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....

Thoughts from "Searching for Mercy Street: A Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton" by Linda Gray Sexton

Linda Gray Sexton became a suicide survivor at 21-years old when her mother killed herself by sitting in a running car with the garage doors closed.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning poet's battle with mental illness was over.  Anne Sexton was only forty-five years old.

In the years following her mother's death, Linda finished college, edited and published Anne Sexton: A Self-Portrait in Letters (1977), got married, had two children after suffering several miscarriages, published four novels, was a critical contact for Diane Middlebrook, author of Anne Sexton: A Biography (1991), suffered from the same illness and suicidal ideation as her mother and at the age of thirty-six, was at a place in life where her mother's death overshadowed everything.

The answer to her psychotherapist's question, "How often do you think about your mother?  Once a week?  Once a month?" was "How about every day."

In her words, she "needed an exorcism" and what resulted was this brutally honest memoir published in 1994, twenty years after her mother's death.

Rather than being cathartic, she found writing Searching for Mercy Street to be more a testimony to the events of her life - the abandonment, the chaos, the strange sexual games played with her mother, the domestic abuse, Anne's multiple suicide attempts and resulting hospitalizations, the constant manipulation as well as the few positive memories such as the writing lessons received at their kitchen table.

As I told my own story, I validated my life's experiences and toughened myself; it was a part of my self-education, one that helped me gain control over what had once seemed unmanageable.  Silence compels us to look at what lies behind it, and revelation brings with it knowledge - which is why some feel as if they must write about the private aspects of their lives, in search of solace and clarity.  To speak candidly, with neither justification nor humiliation, relieves the haunting of memory and mind and becomes one way to regain our dignity and our strength. 

Yes! - this is EXACTLY why I continue to write in my journal and on this blog.  It is a testimony to the journey I was thrust on, against my will, kicking and screaming, over five years ago.

So this is a very personal memoir about living with mental illness and suicide, both her mother's and her own.  Through her own suffering, she is able to absolve her mother's action.

Suicide is an immediate and permanent solution to pain.  The pain can be either physical or emotional: emotional pain of an intensity sufficient to drive the sufferer to consider suicide often manifest itself in physical symptoms so powerful that to quibble about origin is beside the point. Pain is pain regardless of its source. None of these conditions can necessarily be conquered by willpower; neither are they induced by laziness, lack of moral ethic, or selfishness.  

In my mind I had accused my mother of these failings many times. Now, my own experience had taught me a different and quite simple lesson: suicide is a synonym for escape…She had sought death because she believed she had no alternative. A life of pain is not a life worth living. She was not a coward, but instead a realist.

After reading these words, I can't help but wonder how much is applicable to our beloved Josh. He was not at risk for suicide, so we and his psychologist thought but obviously he was. What haunts me is this: what internal pain did he suffer from and for how long?

Her words about the root cause (depression), reminds me of William Styron's short powerful memoir, Darkenss Visible - see post for thoughts.

My mother died of depression. Untreatable, unceasing depression. Why, when we refer to depression, do we think of it in the main as a state characterized by numbness and low spirits rather than intense suffering? Why, in fact, is the word pain rarely used when describing depression? The dictionary uses synonyms such as melancholy, despondency, and sadness.

These are relevant questions at the time of publication in 1994 and now, twenty years later.

Before Josh's death, I was naive and uneducated in the topics of mental illness, depression and suicide. I did not know the signs of depression/suicide, leaving it to the "experts".  Now, I cringe whenever I see the list of signs because at least half can be ticked off as applicable to Josh.

This fuels our mission of The Josh Anderson Foundation: to "provide teenagers with the mental health education, resources and support so that they will never turn to suicide."

Teenagers because they may be their own last line of defense but also parents and teachers, coaches and youth leaders.  We all need to come together to stop Death's tool from taking any more young lives.

August 18, 2014 - 5 Years and 5 Month Later: Quote from "The Namesake"

I've recently finished Jhumpa Lahiri's poignant novel: The Namesake, and want to quote from the end (not to worry; there are no spoilers).

In so many ways, his family's life feels like a string of accidents, unforeseen, unintended, one incident begetting another……And yet these events have formed Golgol, shaped him, determined who he is.  They were things for which it was impossible to prepare but which one spent a lifetime looking back at, trying to accept, interpret, comprehend.  Things that should never have happened, that seemed out of place and wrong, these were what prevailed, what endured, in the end.

EXACTLY….this describes my life with Josh's death…actions and consequences…one thing led to another and before we knew it, he was gone.

An unexpected, tragic death - especially of a child - has no comparison in terms of the ginormous, heavy imprint on a mother's life, psyche and being.  Especially when it never should have happened.

And yes, I feel the compassionate, omniscient narrator is correct in articulating that my whole life was, is and will be about accepting, interpreting and comprehending what happened.  I will also add "process" and "integrate" to the list.  A lifelong endeavor that has no blueprint, no instruction manual, no "How to Deal With the Death of Your Child For Dummies" - the lonely journey begins the millisecond the brain comprehends the unthinkable.

I envision this journey like floating on a river.  "Pre-Josh", this river was fairly calm with some turbulence due to what was going on with him at the time (see post for details) but certainly nothing unmanageable or out-of-control.   But when I realized that our beloved Josh was gone for good, it felt like out of nowhere, an immense, terrifying waterfall was in front and down was the only way I could go.

