandages around me, joking about my flat chest. She could have rallied her brother on while he adapted to online summer camps and maybe worked beside him. How do we memorialize this beautiful, combative, loving, creative spirit when inside I am screaming at the loss of a life that I would gladly swap for my own? Will the words stick in my throat on the way out of my mouth? The words are not enough, yet they are too much right now.

Hannah, July 2014, 

June Lake, Washington State

15 weeks, 2 days

It has been 15 weeks, 2 days since my daughter ended her life. 107 days since I have heard her voice, talked to her, say beside her. 2573 hours since the last, ringing words ripped the air; a slamming door, a plate brought up to her room, sitting outside it.  Running, then driving through the neighborhood, not knowing she was already gone inside her room, her spirit slipped away from her body.

A few hours before that that, I decided to show her a music video for one of my favorite songs.  She watched and intensely told me how awful and sexist the music video was. I think my face fell, because she said she was sorry for "Britta-ing" the song we were listening to. I thought this was a humorous reference to the tv show, "Community", that she had been watching recently. There was a genuine sadness to the apology that I didn't understand at the time.  (A week later, I would hear that show on the video I found on her computer, while she stared listless, then clearly struggling with something inside her, then enraged, into the computer camera while "Community" played in the background. There was an intensity of pain in her that I never saw when I was with her. Then my son yelled from upstairs at something in his room(on his video game) and her whole body jerked, fearful and shocked, and she stopped the video.) It was the last real conversation that we had. 

My daughter is gone, one month and 10 days before her 23rd birthday. All that's left is computer images, ashes and boxes upon boxes of things that when I look at them, time stops, and I see the remnants of the life of the beautiful, smart, quirky girl who had everything ahead of her and I break apart again. She has left us with questions that we can never have answered and a huge cavern in our lives where she belongs.

2568 hours ago, we sat outside the house, shocked, crying, choking on the pain, seconds ticking by like hours while the paramedics, police and finally the coroner invaded our house, sent us out, and told us she was dead. 

I can't stop time and the increasing distance from her that each second brings. I get stopped in those moments when she was still here. I am there with her, wrapped in her bathrobe, looking at the plants that she planted in the yard for a moment, then punched in the gut with the realization that she is gone.