realization at an inopportune moment

 I was in a very public place today when I realized that I have two wedding dresses that I have saved for my daughters, but I have no daughters to give them to.

Where did it go wrong?

11/7/2020 I am sitting in my oldest son's apartment, close to 200 miles away from my home.  He is packing and moving back home with my other son and I for good. This is in part a financial decision, in part because the past few months he has not felt safe to stay in this place, far away from family.  

Due to the pandemic, he lost his job, and his income is basically gone. His life is devastatingly, irreversibly altered, these last few months, and he plays games on the computer to numb the anxiety and to silence the voice of grief that whispers in his ear. He is afraid that he will lose his out of state insurance by moving home. I am afraid for his safety if he stays.  The depression that he has contended with his adult life has become a jagged mountain to deal with, and outpatient intensive therapy was the recommendation.

Most of us who have lost someone to suicide feel that we should have done something differently. I wonder if she would be alive if I had *made* her go to the doctor's when I started worrying about her, paid more attention somehow to what she was saying, been more patient, encouraged her to transfer to another college. I should have seen that she had changed - that she no longer had friends, was angry and defensive.  I should have seen the increasing strain in her. I try to pick apart the threads that led her to take her life, and led her family and friends to where we are now.

Puzzling it out  won't bring Hannah back and it doesn't "fix" anything, but I desperately want to understand, and so I try to piece it together.

She was a competitive student, and knew exactly where she was in the class standings, knowing that she wanted to be high school valedictorian while she was still in middle school. She eventually was, and had to work for it, though I suspect her peers didn't know how much.

My earliest memory of the anger and hostility really manifesting is of the week before Christmas, in 2014, when she and my father got into the first of what seems like many  disagreements and fights.  I would like to say before I go too much farther, that for years, I was afraid of my dad. I didn't and still don't know exactly why, though he did have his occasional outbursts, putting holes in walls, being angry with his children in ways that included corporal punishment, and my never feeling good enough to meet a standard that I couldn't even identify, let alone meet.

We were making food for Christmas - cookies and pierogi for Christmas eve and I think we were going to do gingerbread houses? - and they got into an argument.  I have no idea what it was about, though I wish I knew so that I could maybe understand what happened, find a pattern.  There were raised voices, there was swearing, and she left, which I suspect now was a reactive fear and confusion to the escalated confrontation that was unfolding. It was raining, hard, and I tried to call her, panicked.  She texted her brother to let him know she was safe, and returned home hours later, long after my parents had left. This was a few months after Eric had harmed her, though I did not find that out until later.

There were incidents, much more minor, and she was convinced that her grandparents didn't love her.  I don't believe that it was true, but I think that they were afraid of the potential for arguments, and I know that at the least, my mom believed Hannah didn't much like them.

In college, it became more serious, though I knew only the surface of it.  She moved out of place after place, and I know that part of what happened there was due to her immediate and increasing dependence on her boyfriend and his on her.  He told me after she died that one of the first times he met her, she was talking about killing herself and went on the roof of the dormitory. She began to experiment more with drugs and alcohol. Her dormitory roommates were uncomfortable about her bringing Jacob into the room to spend the night.  She moved into a house with other students who had technical majors, and had difficulties with her roommates there, which came to a hear when the heat went out during a snowstorm, and the landlord and she got into a fight in which which Jacob "defended her" and she felt like she needed to move again. She house sat for a young man who was priveleged to own a house off campus, and she went on a trip, first with her oldest brother and then with our entire family.  While she was with her brother, she terrified him one night while they were in an argument, telling him that she was leaving because of the argument. Somehow my son was able to soothe the situation, but it was the first of many explosions. There was one in a museum in Amsterdam, where the security guard got involved because of an argument between her and her other brother. There was a fight that night between she and I, on a cruise ship, where she told me that she would be sleeping on the deck. I wonder if she would have killed herself, leaped off the ship that night, if I had not told her I would leave and she could be safe in the room.  I slept on the floor in my sons' room that night.  She told me that night that she wanted nothing to do with any of her family.  There were spats every time that she sat at a table with my father on that trip. Dinner was stressful, between needing to be social and trying to keep an ear out to make sure no fights broke out.  I don't want to make it sound like it was all bad. There were sweet times, where she got along with her brothers and I, and it felt like it would be okay. We had lovely days - St. Petersburg, where she had her 20th birthday on a river ride under lit bridges, sipping champagne and eating chocolates, the vegetarian restaurant in - was it Talinn? - that she researched and found, and had a wonderful meal at after seeing a historical reenactment, walking with her in Stockholm and Helsinki, and going to places - museums and parks and shops, wandering through streets.  And her making friends with an artist on some little island in Denmark. I was so amazed that she could put herself out there like that.

