“It’s just one story”

28 Apr 2014 13 Comments

by Denise in Addiction, Death, Death of a Child, Faith, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

(Spoiler Alert: In case anyone’s watching or planning to watch “True Detective,” I’m writing about the final scene.)

I’ve watched “True Detective” three times. When I finished the post before my last (“Hand to God”), I was up to my second viewing of the final episode. I knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t remember the all of it. And what struck me was the final conversation between Rust and Marty, because this is what I’d written in that post:

“So on the one hand, I say I need the dark to understand death. On the other, I say it’s light that leads to transcendence. Do I even know what the hell I believe?”

I’ve mentioned “True Detective” several times now; if you haven’t been reading along, Rust and Marty are two detectives trying to solve a macabre murder. Rust is the dark one. The fact that his two-year-old daughter was hit by a car and died is a huge part of what drives him.

The final scene in “True Detective” takes place at night, outside the hospital where Rust and Marty had been taken after being attacked by the suspect they’d been pursuing. Marty was already released, Rust was in a wheelchair. He’d sustained more serious injuries, was in a coma for a while. As Marty pushes Rust in the wheelchair, Rust talks about what we’d call a near-death experience, but not quite like the ones most of us heard about, the ones with the white light. He says he went somewhere dark, and in the deeper-dark he knew his daughter was there; he could feel her love. In that place, he said, there was nothing but that love. And even if you haven’t watched any of “True Detective,” if you’ve read the bit I wrote about it or watched any of the scenes I linked to, you’ll know Rust is not a sentimental guy. Hell, in eight episodes his one and only smile was a smug one.

Rust says that he wanted to stay in that love, and so he let go. That’s quite the opposite of near-death experiences I’ve read about, where people say they didn’t want to “come back,” but they knew they had to. Rust had no such dilemma. He let go, but he woke up. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he cried.

So Rust is crying in his wheelchair, and Marty looks up at the sky, at all the stars. Marty reminds Rust that Rust once told him that when he lived in Alaska, he used to look at the stars and make up stories. Tell me a story, Marty says.

“…I was thinkin’. It’s just one story. The oldest,” Rust answers.

“What’s that?”

“Light vs. dark.”

Marty looks up at the sky again. “Well, I know we ain’t in Alaska, but it appears to me that the dark has a lot more territory.”

“Yeah. You’re right about that.”

But then a minute later, this is what Rust says, the last lines of the show:

“You’re lookin’ at it wrong. The sky thing…Once there was only dark. If you ask me, the light’s winning.”

Light and dark – there it is. Rust found something in that deep-dark that allowed him some light. It was Love. Because if Love is real, is tangible, there’s a reason to live. I don’t consider that a ride-off-into-the-sunset moment. It was a transcendent moment, which is no guarantee of what any next moment will be. But each moment like that is a star twinkling in the blueblack night. If you’ve ever looked deeply into a sky lit with stars, you know the beauty that comes from the interplay of dark and light.

Years ago, when I first joined AA, I met Maria. We shared the same sponsor and vied for her attention like two children. It was part of the friction between us, but I had no friends except the ones I was making in AA. I needed her.  Maria was short and dense with a long, serious face, wildly curly black hair and eyes that warned you away, like there was something inside she was keeping watch on. I used to think she was mean. But maybe she was watching the hurt that she’d been trying to drink away, maybe she was protecting that hurt because if your pain runs your life, what are you without it? And if that pain’s lived holding hands with alcohol, what kind of monster does it turn into without it?

One day Maria told me she’d seen God. What do you mean, I asked – you saw Him, like He was a person? Yes, she said, I saw Him. He’d come to her in a vision of robes and glory. I didn’t know if I believed her. I imagined such a thing was possible, but talking about it made it sound loopy. I wanted to ask Maria, “Then what could ever be wrong for you? If you saw God, if you knew He existed, what could your sorrows be?”

