Unwinding

06 Nov 2025 1 Comment

by Denise in Buddhism, Death, Death of a Child, Government, Politics, President, Spirituality, Trump Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

George Eliot: “When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.” 

That’s the second time I’m mentioning this quote because it makes me uncomfortable. In 2015, Natalie and I took our 14-year-old Shih Tzu, Pippin, to the vet to be put down. In other words, we had him killed. I am fond of saying words matter which is maybe why I balk at using “put down” for “kill.” It amounts to the same thing. Pippin was old, blind, barely eating, had to be carried up and down the stairs and when he was put outside on the grass he lay there, refusing to walk or relieve himself. It was the kindest thing I could do. Our vet agreed. Does the euphemism make me feel better about taking responsibility for Pippin’s death? I did not want that responsibility but when it comes to my animals I will take it, if that’s what they need. Life was not the better option for him so I had him killed.

When I write about death, when my ego gets the best of me,  I think I’m some kind of expert. I am not. Philip has died and I’ve spent nearly 14 years living and breathing it and 13 years writing about it. I’m still trying to get it right. I won’t, ever. There’s no “right” to it. It’s an unwinding with its twists and turns, like anything worth exploring is.

I’d grown irritated with Pippin as he aged. He didn’t do what I wanted him to do. In the months before he died, while he was still able to walk outside, I’d carry him up and down the stairs. No problem. But when he didn’t want to walk, I’d drag him in annoyance as he tried to brace himself backwards. You have to walk, I’d be thinking, you have to. Period.

That came back to haunt me shortly after he died. I am going to remember this when I least want to, I thought. There will be a reckoning. It was shameful and I am embarrassed. And maybe coming to this is a by-product of Philip dying, but he was already dead when I was dragging Pippin. 

 Zoe, my other, Shih Tzu, also lived to 14. She’d suffered vestibular syndrome, which I can only liken to a stroke. She was losing weight, as well as her sight and her balance and her ability to wait for her walks to pee. I bought wee-wee pads for her and placed them all over the apartment. Once, when I saw her peeing on the rug, next to the wee-wee pad instead of on it, I jumped up in a frenzy and yelled, picked her up and placed her on the pad. Natalie was a witness. She didn’t say a word, but when, months later, I told her how ashamed I was, she tried to soothe me.

I’m among the millions who find animals easier than people. They are innocents. To me, that gives us a moral duty to them. To others, a dominion which includes cruelty, abuse and murder.

The incidents with Pippin and Zoe are visceral. They haunt me when I judge others’ cruelty. It might seem trivial to be writing about a couple of indiscretions with dogs when there are many humans I’ve either lived with or crossed paths with and have shown that same cruel streak. It’s not trivial. The point is cruelty’s existence, not where it flares up. If it’s there, it will flare. And as A Course In Miracles points out, “A slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury.” The degree doesn’t matter. If it’s there, it’s deep, and it is what keeps love away.

Nearly two years ago I adopted an 11-year-old, one-eyed Shih Tzu named Susie. Can I wipe out my Karma with her? Is that how it works? I don’t think so. We create Karma with our actions. Susie is easy to love and difficult to be angry with. There is lots of good Karma going on now. Will it continue when she doesn’t do what I want her to do? I think it will. The difference is I have a patience now that I didn’t have then. It’s from the time and death I mentioned in my last post. I haven’t the energy it takes to rage.

I cannot condemn the cruelty I see without taking a look at my own. It is easier to see it in relation to my animals because there is no excuse. I cannot say they were cruel first. Because that is one of the ways we justify our own inexcusable behavior. We didn’t start the thing, what were we supposed to do?

I’m thinking of cruelty and its underlying rage because of the abject cruelty of this abomination of a regime that is currently in power. Trump has made cruelty and viciousness the norm and it isn’t something to get used to. 

I mentioned that I started posting on Facebook and amidst the two or three “likes” I’d get was a, um, “friend” who went nuts because she supports Trump. I was called all sorts of names and accused of all kinds of things which resulted in me blocking her  and re-thinking what the heck I was doing on Facebook. Wanting to be heard, was my answer. But she was the one mostly listening.

