Tuesday, March 22, 2011

I'd Tell You But You're Dead

I think one of the hardest phenomenon to get over when you lose someone, whether it's a break-up or a death, is that you are so used to talking to them, telling them things, sharing things with them that you think they would like to know or like to hear about.

Monday I called my mom, who isn't going back to work until next week, just to see what she was up to, as she wasn't at home when I woke up. She said that she had went to the bank to cash in the last of my grandparents' savings bonds and she felt....kinda lost, I guess, though that's not what she said, because usually she would call my uncle and tell him about how much money it came out to be (as the money was supposed to be evenly divided), etc. But now there's no one to call.

One of the blogs I follow, Racialicious posted about this independent black film that is getting a good deal of GREAT early press, called I Will Follow. The post had embedded a trailer, but, as I tend to read blog posts through google reader, either on my phone or on computers with VERY slow internet connections or while watching something else on television, so I usually have to go back at a later date to watch videos and it took me awhile to get to this trailer. But it made me want to see the movie even more, even though I think I'll have to bring a box of tissues. From both the trailer and the website's description, it's the day in the life of a woman who has just lost her aunt, who she was very close to, and the twelve people that day who help her find her way amid the mourning and grief. In the little blurb on his front page, Roger Ebert writes: " "I Will Follow" doesn't tell a story so much as try to understand a woman. Through her, we can find insights into the ways we deal with death. In one way or another, every emotion in this wonderful independent film is one I've experienced myself. Grief, of course. But also anger, loneliness, confusion and a sense of lost direction. Above all, urgent conversations you have in your own mind with someone who is no longer alive. How many people, now dead, have you wanted to ask questions you should have asked when they were alive?"

Which is funny, in a weird, sad way, because the first thing I wanted to do once I watched the trailer was to call or text Ms. Kee and tell her about it, because I know she would love this movie, because I know it would speak to her in so many ways, just as it speaks to me, but even more than that because it is directly rooted in the black community and how black families deal with loss. But I can't tell call or text her. Because she's dead.

Then I wanted to call my uncle to talk about how hard it is to want to share something that someone else would love so much, how hard it is to want to share something with someone you were so close to in so many ways. But I can't call him either. Because he's dead too.

Though I haven't seen the movie, I feel much like its main character must feel.

I miss you all so much. So so so much.

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

He's Gone

It's been almost two weeks and I still don't really know how to write about his passing or my own grief. I wrote something for his funeral but it was more a comedic tribute to the man I grew up with than anything that dealt with how I feel about him or about losing him. I'm writing this in the bright light of day because I lose all comprehension at night when I even think about writing. I think I'd end up with a stream-of-consciousness piece that maybe even I couldn't understand. But during the day, though I'll still cry (am crying), I know I'll push through it to do something, anything. I have an easier time convincing myself that the crying jag, brought on by some little thought connected by 100 degrees of separation from my uncle, will end. As everythig does.

I think I don't want to write because I don't want to feel what I know I do feel and I don't want to know those things that I'm avoiding feeling so hard that I can't even touch them or name them. You know, I've always thought that those pain questionaires that doctors and nurses ask you about were so arbitrary as to be useless. "Is the pain stabby or shooting? Aching or cramping?" I don't know, motherfucker. It just fucking hurts! Are you feeling sad? Lonely? Bitter? Angry? Guilty? Confused? Useless? Lost? Afraid? YES and then tons of other things that I don't even know the words for.

And what feels like it's equally as bad as all the expected grief is that I just want to move on. I just want everything to finally be like a normal life for just a little bit. I want to be done with estates and storage units. I want to just get a stupid, pain in the ass job, working 40 hours a week like a good little American zombie, at least for a little while. Not have to think. Just be pushed along with the flow of things. Set up a 2 year plan for getting out of debt and out of town, before my parents' health fails and I'm back in this same spot again. Use most dollars from my zombie job to do this. But I just want things to be normal. For the first time in my whole goddamn life, I want things to be normal. I want to be normal. I want to have not spent the last four years losing so much of what I love, watching them slowly die. I don't want to be wiser, deeper, more experienced. I want to go back to the day before my uncle was diagnosed with cancer and live a life where that never happens. Which leads to a great deal of guilt, of course. I mean, what a selfish little bitch, right?

But narcistic, exhibitionistic writers are still who they are and I still had to write something when a major life event occurs. Thanks for bearing with me.