It’s different, but I’m not sure how much so. I know a lot hasn’t happened that I expected, and a lot of things have come up that I never saw coming.
As far as this loss goes, it’s a wound. A year ago I got two huge cuts, one down each side from my armpits to my hips. Normally healing these kinds of things starts with the mourning; with sharing the collective loss with the community and those who knew them. Sharing the loss, the stories and the pain helps to close the wound a bit, it’s not healed but it’s on it’s way.
There was no collective mourning here however, and the day my dad died was the last time I saw anyone blood-related to him.
Skipping this step it feels as if the cuts have scabbed over, maybe even started to grow scar tissue but they’re anything but healthy.
Healing might not be the linear process we’d expect. What seems to be an old wound suddenly starts to warm, and I can feel the swelling from under my skin. There’s infection, something that needs release before the body can stitch everything back together. As painful as the infection becomes the urge to try and force it out is strong.
Thing is, you can’t just force the bad away. You need to get rid of it, for sure, but that takes time. Maybe just some TLC, maybe a round of antibiotics. Only thing I know is when you squeeze a pimple it gets 10x worse. Same goes for Grief.
So the cycle has gone this year, from healing to infection; relief to pain. Right now I’m in the infection stage, that bit where it’s not ready to be drained but you know the pain is there. I was hoping that by writing I could trick myself into purging the pain. No luck there.
Sunday will make it a year from the day my Dad passed, and it’s looking like I’ll be spending it alone.
Credit goes to GriefKid & thanks to UntangleGrief on instagram for sharing. It’s accounts like this that remind me I’m not the only one.
Let me stop you right there friend, this isn’t your usual blog post about gardening woes. I’m not here writing to complain about my lack luster tomato plants or the squirrels that are digging holes in the garden beds killing what little is thriving (even though that is happening…)
No, I want to burn my garden because it failed on a much bigger scale.
See, last summer I built the raised beds to save my seedlings since the greenhouse wasn’t an option ( The greenhouse is it’s own story for another day…). I had a ridiculous number of cherry tomato plants, but only one beefsteak survived.
Turned out that those big juicy tomatoes were my Dads favorite, so I tended that plant like my life depended on it.
Or his, actually.
I had this hope, this ridiculous dream that I’d bring him that tomato and we’d sit around like old times; that with one bite he would commend me for my gardening skills and reminisce about summers past.
Funny thing about pancreatic cancer is it makes eating excruciating.
The day the tomato had finally ripened I made plans to go visit ASAP. As I drove up to his house I played out all the scenarios of us enjoying this moment, how wonderful this t would be. That despite the pain and nausea he’s be able to taste it’s juices and magically he’d begin to go into remission.
When I got to the house I sliced it up and sprinkled some salt, then put it on the coffee table while we watched some shark week. He told me how beautiful it was, how “a garden fresh tomato is the taste of peak summer”, but he never took a bite.
Eventually I started eating it, grabbing spices hoping someone else would follow suit.
When I left I was the only one to try it. He said he’d take a bite later, that when he ate the pain got worse and he didn’t want to ruin our time together.
I believe he did, and that the tomato failed to be the panacea I had built it up to be.
When he died in August I stopped tending the garden. I wasn’t going to grow anything this year, but At some point I planted tomatoes again. Only beefsteak, but the cherry’s self seeded all around the bed.
I care for it, neglectfully so but still. Green tomatoes are growing, and I hate them.
It’s a duality, like so many others, this perfect example of “life goes on” that inherently reminds me of death. I want to burn it, a huge pyre and pit to replace the green that’s there now, taunting me with the memory of Hope dashed.
I won’t though, there’s flowers coming back. Even a cucumber plant bloomed this week. So, it staysfornow.
Greetings & thanks for coming. Tonight we’re going to talk about something a bit different, something I’m loathe to discuss and generally avoid thinking about.
Today my dears we will discuss issues of obesity & the mental gymnastics I’ve performed around the subject.
See, what you don’t know (unless you do, which means I know you, so HEY FRIEND!) is I’m fat. Always have been, though photographs show a typically sized child till around age 5 or so I don’t remember her. I remember wearing “husky” branded clothes until eventually I gave up on the “girls” section and only wore “boy” clothes. Boys shorts were longer, had more pockets, and best of all didn’t come in mysterious sizes labeled L, XL, or even 1X.
(Seriously, clothing manufacturers of America, fucking stop it and pick a damn sizing system).