The fall could kill.  Surviving is a feat.

Then comes the realization that one has forever left the calm river with manageable turbulence for a completely different route, this grief journey - full of angry, churning white water, huge boulders, terrific undercurrents that alternately suck you under and let you go and tributaries which spit you out in whirlpools called Unbelief, Guilt, Regret, Sorrow, Shame and Anger - pools that spin you around in one place for seemingly forever before propelling your battered body to another dizzying vortex.

It is a disorienting, frightening journey that occurs in the depths of one's soul and is very difficult to understand, much less describe to others.  This is what makes the journey a lonely one.

But now, five years later, my journey is on calmer waters and I've occasionally found myself in the pools of Acceptance and Peace.  Visits here do not last but at least I've found them.  For a long time, I questioned their existence or if I would ever experience them.

So to get back to the quote, the narrator says that in the end, the event that was the mistake or accident or thing that should never have happened becomes that which prevails and endures.

Prevails and endures for the departed and those left behind.

RIP Josh….

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.

June 18, 2014 - Five Years and 3 Months Later

Since Josh's death, I've become an avid journaler.  An important part of my self-care is to have a place (my journal) to absorb my feelings - from the mundane to the intense.  These emotions are like colors which range the gamut from subtle, muted and ever-present grey, which to me is the color of grief, to bold, neon, in-your-face and overwhelming.

Sometimes, it helps to have an open-ended question to start a journal entry such as this recent one: Where am I on this grief journey?   I wanted to share the answer on this post.

Well, I am here, meaning still alive.  Tim and I are still together which is worth noting as my suicide survivor books say that a higher than average percent of marriages do not survive the death of a child.   Pictures of Josh still fill our home.  I have no desire to move as memories of various events in our home (except for that awful day) are not painful.  The dogwood sapling planted in his memory in our front yard is growing - strong and healthy.

I think about Josh every day.  It is strange how the deceased occupies the mind more than the living.  I would like to think his soul, or essence or energy survived death and is on the "other side," not bound by space and time.  I hope he is at peace - no longer suffering, although my life-after-death themed books tell that unresolved issues follow our loved ones- i.e. suicide will not make them disappear.

If his actions have resulted in a karmic debt, perhaps we are helping to repay through the good work done in his name (The Josh Anderson Foundation).

This grief journey is greatly influenced by my reading and in more recent months, by Josh as I believe he led me to this book last December:  My Son and the Afterlife: Conversations From the Otherside by Elisa Medhus, MD.  And books beget books as evidenced by what I've read since the beginning of the year (see reading blog for my thoughts on these books):

• Many Lives, Many Masters: The True Story of a Prominent Psychiatrist, His Young Patient and the Past-Life Therapy That Changed Both Their Lives by Brian Weiss, MD
• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
• Bridges to Heaven: True Stories of Loved Ones on the Other Side by Sue Frederick
• On Life After Death by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
• Life After Death: The Burden of Proof by Deepak Chopra
• The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra
• Reinventing the Body, Resurrecting the Soul by Deepak Chopra
• Life After Life: The 25th Anniversary of the Classic Bestseller by Raymond Moody, MD
• Kripalu Yoga: A Guide to Practice On and Off the Mat by Richard Faulds
• The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael Singer
• Warrior Pose: How Yoga (Literally) Saved My Life by Brad Willis aka Bhava Ram
• Power of the Soul: Inside Wisdom for an Outside World by John Holland

Upon reflection, my daughter Lauren, has also shaped this journey.  Since Josh's death, she has been diagnosed with PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) which manifests itself as anxiety and depression.  Thankfully, she is very open about her struggles and actively pursues healing and recovery.  She has found excellent therapists and convinced of its benefits to mind and body, has become a yoga practitioner and teacher.   She has encouraged me to attend classes at a nearby yoga studio and has wanted me to join her at Tara Brach's weekly meditation classes in Bethesda, MD.

At first, I was skeptical and reluctant but am now a full-blown believer.  I suppose it started when I accompanied her to the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in April where we attended the Yoga In Schools Symposium.  To be in the midst of so many like-minded people dedicated to this ancient healing practice and wanting to bring it into schools to benefit our youth was inspiring.   There is a palatable aura and energy within that place that seeped into my being and has remained ever since.

Because of these influences, my grief journey has turned a significant corner.

• I take 2 -3 yoga classes a week. On the other days, I practice yoga/meditation on my own.  
• I've taken a meditation class that met once a week for 8 weeks
• I've signed up for a 200 hour yoga teacher training to begin in the fall
• I am much more aware of my breathing during the day.  Taking deeper inhales and exhales, I can't believe how much this small change has helped manage stress during a busy work day. 
• When I wake up in the middle of the night worrying about something, I now know these thoughts are just electrical impulses, nothing more.  With practice, I can release and watch them evaporate like a puff of smoke dissipating in the air and then go back to sleep. 

In retrospect, I see clearly how clueless I was "pre-Josh"….in my own world, detached from the pure consciousness (soul) within.   (And this is despite many years of involvement in a fundamental Christian church which is a whole other story for another time or another blog).  Then after his death, I was consumed with grief, sorrow, pain and guilt, covering my mind, heart and soul like a blanket of fog - thick, dense, grey, impenetrable.