I didn’t ask because I didn’t want her to think I doubted her. Truth is I was envious. Why’d God visit her and not me? I’d stopped drinking and was trying to “turn my will and life over to the care of God” like everyone around me. It wasn’t working. But if I had a vision, I would finally be once-and-forever all right because I’d know something I hadn’t known before. If God revealed Himself to me I could believe there was something beyond this deeply disturbing world. But where was He, and why should I want to live in a world that even He refused to inhabit?

There isn’t – for most of us – a single epiphany that causes a big enough shift that world settles down forever. That we settle down forever, because the world is the world and it isn’t going to change. If you want to change the world, change your mind about the world. That’s the way to peace. I’ve had moments of transcendence, and never more so than since Philip died – not the least of it being the way he communicates with me. Two years of it and I’m still sometimes shocked. Philip’s wise in ways I didn’t have access to when he was alive. To be this close with him in death is pure grace. But what do I do with it? I know these daily signs are nudges from him telling me to wake up to life. He told me a long time ago that signs are pointers to the truth. At some point they’re not necessary. But he knows I’m too hurt and shaky to do without for now.

Never have I felt as loved as I do since Philip died. A broken heart means I’m as vulnerable to love as to grief. But my dark still has a lot more territory. I know that sometimes life’s irredeemable, sometimes people die sad and broken. So I have to ask myself what do I make of I’ve been given and what’s been taken? Will I die treating my life like a tragedy?

© 2014 Denise Smyth

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24 Apr 2014 33 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sunday was my birthday. Third one since Philip died. And maybe the most difficult.

My birthday is April 20th – three months to the day of Philip’s (1/20), and two months after he died. I quit my job when it happened. No way I could work. But a couple months later I decided to work one day a week for my friend Cindy at her law firm, which I could do only because to be around Cindy is to be around peace. If you tell me there’s no such thing as angels in this world, it’s because you haven’t met her.

The day I started work happened to be my birthday. I took a window seat on the bus to Manhattan so I could look out the window and cry. Those were the days when I could not comprehend or accept this world that acted like it always did, as if Philip hadn’t died. That world couldn’t see me, had nothing to do with me. All I could do was watch and weep.

When I got to work, there was a cake and a dozen chubby red roses on my desk. At noon, Cindy announced she was taking me to lunch. And at some point during lunch when she started glancing at her watch and looking for the waiter, I figured we had to get back because she had important lawyer-stuff to do. Instead she got the check and said we had to hurry because she had to get me somewhere by 1:00. She’d booked an afternoon at a salon for me – mani-pedi, hair wash and blow, facial, makeup. And when the manicurist sat me down I said, “Listen. I’m not going to be able to sit here without crying and I thought I should tell you.” When I told her Philip died she burst out crying and told me that her son had died. None of that was planned, but it certainly made it easier.

And if all that wasn’t enough, Cindy paid me.

I wrote about last year’s birthday here. I spent the day with Natalie – it was a quiet day, and we were together, just the two of us.

This year my birthday was on Easter. My mom celebrates Easter Saturday, the day you break the fast from Lent. “I’m getting a cake for you,” she told me. “We’ll sing Happy Birthday.”

No fucking way. I do not want to sit with my aunts and uncles and cousins and have them sing Happy Birthday to me. “But we have to sing, Denise. Everybody’s going to want to.” Then it hit me that the attention I was trying to avoid was going to turn into an attention I wanted even less. If they sing, it’ll be over. If they don’t, there’ll be whispers and worries. There was a time I wanted that attention – any and all, I’d take. Because you had to know about Philip. That was – that is – the essential fact of my life.

Someone I know wrote me a letter and said he knew I didn’t want to be known as “the woman who lost a son.” But I am a woman who lost her son. That is the first, most thing you need to know about me. And if in ten years or twenty years or six months or tomorrow that changes, then it changes. But right now, whatever else you know about me, you have to know my son died.

My family sang and it wasn’t so bad. But next day, my birthday, I woke up in a rage. It’s my goddamn birthday. I was supposed to go to Cindy’s, but I couldn’t go out. Natalie went out with Phil, and I laid on my couch and spent the day watching “True Detective” for the third time. I got up to eat, to pee, to walk the dogs. I got up to brush my teeth, but I could still taste the bitterness.

