25th Birthday - January 16, 2017

Happy 25th Birthday Josh! It has been a long time since I've written on your blog - the last post was April 2016.

Today was Martin Luther King Jr. Day which meant that I had the day off - very fortuitous as the motivation to sit, concentrate and work was non-existent.

I went to the store near your park hoping to buy a 25th Birthday balloon but no such luck. But as the woman was blowing up the balloons I did choose, and saw me grab a bouquet of red roses, I wondered if she wondered who the balloons/flowers were for, and why the two incongruent balloon messages. She didn't ask and I didn't volunteer.

It was cold and blustery at the park, so after securing your balloons and scattering rose petals, it took a while to get a picture in which the balloons were legible - my fingers were numb when I got back in the car. Once thawed, I sat and wrote my weekly (most times) letter to you....a small section shared below:

I am grateful for your life, Josh, and in a weird way - never thought I would say this - for your death. JOLT - like being hit by lightening bolt....SHOCK - like those pads on chest that shock the heart to beating again. Your death put me on a journey...on a path....to awareness and awakening. Why does it take tragedy or crisis to wake up? Why take tremendous suffering to become a seeker?  

I feel there is something I should be doing with this life but don't know what. And running out of time at 55 years old. What am I supposed to be doing?  Show me.  

After the park, I went to see a movie that he would've wanted to see....Rogue One, the new Star Wars movie which was surprisingly good. Gillian is working in China now (time difference is 13 hours ahead) so when we FaceTimed yesterday, it was already January 16th and she was feeling sad. I mentioned the idea of seeing the movie which she did as well. So if Josh was hanging around us, he saw it twice - at the Tysons Mall in Virginia and in Guangzhou, China.

Throughout the day, I received texts from friends/family as well as from Josh's friends.  It has been almost 8 years and he is still remembered by his friends who are all now mature adults, moving forward in their lives and taking Josh with them. This thought brings much comfort.

Posting this picture on Facebook brought more comments - it still surprises me how connected we can be through social media. Which reminds me of the awful day and how most people found out - it was via Facebook and text messages on phones. By the time school let out mid-afternoon, all of his friends knew - many of them came to our home as soon as they could.

But as connected as we are, and even more so now with Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, imessage, FaceTime, wechat and who know what else is out there or will be invented, why are kids still taking their lives?  Josh had many friend's numbers in his phone - why didn't he or couldn't he reach out?

I will end this post with one quote from a dear friend we knew while living in Australia.  She never knew Josh as we were back in the US when he was born, but she is a mom so knows.

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.

RIP Josh
Love Mom xxxooo

April 18, 2016: 7 Years and 1 Month Later

The last post I wrote was six months ago (October 18, 2015) and before that, three months (July 18, 2015). To not write anything over the holidays, his birthday (Jan. 16) or his death anniversary (March 18) would've been unthinkable two years ago.  Similarly, I'd never thought that weekly visits to the park (his gravesite) would cease but they have.

It has been a full seven years since Josh left us and while he remains frozen in time as a 17-year old teenage boy, I continue on the conveyer belt of life which has a way of filling the gaping hole of loss, and softening the sharp, ragged edges which once cut incessantly.

And while his absence is always with me, it is more like a shadow rather than an "in-your-face" punch.

So in my experience, the adage is true: "Time heals."

I am careful to say "in my experience" because I can only speak for myself. Everyone's experience is uniquely theirs, not subject to critique or judgement.

But sadness hovers, especially when twice today, I've been asked if my contact information could be given to newly grieving moms. "Yes, of course," I say, "along with the URL of this blog."

And my heart breaks for them.

Six Years and 3 Months Later: Thoughts from "Heaven's Coast" by Mark Doty

Mark Doty's work as an award-winning poet and memoirist is impressive (see biography on poetryfoundation.org).

His first prose work, Heaven's Coast (1996) is a grief memoir, written after the death of his beloved partner, Wally Roberts.  Having been on my wish list for a long time, I finally ordered from Amazon at the beginning of the year and read it last month.

Heavily dog-eared and underlined, I related to many of his descriptions of death, grief, sorrow and the slow business of recovery.

Wally died in 1994 from AIDS. Mark was with him to the very end and vividly describes the body, post-death:

Without spirit, the body closes back into itself like an old piece of furniture, an armoire whose ancient wood is still fragrant, resinous, whose whorled grains and steady sleep refer back to the living tree. The cabinet is an elegy to the tree from which it arose, the body a brief unkeepable elegy to the quick and shining self.

Apt analogy of the indescribable - the non-living body of a beloved.

While waiting for the ambulance to arrive on that horrible day, Josh's body was more a shell of him. And seeing his body again several days later at the funeral home, I remember thinking is this really my son? It does not look like him.  The essence - that which made the body Josh, was gone.

The funeral director encouraged us to have an open casket saying that it would be better for his friends if they saw his body - a concrete, visual evidence of his passing would help with closure. So we did have a viewing period before the service began. I spent that time in the lobby, accepting condolences but in hindsight, I would rather have been at the casket to see friends and family say good-bye.

Another moving part of the book was the search for the right word to describe his feelings - I will quote the whole passage as paraphrasing would not do justice:

Grief is too sharp and immediate; maybe it's the high pitch of the vowel sound, or the monosyllabic impact of the word, as quick a jab as knife or cut.

Sadness is too ephemeral, somehow; it sounds like something that comes and goes, a response to an immediate cause which will pass in a little while as another cause arises to generate a different feeling.