The next day she sent me a text, bringing up how she’d cried when Philip died and “politics shouldn’t Trump friendship.” (Yes, capital T). The short version of what I told her: You don’t get to act one way online, and another when you actually see the person you’ve degraded. Friendship is a privilege, one she no longer had. 

That whole exchange was a symptom of what is happening, led by people that were elected to powerful positions. They degrade and demean, equate wealth with wisdom, have no impulse control and no consequences. They are loud and crass and they bully. Their true-believers think they get to do the same. Sometimes I find myself aghast and speechless. Sometimes I think I must say something. Sometimes I think there must be a right way to deal with this. But it is as I said earlier in this post: There’s no “right” to it. It’s an unwinding with its twists and turns. And figuring out how to hold onto our humanity in the face of so many who’ve lost it is the work of the moment.

When I am wanting to find a way, I turn to Buddhism. I do not pray – if any of you think praying to god helps, bless you and keep at it. Something’s got help. Practicing Buddhism allows me to feel the force of good that is within and often untapped. I have too much communication with Philip to think that there isn’t something else. I just don’t think that something else is a being outside of me that either grants my whims and wishes or doesn’t. I think the power of our love and goodness is to be found within. It requires work, harder for some, easier for others. I believe myself the former.

The Buddha gave ten actions for wholesome Karma. Four of them have to do with speech. We are to abstain from false, malicious,  harsh/vulgar and frivolous speech. Think about that. All day we are speaking but how often are we considering what we’re actually saying or our motivation for saying it?  To the people we come across daily, our speech can be fairly benign. But “frivolous speech” includes gossiping, something seemingly as banal as giggling with one coworker about another coworker’s fashion choices.

That seems like nothing in the face of what people say to each other on the internet. Of what our leaders say and write publicly. The Young Republicans who praise Hitler, think it okay to rape women, disparage Jews and use the term “watermelon people?” Vance’s response was, ““I really don’t want to us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive, stupid joke is cause to ruin their lives.” These were not kids. They were 18-to-40-year-olds. Yet he was quite willing to deprive Jimmy Kimmel of his livelihood for joking that Trump and his allies were “desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”

Of course, to anyone who was paying attention, Kimmel’s real crime was following his remark with a clip of Trump being asked how he felt about “his friend” Kirk’s death and responding by talking about the ballroom he was having built.

I am baffled as to how to respond to this regime with wholesome speech. Yet if I do what they do, am I not just as bad? This is a moral dilemma of the ages. J.R.R. Tolkien, who wrote Lord Of the Rings, said, “You can’t fight the enemy with his own ring without turning into an enemy.” How much evil can one inflict without becoming evil?

The “ring” he’s referring to is Sauron’s ring of power. Sauron is the antagonist of the book, the ultimate evil. He created a ring that would give him dominion over everyone and everything. He lost the ring during battle and for many years, its power lay dormant. But power wants to be used and the ring is found by Sméagol and his friend Deagol. Sméagol wants it and kills Deagol for it. Sméagol did not yet know its power, but he was drawn to it. The ring means mastery. It is a symbol of intellectual and moral corruption. It brings out the worst in whoever bears it. The more it’s used, the more addictive it is and the more dehumanized is the one who’s wearing it. And so Smeagol’s coveting of the ring turns him from a hobbit into Gollum, a gaunt, slimy creature who lives in dark and damp caves and cares for nothing but the ring, which he calls his “precious.”

The story becomes one of the clash between Sauron and his armies and the rest of Middle Earth to possess the ring. Except there are those who understand that the ring will corrupt whoever has it and so want it destroyed. This is inconceivable to Sauron, who covets power above all.

There are critics of the book who call it a simple good-and-evil story. I don’t see it that way. It’s a story of loss. I think the ending rather bleak, which is, in part, why I’ve read it so many times. It has a realism to it because when one walks through fire to get the thing done and comes out the other side, things are changed and not necessarily for the better. Yes, the ring is destroyed. But Frodo, the hobbit who had a hand (literally a finger) in destroying it, is no victor. He has seen too much and something is lost. His journey home is a heavy one. He arrives to a vastly changed and degraded landscape, one he is no longer part of. So he joins the last of the elves who are leaving the world of men to sail to Valinor, the Undying Lands, where they will live in peace.