Let’s skip the painful days of puberty and come back to today. Today marks a full week where I haven’t eaten sugar or carbs (at least not intentionally). I feel better, for the moment, but I’m plagued with the fear that I have to explain this new culinary exclusion to anyone.
Here’s the thing: I know I’m fat. I’ve been in better shape than I am today, but I’m still always somewhere on the spectrum of obesity. However, if I dress the right way and step lightly somehow You Won’t Notice. I can keep this delusional secret forever as long as I keep follow the rules
Don’t wear anything that clings to you, especially not around your hopes or midsection (THEYLL SEE YOUR TUMMY!)
Keep active. If you’re biking or hiking or skating they’ll never see how large your ass actually is.
Talk about being active, again how could they see your girth if they’re hearing your accomplishments?
Last but not least Never Say The D Word.Keep your diet a secret. Dieting is for fat people and a dead giveaway that you’re one of them.
Additionally I think diet culture has some very toxic traits & corners, and I’m aware that I didn’t get fat by having a super healthy relationship with food. However, I also know that I am capable of being much healthier, stronger, and feeling overall better in my skin. (Thanks roller derby!)
I’ve spent the past year+ allowing my muscles to atrophy. Giving in to indulgence with the excuse of mourning and the general indifference that comes when you’ve already lost so much.
I refuse to remain apathetic. I decided on a whim last week to see if I could stop the sugar and I did. I went a whole day.
Then two.
Before I knew it 7 days had gone by and I survived. So I’m committed to keeping this up until I stop worrying I’ll end up like the girl in “holding up the universe” (an awful book, but it scared me enough to get started so..Google it for the synopsis).
So yeah, I’m gonna have to say the D-word a lot. “Yes Fellow human, I am following a DIET and can’t eat that ice cream. No, no cake either. Yes I’m sure. No, I don’t want ‘just a bite’. Kindly fuck off now and let me enjoy my tomato & mozzarella salad.”
So first a disclaimer; as long as I can remember I have been fascinated by the unexplained. Ghosts, ufo’s, ancient mysteries like the pyramids or the Nazca lines…if it’s purported to exist I secretly wanna see it.
That being said, I feel sometimes as if there’s just a bit too much coincidence in way things come together in my life. It’s just a little too..neat.
For example, when I was about 6 i made a friend named Sarah, she had an older sister and they lived around the corner from me. About a year later they moved and the new family also had two girls, the younger one named Sarah. She’s still my best friend today.
Skip ahead to this week, when two random events occurred completely by chance but so perfect I couldn’t have planned it better.
Let’s start off with the planning of a memorial for my Dad. My aunt & I had been going over where in the park we should reserve a space, not quite lining up with our ideas but finally agreeing on one. When I called to reserve it I was told everything for that date had already been taken, except the one that’s near his memorial bench. We hadn’t considered it before, his bench is near the playgrounds & the river so it didn’t seem very private and was a longer walk from the parking area. Suffice it to say we’ll be next to his spot, without either one of us choosing it.
Now let’s talk about today. I’d decided to get some flowers to fill in a bed I’d made last summer. I figured i should get some low, ground cover kind of stuff. As I was driving I thought how nice it’s be to have Black-eyed Susans. Susan’s my mom’s name, so I’ve always associated them with her. Last year I couldn’t find them anywhere and gave up.
As I pulled into the garden center there was a huge sign out front, 2 for 1 Black Eyed Susan’s.
Seriously, they’re Huge
Even now, as I was lying in bed trying to read and distract myself enough to fall asleep, this happens:
You’ve gotta be kidding me..
Jack & Susan…of all the names in all the world…those are my parents names’.
So, now it’s 11pm and all this kismet coincide has me teary eyed and wondering:
If these are all signs from the universe? If so what’s being said?
Or is it just happenstance? Events easily explained away and disregarded.
What truly matters, at least in my opinion, is that I noticed. That I found significance in the mundane. What else do we really have in this life if not that?
Yeah, I saw Destiny’s Child at the state fair as a preteen and saved this scrap of memory for 20+ years…what of it?
My mom was a lot of things, but one thing she was above all else was independent. She raised me alone, sure she had friends & family who cares about us and helped where they could but at the end of the day it was just the two of us.
So when it came to household stuff like cleaning or fixing the dryer she had to figure it out. I learned a lot through watching her. Things that I take for grant today, like knowing how to light the pilot on the stove or insulate the windows for winter, that a lot of my friends are clueless about.