But over the past several months, the fog has slowly lifted.  Because of my reading and daily yoga/meditation practice, I feel awakened and enlightened, knowing I've just started on a lifelong journey of spiritual discovery and experience.

So now I ponder this question:  If Josh had not died, would I be on this path?

Probably not and this is sad to me.   Why did it have to take such a profoundly tragic event to wake me up?  To get my attention?  To make me into a seeker of timeless spiritual truths?  To open my mind to the fact there is much more than this physical world?  

January 18, 2014 - 4 Years and 10 Months - Afterlife?

A lot happens in a short time frame: Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Josh's birthday and another month anniversary that now brings us ever closer to the 5th year anniversary on March 18th.   In years past, these months were very hard as each holiday was a blistering reminder of our loss.

But this year, instead of feeling constant grief with the occasional respite, I felt more at peace with the occasional grief flare-up.  Maybe it is because of some new thoughts regarding the afterlife, the reality of heaven, and the idea that Josh's spirit is very much alive.

Last month, while in Dulles airport waiting to board a flight, I wandered into a bookstore and came across the book, My Son and The Afterlife by Elisa Medhus, MD.  After reading the blurb on the back cover below, I had the strong feeling that Josh led me to it.  So not only did I get the book, but devoured it within a couple of days.

Dr. Elisa Medhus never believed in life after death.  As an accomplished physician, she placed her faith in science.  All of that changed after her son Erik took his own life and then reached out from the other side. 

Intimate, heartbreaking, and illuminating, go on an incredible journey from grief and skepticism to healing and belief.  Based on Medhus' wildly popular blog, ChannelingErik, My Son and the Afterlife provides answers to the most universal questions of being human. 

At once tragic and uplifting, Erik speaks from the other side with candor, wisdom, and depth as he describes his own experiences and provides new answers about the nature of souls, death, and the afterlife - answers that have the potential to change our lives forever.

Erik died on October 6, 2009 - almost 7 months after Josh.  Have they met?  I wonder.

The book is essentially a transcript of her questions and his answers (via medium).  It is information overload: strange, surreal, and difficult to process.   The following bullet points are what I wrote in my book journal:

• Afterlife is a reality
• Our two-dimensional (space and time) are a very small part of the overall reality
• Souls depart the physical body upon death but retain their essence, memories, everything that makes them unique.
• Souls want to remain connected to their loved ones on earth and are able to give signs, play pranks, show themselves and communicate - click here to read about our signs from Josh.
• Reincarnation exists
• Unconditional love for ourselves and others is the ultimate goal of being human
• This energy, life-force, soul, spirit exists in all living things: humans, plants, animals

Along with Dr. Eban Alexander's book, Proof of Heaven that I read last summer, there is much to ponder.

Then last weekend, when Tim and I went to see Savings Mr. Banks, we saw the preview of Heaven is for Real, based on a true story in which a young boy experienced heaven in a NDE (near death experience) - see their web site for a video interview with Colton and his parents.   It is amazing.

As I process this information, I find the bitterness and anger lessening, being replaced with nascent...unusual feelings of hope and peace.  I feel more assurance that Josh is in a better place and is hopefully doing just fine.

. 

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.

Guilt and Regret - April 28, 2013

This is an example of how reading good literature makes me face difficult thoughts and feelings that might otherwise be unexplored.

I have been slowly making my way through Sophie's Choice by William Styron.  Slowly because of the number of new words to look up, define and write in my personal lexicon and also, to savor the gorgeous prose, just like one would deliberately slow down to enjoy a delicious dessert.

Sophie, the hauntingly beautiful protagonist is consumed by guilt.  The writer-narrator Stingo is witness and describes it as:

Guilt. Hateful guilt. Guilt, corrosive as brine.  Like typhoid, one can harbor for a lifetime the toxin of guilt. 

In another part, Stingo personifies his lust in a way that puts the reader in the body of a virile twenty-two year old male virgin, completely obsessed with sex.

Combining these two ideas made me think of how I would personify my feelings, namely Guilt and Regret.   This is what I wrote in my journal:

Guilt and Regret - like two peas in a pod; siamese twins, joined at the hip.  When one shows up, the other comes by default.  I wonder if there will be any point in my grief journey when Guilt will part for good, taking up residence with another poor soul; when I will be able to say clearly and soberly that I did all that I knew to do, that Josh did this to himself and therefore, I am not at fault?  I wonder.

There are moments now when these absolving thoughts float through my head but always, either softly in the background, or loudly in my ears, Guilt says, "No!  You should've known, seeing it coming, been on your guard, questioned him, talked to him......prevented his death."

Then Regret chimes in with her soliloquy which repeats like a broken record, unable to get out of the verbal rut: "what if...if only... would've....could've...should've..."

I endure their mental flogging as just punishment for not being a good mother, for although I tried to be,  I was not attentive enough, not what he needed me to be and now my Josh is dead - ergo, my fault.

I've come to accept Guilt and Regret's tenacious hold for it is the price of motherhood.  Moms protect.  Moms guard.  Moms are willing to die in order to save their children.  Moms are not supposed to outlive their precious offspring.  Good moms do not have a child who takes their own life.

So deep down, I believe Guilt and Regret words:

I should've been different.
I should've been better.
I should've seen something - a sign - even when no one else did.
I should've known and so been able to prevent his death.

And what it really comes down to is this most painful thought:

If Josh had a different mom, maybe he would be alive.