I am happy with the Democratic election victories. They are a good thing. But we have not passed through the fire that is Trump and his regime. So much has been destroyed in its wake. It can be rebuilt and made better. That is not a given. No, it’s not over, and no one knows where we’re headed. There isn’t an end to this, just a continued unwinding.

Valinor, anyone?

© 2025 Denise Smyth

It Matters

28 Sep 2025 4 Comments

by Denise in Authoritarian, Death of a Child, Government, Politics, President, Trump, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer. And a people that can no longer believe anything cannot make up its mind. It is deprived not only of its capacity to act but also of its capacity to think and to judge. And with such a people you can then do what you please.”
Hannah Arendt

Writing keeps me company. It’s the one way my thoughts and I actually work together. Without writing, my undisciplined mind goes on the attack in spite of the daily mediating I do or the wise words I read from those who know better or even the practice of noticing what my mind is doing and saying, “Oh, yeah, that again.” 

Philip, too, keeps me company. He’s there when I turn to him and after nearly 14 years I still hear him, I still take dictation from him. This, I think, is no special skill. I think anyone who has lost someone can pick up a pen and a piece of paper and listen for them. Much as I’ve been doing it for all these years – some years less so than others – I do understand  how hard it is. I still wonder every time I open my journal if he’ll be there, if I’m kidding myself, is this going to be the time there is…nothing? It never turns out that way. He’s always there and the things he says are often things I’ve never thought. I’d think there a thousand ways anyone reading this could explain it away. It doesn’t matter. I listen, he speaks, that is enough for me.

Back in February, my friend John suggested I go back to writing the book I started about Philip and that I should ask Philip to help me. I’d started a memoir and really can’t say why I put it down. Not writing begets not writing and for a long time I did nothing. But not writing also begets an illness of sorts, one that corrodes my mind, my soul, my psyche and is so potent that I look fine and mostly act fine, but that unseen corrosion is hell bent on driving me toward that final, that terrible, that very last crash.

So I took myself to Greece in June for a writing retreat and then to upstate New York in August for another at a Buddhist Center. I’ve reduced my hours at work and am finally writing every day. I am closer to Philip than ever as he helps me navigate this, closer to Natalie because she is the one I share his death – and my life – with the most. 

None of this is what I meant to write about. It’s easier, though, than trying to write about what I see happening in this country because that is so big and so awful and seems to require an intellect far greater than mine with a grasp of history and politics that I do not have. So I sat with Philip before I wrote this and he reminded me there are all kinds of readers for all kinds of writers and my job is to find my heart. It’s nothing more than what I work toward no matter what I’m writing about. What else can I do – it is rotten out there, the stench of this administration is overpowering and putting the covers over my head to keep out the rankness isn’t working. It is exactly what Trump et al are going for. Manufacture crises to divert attention from the real problems, lie, lie and then lie some more, make “the other” the enemy which means anyone who disagrees with Trump, degrade institutions, ignore courts and precedents, surround yourself with sycophants who fawn over you, turn the economically disadvantaged into losers – and illegal losers at that! – who are taking advantage of YOUR hard earned money so let’s take away their health care and their SNAP benefits and that will show them.

And that’s just in our country. If the administration sees no moral imperative to take care of their own, they’re certainly not going to help anyone else. So USAID is withdrawn and people all over the world are suffering, dying. Yet Trump came up with $20 billion to prop up a right wing government in Argentina. Where’s the outrage? He’s spending over $1 billion to outfit an illegal gift of a plane for Air Force One from Qatar. And he’s building a ballroom while the cost of groceries and daily essentials rises.