I know the other side to grief is love. And I do love Natalie. But still grief overwhelms, seduces, feels hard and familiar. It’s my Dark Passenger. And as Toni at Wasted Times wrote, “It doesn’t seem right to celebrate what they have lost.”

© 2014 Denise Smyth

“Hand to God”

12 Apr 2014 17 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Faith, Motherhood Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A couple Sundays ago Kirsten took me to see a play, “Hand to God.” It was set mostly in a church rec room, and had five characters. Seven if you count the puppets. Three were teenagers – Jason, Jessica and Timothy, – one was the pastor of the church, the other was Margery, Jason’s newly-widowed mom, who was supposed to be teaching the kids puppetry. Jason was there because Mom insisted, Timothy was there while his Mom went to twelve step meetings, and Jessica was there because, well, she was “more into Balinese shadow puppetry,” but she’ll take what she can get.

But the real star of the show was Tyrone, Jason’s evil demon hand puppet. Jason steadily loses control over him – Tyrone even shows up in Jason’s bed after he takes him off one night. “He’s making me do bad things,” Jason tells Margery. Jason is a shy, troubled kid, and Tyrone becomes his mouthpiece. If Jason’s thinking it, Tyrone’s saying it. And if you’re thinking anything with a puppet or two is silly, it’s not so funny when Tyrone bites a bloody chunk of Timothy’s ear off. Or when, in desperation to be rid of him, Jason starts hacking Tyrone – in other words, his hand – with a hammer, and accidentally smashes his mother’s while he’s at it.

To paraphrase Tyrone – “self-hatred’s a bitch.”

Anger and lust drive the play. The pastor wants to sleep with Margery, who rebuffs him. Timothy also wants to sleep with Margery, who doesn’t rebuff him. Jason is smitten with Jessica, and Tyrone lets her know in his vulgar way. And before the show is over, Jessica’s puppet will have dirty puppet sex with Tyrone.

Two weeks later I’m still thinking about that play. That’s what happens with art, when you see yourself in it. Jason’s overwhelmed by his rage at Margery for being a shitty wife and mother. I’ve lived overwhelmed by rage, and my version of hammer-smashing my hand was drinking, vomiting and refusing to take care of myself, some of which I talked about here and here.

 There’s so many levels of disturbing in “Hand to God” that it’s hard to parse – not the least being the tragic hilarity of it all. Everyone – with the possible exception of Jessica – was unhappy and none of them knew what to do about it. And when the play was over, there wasn’t any resolution. Margery and Jason can bond over their mutually bloodied hands, but that won’t fix the history between them. And in spite of his viciousness, I felt like I lost something when Tryone was killed off before the end of the play, when there was nothing but the “real” characters left. But after the lights went out and the players disappeared, a spotlight shone above the stage, and there was Tyrone. Miss me? he asked; C’mon. You know you did.

What’s up with that? I couldn’t be the only one glad to see him. Tyrone the Terrorist was seductive and exciting. He was the best thing in a play filled with terrific. But I want to know why. I want to know why I’m so drawn to the dark side. “I don’t think I liked the play so much,” Kirsten said. “I really didn’t like what Jason did to his hand.” It bothered her – she has a limit to how far down she’ll go. Where’s my limit? What am I looking for in that dark? I believe that’s where I’ll find something real. Something raw and primal and so far down I can scream until I exhaust myself numb.

“You have to learn to like the light,” Philip tells me. He doesn’t say “love” – that’s too much right now. I’m drawn to gray days, to rain and thunder, to storms which don’t happen often enough. Melanie told me there’s a word for that – pluviophile. Lover of rain. I don’t think there’s anything to learn from lightness. I’ve been watching a lot of TV series, a lot of movies, and it’s making the way I experience life clearer. Entertainment is either a black or light image to me. When I hear “chick flick,” I think Waste of Time. When I hear drama, I’m seduced. I want the treachery – give me “Pulp Fiction,” “American History X,” “True Detective,” “Requiem For A Dream.” Let something besides my own morbid thoughts bring me to that darkness because if I see it outside of me I won’t be so alone with it – and maybe somewhere in that depravity I can figure out how to live with grief and death.

