Back to the Suburban Grind: October 2016

TRIGGER WARNING: Discussion of suicide, death, and loss.

Two weekends ago, I sat between two very dear friends, behind the parents of a friend who could be better described as an acquaintance, a well-loved acquaintance but a woman to whom I'd never gotten very close, at a memorial service. I was sad, I was angry, and I was very hurt and didn't know how to communicate these emotions. I was sending X-ray beams to the back of her mother's head, pleading with her to see her, understand her, care about her. And was then angry with myself for feeling that way. For blaming her. For wishing she'd cared more, tried harder, had given her daughter a break, just let her be. That wasn't fair. I know that.

I'd run into this woman just a month before at Trader Joe's. I was walking out as she was coming in and just starting her shopping and the exchange was brief, head nods and smiles, a wink. I was in a rush and she seemed lost in thought or her list. I'm really not sure. I didn't think much of that exchange until a few weeks later when I learned that she'd taken her life. She was dead. I kept seeing her face looking down at that list. I replayed every moment we'd been together, her asking me about something or other, talking about the wine at a party. She was dead. And then she was standing over me doing my make up as she'd just started selling Mary Kay cosmetics and needed someone to practice her technique and her sales pitch. I'd said, "I didn't think you wore make up." To which she replied, "I'm trying something new. My mother always said I'd do better to wear some make up." And I resented her mother for putting the idea into her head that she was not enough and reassured her she was. At least that's what I think I did. Maybe she thought I should just shut up because she was trying something new.

She'd been a lawyer and was incredibly intelligent, more cerebral and intellectual than I (or so it seemed). I'd met her through other friends and saw her most often in the company of the others, except for the afternoon that she did my make up and we talked about trying new things and make up and raising children, daughters in particular, (She has a daughter and a son.) and how beautiful my own mother is and how incredible my mother's skin is and that maybe she'd try Mary Kay. This was nervous chatter. Having her there doing my make up, so up close, trying to convince me to buy the lipstick, the shadow, and the face creams when I rarely wore make up and if I did I sought products that would look good on my brown skin, which to my mind Mark Kay was not such a product, made me uncomfortable. I told her as much in a series of emails after our meeting. I did not want to let her down, didn't want her to waste her product on someone who was not going to buy anything. I wanted her to win. I felt her need for approval, for acceptance. And I was upset with her mother for saying she'd do better to wear make up because she clearly did not feel comfortable in it.

And she now was dead. I hurt her hurt and retraced the steps I'd imagined she'd taken before that last, sudden, violent moment. And as sublime as the moment seems in poetry, in story, in song, the truth of it, the starkness, the finality, and the violence broke me. I thought I should have spoken to her at Trader Joe's. Should have looked into her eyes and said something to her, whatever it might be, that might make her choose life one more day. I thought of the acting exercise, "the private moment' where the actor lives a moment where he'd not expect anyone to see him, lets down his guard, experiences the moment unapologetically, unself-consciously, and I hurt all over again imagining those last moments.

Her family and friends were in tears, completely shattered and stunned. There were photographs of her at various stages of her life and I racked my brain trying to recall if we'd ever taken photos at the dinners and parties we'd attended together. I closed my eyes searching for her ghost in photos of us that were never taken. I felt her loss in the world, in my world, but didn't have the proof. Couldn't find a photo in my mind's files. Looking across the aisle at her children, I thought of my own and those years ago in Barbados when the daily routine seemed impossible. I remember the despair of postpartum depression and the loneliness of my marriage and the daunting prospect of attempting to live each day. And I felt that cold breath, that sigh between here and somewhere else and the pull in my chest and the ache in my core as I struggled to choose life. I don't feel at all close to that edge now but that feeling has never left me.

In a bedroom community outside of New York City, the sound of the passing trains is a common occurrence and every time I hear it now, it gives me pause. I think of the photo of her as a young girl in a brimmed hat, looking so like a character from a novel, a kind-hearted innocent, a girl from another time and place. Her eyes in that photo were so gentle and soft and sweet. She, full of promise. There is yellow light around her, framing her in a memory of a perfect moment in a perfect day. I didn't know her then. I also didn't know the young girl in the short hair that flipped at the sides, snuggling a bunny to her chin. But I recognized the woman that she became in her gesture. She was warm. She was kind. She was sweet and loving and good and she seemed, in that moment of love, so truthful, so vulnerable, and so present.

And now she is dead. I say dead because gone doesn't do the loss the justice it commands. Gone could mean that when ready she could return and she won't. I sat behind her mother who did not, could not speak at the service and searched her father's face as he spoke of her, his voice cracking and faltering as he tried to hold her in this world with a sweet memory, for some answer that would explain why this happened. I looked at her ex-husband and her children and all of her friends and colleagues. I did not look in the faces of my dear friends who sat next to me but I did squeeze their hands.

It is so lonely being a human being sometimes. Even when you are sitting next to someone and holding their hands, when you are in a crowd, when you are being feted and loved and surrounded, when you are on a beautiful Caribbean island living the fantasy of so many, there can be illness, depression, pain, and despair that those around you cannot know unless you share, tell them, trust them. It is truly a risk to take. I get it more than I care to admit. But it's a gift this life. I believe it and I continue to choose it. I hate considering making a decision that ends with this choice. I hate that there is no one to blame no matter that I was clearly searching for someone. That no one knew how deeply despaired she was, how she'd tired of it all, how what haunted her began to share this earthly plane with her and that her dreams were no longer a safe place to escape. I hate it so much that I replay every breathing moment I know of her life and imagine the moment she took her last. I want to be there for her, be her witness, acknowledge her just as she was and in my magical thinking, will her back to this plane. But she is more than gone and she won't be back.

If you have suicidal thoughts, please seek help. You can call 1-800-273-8255 twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

Back to the Suburban Grind

Sunday, October 2, 2016

Back to the Suburban Grind: Choose Life

Choose Life