3 Years and 11 Months Later - Nothing Was the Same by Kay Jamison

After Josh's death, I read a number of bereavement books in an attempt to find answers and comfort from those who had suffered the same loss - see list.

While all have been helpful, I have found much food for thought in memoirs from celebrated authors who, having lost their spouses, penned their grief in literary prose.  See posts for more.

• C. S. Lewis's A Grief Observed
• Joan Didion's Year of Magical Thinking
• Joyce Carol Oats - A Widow's Story

Kay Redfield Jamison will be added to this list.  Jamison is a Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins and co-authored the classic textbook on bipolar disorder called Manic-Depressive Illness (published 1990).  Five years later, at considerable risk to her reputation, she bravely published a memoir called An Unquiet Mind which chronicles her own struggle with this disease. 

In her second memoir, Nothing Was the Same, Jamison writes about the loss of her husband, Richard Wyatt.  What I found interesting and unique was her differentiation between the darkness felt in grief and that of depression.  I wrote a number of quotes in my journal.

About grief:

Grief conspires to ensure that it will in time wear itself out.  Unlike depression, it acts to preserve the self.

Mourning, as Freud made clear, is a natural part of life, not a pathological state. "Although grief involves grave departures from the normal attitude to life, it never occurs to us to regard it as a morbid condition and hand the mourner over to medical treatment.  We rest assured that after a lapse of time it will be overcome." 

Grief is not a disease, it is necessary. 

Grief gives much to the living, slows time that one might find a way to a different relationship with the dead.  It fractures time to bring into awareness what is being mourned and why. 

Grief, lashed as it is to death, instructs, it teaches that one must invent a way back to life.  Grief forces intimacy with death; it preserves the salient past and puts into relief our mortal states.  All die, teaches Grief.  

Grief is at the heart of the human condition.  Much is lost with death, but not everything.  Life is not let loose of lightly, nor is love.  There is grace in death.  There is life. 

Grief vs depression:

Grief, like depression is a journey one must take largely unattended....I had less energy but enough to see me through.  This is never so in depression.  Weariness pervades the marrow when one is depressed; it is what renders despair intolerable.  I bled out during my depressions.  This was not so after Richard died.  My heart broke, but it beat.  

Time alone in grief proved restorative.  Time alone when depressed was dangerous.  The thoughts I had of death after Richard's death were necessary and proportionate.  They were of his death, not my own.  When depressed, however, it was my own death I sought out.  In grief, death occasions the pain.  In depression, death is the solution to the pain.   

I read deeply, if fitfully, after Richard died. Such consolation was never possible for me during the times I was depressed.  When depressed, I could not concentrate well enough to read; little made sense to me and the written word left me cold.  When depressed, nothing could open my heart or give me courage.  I was too dulled, too incapable of receiving life; I was dead in all but pulse....Grief on the other hand, rendered me able to take solace from those who had written so well about loss and suffering. 

I found her thoughts about grief helpful - that to be human will mean, eventually and inevitably, that one will face the death of a loved one and will need to grieve.  It is unavoidable.  It is a part of living.  It is a part of one's journey.  And to grieve is absolutely necessary if one is to reconcile with death and find a "way back to life."

Her descriptions about depression are haunting.  They remind me of William Styron's thoughts in his powerful memoir, Darkness Visible.  Did Josh feel this?  If so, why and how did he hide this from us and his psychologist?

For those diagnosed with clinical depression, I have more empathy.  For those teens in our high schools who suffer from undiagnosed depression, it is imperative that they are educated enough to seek help.  This is our foundation's mission.  We must succeed so other lives may be saved.

RIP Josh

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.

Original Poem: "Work of the Living"

On a recent business trip to Norfolk, VA, I wandered into a local bookstore and found an anthology of poems edited by Harold Bloom called Till I End My Song: A Gathering of Last Poems.

These last phrases are taken from a particularly poignant poem by A. R. Ammons called "In View of the Fact."

...until we die we will remember every
single thing, recall every word, love every 

loss: then we will, as we must, leave it to
others to love, love that can grow brighter 

and deeper till the very end, gaining strength
and getting more precious all the way....

In the margins I wrote, "work of the living" which then brought my mind back to the work we had to do after the awful discovery. 

Work of the Living

by Sue Anderson

When the dead die,

     their job is done.

Not so with the living

    whose labor has just begun.

Unfair, unsolicited work

    is thrust on the living,

While the dead rest:

    calm, at peace, in a sleep-like state.

Not so for us:

    people to call,

    explanations to make,

    family to greet,

    friends to hug.

The house swells with those

    coming to do their job:

    Remember the dead.

To do lists:

    funeral to arrange,

    service to organize,

    casket to choose,

    burial ground to pick,

    pictures to sort,

    final clothes to gather.

While the dead rest

    and wait for their final hurrah,

    calm, oblivious to all.

Not to mention the tears,

    floodgates open.

Who knew the volume of brine

    that could come from within?

Grief

    she is a relentless taskmaster;

    non-existent in the past,

    omnipresent now.

Do the dead know

    what work has been place on their loved ones?

If they knew, would they have:

    jumped,

    shot,

    swallowed,

    sliced or

    hung?

Over time; however, 

    the work does lessen.

The load seems lighter,

    the burden status quo.

The job now is to light the candle

    of eternal remembrance,

Letting it shine in the world's dark spaces,

    to prevent other such deaths.