In “True Detective,” Rust says that with humans, “nature made a tragic misstep in evolution.” I thought about why someone would say that. And what I thought was how hard it is to be here, even if you get through without a major tragedy. First off, we live knowing we’re going to die, and since we don’t know what happens when we do, it’s terrifying. And it’s not only our own death we have to deal with. People we love will die, which can be a worse thing to suffer than any nightmare we might have had about dying ourselves. Then there’s the fact that we need each other, yet it’s so hard to get along. Especially when we’re wanting to be right more than we’re wanting to be loved. The world’s like a big refracting mirror. Our personal arguments are reflected in larger social arguments, which are reflected in even larger political arguments, which often culminate in the most massive, monstrous argument of all – war. If we take a look at what’s going on around us, it’s clear that as a species, we’re insane.

We deal with our tragedies in the context of the way we live, which means crisis brings out the past. So when Rust says we are mistakes of nature, that’s what his life has brought him to. What do I bring to my suffering? Philip’s death is my Sisyphus. The shock of it hurled me back to some personal, primitive beginning that I thought was long gone. But that’s the thing – life isn’t linear. It’s now, it’s all happening now. I brought the grief of a lifetime to Philip’s death. I’m torn and twisted and it’s hard to untangle the grief from the drama. When Philip said, “Don’t make my death into something it isn’t,” he meant don’t bring the past into this. And much as I’m talking about the void I’m attracted to, Philip’s in a light so profound I can only pray to have a glimpse of it. That’s the light that burns the past out of us, the light that leads to the Divine. And burning “the past out of us” has nothing to do with forgetting. I’m talking about a psychic past where we react based on the self we’ve created and so stay stuck in our stories. To burn the past out is to bring a freshness and wonder to whatever is now, including death and grief. And that doesn’t mean happy – it means clarity.

So on the one hand, I say I need the dark to understand death. On the other, I say it’s light that leads to transcendence. Do I even know what the hell I believe?

There’s so much I don’t understand. There are people who, after their child has died, reach a point where they find life more precious than ever. Is it because they loved life before, and so now appreciate its brevity the more? When I was a kid, I loved music. My parents gave me a transistor radio in a brown leather case that went wherever I did. When my mom would get mad at me, she’d take my radio away. She took a piece of me with it. “Didn’t you want music even more, when your radio was gone?” my therapist asked. So loss of something makes you want it more. But how’s that supposed to translate? Philip’s death has made me want his life more, not mine.

More, next…

© 2014 Denise Smyth

One Year

08 Apr 2014 23 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Writing Tags: , , , , , , ,

March 31st was my one year blogging anniversary. I wanted to write something then, but I didn’t know what. And I’m mostly writing this because I’ve been working – grappling? – with the post I’ve been writing for the last week and a half, and I’m feeling kind of disconnected from not posting for this long. It’s coming together, but it’s hard for me to get down what I’m trying to say. I’m still figuring it out.

Blogging’s connected me with so many people – and it keeps me connected to myself.  I don’t know how I’d get through this without it. I have to keep talking about Philip, about his death – one year of writing and I’ve still so much to say. If it was all just rattling around in my mind instead of being written on a page, I’d be a kind of crazy I can only imagine; curled up under the covers, eyes closed, holding my breath while I waited to die along with my son. So I’m saying, with much gratitude, thank you all for helping.

A few people have made some noise about me meeting someone. It would be good for me, they say. And right around that time, all-of-a-sudden I started getting Match.com invitations ;o) I think that if I cared for someone, if someone cared for me and I could take it in, that would be good. But I’m not sure I have the energy for that kind of effort. Philip’s death is so much with me – and anyone close to me has to know that. The friends I spend time with know that. So to meet someone, to go through that awkward first date – I’m not there because I’d have to sit down and say, “You have to know my son died, you have to know I’m suffering this,” and that just doesn’t seem like first-date conversation.

The conversation I want to have is the one I’m having right here – so back to what I’ve been writing, and I’ll “see” you all soon ;o)