Reticence

I have fought writing and expression these last few months. God,  it's been over two months.  Hannah passed over a year ago now, and her birthday has passed.  Another birthday we will not celebrate with her. I no longer know how many days it has been,  and the flow of days and weeks brings little comfort. There are  reminders in everyday life of her everywhere I go: art,  music,  flowers,  books yes,  but blue hair,  safety masks and gloves,  blue Volkswagens,  my back yard.  When I hear a fire engine,  my throat tightens. The sense that they are there to rescue is mitigated now by the knowledge that that sound can also be linked the darkest moment in so many lives, in my family's lives. I live in the house where she passed.  The door to that room is closed,  and I struggle to go through her things,  knowing it takes me farther from her. I feel a sense of failure in the avoidance, want to clutch everything to see if I can smell her in her belongings, but know that they are just things.  The phrase that I taught my children all their lives "they're just things" mocks me now,  because her things are all that is left of her. 

There is a softening of the pain of her death,  like a scar that is healing. There is a quote that I am trying to remember about the sensation of a scar. It distracts me again from writing, but I see that,  see the way in which my mind distracted me from getting close to the feelings again.  I will sit with that understanding,  sit with this feeling of peaceful sadness that I am having this morning. 

Trying too Hard, too Late?

For the rest of our lives, those of us who were part of Hannah's life will try to make up for it somehow:  to be a better parent, a better brother, for those who harmed her to be more "woke" after her death. 

It's the not trying, or ineptly, solypsistically, publicly calling attention to how much one is trying that ... hurts like the devil to be near.

My father wrote an article for an online magazine.  In it, he talks about women swimmers, and how 'his realities were changed' the first time he was beaten by a woman when he was swimming, and goes on to talk about woman swimmers.

Something that I have learned from Hannah is to hold space for other voices. In the case of what my father wrote, it's a problem for me, because he's an old white man talking about himself in reference to women, acting as though he is speaking in deference to women, but elevating himself in "woke" context. 

I don't have all the right answers, I know, but learn to stop. Give opportunity to other voices, encourage them without trying to tell them about your own  experiences. Listen without planning your next sentence, your next commiseration. Listen without judgement and hear what is being said, how it is being said.

I am guilty of it, and Hannah let me know. Probably she didn't call me out every time.  Her brilliance and creativity, her depression and torment, were hers.  To poke at it until I figure out how to dismantle it and make it make sense will never happen. The IF will haunt me until the end of my life, the shockwave of realizing she is gone will never completely go away. To find peace is accepting. Accepting we will never see her dance again. Accepting she will never  sing again. Accepting the silent guitar, the hardening paint, the pink dresses and combat boots that she wore, the leaves and flowers and photos and projects that she will never create. The lessons she could have taught children, her friends, her family, me.

A seed is planted in me to try to be better, to reach the next one, to learn the important things.

It has been 338 days since daughter, sister, friend, teacher left this earth.

 I love you, Hannah.

10 months and 4 days

I will always hold Hannah deep in my heart in a broken, beautiful place.

Ten months is no time at all, but it's an eternity of echoes of seconds since she left. Her face, her voice are etched into those of us who love her, and that loss doesn't end. The jagged edges of it have softened, beaten on the tides of tears. When one of her friends announces nuptials or pregnancy, it is a joy tinged with those tears. When her brother has good news for a change, the news is gratefully, lovingly received, but stops at the infinite ocean of  where she no longer is.  

But the sun did come up today without her, and we are learning daily how to navigate through these calmer waters, knowing that  storms will come again. We know that we will continue to push through and survive through them.

Hannah, you are loved and missed every day.

the guilt that comes along for the ride

I have been so afraid of my son's grief and depression that I have let him get away with acting like a child. Today, after a night of constant  interruption of my sleep sure to noise , when I told him to act like the adult he is, he said "fuck you" and walked away. It's almost liberating to realize that I have been reacting in a way to avoid a repeat of what happened to Hannah and I have operated from fear instead of dealing with adults and have caused a regression in the autonomy in both of them.

Don't know what this means.

grief, rage

Lately, I am finding myself suddenly, surprisingly, intensely full of rage. Since I don't know why it's happening, I turn it inward into a sea of frenetic self  loathing and a desire for violence: yelling, screaming, pounding violence against a body and mind that I try to have compassion for and find myself utterly lacking. I want to eat and punch my way out of what is going on inside me, because I give it almost no voice. My throat can't speak these words.

In times of calm, I meditate. Love and healing to myself, to my family, to the world. I tighten around the rage, because I fear that if it's  expressed it will leave a swath of poisonous waste around it. I take some precious breaths, center myself and do what needs to happen next. But my breath is shaky today, my throat tight, and so I left, afraid of what the next words might be. I have so much compassion for the suffering of my sons but can't find my 'self' to be compassionate towards this morning. The cold winter wind and gray sky are my voice, a whipping invisible, touching everything. The sound of it feels more real than the filth of my home, the depth of my despair and anger. I want to leave it all behind and go to a place of love and light and warmth but right now, I know that this is my normal and right now I need to figure out how to survive it. 

Addendum: I picked up a book 10 minutes later and opened it:

"The warrior in your heart says stand your ground. Feel the survival of a thousand years of ancestors in your muscles and your blood. You have all the support you need in your bones"

Jack Kornfield