It is our job now,

    24/7.

NEVER FORGET

"He Who Learns Must Suffer" (Aeschylus)

In a recent journal entry, I wrote, "I feel as though I am shriveling up inside."  This doesn't sound very healthy and to be honest, surprised me so I continued writing....

I feel like I am slowly shriveling up inside - or better said, contracting within myself - bringing the world around me into a close circle: my home, my family, my work and that's about it.  My "people world" is very small and only by necessity.  Truthfully, I find being with people and making conversation, exhausting.     

But my internal world has expanded for I have gone back in time, all the way to the ancient Greek and Roman writers, and to Shakespeare in the Elizabethan time and have found a newly discovered genre, tragedy, from which to garner meaning around our own tragic experience. 

In my journal, I did reflect that Tim has continued seeking and expanding his external world which is fine - just another way that we have handled our grief differently.

So my physical world has contracted but my mental world has expanded, via my reading.  For in the past few months I have read the following works:

• The Iliad and The Odyssey of Homer
• The Aeneid by Virgil
• All seven extant plays by Greek tragedian, Sophocles
• The first play, Agamemnon, in the Oresteia trilogy by Aeschylus
• The Greek Way by Edith Hamilton
• Seven major tragedies of Shakespeare

To supplement my reading, I have checked out from my local library and listened to several audio courses from The Teaching Company; my favorites being on The Iliad, The Odyssey and The Aeneid  by Professor Elizabeth Vandiver.

What is it about these ancient works that have spoken to me, touched my heart and have provided inspiration, guidance and just plain "food for thought"?  I think it is summed up in the following quote:

God, whose law it is that he who learns must suffer.  And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despite, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.   

(Aeschylus in Agamemnon, quoted by Edith Hamilton in The Greek Way).

The works of the four greatest tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and Shakespeare) have explored the depths of human pain and suffering and the resulting dignity, resiliency and fortitude of the human spirit.  Lessons abound in these works.  And Aristotle is right - a catharsis does occur when reading or viewing tragedy, which is a difficult paradox to explain.  How is it that I feel purged, cleansed or more connected to my own deep feelings when I see or read about the suffering of others?

I googled the beginning of the above quote and found a talk given by Herbert Golder to The Alpha Omega Counsel in January 2010 called The Greek Invention of the Human.   Of special interest was the part where he talks about how Jackie Kennedy gave her brother-in-law, Bobby, a copy of The Greek Way, saying it was one of JFK's favorite books.  Bobby had been devastated by his brother's assassination and was unable to find solace anywhere.  This book helped so much that he took it everywhere, memorizing the quote from Agamemnon.   Just what did Kennedy find in the Greeks?  The same thing I did.

A civilization eager to look death in the face, but one that seemed to draw strength from what it found there.  The more the ancient Greeks pondered the transience and fragility and pain of human life, the more convinced they became of its dignity and its significance...So what Kennedy found in the Greeks was an ethos that embraced the tragic complexity of life and didn't back away from it, that wasn't afraid of it, embraced it, but drew strength from it and not defeat....Freedom to choose - the courage, the manner, and the dignity with which one confronts that fate; to turn death, to which we are all bound, into destiny. 

I wrote these quotes from Golder's talk in my journal because they express the relevance of the ancient works to our times, for despite how different my life is to those who lived in the 5th century BC or in Shakespeare's time, our hearts and souls are the same.

Here is a list of posts from my reading:

Dec 12, 2011 -  Quote from Romeo and Juliet
Feb 12, 2012 - Book review: Macbeth by Shakespeare
Feb. 26, 2012 - Thoughts for grieving parents from Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet
Feb 26, 2012 - Teenage suicidal ideation in Romeo and Juliet
March 31, 2012 - Book review - The Iliad of Homer
June 5, 2012 - Death, grief and suicide in Hamlet - Part I
June 8. 2012 - Death, grief and suicide in Hamlet - Part II
June 23, 2012 - The grief of Achilles in The Iliad
July 28, 2012 - Book review - Othello by Shakespeare
July 29, 2012 - Book review - Oedipus the King by Sophocles
July 29, 2012 - Book review: The Aeneid by Virgil

RIP Josh. I am learning through my suffering but it has come at a horrible cost.  I would gladly give it all back and be my old ignorant self - to have you here.

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.

The Grief of Achilles in The Iliad

I have recently read The Iliad by Homer and was struck by Achilles' reaction upon hearing the news of his best friend's death in battle.

...the black cloud of sorrow closed on Achilles.  In both hands he caught up the grimy dust, and poured it over his head and face, and fouled his handsome countenance, and the black ashes were scattered over his immortal tunic.  And he himself, mightily in his might, in the dust lay at length, and took and tore at his hair with his hands and defiled it......Antilochos mourned with him, letting the tears fall, and held the hands of Achilles as he grieved in his proud heart, fearing Achilles might cut his throat with the iron...(Book 18: 22-34).