Mourning isn't bad, but there's something a little archaic about it. I think of widows keening, striking themselves, clutching at handfuls of dust - dark-swathed years, a closeting of self away from the world, turned inward toward an interior dark.

Sorrow feels right, for now. Sorrow seems large and inhabitable, an interior season whose vaulted sky's a suitable match for the gray and white tumult arched over these headlands. A sorrow is not to be gotten over or moved through in quite the way that sadness is, yet sorrow is also not as frozen and monochromatic, to my mind, as mourning. Sadness exists inside my sorrow, but it's not as large as sorrow's realm; it comes and goes without really touching the overarching whole. This sorrow is capacious; there's room inside it for the everyday, for going about the workday stuff of life....Sorrow is the cathedral, the immense architecture; in it's interior there's room for almost everything: for desire, for flashes of happiness, for making plans for the future. And for watching all those evidences of ongoing life crumble in the flash of remembering, in the recurring wave of fresh grief.

In this quote, I love the poet in Doty trying to match word to feeling, and the reasons why grief, sadness and mourning are discarded in favor of sorrow.  This rings true and I find comfort in having a word that can encompass all the feelings one may have in a given hour, day, week, month or year(s).

So we are in our 7th summer without Josh. The girls have moved back home and once again, our home is full of energy. And in addition to our two Shih Tzu-poos, Buddy and Benji, we also have Gillian's dog, Huck (formerly Tyler and Em's) and Sydney, Lauren's dog.

We can re-name our home "The Anderson Hotel and Kennel" - which Josh would've loved.

RIP Josh
Love you and miss you....

May 18, 2015 - Six Years and Two Months Later: A Poem by Edward Hirsch

As noted in prior blog posts, poetry has become an unexpected source of comfort. And with a few clicks I recently searched, found and bought a book-length elegy by a grieving poet who lost his twenty-two year old son in August 2011.

I read Gabriel: A Poem by Edward Hirsch in one sitting.

I also found this New Yorker article in which Hirsch speaks about his loss and the genesis of the poem.

The front jacket says this:

Never has there been a book of poems quite like Gabriel, in which a short life, a bewildering death, and the unanswerable sorrow of a father come together in such a sustained elegy. This unabashed sequence speaks directly from Hirsch's heart to our own, without sentimentality....Hirsch's account is poignantly direct and open to the strange vicissitudes and tricks of grief....Hirsch mixes his tale of Gabriel with the stories of other poets through the centuries who have also lost children, and expresses his feelings through theirs. His landmark poem enters the broad stream of human grief and raises in us the strange hope, even consolation, that we find in the writer's act of witnessing and transformation. It will be read and reread.

I agree.

Hirsch chose to write this tribute of his son's life and simultaneous exploration of grief in three-line stanzas without any punctuation, not even a period at the end.  It is highly accessible, even to a poetry novice like me.

While the poem is not divided into sections, it reads as though it were. For example, I did not read the section that went into detail about Gabriel's autopsy report as I could not, and still have not read our son's report.  It stays folded in the envelope from the coroner's office in a large trunk which sits in our family room, holding Josh's keepsakes.

Below are the stanzas that speak to me and why.

I like how he describes certain memories of Gabriel....

When he learned to crawl he pulled himself
Forward on his arms a little at a time
As if he were climbing Arizona Beach on D-day

and

When he colored his hair blue
The sink was covered with blue dye
As if the sky was turned upside down in a bowl

Gabriel was not an easy child to raise which Hirsch acknowledged...

Chaotic wind of the gods
He was trouble
But he was our trouble

and

Some nights I could not tell
If he was the wrecking ball
Or the building it crashed into

Getting ready for the funeral....

Not knowing who I am
I was lying beside him
In the coffin I still couldn't breathe 

And so I woke up in the shadow
Of morning black light
And put on my mourning clothes 

His mother also slipped into black
Treachery of the parents
Who outlive their son

How I felt when viewing my own son...

The funeral director opened the coffin
And there he was alone
From the waist up 

I peered down into his face
And for a moment I was taken aback
Because it was not Gabriel 

It was just some poor kid
Whose face looked like a room
That had been vacated

and

I leaned over and kissed him
On the forehead
It was chilly and hard 

I kissed him on the lips
They were stone cold
It was like kissing a corpse 

I started keening and wailing
A sob came out of my body
A sound I had never heard before 

It was animalistic primal
The wailing the terrible keen
Kept bursting out of me

On grief and mourning....

Grief broke down in phrases
And extrapolated lines
From me without myself

and

I did not know the work of the mourning
Is like carrying a bag of cement
Up a mountain at night 

The mountaintop is not in sight
Because there is no mountaintop
Poor Sisyphus grief

and

Look closely and you will see
Almost everyone carrying bags
Of cement on their shoulders 

That's why it take courage
To get out of bed in the morning
And climb into the day

and

Lord Nothingness
When my son's suffering ended
My own began

He ends with a question that echoes in my heart...

It was Gabriel it was not Gabriel
Wild spirit beloved son
Where have you fled

RIP Josh and Gabriel

For A Parent On the Death of a Child - by John O'Donohue

For the Parent on the Death of a Child

by John O'Donohue in 

 To Bless the Space Between Us

No one knows the wonder
Your child awoke in you,
Your heart a perfect cradle
To hold its presence.
Inside and outside became one
As new waves of love
kept surprising your soul.

Now you sit bereft
Inside a nightmare,
Your eyes numbed
By the sight of a grave
No parent should ever see.

