It’s a new year. 2021. A relaxing morning. 3:25pm brings a surprise phone call. I thought it would be to wish me a Happy New Year. It wasn’t. It was my friend calling to tell me her daughter, also my friend, is dying. I’ve told her I’m sorry, but that feels… less impactful than I wish it could be. I want to hold her in my arms so we can cry together, but instead I just kneel on a kitchen floor across the country and feel tears pour down my cheeks onto my knees. It makes me think through their story… a story that isn’t mine but feels so close. It makes me think about so many things…
Death.
Death seems close lately. My grandmother. My partner’s nephew. A beloved pet. My friend. Honestly, death causes me less pain than most end-of-life suffering. Our failed attempts to ease the pain of those we love. Sometimes they can see our efforts and appreciate them; sometimes they can’t. Sometimes we do the right things; sometimes we don’t. When pain is too much to bear, we offer euthanasia for our furry friends because “they shouldn’t suffer”, yet we have no such offering or choice for our suffering human loved ones. We have Hospice, who helps with the passing of life when we know its end is near. They are a help and a comfort, but they are only available after much suffering has already taken place. Speaking for those who have passed is painful, yet cathartic. American funerals feel shallow and unsatisfying, but taking time to celebrate life with loved ones, a custom adjusted from other cultures, seems like an acceptable compromise. And yet even that comes with family politics and haunted perspectives of interactions with that life. Every time it makes me wish for a true Speaker for the Dead. I wish it could be me, and yet, I want to focus my energy elsewhere, I find. Only when death is close do I find the need to tell the stories of others in this way. I am biased though, and suspect I would struggle to tell the whole truth.
Life.
Some say that life begins innocently, but I disagree. Humans, I suspect, can feel the anxiety and fear and pain of their family even from the time we are in our mother’s womb. When we come out, the only difference in our existence is a new way of breathing. If we considered the beginning of life this way, we would be less surprised at the personalities our children bear so early on in their development. When your home is complex – when those you grow up around struggle – you too find yourself in a place of struggle which had nothing to do with you but swallowed you all the same. But you are innocent in that struggle, not knowing really why it came. Sometimes that results in growing up believing you were the cause of it. Sometimes it simply results in fear. But whatever the result, life rarely, if ever, begins innocently.
Prison.
Sometimes life is a prison. It traps us and tells us we are only the sum of our faults. We seek solace from this lie. Sometimes in drugs, sometimes anger, sometimes depression, sometimes hiding. We find there are few we can trust. The only real freedom is friendship. And if the less metaphorical prison awaits us at any juncture, it tends to fail us, and fault us, and put more obstacles in our way instead of providing a helping hand.
Dependency.
We become dependent. Sometimes on substance, sometimes on abusers, sometimes on isolation, sometimes an obsession. What brings us out of this entanglement? Especially when the ties are with loved ones, the people we had hoped were there to help us? A fighting spirit maybe. Sometimes mapped with incredible intelligence. Sometimes a strong wit. Often a loving heart. If here we don’t falter too much, we might be able to stumble home.
Home.
But what is a home when previous homes have failed or hurt you? It is a place that resets your expectations. Where there has been hurt, there now is comfort. Where there has been deception, you find yourself faced with honesty. Where there has been blame, now exists exoneration. At its best, it allows for motherhood to take form again and provide a fresh start. A possibility to break the cycle and provide stability. A foundation for success. A place where a human can grow in love and safety.
We find ourselves lucky, I think, when that home is our final place of resting. People might be concerned that we would be satisfied, and yet for us, we’re thankful just to have made it to such a place.
This writing is meant for my own comfort. Knowing that, I hope still that you can find something of your own in it. Here is a life I have cared about and has brought meaning to my own that is ending its story for now, and whose next story I won’t know in the same way, if it touches me at all. But maybe this chapter can end knowing it was loved.
Exploring Systems 