On Christmas eve 2019, there was a fight between my mother and she.  it was about a piece of information that I had believed all my life to be true, which my mother denied and said some awful things about that night.  My mother wouldn't back off.  Hannah wouldn't back off. It was horrible.  I think that it ended because my mother made something that Hannah believed was an apology and Hannah made something that my mother believed was an apology. Christmas was done, gone in the wreckage of that fight, and caution prevailed in the conversations that followed.

After that, I didn't see much of her for two or three months, though I tried. She was "busy working", she was "self quarantining" from the  virus, but I knew she didn't want to see us.  The threat from that trip, that she wanted nothing to do with us, was bearing out, and then she had to move back here.  There was an imbalance in the house: no one felt comfortable there. My other son was too loud for her, annoyed her. He didn't see that to be true and basically ignored it and lived his life.  She wanted him to quarantine so that he would not bring coronavirus into the house, and it wore on both of them that the other would not budge on this.  She didn't leave the house, but about a week after she moved in, she got quite sick. She thought she had the virus. They hadn't even developed an accurate test for it at that time, so she may well have.  

I carry the weight of my responsibility in her death, knowing that I missed that moment when I could have stopped her.  She paid the price for what I did not do, did not see.

Sneezing in the Sunlight

It's been a sunny day today, warm for late October. It's the one of the last warm ones here for a while. I left work, sunlight on my face, and remembered something that made me smile. Sunlight made her sneeze. The last week or two have been memories and realizations that have stopped me in my tracks but this one felt...good.

There are a lot of sweet, beautiful things to remember:  

-A fairy birthday party where we made dresses and wands. I wish I could remember more of it but when I try to remember anything else, I can't.

-Multiple visits to beaches, her floating and playing in the sand, our silly river beach with them "surfing the waves" from the ships, and the trips to Tahoe. 

-Berry picking and jam making

-Shakespeare-Taming of the Shrew on a cool lawn after dark in July.

-Her as Puck in Midsummer Night's Dream. She was so good. 

She was a summer baby, and a lot of the best of my memories are in sunshine.

-The canal du midi, where we read Howls Moving Castle and had a hundred crazy adventures. 

-Venice, which she told us she wanted to live in when she grew up.

-Her cupcake obsession and vanilla obsession which led to delicious experiments in baking.

-Her introduction to eating east coast Chinese food outside of Boston.

-Touring UMass Amherst and Hampshire College and Smith college. At Amherst, we ditched the tour being given by the athlete who had little interest in academics instead, exploring the parts of the campus she was interested in.  Hampshire College. That would have been such a good place for her...she thought about transferring, in part staying you take care of her fragile, emotionally manipulative boyfriend.

-Her 21st birthday at a drag show with my elderly parents, drinking champagne and cheering loudly.

The Velvet bag with the box of her ashes sits on the mantle. Below it, photos she took. To the left and right, other art that she had created. 

I am supposed to be calling another mom who lost a child, so I should stop writing. I am uncomfortable about this, suddenly don't know why I am doing it.

I like this silence, this distance from the realities of cooking and cleaning and work and  family. But the sun is going down, and I  made a promise. 