You will wear this absence
Like a secret locket,
Always wondering why
Such a new soul
Was taken home so soon.

Let the silent tears flow
And when your eyes clear
Perhaps you will glimpse
How your eternal child
Has become the unseen angel
Who parents your heart
And persuades the moon
To send new gifts ashore.


RIP Josh
Love,
Mom

5 Years and 8 Months Later - New Picture

While browsing through Facebook recently, my heart stopped when I saw this picture (new to me) posted by a friend whose son was a good friend of Josh. She emailed it to me right away.

This is so signature Josh - the cool dude doing something funny. I am guessing it was taken in 2005 when he was 13 years old and in 7th grade. When I look at this picture, I try and peer into his mind and heart. Was he aware of the impending doom? Certainly doesn't look like it. My mind wanders back to that busy time looking for signs.

He didn't like school and was struggling with motivation in some of his classes. Was this something I should've picked up on?

He had a hard time getting up at 6am, but who wouldn't especially if one didn't fall sleep until 11pm or midnight?

He was a quiet kid at home but still engaged - piping in with funny comments at just the right time - making us laugh.

He excelled in athletics (football and lacrosse), which filled him with confidence and satisfaction. We attended every game to cheer him on.

I remember him being somewhat of a homebody. He would just as soon chill at home with us and the dogs as be with friends. I contrast this with my girls who HAD to be with friends 24/7.

Definitely into video games and very good.

In short, Josh completed our family. He and his older brother book-ended the girls. His easy going nature complemented the frenzy of a large, busy family. I still remember his periodic strong admonishments: "Chill Mom!"

This is an emotional post to write - bringing up memories of a happier time. Who knew that in four short years, his death would kill our family? Strong words, I know, but true. When a child dies, the grief is much more than the loss of the loved one. A part of me also died as well as the family that we were at the time. Nothing is the same and can ever be.

So it is loss upon loss upon loss. And grief upon grief upon grief.

And a suicide death complicates this even more.

So now, after 5+ years, while the pain, sorrow and anguish is not front and center like it was at the beginning, when it does pop up as while writing this post, it is still indescribable and inexpressible.

RIP Josh.

Poem: "Separation" by W. S. Merwin

As mentioned in earlier posts, poetry has been a source of comfort on my grief journey.  This should not be a surprise, according to W. S. Merwin, U. S. Poet Laureate (2010 - 2011):

Prose is something, but poetry is about what can't be said.  Why do people turn to poetry when all of a sudden the Twin Towers get hit, or when their marriage breaks up, or when the person they love most in the world drops dead in the same room?  Because they can't say it.  They can't say it at all, and they want something that addresses what can't be said. 

I found this quote underneath his picture in The Poets Laureate Anthology, bought back in March but not opened until a few days ago.

And was blown away by his three line poem below.

Separation

by W. S. Merwin

Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched in its color.

I have read this over and over - so profound, so poignant - capturing truth in a succinct, compressed way.  Josh's death, his absence from my life, from our family is a color that permeates everything.  What we've done, what we do now, and what will be done in the future - the color of his absence will weave through. 

This is why it is impossible to "get over it" - his absence is a part of the air I breathe, part of the space I move in.  It is ingrained in my conscious and subconscious; part of what makes me, me.

Poem: "Remember" by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Poetry  has become a surprising source of comfort the past 5+ years.  And recently, my interest in this genre has heightened.

A poet that I have come to love is Billy Collins.  I took several of his collections to our summer vacation and spent relaxing afternoons on the front porch, reading aloud and transcribing favorites into my poetry journal, complete with a glass of wine or summer ale, or both.   See post on reading blog for more.

I recently found and have been listening to free online poetry courses:

• Poetry: What It Is and How to Understand It by Margaret Soltan, Associate Professor of English, George Washington University 
• Modern Poetry by Langdon Hammer, Professor of  English, Yale University

And found the blog: A Poem for Every Day in which the blogger provides thoughtful and personal commentary on favorite poems.

The main thing I've learned from the courses and the blog is how to be a "close reader" of poetry.  To date, I've been content to add poems to my book without much thought on how and why the poem touches me.  Maybe because to do so invites dormant pain and suffering to surface.  This certainly happened yesterday when I journaled through Rossetti's short but powerful poem at a new coffee shop, close to Josh's park.  Luckily no one came by to see if I was OK - who knows, maybe women shedding tears while reading and writing is a common occurrence.

Remember

by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,

   Gone far away into the silent land

   When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

   You tell me of our future that you planned:

   Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

   And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

   For if the darkness and corruption leave

   A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

   Than that you should remember and be sad.

In my journal:

Death took Josh away - he is gone….gone far way to a  "silent land" where I cannot follow.  No more can I tousle his hair or tap his behind or talk about what the future may hold.  So there are multiple deaths that I grieve - not only his physical presence but his future, our family's future.  I was reminded of this when looking at a friend's family photo at her daughter's recent wedding - this I will not have. 

"It will be late to counsel then or pray" -  Death is irrevocable, irretrievable, irreversible.  Whatever one meant to do or say, once Death comes, it will be too late.  This is also difficult with a tragic, unexpected death - one is not prepared physically or emotionally for such a sudden, abrupt end - there are too many loose ends.  I call them Would've, Could've and Should've which in turn, fuel Regret and Guilt, close cousins to Grief. 

The poem acknowledges Death as "darkness and corruption" but whose power is limited.  A "vestige" is left - these are the mannerisms, sayings, quirks, habits, tendencies, like and dislikes that made Josh, Josh.  Death has no ownership over these memories; they remain with the living. 

