Loss

LOSS is this month’s word for The Art of Being Human.

The photo above is from an evening the week after my mama died. My brother joined Nick, the kids, and me for a small, personal ceremony. It was my brother’s idea, and he brought a rose for each of us; we took turns saying goodbye and sprinkling the petals into the river.

I’m tired of loss.

Not loss of stuff. I’m not preparing to go anywhere, but I find myself wanting to lighten my load.

I grew up in cultures that put their wealth into jewelry, and even men are heavily adorned. I grew up always wearing jewelry. I could always find my mom when we were out because her armful of bangles jingled.

I wear less and less jewelry, though I love it, and a lot of my jewelry is imbued with memories and emotion.

I’m trying to pare down our stuff. Some days, the amount of our stuff suffocates me.

Giving it away feels light a lightening. A relief.

Much of our furniture and art comes from my parents and from Nick’s ancestors. I’ve said before that we have very different taste, but it works, maybe because most of mine comes from colonized countries and his from their colonizers.

When I’m mad at him, I blame his people—the British—for subjugating some of my ancestors (the Irish) and fucking up countries of my childhood. But honestly, look what the US has done all over the globe.

I understand that life only goes one direction, and we are lucky when we love someone so deeply that losing them is brutal.

But now I have so many person-shaped holes in my life.

I know that with time, loss becomes less painful. I’ve lived this. But it never gets easier to let go. I just know now that eventually, it will hurt a little less, and a little less, und so weiter.

But I subscribe to Tennessee Williams’s view that time is the longest distance between two places.

I haven’t had grandparents for decades. In 2009 I lost my dad, and the Dead Dads Club was a terrible one. And then, three years ago in May, my mom died. And for me, that club is the worst.

My mom lived with us for over 12 years, and once she was gone, I wandered from room to room crying and feeling everywhere she wasn’t. I’d open the kitchen cupboard for a teacup, and see one of her favorites, and slide to the floor, wedged into the corner, sobbing.

Losing my mom is the most painful thing that’s ever happened to me. I hate not having a mom.

In December, a dad I grew up with died. Almost all the parents of my childhood are gone.

I know, from holding my mom’s hand as she left, that it’s OK for the person leaving. It’s being left behind that hurts so much.

I just spent two weeks in Honolulu with one of the very last moms of my overseas childhood.

Last year my friend had cancer, and chemo made her extremely sick. She was hospitalized multiple times. We hadn’t spoken for several months, and her operation happened so quickly after diagnosis, she was undergoing chemo before I knew about it.

I told her I’d come and do anything she needed. Anything. So when her family members who’d been caring for her were leaving, she called and asked if I could still come, and soon.

I called Nick at work and asked if he had a minute. And then told him I wanted to go for two weeks. I started out explaining calmly how important she is to me. And then—I don’t know if you do this when you’re already upset—everything else near the surface, like fascism and winter and the assassination of innocent people came tumbling out. Very quickly, I was sobbing. Incoherent.

Nick said of course. He had miles. We’d get a ticket that night.

It was wonderful to be there for myriad reasons I couldn’t have imagined beforehand. I went to take care of her in any way she might need. She can’t drive, and she tires easily, but she’s doing well.

I found unexpected healing in spending all this time with someone I’ve known since I was 14, someone who was so close to my parents, We talked extensively about my parents, our families, everything.

And every single day, no matter the weather, I ran or walked to the ocean. Sometimes in pouring rain or howling wind. Every day, I invited the ocean to leach out everything I was carrying that did not serve me.

It helped tremendously. As did the sunshine and escape from the cold.

Two weeks was a long time to be away from my family. Even so, I was sad to leave her. I held it together hugging goodbye, and then cried in the Lyft. I’d have gone wherever she lives, but how lucky she’s in Hawaii.

My friend is doing really well. I heard the doctor say so. But she had the kind of cancer that likes to recur sooner rather than later. And she’s my parents’ contemporary.

I will not have her forever. I know this. What will happen will happen, though hopefully not anytime soon.

I thought I could save my dad, because I did a number of times. It was a role I took on, inappropriately, I’ve learned in therapy.

I thought I could hold my mom tightly enough to keep her. Will her back to health. Initially, in the hospital, I begged her to stay. I needed her. And then a friend pointed out how selfish that was, and I gave her permission to let go if she needed to.

Though honestly, subconsciously, I thought I could hug her and love her and send enough of my energy into her body that she would heal.

And then I held her hand and told her how much we all loved her as she left her little body.

What I’m currently feeling is anticipatory loss. Not because I will necessarily lose my friend, one of the last connections to my parents, to my overseas childhood, soon, but we don’t know. And as I said, I know all of our lives only go one direction.

I don’t know about other people, but for me, knowing you’ll lose someone doesn’t make the loss, when it happens, any easier.

I’ve spent years in grief. I was raising kids and working and being a reasonably functioning human being. But also grieving.

I’m tired of loss.

A few weeks ago, India and I were sitting on the floor looking through a box of Betty’s jewelry. I said she could take anything. We talked about how much we missed her. How sad we were that she wasn’t in our lives anymore.

India said, “I don’t want you to die before me.”

Oh, no. No.

My throat closed. I cry even thinking about it.

I told her that I will be around for a long time. And I shared what I have believed since my mom’s death: everyone you love is waiting for you. We will all be together again. I believe this with my whole heart.

Occasionally I tell Nick I want to be the one who dies first. And I mean it.

I am strong, like, really strong. You know how ants can carry things like 500 times their size or something like that?

I’m a small person, and I’ve carried emotional weight 500 times my size.

I’m tired of loss.