What is happening? How is this happening? How does any sane person listen to Trump’s unhinged ranting and proudly think, “That is the president of my country, the greatest country in the world!” How can anyone watch a cabinet meeting where everyone at the table, one by one, fawns over Trump, stopping short of kneeling and kissing his ring? It’s like watching a terribly acted play except it isn’t fiction. It is actually happening. There are no adults in the room with Trump. The one child missing is the one who would know enough to cry out, “The emperor has no clothes.”

Maybe once we were the greatest country in the world, maybe one day we will be again. But a country that could elect a Trump has lost its moral authority. Under his rule we are living in an authoritarian state. If an election doesn’t go the way of the ruling power, it is challenged (check). Civil servants have to profess loyalty to dear leader (check). Supposedly independent government officers – prosecutors, inspectors general, federal commissioners – have to do dear leader’s bidding or they are replaced with inexperienced loyalists (check). Private institutions have to do as dear leader says or they are punished (check). Independent journalism is attacked and threatened if it reports what dear leader doesn’t want to hear (check). Even our comedians – COMEDIANS! – are under attack as the thin skin of dear leader is so easily wounded. What kinds of countries take their comedians off the air? And which party are the “snowflakes” now, which party is the party of cancel culture?

I could go on and on, but to what end? There’s plenty of information about what Trump is doing if you want to know, and if you don’t, nothing I say matters. But this is what does matter. Words matter. Trump has made a mockery of this and his administration follows suit. He is cruel. This matters. He is heartless and soulless. He thrives on divisiveness and has not a clue nor a care about how to bring the country together. He is not a serious man except in his will to destroy and his rigid hold on power. Our national landscape is littered with the corpses of justice, equality and freedom. Decency – there is no decency. And if these concepts don’t matter to you, perhaps the cost of groceries or the loss of healthcare or the freedoms of the wealthy that are denied to the rest of us, do. Something of his gross unfitness to be president must matter to you. It simply must.

 I’ve never felt particularly compelled to “do” anything politically. I vote, of course. But this is different, this is urgent. I can’t say I know exactly what to do, but I made a start by writing this post. I’ve joined a political group called Third Act for people over sixty who want to make the world a better place. I read and listen to Heather Cox Richardson – she is a brilliant historian and a voice of sanity and reason. And the one thing I know not to do is to give in to exhaustion and like so many, I am plenty tired. That’s part of Trump’s playbook. We are whacked daily, we are whacked multiple times daily, with his degradations. This not only creates exhaustion, it creates a storm of chaos that blinds us to what this is administration is doing to us, to our institutions, to our way of life. And I’d like to end with some grand conclusion, or at least a witty last sentence. I haven’t any. I would just ask that we pay attention, that we all wake the fuck up.

© 2025 Denise Smyth

On Family and Me, Part One

08 Apr 2023 Leave a comment

by Denise in Alzheimer, Death of a Child, Family, Gun Violence, Politics Tags: , , , , , ,

I have been careful not to get political on this blog. I became aware of that when something I was writing about was getting near the topic and I chose to avoid it. This is not about politics, I thought. I do not want to alienate anyone. I started this blog to deal with Philip’s death. Eleven years later I am still dealing with it, as I will always be. But this caution about politics, given what is happening? I say fuck it.

Yesterday I woke not only to find that Tennessee, founding state of the Ku Klux Klan, made good on their promise to expel several house members because they joined a protest against gun violence, but of the three reps who were facing expulsion, the two who were expelled were black. Yes, that’s correct. The white member was not expelled. I suppose I should thank the idiots who took this action as they made martyrs of these two young representatives, Justin Jones and Justin Pearson, as well as given them national attention. Another stunning example of the way Republicans want to rule. Disagree with them and you’re out. Two elected officials who took part in a protest against gun violence were expelled. Can I say it again?

And how about Tennessee State Rep William Lamberth, addressing students protesting gun violence and referring to a ban on AR-15s and other assault rifles by saying, “If there is a firearm out there that you’re comfortable being shot with, please, show me which one it is.”

This is but a sound bite of what this country has come to since electing that demented excuse of a human being called Trump to be president. And after all that has happened since that time and all that continues to happen, there still exists a core group of MAGA supporters who think he is the second coming. If Jesus had a grave he’d be spinning.