I can hear Josh in the final words - "Mom, it is OK if you forget for a while - don't feel guilty when it happens.  And when you do remember, I would rather you smile than be sad." 

I will try but easier said than done, my son.

Original Poem: Sir Death

I wrote this poem to contrast polar reactions when faced with a life-threatening situation.  For most, our natural inclination kicks in: we fight for life.  I've seen this exemplified in a close relative who has defied death several times, sometimes it seems, by sheer will power.  Josh took the opposite route.

Why the difference?

More food for thought after reading an article this week in the Washington Post:  Blood Test May Show Risk of Suicide. 

Sir Death

by Sue Anderson

Sir Death is alive and well,

filling most with fear and dread,

his fellowship to be avoided at all cost.

Sometimes close,

he elicits the most desperate desire to live:

     no doctor too far

     no medicine too pricey

     no procedure too painful

     no therapy too crazy

succumbing to the most primal instinct

is to defy Death's grip.

But for others,

even as young as seventeen,

healthy and strong,

the false invitation entices

filling the gullible soul with hope of freedom

     from the pain, shame and guilt

causing a break with Reason, whereby,

     Death wins.

    

July 18, 2014 - Five Years and 4 Months Later

We are in out 6th summer sans Josh - so hard to believe!  I daydream what it would be like if he were here - would he be done with college or on the "extended track" like some of his friends?  Either way, being home this summer, I see him lazing around in our pool, watching sports with his dad (World Cup, Red Sox), filling our normally still home with his quiet but vibrant energy.  Of course, our phone and car insurance bills would be higher but that is OK.  (Contacting such companies to remove your child is one of the most painful post-death chores).

As quickly as this fantasy life fills my mind, the pain hits because I know it is not real and never will be.

I recently listed to a poignant audiobook memoir of a young woman's own grief journey after the unexpected death of her health conscious mother from late-stage lung cancer at the age of 45.  I would highly recommend Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed (2012).  The overwhelming grief led Strayed to hike the less traveled but equally formidable west coast counterpart to the Appalachian Trail, in an attempt to process and internalize her personal tragedy and loss.

In her travels, she encountered many people, both on the trail and off, whose interactions and stories impacted her in some way.  I can relate to the pain of one such person so much that while listening in the car on the way back from a business trip, unchecked tears streamed down my face.

Lou had picked Cheryl up hitchhiking and had a picture of a young boy hanging from her rear view mirror.  When asked who he was, Lou simply said it was her son, Luke, who had died 5 years ago at the age of eight.  He was hit by a truck while riding his bike and died five days later.

Lou told Cheryl the following:

After that happened, I died too.  Inside.  I look the same, but I'm not the same in here.  I mean, life goes on and all that crap, but Luke dying took it out of me.  I try not to act like it, but it did.  It took the Lou out of Lou, and I ain't getting it back. 

It has been five years for me and I feel exactly the same way.

RIP Josh - love you and miss you.

Original Poem: The Facade

A couple of years after Josh's death, I took a job at another firm - where no one knew of our tragedy.  I wrote about the struggle of what to say, what not to say in this post.

It is now three years later and while some know, many that I interact with on a regular basis do not.  This poem describes the problem that still exists.

The Facade

by Sue Anderson

Like a false front on a movie set

     is me to someone who does not know.

To those who do,

     they know that Josh's death defines me.

No longer the mom of four beautiful children,

     I am the mom whose youngest took his life.

Unspeakably tragic, this sacred and fragile truth

     can only be told to the trustworthy,

of whom I know many,

     but the dilemma becomes one of timing.

When?

How?

There are no good answers

     so I remain silent,

which means those who think they know me,

     really know nothing at all. 

Poem: To The Young Who Want To Die by Gwendolyn Brooks

I received this poem from a fellow mom who lost her son to suicide exactly one month before Josh and knew I had to share on the blog.

I want every teen who is in that dark place to read it.

I wish Josh's could've read it that fateful night.

To the Young Who Want to Die

by Gwendolyn Brooks

Sit down.  Inhale.  Exhale. 

The gun will wait.  The lake will wait.

The tall gall in the small seductive vial

will wait will wait:

will wait a week: will wait through April.

You do not have to die this certain day.

Death will abide, will pamper your postponement.

I assure you death will wait.  Death has

a lot of time.  Death can

attend to you tomorrow.  Or next week.  Death is

just down the street; is most obliging neighbor;

can meet you any moment.

You need not die today.

Stay here - through pout or pain or peskiness.

Stay here.  See what the news is going to be tomorrow. 

Graves grow no green that you can use.

Remember, green's your color.  You are Spring. 

4 Years and 4 Months: Dead But Not Dead

My grief journey has taken a very unexpected turn in terms of my reading.  For the past nine months, after reading Winter of the World, an engrossing novel about World War II by Ken Follett, I have been obsessed.

Since then, I have read or listened to 25 books on WWII:  biographies, memoirs, historical fiction, non-fiction and have watched the two HBO series Band of Brothers and The Pacific and as well as Hollywood's renditions of the war: War and Remembrance, Patton, Midway and Memphis Belle.  I have ordered 17 more books from Amazon and have another 20 books on my wish list.  I have never been interested in history, much less military history before now.

Why the fascination?  And how does this relate to my grief journey, knowing that somehow it must?