(Edit: she did not answer the phone)

After

Content Warning: Suicide

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I read a description of the loss of a daughter as "It was as if I grew magical gills so that I could breathe underwater."(Steven Levine, Unattended Sorrow)  Such clarity in those words.  I am not sure that what I envision is what he intended, but it rang of truth through me:  the intense pain of gills opening up tender flesh, the gripping pressure of trying to inhale something that feels foreign and thick and utterly wrong. Learning how to breathe when it feels like labor and there is no will to do so. This is my experience of loss.

All the things that I remember from that night - that horrendous, never ending night - and those first days make me fold in on myself, clutching at breath, feeling like I will start to drown in it. I want to ignore it, watch television, eat until I am numb, ignore the ever-present lurking pain. I see it in my sons: my beautiful, aching sons, whose blue eyes mirror the changes in their father's and mine, a tenor of constant, quiet despair, even on the occasions that they smile or laugh. Hannah is the first person that either of them have really lost; I worry that this sadness will drown them some days. The idea that I could lose one of them as well is terrifying.

I see her in my mind sometimes, running upstairs to William's screams. The door to her room was jammed, but I didn't know why. I pushed, and pushed, trying to get in there, finally squeezing through the door;  seeing her in his arms. Her legs were what had barred the door.  I didn't understand at first. I wondered if she had passed out, if he had hurt her somehow, then all at once I realized what was happening. Who called 911?  I don't remember. William laid her down so that I could do CPR, staring into her face and trying to make her live, bargaining with a god I don't know to exchange her life with mine while the stranger's voice on the phone told me what to do. Her small face was not afraid. Still shaking with fear I pushed on her chest, tipped her neck, breathed in her mouth, pushed on her chest, "stayin' alive, stayin' alive,"(how fucking ironic), tipped her neck,  breathed in her mouth - pushed on her chest "stayin' alive, stayin' alive" over and over again. A policeman showed up and offered to take over. I wouldn't let him. I had to keep trying. I kept going, the gurgling as I breathed into her mouth not abating, a wheeze at each compression as I pressed on her delicate chest. In full PPE, a paramedic came in, and another - not enough space to work on her in her room, where should they take her? They carried her into my room, shoved the furniture away so they could have more room. Now three, four, five? of them. I was told to go downstairs and wait with William, then told to go outside. Was that a kindness so I wouldn't hear what happened next?  They worked on her for over 2 hours, while William and I sat on the curb, crying, then numb, then crying, then angry, then numb, trying to call her father. The phone rang and again and again I had to hang up, explain to my parents, my brothers, that she had hung herself and to leave William and I alone. People are watching us, watching the firetrucks and police cars in the street. More and more and more calls to her father, whose phone was off. A PPE clad man came downstairs and said that they couldn't bring her back. She was gone. 

There is nothing that I can say about what happened next. There are only feelings and sounds muffled like I am underwater - a scream, mine? William's?; holding each other; people talking with us; her father showing up, I don't know when, finding out that my son in Seattle already knew (because my mother had told her). Hard sidewalk, gravel digging into calves and wrists and knees. A chaplain arriving, gently guiding us through the next things we need to do, who to call to pick her up, the next decisions we need to make. 

In the days after Hannah's death, people came forward in ways that I can never repay.  My brothers, who live almost 700 miles away, immediately drove up here, alternating between being at our house and my parents' house, just sitting with us, talking.  I can't remember any of what was said, but I am forever grateful to them for just being there for us for my parents, whose suffering is also deep.

Neighbors who I barely knew left notes and food and flowers, while we numbly accepted them and the words of compassion. My oldest childhood friend set up a fundraiser. The outpouring of love and donations was overwhelming. Friends came by with groceries and meals, which were gratefully accepted and choked down, tasting like ash and sitting heavily.

When her friends found out about her death, I received message after message telling me how much they cared about her, how smart and wonderful she was, and all I can remember from this now is thinking "Why the hell didn't she know that? Why didn't they stay in touch with her?" There were professors, high school teachers and employers sharing their affection for her, and I felt no warmth from it. I felt angry at them, at myself, at Hannah for not saying enough or the right things to make her want to live. 

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.