This is where it gets personal. I realize now that the reason I was careful to stay away from politics is my family. My (mostly) Trump supporting family. The three cousins I can think of who might not be I haven’t spoken to in a long time. I used to think that reasonable people can disagree, and that surely not all Trump supporters are crazy, but given what I see, Trump and sanity do not coexist. And my family’s support of Trump is the simplest way I can think of to explain my differences with them.

It is my mother’s side of the family that has consumed me. Makes sense, since my mother ruled. Every Sunday was spent at my maternal grandmother’s along with my six uncles, six aunts and various cousins. They were a loud and gregarious group, funny, outspoken. Working class. Traditional values, which by no means goes into the positive column. I have always felt an outsider, down to the fact that they were all Espositos and I was not, since my mom was the only female and therefore changed her surname when she married my father, who I grew up despising. 

I was different. A quiet kid, smart, uncomfortable in my skin, always reading, always unhappy, at a loss as to how to make a joke or have a witty comeback. Small boobs and a fat ass, so unlike my beautiful cousin Maria, born nearly two years to the day ahead of me, as close as sisters at times and yet the bane of my life as I could never be as funny, sexy or outrageous as she.

I came to politics late in life. It was not something discussed at the dinner table. That, coupled with the fact that since I started drinking when I was 11, my formative years were spent devising ways to get my next nickel bag of weed or bottle of Boone’s Farm Apple wine, not in forging a political identity. In fact, I was so far removed from anything political that I assumed my family were democrats since we lived in New York City. At some point in my 30s I became a Republican and that’s when I realized my family was, also. I don’t know if all politics is identity politics, but looking back that’s what it felt like for me. I was never a social conservative. I believed abortion should be legal, gay people should marry, and the fact that there needed to any kind of equal rights bills for minorities was a travesty because dear God, why don’t minorities have equal rights?

What I identified with was being fiscally conservative. I was, and probably still am – though hopefully less so – naive about it all. In my mind, I went to work and my husband went to work and so everyone should go to work and just take care of themselves. No nuance there, no humility, no compassion. Just a tough minded arrogance of how things ought to be.

Then Philip died. Politics, along with everything else, was just too painful.  All the arguing, the condemning, the self-righteousness – my son was dead and what else was there to give a fuck about? Four years later, the ever present shapeshifter grief changed into something that lived alongside me rather than consumed me. Still much on the outside of anything political, I was present enough to see the Republican Party had nominated Trump as their presidential candidate and like it or not, I had to pay attention. So I left the party and became a Democrat.

Trump, politics – this is one form of the discord with my family, not the content. My despair has always been that I don’t fit in because there is something wrong with me. I have made what I love about them matter and what I don’t a deficiency on my part. But the combination of working for my cousin for two and a half years plus my mother’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s has forced me to engage with my family in ways I have not for many years. I’d long moved away from them, saw them mostly at family events, did not reach out to keep in touch. That includes my brother who was swallowed up by his wife’s family the moment he got engaged. That is a story for another time. I mention it by way of saying that her family mirrors my mother’s side of the family so there was no solace to be found there.

I have written here about my mother’s Alzheimer’s and I have struggled to understand what it is I owe her. Early on I participated in getting her what care we could and made trips to see her in Brooklyn to get certain things done. My brother, R, and sister-in-law, M, have borne most of the burden. They live closer to her, M doesn’t work, they don’t carry the emotional garbage I do. M sees to it her bills are paid, her groceries are delivered. R stops there after work, is there when something goes wrong. I have stepped further back these last months. I have not been to see my mom for a long while. M has become increasingly outraged. I have wasted much of my emotional life hoping they wouldn’t see me the way I did – selfish, uncaring, a daughter who did not do her duty to her elderly mother. If I called my mom enough times, if I checked in with my brother enough times, maybe I could fend off the inevitable. And when I realized I couldn’t, I wrote to R and M to thank them for all they do and to acknowledge what was going on with me. Which really counted for nothing as far as they were concerned. I wasn’t, after all, offering a solution. So my brother accepts, my sister-in-law rages. And my mother feels like a weight around my neck.