I find the first question easier to answer; in fact, the following bullet points are what I wrote on the first page of my WWII study journal:

• This war spanned the entire globe - it was a true world-wide conflict.
• It was a two front war against Nazi Germany and Imperialist Japan.
• Transformation of the United States was unprecedented from an isolationist country to full and total commitment to war as we would only accept full and unconditional surrender of the enemy - no peace negotiations. 
• Enormous sacrifice of human life.
• Countless inspiring stories of valor and courage.
• Sometimes, the outcomes of battles came down to pure luck.
• War politics personified in the larger-than-life Big Three: Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin.
• War and larger-than-life generals: Eisenhower, MacArthur, Rommel, Montgomery.
• War and citizen soldiers: college students, farm boys, salesmen, factory workers - regular "Joes" turned soldier.
• Homefront in war - changes in the workforce primarily for women and Negroes.
• Holocaust 
• Post war - the "Greatest Generation".  What did they do? How did they fare?
• Post war politics: Cold War to Korean War to Vietnam War

I think the answer to the second question, "How does this relate to my grief journey?" can be found in my September 2012 post: "He Who Learns Must Suffer".

I wrote that reading drama by the four greatest tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare) was cathartic.  I also noted that while my external life had contracted to a small circle, my internal world had expanded with the exploration of ancient Greek and Elizabethan literature.

Since then, my mind's eye has jumped centuries to the greatest drama of human history: World War II.  And instead of reading about characters created from imagination, I am learning about real life heroes and heroines - about the grisly business of war and how in the midst of either witnessing or experiencing unspeakable horror, one can keep their human dignity and find the resilience and fortitude to keep going.

The cathartic affect is still a paradox: i.e how can reading about someone else's pain and suffering cause a purging, cleansing and connection to my own deep feelings?

In recent days, I have been drawn to the classic memoirs of two Marines who fought in the Pacific Theatre, Helmut for My Pillow by Robert Leckie and With the Old Breed by E. B Sledge.  These brave men were featured in Tom Hanks/Steven Spielburg's HBO mini-series, The Pacific. 

The title of this post comes from a quote in Leckie's book as he ruminates on a post-battle scene in Cape Gloucester on the island of New Britain.

I stood among the heaps of dead.  They lay crumpled, useless, defunct.  The vital force was fled.  A bullet or a mortar fragment had torn a hole in these frail vessels and the substance had leaked out.  The mystery of the universe had once inhabited these lolling lumps, had given each an identity, a way of walking, perhaps a special habit of address or a way with words or a knack of putting color on canvas.  They had been so different, then.  Now they were nothing, heaps of nothing.  Can a bullet or a mortar fragment do this?  Does this force, this mystery, I mean this soul - does this spill out on the ground along with the blood?  No.  It is somewhere, I know it.  For this red-and-yellow lump I look down upon this instant was once a man, and the thing that energized him, the Word that gave "to airy nothing a local habitation and a name," the Word from a higher Word - this cannot have been obliterated by a quarter-inch of heated metal.  The mystery of the universe has departed him, and it is no good to say that the riddle is solved, the mystery is over - because it has changed residences.   The thing that shaped the flare of that nostril, that broadened that arm now bleeding, that wrought so fine that limply lying hand - that thing exists still, and has still the power to flare that nostril, to bend that arm, to clench that fist exactly as it did before.  

Because it is gone you cannot say it will not return; even though you may say it has never yet returned - you cannot say that it will not.  It is blasphemy to say a bit of metal has destroyed life, just as it is presumptuous to say that because life has disappeared it has been destroyed.  I stood among the heaps of the dead and I knew - no, I felt that death is only a sound we make to signify the Thing we do not know. 

This is a profound thought written by one who, after looking at the dead; no, really, deeply looking at them, contemplates what has occurred and after deep reflection, is convinced that a piece of metal cannot destroy the "mystery of the universe" that resides within our earthly vessels, nor can a plain, brown extension cord.

Said another way, just because life has disappeared or no longer inhabits the flesh, it does not mean that it has been obliterated or destroyed.  How this works, I do not know but I believe it.

I wrote the following in my journal:

Death is not the end but rather the beginning of another beginning. 

or 

Death is not the end but the transition to another form of living.

And perhaps the living bears some responsibility for as long as our loved ones are remembered, they stay alive.   I underlined this passage from Doris Kearns Goodwin's Pulitzer Prize winning book, No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in  World War II.  This little verse, given to Eleanor by a friend after FDR's sudden death, encouraged her to "make the rest of her life worthy of her husband's memory.  As long as she continued to fight for his ideals, he would continue to live."

"They are not dead who live in lives they leave behind.  In those whom they have blessed they live a life again."

RIP Josh.
You remain alive in our hearts.

3 Years and 10 Months Later: Hippolytus by Euripides

There is much in this ancient Greek tragedy which resonates with me on this anniversary month.

First, some background of the story:  Handsome, strong, athletic, virile Hippolytus whole-heartedly worships Artemis, virgin Goddess of the Hunt.  He has absolutely no romantic interest in women and has gone so far as to call Aphrodite the "vilest of the Gods in Heaven."  Because of this, the vain Goddess of Love determines to punish Hippolytus by causing his step-mother, Phaedra to fall hopelessly in love with him.  In keeping these incestuous feelings a secret, Phaedra suffers mightily; becoming depressed and suicidal.

Phaedra speaks of the power of shame:

Then there is shame that thwarts us.  Shame is of two kinds.  The one is harmless, but the other a plague.

This "plague" fills her body and mind, leading her thoughts towards death.