Many journal writing books espouse an exercise called "free-write" whereby for a certain length of time, you write whatever comes to mind.  The pen does not lift from the paper and you do not stop.  Even if it means writing the same word over and over until another thought or image flows from mind to pen to paper.  I decided to devote a couple of 15 minute sessions to this quote.  In focusing on the first sentence, this is a portion of what I wrote in my journal:

When Achilles heard about Patroklos' death, his reaction was both emotional "black cloud of sorrow" and physical.  This black cloud - not grey, not cream, not white as clouds usually are, but black, dark, ebony, rich and deep - this cloud closed on Achilles.  Enveloped him.  He was in a fog of sorrow - for that is what fog is - a cloud resting on the earth's surface which can become so thick, one cannot see.  If driving, one must pull over.  If flying, the plane is grounded.  A fog will render you senseless - cannot see, hearing is muted.  All sense of direction lost; landmarks are invisible.  The world is alienating, distorted and frightening.  In a fog I feel insecure and vulnerable like someone or something can come out to grab me.   To be in a 'black cloud of sorrow' - nothing will look or feel the same.  Everything is felt, seen, tasted, heard through the fog.  Like lens on a glass - everything will look black.  Feel black.  There is a black veil or sheath covering everything.  Living, sleeping and breathing in the black cloud of sorrow so that it is internal - no longer out of the body but within.

The next day I wrote this:

When Achilles heard about Patroklos' death and was enveloped in the black fog of grief, sorrow, pain and woe, he had a physical reaction.  An outward sign of inward pain.  He bent down and grabbed dirt, dust, Earth and poured it over his head - a self baptism - rubbing it all over his face.  Priam, King of Troy did something similar when he heard of his son Hektor's death - he took dung and smeared it on his head and neck.   Both fouled themselves saying my beloved is dead; I do not care about outward things any longer.  Why dirt? Why dung?  What would be the equivalent today?  Maybe someone who is so depressed they do not shave or shower, put on make-up, deodorant or perfume.  They wear the same thing, day after day.  Who cares what you look like or wear in the 'black cloud of sorrow'?  Achilles then drops to the ground, this mighty warrior whom no man could stand against, lays prostrate on the dirt in agony and grief.  Then, in an effort to feel real, searing, physical pain, he takes tufts of hair in his hands and yanks them out.  

Writing all this made me think of our reactions on that dreaded day.  And specifically how one of our daughters, whom Tim could not contact as she was in class - oblivious and naive to the tragedy that would change her life, listening to the lecture, taking notes and answering questions posed by the professor - when she heard the news from two best friends who were waiting outside the door, she collapsed and become almost catatonic.   Her friends somehow got her back to her room where she just sat on the bed while they packed her bag.  UVA is a good two hours away and thankfully, these two friends (angels) drove our girls home.  There is no way they could've driven themselves.

Feeling faint, knees buckling, doubling over, collapsing, sobbing, gasping, screaming, throwing up, punching walls, breaking things, or just going numb and still - all are physical reactions to the sudden news of a beloved's death.  Instantaneous and uncontrollable - each body will react differently as the mind absorbs the unthinkable and unimaginable.

I will end with this quote from The Iliad, ancient literature written centuries before Christ, of another vow from the living to the dead.   Achilles says of Patroklos:

I will never forget him, never so long as I remain among the living and my knees have their spring beneath me.  And though the dead forget the dead in the house of Hades, even there I shall still remember my beloved companion (Book 22: 387 - 390). 

I could say the same of Josh.  RIP beloved son - you are still remembered and will be as long as I have breathe in my body and even afterwards.....

3 Years and 1 Month - "The Shout" by Simon Armitage

As evidenced by previous posts this year, my reading has taken me to the surprising realm of poetry - see Jan 1 post.

I have finished reading through this special anthology (The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing) and made little notes in the list of poems within the table of contents: "wow" next to some, stars by quite a few and "I don't get it" next to others.  It seems like a good plan to share some of the "wow" poems each anniversary month.

First, another quote from the introduction that rings true:

The process of grief, I have found, can mirror that of writing: it is surprising, trying, frustrating, daunting, terrifying, comforting, chastening, challenging, and at times, heartening; grief can provide fellowship with others interested in the experience; it brings out the best in us, and at times the worst, if only because it is utterly human.  It can feel inevitable, but it is so personal, so differently pitched for each, that it can reside across a great gulf.  Yet poetry, like grief, can be the thing that bridges the gap between us, that brings us together and binds us. 

 This poem makes me wonder what Josh's friends, close and peripheral, will remember after another seventeen years.  Will they still "hear" him?

The Shout

by Simon Armitage

We went out

into the school yard together, me and the boy

whose name and face

I don't remember.  We were testing the range

of the human voice:

he had to shout for all he was worth, 

I had to raise an arm

from across the divide to signal back

that the sound had carried.

He called from over the park - I lifted an arm.

Out of bounds,

he yelled from the end of the road,

from the foot of the hill,

from beyond the look-out post of Fretwell's Farm - 

I lifted an arm.

He left town, went on to be twenty years dead

with a gunshot hole

in the roof of his mouth, in Western Australia.

Boy with the name and face I don't remember,

you can stop shouting now, I can still hear you.

"Darkness Visible" by William Styron

Another survivor memoir of an acclaimed writer - survival from himself.

This short 84 page book, published in 1990 and easily read in one night, is a poignant, powerful memoir in which Styron attempts to describe the indescribable - "the pain of severe depression is quite unimaginable to those who have not suffered it, and it kills in many instances because its anguish can no longer be borne."

Styron won the Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for his novel, The Confessions of Nat Turner.  Other well-known works include his first novel, Lie Down in Darkness (1951) and Sophie's Choice (1979).  He became clinically depressed and suicidal later in life (60's) although he admits that alcohol use probably masked the symptoms.