For years I’ve attributed these skills & knowledge/ to my time at Home Depot. Sure I learned stuff there but that’s not where I learned the drive to fix. To figure it out because no one else will, and to do so alone because there’s no other option.
Today I hung a clothesline. I’d tried last weekend with my boyfriend but was missing a piece. I had everything ready to go but kept putting it off, waiting for someone else to be around just in case.
Would it have been easier with help? No doubt. Was it impossible to do alone? No, it just required a bit more creativity (and patience…I damn near tore the whole thing down out of frustration more than once)
Ultimately situations like this remind me that I am capable of doing things independently even if I’d rather not. So yeah, thanks mom.
Death season is upon me, while I suppose it’s technically season 2 I didn’t know season 1 was coming so…
Here we are. One year ago I was reeling from my moms unexpected suicide while trying desperately to cling to hope that my dad would survive.
It was a shitty time to say the least. However I can’t say this moment is much better; over the past year I’ve had family disown me & lost a job. Granted that job generally made me miserable, I miss my students.
I miss having an obligation, where someone would notice if I’m not around. where I was held account for my time.
Truthfully I’ve spent most of the past year in Disbelief (dissociation?) that they’re truly gone. I go from numb to paralyzed and back again daily. Some days the realness of it all is so intense I get sick, retching from anxiety like when I was a kid and had to sleep away from home.
August 29th will mark the end of this first (or second?) Death Season, between now & then let’s try to memento mori. Live this life remembering death will come to us all.
◦ Go back in the store and buy shit you don’t need to distract yourself
◦ Spend too long trying to find a valid reason to do thing 1
◦ Instead decide to go inside use the bathroom and/or splash your face with water
◦ Pace awkwardly around your car because standing is even more awkward
◦ Mentally list everyone you can think of in the vicinity, as well as the probability they’re around and will keep you company
◦ maybe call one
◦ Feel a bit silly about the call (of you got that far).
◦ Lean awkwardly against your car and hope that you’re the only person shitty enough to assume someone leaning on their car in a Walmart parking lot might be some kinda junkie/drug dealer/other miscellaneous miscreant
◦ Collect shopping carts in the hopes that people who are sitting inside their cars (lucky assholes) won’t notice you hanging out in a parking lot (and avoiding previous scenario)
◦ Endlessly refresh the AAA website to see the ETA
◦ Make a list of what to do when you’re stuck waiting for AAA
◦ Look for more birds
◦ Start to regret not eating that sandwich earlier
◦ Grow concerned as your phone flashes the “low battery” message.
◦ Vacillate between “looking on the bright side” (AKA it could always be worse) and being annoyed that you’re even IN a situation where you’re imagining worst case scenarios to feel better
◦ Think about zombies
◦ Make small talk with the kind older lady who asks if you need anything
◦ Be glad you impulse-bought a AAA membership last month for the free maps
◦ Watch somebody do their hair standing outside their car (hairspray & all) by looking at their reflection in their rear view mirror
◦ Realize they probably did that because it’d suck to be in a car filled with hair spray fumes
◦ Wonder why they’re taking so much care with their hair before entering Walmart
◦ Notice the storm clouds off in the distance aren’t quite so distant anymore…
◦ Make a mental note to start keeping a small notebook on your person for future updates
◦ Flag down the AAA truck with the light weight plaid you have tied a
◦ Thank Raziel (who was awesome) and congratulate yourself. You’ve survived a very minor 1st world inconvenience. (which isn’t always quite as easy as it sounds.)
So after that last long post I decided I desperately needed to see the death certificate. I needed that tangible proof she’d taken her life, and I needed to see when. Was it the day her body was found? Or had she laid there, decomposing, for days until someone noticed?
Well according to the official paperwork (which cost nearly $80) she died on July 23, from a self administered overdose.
They included the drugs she took, one of which she’d used in a previous attempt and another considered an “antiquated” drug for anxiety…antiquated because of it’s likelihood of addiction and other issues. It’s replaced by benzodiazepines, which are highly dang and addictive in their own right, so you can imagine the issues of this particular drug.
In two days there’s going to be a picnic, one that I host, in her memory. I doubt if anyone who knew her will actually show up. I know her brother is coming, maybe some old family friends, and of course my friends (because they love me or some such ).
The day after I got the certificate I started getting these INTENSE pains in my ear, pains I couldn’t shake off or valsalva maneuver my way out of. Turned out it’s an ear infection, but the antibiotics made me too sick to function so here we are.