Then I believed that I could conquer love,
conquer it with discretion and good sense.
And when that too failed me, I resolved to die.
And death is the best plan of them all.  Let none of you
dispute that. 

A haunting description of Phaedra's suicidal ideation:

For she would willingly bring her life to anchor
at the end of its voyage - the gloomy harbor of death. 

When the awful deed is done, the chorus says:

Woman unhappy, tortured,
your suffering, your death,
has shaken this house to its foundations. 

You were daring, you who died in violence and guilt.
Here was a wrestling: your own hand against your life. 

Who can have cast a shadow on your life? 

Her husband Theseus' words echo perfectly what I felt 46 months ago, on that horrible, unspeakable day.  (My edits are in parenthesis).

O city, city! Bitterness of sorrow!
Extremest sorrow that a [mother] can suffer!
Fate, you have ground me and my house to dust,
fate in the form of some ineffable
pollution, some grim spirit of revenge.
The file has whittled away my life until
it is a life no more.
I am like a swimmer that falls into a great sea:
I cannot cross this towering wave I see before me. 

My [son]!  I cannot think
of anything said or done to drive you to this horrible death.
You are like bird that has vanished out of my hand.
You have made a quick leap out of my arms
into the land of Death.

I have no doubt that "pre-Josh", these gut-wrenching words of sorrow and woe would have gone in one ear and out the other, bouncing off my naive heart.  Instead, they have pierced and penetrated my death-initiated soul with arrows of truth.

Three Years and Five Months Later - August 18, 2012

I am off this weekend to move Gillian to NYC.  Too bad Josh were not here; he would enjoy a short weekend in the city, seeing his baby cousin and eating lunch at Katz - he loved their pastrami sandwiches. 

I want to share another poem from Billy Collins - it is actually the one that titles the collection.

Horoscopes for the Dead
by Billy Collins

Every morning since you disappeared for good, 

I read about you in the daily paper

along with the box scores, the weather, and all the bad news. 

Some days I am reminded that today

will not be a wildly romantic time for you,

nor will you be challenged by educational goals,

nor will you need to be circumspect at the workplace.

Another day, I learn that you should not miss

an opportunity to travel and make new friends

though you never cared much about either. 

I can't imagine you ever facing a new problem

with a positive attitude, but you will definitely not

be doing that, or anything like that, on this weekday in March.

And the same goes for the fun

you might have gotten from group activities,

a likelihood attributed to everyone under your sign.

A dramatic rise in income may be a reason

to treat yourself, but that would apply 

more to all the Pisces who are still alive,

still swimming up and down the stream of life

or suspended in a pool in the shade of an overhanging tree.

But you will be relieved to learn

that you no longer need to reflect carefully before acting,

nor do you have to think more of others,

and never again will creative work take a back seat

to the business responsibilities that you never really had.

And don't worry today or any day

about problems caused by your unwillingness

to interact rationally with your many associates.

No more goals for you, no more romance,

no more money or children, jobs or important tasks,

but then again, you were never thus encumbered.

So leave it up to me now

to plan carefully for success and the wealth it may bring,

to value the dear ones close to my heart,

and to welcome any intellectual stimulation that comes my way

though that sounds like a lot to get done on a Tuesday.

I am better off closing the newspaper,

putting on the clothes I wore yesterday

(when I read that your financial prospects were looking up)

then pushing off on my copper-colored bicycle

and pedaling along the shore road by the bay.

And you stay just as you are,

lying there in your beautiful blue suit,

your hands crossed on your chest

like the wings of a bird who has flown

in its strange migration not north or south

but straight up from earth

and pierced the enormous circle of the zodiac.

Josh - I wish you were still swimming in the "stream of life" with us and all your friends.  We miss you.   

Poem: "Grave" by Billy Collins

We are on vacation - our fourth without Josh.  I keep thinking what he would be doing if he were with us.  For example - would he have gotten up to play morning rounds of golf or hiked the mountain or would he have wanted to sleep in?  Probably the latter.   I know he would've loved The Dark Knight Rises, the new Batman movie that Gillian and I saw yesterday.  We did some shopping at the outlet stores before the movie; it is still hard for me to walk through the men's section in places like The Gap.   There are too many things that I can picture him wearing. 

While at a bookstore in Wellesley, MA, the title of a collection of poems, Horoscopes for the Dead by Billy Collins caught my eye.  He was the US Poet Laureate from 2001 - 2003 and the Poet Laureate of NY from 2004 - 2006.  His poems are refreshingly accessible; written about everyday events in everyday language, albeit in surprising, witty and whimsical ways.

This is the first poem in the collection - poignant and touching.

Grave

by Billy Collins

What do you think of my new glasses

I asked as I stood under a shade tree

before the joined grave of my parents,

and what followed was a long silence

that descended on the rows of the dead

and on the fields and the woods beyond,

one of the one hundred kinds of silence

according to the Chinese belief,

each one distinct from the others,

but the differences being so faint

that only a few special monks

were able to tell them all apart.

They make you look very scholarly,

I heard my mother say

once I lay down on the ground

and pressed an ear into the soft grass.

Then I rolled over and pressed

my other ear to the ground,

the ear my father likes to speak into,

but he would say nothing,

and I could not find a silence

among the 100 Chinese silences

that would fit the one that he created

even though I was the one

who had just made up the business

of the 100 Chinese silences -

the Silence of the Night Boat

and the Silence of the Lotus, 

cousin to the Silence of the Temple Bell

only deeper and softer, like petals, at its farthest edges.


RIP Josh - forever loved and missed.

