Secrets, mysteries, embarrassing crap

The first time I lost Jesse was when I left his dad. I don't think Jesse ever really forgave me for that, even when he found out why I left. I don't mean that there was any secret, just that his dad finally started treating Jesse the way he'd treated me. I didn't know what was wrong with his father. I just knew I couldn't tolerate it any more. Nothing I said or did changed anything. I never knew, when I came home back then, who would be there: was it the nice Jaimie, the loving one? Or the jealous, angry, irrational one who believed that the only reason offices existed was so people could cheat. Who would berate me for not getting a full time job when he refused to work, then berated me for being gone at work when I should be home with the kids. Of course he still wasn't working. I could go on with the litany. Throwing a chair at me. Throwing newspapers, whatever was handy. Shaking me so hard my contacts flew out and bruises in the shape of his fingertips formed on my arms. If I showed them to him, he'd laugh and say I bruised too easy.

And yet, when I decided to leave, I didn't believe he'd use the boys against me.

Years later, when he was 18 and his father had disowned him for no real cause, Jesse told me I should have sucked it up and stayed, because I was a mother and that was my job. I wonder if he ever realized what he was saying. I tried to explain. I tried to apologize for all the stupid things I did wrong when I was trying to escape with him and his brother, and failed. Failed him. But all he wanted was for me to say I was wrong to leave his dad, and I could never say that. I told him so. I wish that had been enough for both of us. A beginning of forgiveness. All I've wished for since is his forgiveness. Can the dead forgive?

Cherished threads

I've got some of the conversations sorted out, between Jesse and various friends. I know, it's not really right to peer into his relationships this way. But it comforts me, and while I apologize to any of you who texted him in the last six months of his life, I want you to know that you make me love him and see him better through your exchanges. I won't post the convos, but just want to say that I feel I know each of you better, too, and that if ever you need it, I'm here to talk or just shoot the breeze. You know where he lived, you can find me there any time. It would give me a lot of comfort to meet each of you, to know how your lives are going, your stories about Jesse, or just to hear the voices of the people who loved him. I feel that Jesse has given each of you a terrible and important gift, in the process of his life and death. I hope you each learn how to bear it, and learn from it, and I hope you all lean on each other when you need to, as you navigate your lives. And if there is anything I can do to make the burden a little easier, the grace more apparent, please. You'd be helping me, too.

Archiving

Lately I've been moving Jesse's text messages off his old phone and onto my email. I try to keep the received and sent ones in order, so I can see the conversation form as I forward each line of dialog. It feels very intimate and distant at the same time, like archeology, maybe. As if I can almost see him passing by the places where he no longer is.

PTSD

Yesterday, I read an article in the Science Times by Hariet Brown, about her daughters' brushes with severe, life-threatening illnesses. It wasn't a terrible article, but the second line nearly drove me to distraction: "But there is another [sorrow] that approaches [that of losin g a child], and that, paradoxically, is grief averted — the grief of the narrow escape when a child comes close to death but survives." The rest of the article goes on to describe her experience and that of other parents who've had strong emotional reactions after their children were desperately ill-- even though the children had all recovered.

At first I felt pity for Ms. Brown because I know it's terribly painful to go through such a traumatic experience, I understand it, I was there with my son’s first round of leukemia. I think it’s important to light this landscape of parental suffering so that others who experience it can realize they are not alone.

I don't like the emotional math: no one can say x is equivalent to y type of suffering, you can't be precise about what each of us feel. And I shouldn't apply it here, myself. But this is exactly what Brown is doing in saying that grief about near-death approaches the grief of losing a child forever. Are you kidding me? You who have faced near-loss wake up every morning and see your child alive. Mine dies again every morning, when I wake up and he is gone. I don't doubt that there are many people all over the world who suffer more than I do, who have been through more, seen worse, lost more: but I'm not the one saying my grief approaches theirs. I wouldn't dare.

I struggled for the last 24 hours over how to cope with Ms. Brown’s article. Should I graciously say nothing, or respond for my own sake, out of my own pain? Which choice would help me put away the anxiety and anger I felt? What would my son have done? I want to embrace Ms. Brown’s suffering as others have mine. But Dear God! I would do anything on earth to be in her shoes rather than mine. Just for a day, an hour. Five minutes. I hope Ms. Brown and her friends who have been through near-loss of their children seek help for their emotional pain. But I can’t imagine that belittling mine could help her in the least, and it has affected me more deeply than I imagined it might.

What it takes.

If you can't fly, run. If you can't run, walk. If you can't walk, crawl, but by all means, keep moving forward.

-MLK


Life is totally about losing everything.
--Michael Tyson