Preparing for a picnic with sharp standby ear pains that come & go. Let’s just hope for the best, right?
I’ve always been a fan of poetry, but I don’t spend a lot of time with it. This came across my Pinterest a while back and it’s stuck with me.
Honestly the only time it seems I’m ready to crack, to let the immensity of what’s been lost envelope me, is when it’s too late. When it’s 2am and I just want to scream and I feel myself shaking from the effort of keeping it in.
But then it passes so I’m left choking on all the words left unsaid, the unfairness and injustice of it all.
I dont know how to make it better, I don’t know what I need to get through this mess. I just know it can’t be fixed, so I carry on.
I cried when I realized what came next on the kitchen calendar. I don’t mean I shed a quiet tear in memoriam, what I mean is I crumpled on the kitchen floor sobbing so hard I lost breath, all because I didn’t want what came next.
July is the start of the death season, the time one year ago when I lost both my parents in quick succession.
On July 23rd, 2020 I received a phone call. It was my aunt, who rarely ever calls me.I knew it wouldn’t be good news or a casual chat. I knew someone was hurt, bad.
“Mum’s gone, Jacquelyn.”
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
“Momma’s dead, she killed herself”
Cue me trying to logic my way out of this, me rationalizing that she might not be dead. That her friend, who found her lifeless body lying in her bed, could be mistaken. That we had to wait for the paramedics, for the professionals. That this wouldn’t have been the first false alarm….
Except it wasn’t false.
She was dead. She had overdosed on prescriptions and slit her wrists. I remember going to pack up her apartment and sitting on her bedroom floor, staring at her bed. When my cousin tried to tear me away I wouldn’t leave, her brother understood something I couldn’t have explained. He walked her out of the room and stood stoically behind me as I stared at her blood soaked pillow cases.
“You want a minute?” He asked . I don’t recall if I just nodded, or if I managed words, but I do remember sitting alone on her floor. I think I was trying to make myself feel something, anything. Trying to soak up the reality of this impossible situation.
My mom killed herself and I needed to see that proof.
I needed evidence, and in the months that followed I was obsessed with getting the truth. I would call the detective who left me his card, asking again and again for whatever evidence she’d left behind. Her friend mentioned a note, did they have it? Could i see it? What about her cell phone, was there anything relevant on there?
Eventually I got the cell phone, the first and only smartphone she’d ever owned. On it were worried voicemails from a woman I don’t know, asking if she’s ok. The last one was from October…after that they stopped. Her mailbox was full.
I never saw the note.
Along with the search for answers, for concrete evidence, there was anger. I couldn’t (and still struggle) to understand how she could give up her life while my father was fighting so hard to stay…
How could she leave me? Why did she give up? We hadn’t spoken in almost a year, but I’d sent her a letter. I wanted to try to have a functional relationship, maybe we could be penpals at first? I found the letter in her mailbox. She decided for me, for us, that we could never make it right.
Boy howdy did that piss me right off.
By taking the most drastic of measures she ended any hope of reconciling, of developing a stronger and healthier relationship with me. She made a choice for both of us, and I hated her for it.
I’m sure I will again, but not right now.
For the past two weeks or so this experience, the whole ‘grieving’ thing, has shifted for me. The dread of the first anniversary of her death has all but extinguised my anger, instead bringing all the guilt and sorrow to the surface.
This wasn’t her first tango with death, she’d had many attempts over the years stretching as far back as I can remember.
The only difference this time is I wasn’t there.
I wasn’t there to see the signs. To encourage her to get help. To force her in the car and drive her to the hospital myself, to childlock the doors when she tried to jump out on the freeway.
Logically I know that if a person is determined enough there is no stopping them, but I still feel guilty. I feel abandoned, and alone in a way I can’t possibly describe. While I believe that grief is isolating for everyone, since we all share a unique bond with the deceased, I feel especially fucked. Her family, besides one brother, has all but disappeared over the past year. Besides I don’t really know any of her friends, and I’ve only myself to blame for that.
I’ve arranged to have a picnic next week in her name, I reserved a bunch of tables and invited people on Facebook. I called the one friend of hers I do know, she said she’d take off the day and come by. That she’d let others know.
I’m doing this in the hopes that other people can share their good memories of my Mom, because mine are all tainted. I’d like to have something positive to hold onto, and I need help finding it.
I had a Disney princess moment when I went to check-out the place I reserved. This dude was ADAMANT that I pay attention to him, he even sniffed my hand.
Resiliently Ridiculous 