All Sorrow Feels Ancient - All Death Feels New

I recently came across one of the most profound sentences in all my reading since Josh's death.  It was not from the actual book, Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels - which I quickly looked up on Amazon and Goodreads, saw enough that interested me and have downloaded the sample onto my iPad - but rather, was included in a list of simple sentences in Priscilla Long's book, The Writer's Portable Mentor.

All sorrow feels ancient.

Only four words which rings so true.  Why?  What is this "ancient sorrow"? These were the questions I sought to answer in my journal.

I envision this "ancient sorrow" like a wide moving river, flowing through time and space, generations and centuries, across cultures and species, picking up all sorrow in its wake.  And I'd like to presume that this "ancient sorrow" is the most intense, the most constant, the deepest and harshest when connected to the loss of a child.

I was oblivious to its existence but no more.  Intimate with it now - I am floating on it, living in it, and have been drinking from it daily, for over three years.  This "ancient sorrow" fills me up and I know that each day, others' sorrow adds to it.

Which brings me to my next thought: Death is inevitable.  One day, life will end.  It is a known fact, a reality.  But for some reason, despite the millions of people who have already "passed away", this intimate, carnal knowledge of death is unknown.  One cannot really "know" how it will feel - the loss of a loved one - until it happens to you.  We can read about it, watch movies, listen to songs and even be moved to tears but will not really know it until we experience it first-hand.

Why?  This seems very cruel. Why can't an ancient knowledge and understanding of death be imparted to us, down through the generations so that when it happens, we might have some familiarity, some understanding, some comprehension to help us navigate through the intense emotions?  Instead, we are left to our own devices: to struggle, weather and survive the impact of an emotionally destructive tidal wave, tsunami or hurricane - for that is how loss feels.

Yes, to quote Anne Michaels again, "All sorrow feels ancient."  What I will add is this:  All death feels new.

RIP beloved Josh.

Death, Grief and Suicide in Hamlet - Part II

Hamlet's depression continues as he wrestles with fulfilling the duty of avenging his father's death.

I have of late - but wherefore I know not - lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air - look you, this brave overhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire - why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors (II, II, 287 - 299).

And in one of the most famous lines of English literature, Hamlet ponders whether living, with all the "slings and arrows" that come our way is better than the eternal sleep of death, which puts an end to all "heartache and the thousand natural shocks."

To be, or not to be?  That is the question -
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And, by opposing, end them?  To die, to sleep -
No more - and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to - 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished! (III, I, 57 - 65).

Hamlet is a tragedy of epic proportions. By the end of the play, almost everyone is dead.  In this midst of all this mayhem, I am most interested in how grief is portrayed.

Ophelia is the prince's love interest who is utterly rejected by Hamlet in his misery and paranoia.  Her father, Polonius is the well-meaning Lord Chamberlain of Claudius' court but often misguided.  He jumps to erroneous conclusions about Hamlet which causes him to set in motion events that lead to devastating consequences, one being his own demise.  When Ophelia hears of her dear father's death, she literally goes mad. Claudius's description:

Oh, this is the poison of deep grief.  It springs all from her father's death, and now behold!....Poor Ophelia divided from herself and her fair judgement, without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts (IV,V,73-74 and 82-84).

She wanders to the riverbank, climbs a tree and falls into the water.  She does nothing to save herself and so drowns.  At the cemetery, the gravediggers discuss how she who "willfully seeks her own salvation" would not normally be given a Christian burial and so conclude that she was from a wealthy family.

The burial ceremony by the priest is very brief.  Laertes, Ophelia's brother asks the priest to perform additional rites. Their short dialogue says it all:

L:  Must there no more be done? 

Priest:  No more be done.  We should profane the service of the dead to sing a requiem and such rest to her as to peace-parted souls. 

L: Lay her i' th' earth, and from her fair and unpolluted flesh may violets spring!  I tell thee, churlish priest, a ministering angel shall my sister be when thou liest howling (V, I, 217 - 225).

My margin notes:  Agreed!  Priest is a self-righteous b***!

Hamlet has been watching this and now joins Laertes in Ophelia's grave. This is their expression of grief:

L:  Hold off the earth awhile till I have caught her once more in my arms.  Now pile your dust upon the quick and dead, till of this flat a mountain you have made, t' o'ertop old Pelion or the skyish head of blue Olympus.  

H:  What is he whose grief bears such an emphasis, whose phrase of sorrow conjures the wandering stars, and makes them stand like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Hamlet the Dane (V, I, 233-242). 

(Modern translation - Who is the one whose grief is so loud and clear, whose words of sadness make the planets stand still in the heavens as if they've been hurt by what they've heard?)

It is difficult to express the depths of my grief which is why I have come to love Shakespeare's tragedies.  He writes what I feel.

Death, Grief and Suicide in Hamlet - Part I

There is so much in Hamlet that resonates with me.  I have read through it twice; once on my own (using the No Fear Shakespeare version, which has the original play on the left side of the page and a modern translation on the right) and another while watching Kenneth Branagh's 4 hour movie adaptation.  I have written out long sections in my journal and pondered the relevance.   If you have never read Hamlet, I would encourage you to do so.

Hamlet is prince of Denmark. His father has been dead two months and to his chagrin, his mother Queen Gertrude, has married his father's brother, Claudius.  Hamlet's grief and despair knows no bounds as he witnesses this wedding on the heels of his father's funeral.  As a result of his melancholic disposition, he suffers a rebuke from the new King.