Styron has a beef with the word "depression" arguing that

"melancholia" would still appear to be a far more apt and evocative word for the blacker forms of the disorder, but it was usurped by a noun with a bland tonality and lacking any magisterial presence, used indifferently to describe an economic decline or a rut in the ground, a true wimp of a word for such a major illness.

Why do the blackest thoughts reside in some and not others?  He tries to answer this for himself and for the long list of other artists who succumbed to suicide, acknowledging that

bloody and bowed by the outrages of life, most human beings still stagger on down the road, unscathed by real depression.  To discover why some people plunge into the downward spiral of depression, one must search beyond the manifest crisis - and then still fail to come up with anything beyond wise conjecture.

Bottom line, who knows?

He describes the rapid descent of "anxiety, agitation, unfocused dread" and openly admits relating to Baudelair, the 19th century poet's words, I have felt the wind of the wing of madness.  He then very definitively says:

But never let it be doubted that depression, in its extreme form, is madness.  That madness results from an aberrant biochemical process.....such madness is chemically induced amid the neurotransmitters of the brain, probably as the result of systemic stress, which for unknown reasons causes a depletion of the chemicals norepinephrine and serotonin, and the increase of a hormone, cortisol.

This reminds me of Josh's psychologist's words when we spoke on the phone after his death. Somehow, that night, Josh suffered a psychotic break with reality.   I did not get it then, but Styron's words help give some framework to the comment.

As Styron's struggles intensified, he gives a vivid description of the mental pain and anguish that leads to suicidal thoughts.

It may be more accurate to say that despair owing to some evil trick played upon the sick brain by the inhabiting psyche, comes to resemble the diabolical discomfort of being imprisoned in a fiercely overheated room.  And because no breeze stirs in this cauldron, because there is no escape from this smothering confinement, it is entirely natural that the victim begins to think ceaselessly of oblivion.

He goes on to speak of the concept of loss:

It is the touchstone of depression - in the progress of the disease and, more likely, in its origin....the loss of self-esteem is a celebrated symptom...one dreads the loss of all things, all people close and dear.  There is an acute fear of abandonment....There is no doubt that as one nears the penultimate depths of depression - which is to say just before the stage when one begins to act out one's suicide instead of being a mere contemplator of it - the acute sense of loss is connected with a knowledge of life slipping away at accelerated speed.

He chronicles his own suicidal ideation and the reason why.

In depression this faith in deliverance, in ultimate restoration, is absent.  The pain is unrelenting and what makes the condition intolerable is the foreknowledge that no remedy will come - not in a day, an hour, a month, or a minute.  If there is mild relief, one knows that it is only temporary; more pain will follow.  It is hopelessness even more than pain that crushes the soul....the situation of the walking wounded.  

On the night he determined his own extinction, he "experienced a curious inner convulsion that I can describe only as despair beyond despair.  It came out of the cold night; I did not think such anguish possible."

He was so close to suicide but luckily for him, one song snapped him out of it.  He was voluntarily hospitalized the next day.  My thoughts upon reading this are, Why wasn't Josh saved?  Why wasn't he spared?  Why couldn't he have failed?  Why couldn't something have snapped him out of it?

"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.

Prose Poem - "The Dead" by Billy Collins and "Where He Lay" by Sue Anderson

Poetry and survivor memoirs are what I have been reading lately.  I've finished How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry by Edward Hirsch and Making Toast by Roger Rosenblatt.  I am currently reading The Art of Losing: Poems of Grief & Healing edited by Kevin Young.

Reading poems by fellow grievers is apropos for this month - the death anniversary month.  A jarring yet accurate description of March where the hindsight clock ticks away - for example, on this day three years ago, Josh was alive and unbeknownst to us and maybe even himself, would only be so for 7 more days.  This is where REGRET kicks in with her constant monologue of "if onlys" and "what ifs".

"If only" I had asked this or done that or said this or noticed that - maybe he would be alive.  Or "what if" we had decided to forgo the disciplinary hearing or "what if" I had woken up that night - would he be here now?  Nagging questions buzz around my head like an annoying, relentless mosquito.   Irrelevant questions for a past deed that won't let me go or I won't let go - I am not sure which.

Back to poetry.  Prose poems are most accessible to me - those which tell a story "preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery and emotional effects" (Wikipedia).  I simply wrote "wow" in the margin of this one.

The Dead
by Billy Collins 

The dead are always looking down on us, they say,

while we are putting on our shoes or making a sandwich,

they are looking down through the glass-bottom boats of heaven as they row themselves slowly through eternity. 

They watch the tops of our heads moving below on earth,

and when we lie down in a field or on a couch,

drugged perhaps by the hum of a warm afternoon,

they think we are looking back at them, 

which makes them lift their oars and fall silent

and wait, like parents, for us to close our eyes.

I've read a number of poems that speak to the funeral service and final resting place.  My subconscious must have been ruminating while asleep because when I woke up this morning, certain words and phrases were stuck, begging to be written down.

Where He Lay
Sue Anderson 

Traveling here, after an hour's hard work,

my voice breaking while telling my cycle class of your death and our fundraiser in one week's time, so that other kids do not die like you did. 

So much work on the Beltway; controlled confusion,

but as long as everyone stays in their skinny lanes, all OK. 

