We keep waking up…

People ask me, “How are you doing this?” when they hear about Owen and all the deaths of our family and friends since March of this year.  My answer is simple, “We keep waking up.”

I can’t explain how we get through our days, not accurately, anyway.  My life experience before March, is so full of loves lost, either through death or divorce, or sheer abandonment, that loss is a part of my daily vocabulary.  Not one I would have chosen, given a choice, that is.  I wasn’t given a choice.  People die, in spite of our efforts.

I just live my life, and create book titles, poetry, essays, and participate in conversations that help ease the pain…if only for a moment or two.  That’s about all any of us get now, a moment or two.  Then this thing called loss slams into our faces, front and center, and we’re in it again.  Death, absence, the void.

Grief is unique to the person grieving.  You won’t grieve in the same way as any other person, no matter how similar the circumstances of the death.  The most agonizing response from someone hearing our stories, is, “I know how you feel.”  You DON’T know how we feel.  You only know how you imagine you might feel, if you lost that special person, someone you love beyond explanation, beyond words.  You know how you feel about your own losses. 

For most, it’s easier not to even ask.  If you ask, and listen, you will most definitely begin to rehearse what it would be like for you.  Even, if just for a moment or two.

Nat met me for coffee this evening after work.  We talked for a little over two hours, sitting in my car.  We ranted, we cried, we laughed, and Nat quoted lines from movies - something I can rarely do, my memory being sketchy, much like Swiss cheese now - full of holes and a little bitter.  

Movies are big in our family.  We talked about Ruby’s, Anna’s, and Nat’s costumes for Halloween.  Not surprising, Nat and Anna are going as Jack Skellington and Sally from the movie, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Owen and Nat’s favorite movie from many years ago.  Ruby is going as ”The Pumpkin Fairy”.  This is a fairy she made up after I brought her a Halloween “wand”. 

Nat and I made an agreement known only to those in the middle of a mystery such as Owen’s death.  We agreed to keep waking up.  We agreed to make Owen’s life meaningful in whatever ways open to us.  We agreed to make exceptional efforts at finding out the truth.  And, we agreed to tell the whole story…when we can. 

The police investigation is still technically “ongoing”.  We believe it was actually over the day Owen’s body was found in the River.  What else we believe, is something we can only hold like a delicate glass ornament with a gigantic, jagged crack down the side.  We wrap it in tissue, while we wait for the glue.  If the police detectives are out of glue, we will begin our repair work with spit and chewing gum.  

Tonight’s video says so much for so many.  I remember when Owen was little, 2nd or 3rd grade, and we had a long drive to his and Nat’s schools.  Music has always been a huge part of my family’s collective interests.  So, in order to brighten our mornings on those long drives, I would turn up the radio, and sing along with songs from my past, and my kids’ present.

Owen used to get so irritated at me for singing along.  I never understood it, though I often asked why it bothered him so.  A few years ago, he finally told me.  He said, “I couldn’t stand it that you seemed so happy, when I felt so sad.” 

I asked Owen why he was so sad during those young and very tender years.  He said it was because he couldn’t understand how I could find happiness after my divorce from his father.  Michael and I divorced when Owen was in kindergarten and Nat was in 3rd grade.  Divorce, like grief, is unique to the people in it.  Michael and I knew we couldn’t go on in a marriage with so much trouble, so we didn’t.

Owen grew up loving music.  He began playing violin at 13, then piano, and guitar, while singing for his own gratification.  He found happiness, satisfaction, and confidence in music.  Only when he encountered life experiences greater than his ability to conquer them, did he falter.  After he began to play, he never again tried to stop me from singing.  He sang along with Nat and me, and our long drives to places undiscovered or all-too-often traveled, included our small choir of voices who had found a collective happiness in a world of chaos. 

Song for the night:  Everybody Hurts, by R.E.M.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=91euxMQ0Zyg

~ by Linda on October 29, 2007.