But to persever in obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness.  'Tis unmanly grief.
It shows a will more incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschooled (I, II, 92-97)

Basically Claudius is saying, "stop grieving and move on."  And that it is "unmanly" to be so despondent.  "How dare Claudius judge Hamlet's grief", my reading voice retorts.

When Hamlet is alone, we see the depths of his despair, wishing that suicide was not an act against God.  I don't like reading this but understand that for centuries, the church taught that suicide was an unpardonable sin.  We will see this again with the gravedigger's and priest's response to Ophelia's death.

Oh, that this too, too sullied flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew,
Or that the Everlasting had not fixed
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter!  O God, God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world! (I, II, 129-134)

At the end of Act I, the ghost of Hamlet's father reveals to Hamlet that he has been murdered by Claudius.  He wants his son to exact revenge for the loss of his life, wife and crown.  In parting, he voices what all the dead would say:  "Adieu, adieu, adieu.  Remember me."  I love Hamlet's response - his commitment to remembering his father.

Remember thee!
Ay, thou poor ghost, whiles memory holds a seat
In this distracted globe.  Remember thee!
Yea, from the table of my memory
I'll wipe away all trivial fond records,
All saws of books, all forms, all pressures past
That youth and observation copied there,
And thy commandment all alone shall live
Within the book and volume of my brain,
Unmixed with baser matter (I, V, 95-104).

"Remembering Josh" is the title of this blog - for a reason.  "Running to Remember Josh" was printed on the backs of this year's marathon/half-marathon shirts purposefully.  Is it too exaggerated to say that one of my life's ambition and goal is to remember my beloved son?  No, I don't think so.  It feels like a solemn, honorable duty - one that I could never tire of.  It is why his pictures are still all over the house, why I have a tattoo of his name, in his handwriting on my arm, why I visit his gravesite every week and write a letter to him, why I sometimes wear his clothes.

As long as Josh is remembered, he stays alive.

"After a Funeral" by Diana Athill

I picked this book up in August 2011 at my local Border's closing sale.  The title caught my eye but the blurb on the back sealed the deal.

The story of how and why a talented writer came to kill himself - a classic memoir by one of our most esteemed authors.  When Diana Athill met the man she calls "Didi," she fell in love instantly and out of love just as quickly....With painful honesty, Athill explores the years she tried to help him, a period that culminated in Didi's suicide - in her apartment - an event he described in his journals as "the one authentic act of my life."

While I did not find myself drawn to the complicated relationship between Athill and Didi, a few quotes made it to my journal for further thought.

Didi was a diarist.  Like me, he wrote in his diary to survive.  Me from Josh's death, and he, from his own depression.

When I started writing I improved a lot, and then I discovered my salvation - a combination of salvation and writing.  My diaries.....I'd sit down and write - give vent to my feelings in writing, instead of in talking or behavior.  This would simmer me down, and I'd become normal again and often shake my head at the strangeness of it all.....In depression my diary becomes hopeless because it was writing it and reading it and seeing the way I sometimes am which often used to cause depression....This diary, then, this medicine, this dark and innermost secret womb of mine, is something I have created to save me (146-147).

Because I have no clues as to Josh's mental and emotional state which led to his fatal and irrevocable act, I want to read the suicidal ideation of others, whether from real people or fictional characters.  In fact, I have a little file box in which are recorded such quotes as below.  Morbid and a somewhat futile exercise, I know, because the only one who could tell me what he was thinking is gone, and who knows if he himself could articulate what dark thoughts were swirling in his mind, but still, I want to try and understand.

When I read such thoughts and copy the quotes in my journal or on notecards to file away, I wonder if Josh felt the same.  Then sadly, I wonder how many other young people or not-so-young people have similar thoughts.

Didi's feeling of self-repulsion were real and overwhelming.

Falling - falling - falling.  Perhaps I have been unable to touch my diary lately, except in short fits, because at times I am repulsive to myself, I don't want to touch me, to interest myself in me.  It is horrible to dislike your own self so much and there must be a vestige of genuine madness in all this....There is nothing I would welcome more than death at this moment, this very instant - here and now....I am left with what I am left with now: hopelessness, self-pity - and ugly and repulsive self-pity - and such despair, sadness loneliness and finally utter darkness....I have no affection or respect for myself at all.  I loathe and find intensely repulsive a man of my sort (53-55).

Because he was a faithful diarist, it stands to reason that he would record thoughts after ingesting a bottle of sleeping pills.

And the most dramatic moment of my life - the only authentic one - is a terrible let-down.  I have already swallowed my death.  I could vomit it out if I wanted to.  Honestly and sincerely, I really don't want to.  It is a pleasure.  I am doing this not in a sad, unhappy way; but on the contrary, happily and even (a state of being and a word I have always loved) SERENELY....serenely.

He did not die serenely at all.  Because he called a friend, (Athill thought he wanted a witness), he was taken to the hospital where his stomach was pumped.  But it was too late.  After ten days in which he "moaned endlessly," he passed away.

After reading the five volume diary he left for her, Athill's conclusion:

It was not intolerable that he had killed himself.  It was intolerable that he had been right to do so - that he had no alternative.  It was intolerable that a man should be so crippled by things done to him in his defenseless childhood that he had been made, literally and precisely, unendurable to himself....He was certain at too deep a level, in the very fibres of his being, that he was unworthy of love.  Being unworthy of love, he must be punished; and the only way he could secure this was by plunging out to the point where he was driven to punish himself.  To be murdered would be a fate much simpler, and less sad. 

Haunting words.