Where is everyone going?

This bright, blue Saturday morning? 

To places not like me. 

Driving down Braddock road,

the budding bare trees wave hello and ask,

"Going on your weekly visit, mom?"

Behind cars with Robinson Honor Roll and Virginia Tech and I Love My Dog stickers.

Where are they going? 

This bright, blue, crisp Saturday morning?

To places not like me.  

I pull up and the park is bare,

because twice yearly, they clear out all flowers, old and new. I guess if they didn't some would stay for years, and get ratty, detracting from the serene beauty.  

A red tent is set up in the distance with chairs.

So I know that someone has recently died 

and if that person was loved,

like Josh, fresh grief is consuming others somewhere. 

Where he lay, entombed in Mother Earth's womb forever,

where luckily there is no claustrophobia,

because the dead are unaware.  

Surrounded by fellow dead 

like poor 2-year old Amber,

who died the year Josh was born,

so it has been 20 years now and her grave shows it. 

No one comes to visit her,

so Mother Earth has not only enclosed her body,

but is consuming her marker. 

"That will never be Josh" my today voice says

but who knows where I will be in 20 years?  

Where he lay, frozen in time, 

by a fatal deed done in the early morning of 3-18-09,

while the house was quiet and I was sleeping,

a virgin, innocent, naive sleep. 

Where he lay, in a silken pincushion,

but where is the soul?  Gone? Still here? Hovering?

Is there a welcome party for other tragic losses

like a "Hospitality Club" for the dead? 

Help for the displaced soul to acclimate to new digs?

And once the dust settles, does Josh glide over

(for how do souls move?) and befriends? 

I envision him with a posse of other youngsters,

tragically pulled from this life to his,

by accident, illness, violence including his - by self.

Chilling, hanging out like kids do.   

But wistful...wishing....longing.....

to be ALIVE....to be BACK....to be HERE;

dealing with all the crap that our youth have to deal with,

but knowing that as long as one is alive,

there is hope for a better moment, hour, day, week, 

month, year or future.  Experiences, growth, change, maturity, love, life. 

Because he now knows that when you're dead, all that is gone.  Poof.  Done.  Over.  Kapputz.  Gonzo.  Sayonara.  Adios.  Au revoir.  C'est fini.

A Sinkhole

On the airplane today, while traveling back from Charlotte on a work-related trip, I was innocently reading an article in the December issue of Redbook magazine.  Next thing I knew, my eyes were filled with tears which I was trying to discreetly wipe away.  Good thing the seat next to me was empty.

What could possibly have hit me so hard?  Reminded me of my loss and rekindled the grief that lies dormant below the surface, but is so easily awakened?

I have a name for when this happens.  In a previous post I call it a "grief mine."  In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion calls it the "vortex effect".  In Joyce Carol Oates' book, A Widow's Story, she calls it a "sinkhole."  In fact, I will quote the passage:

The widow must learn: beware sinkholes!  The terror of the sinkhole isn't that it exists.  You understand, sinkholes must exit.  The terror of the sinkhole is that you fail to see it, each time you fail to see it, you don't realize you have blundered into the sinkhole until it's too late and you are being pulled down, down...

The guilty article?  A Daughter Lost And Found.  The blurb that made me want to read it?  When Julie Mannix refused to get an abortion, her parents had her locked up in a mental hospital.  This is the story of the child she fought to save - and how they made their way back to each other."

Beautiful nineteen-year old Julie, a Philadephia debutante, gave birth to a healthy daughter, whom she named Aimee Veronica on April 19, 1964.  Unmarried, unsupported and unable to care for a child, she felt there was no choice but to sign adoptions papers after which  "my heart ripped apart.  I put down the pen, turned away and, on shaky legs, I left my baby behind."

After the birth, she was reunited with the baby's father and after marrying him, was disinherited by her family.  These are the words that got to me:

I thought of Aimee constantly in the decades that followed.  My longing for her triggered a series of deep depressions, which would come on quickly and linger for weeks; the passing years never softened them....Every year on April 19th, Frank and I celebrated Aimee's birthday, the date of which we had engraved on the inside of our wedding rings. 

This is a mother who longed for her lost child but because the adoption records were sealed, had no hope of finding her.  "There was nothing to do but pray that she was with a good family and growing up loved."  She did not stop thinking of Aimee - even after having two other children and even after the passing of decades.  And what really got to me was that at the time of her wedding, this young, childless mother wanted to have Aimee's birthdate etched in their wedding rings, despite having seen her precious newborn only once, and that from five feet away.  She never got to hold her, nurse her, sing lullabies and gently rock her to sleep.

I understand this mother.  I understand her grief, pain and guilt over losing a child.  I believe it when she says that time, contrary to popular belief, does not heal, remove or soften these feelings.  And that she thought of this child not just for days, weeks, months or years, but for decades.

This is an example of a mother's love and the depths of the attachment to her children.  Of the bond that exists in her heart long after the physical cord has been cut.  It is a relationship like no other and only a fellow mother can understand it.

It reminds me of the sacred, unbreakable bonds to my own children.  The ones for my three surviving children that give me great joy.  And the one to my lost child, my beloved Josh, whom I will never see again, that produces such sorrow and pain, it is literally indescribable.

In reading this article today, I unwittingly fell into a sinkhole, stepped on a grief mine and was swept up in a vortex.