Or so she has. Because last week, after yet another deadening 30 second conversation with her, I did something I haven’t done in a while. I wrote a letter to Philip. When he first died I used to sit and listen and write down what I heard him say. Call it what you will. Call it grief giving me access to a deeper wisdom we all carry within. I heard him talk to me and it was revelatory. So I wrote to him of my mother and listened for an answer and what happened next was an experience and not a thought. I felt what I can only call love and it broke the hypnosis of that particular spell. My mother’s constant anger is the voice in my head that takes the form of whoever, real or imagined, is angry at me. I always find someone who is angry with me and I always believe what I am hearing. I have tried talking myself out of it. It does not help. This time the voice was M. Seeing me through her eyes was not pretty. But seeing me through Philip’s eyes was glorious. And I say what I experienced was “love” or maybe it was acceptance but whatever the word I was released. My life, my choice. No shoulds, no have-tos. The voice? Now it’s mine. The family who matters? Natalie. 

Part two tomorrow

© 2023 Denise Smyth

Undone

08 Oct 2022 3 Comments

by Denise in Addiction, Death, Death of a Child, Faith, God, Religion, Spirituality Tags: , , , , , ,

I find no comfort in God. Nor am I an atheist. And maybe what I believe is what one would call God, or some form of it. But the idea of some being greater than ourselves who requires rules or rituals or ceremonies or has caused us to be born with a sin we need be delivered from…a God who requires specifics which exclude those who don’t adhere to them…I find that a form of insanity. I find people -relatives – who fear that certain of their behaviors will bring the wrath of the Almighty upon them yet their blatant disregard of those who are different is baffling, if not cruel.

A couple weeks ago, Natalie and I brought our shih-tzu Zoe to the vet. She was nearly 15 and ailing. Natalie moved out in July and took Zoe with her. I was happy to let her go – Zoe was in need of more attention than I could give her. I believed Zoe’s time was up, Natalie did not. We were a long while at the vet that day, Natalie, Zoe and Dr. K on the floor of the exam room, me on a stool, mostly observing. Zoe walked in circles, bumped into walls (she’s blind), panted, was unable to relax or orient herself. Dr. K did not tell us what to do. She asked Natalie questions, she spoke of Zoe’s quality of life, her spirit. Her happiness vs unhappiness. Until Natalie looked at Dr. K and said, “When she is not sleeping, she is agitated. I think…I think…it’s time.”

Zoe had always been “my” dog. I raised her from a pup and I was the one she sought out. Until some point last year when she had an episode which changed her, which she never fully recovered from. I kept thinking how I was going to fall apart when she died, but I did not. Natalie cried and cried. Then she cried more. I withdrew. I saw it, could do nothing about it. I have been withdrawn for a long time. A combination of the complete cessation of any mood medication I was taking, the stress of my mother’s Alzheimer’s and the family dynamics I’ve been thrust into since has helped bring me somewhat back to life. At least, to feeling, even though much of it has been difficult. So I was able to catch myself shutting down. My thought was to write.

We hadn’t planned on putting Zoe down that afternoon – we thought we’d discuss, go home and discuss some more, call back and make the final appointment. But we were the last ones in the office and better we did it then. Better, other than the fact that the next day we were going to a wake for my dear friend C’s son B, also Natalie’s friend, who had died on September 18th from the addiction he’d battled for years. I do not know all the details. He had been sober for four years, but five months ago something called him back and now he is gone and his family is devastated.

C is one of the people who saved my life after Philip died. A few years ago she sold her NJ home and moved to NYC, but when Philip died she and her three boys lived 5 minutes away from me and Natalie and I spent much time at their house, something Natalie was already used to as the boys were her friends long before and she’d already considered C her second mom. With my blessing, I might add. I spent the first Thanksgiving and Christmas after Philip’s death at her house, sleeping there, cooking with her, and it became what we did every year for 6 or 7 years until she moved. 

Saturday the 24th I found myself in church with C and all those who came to grieve. Philip, too, had had a funeral mass, was rolled down the aisle in a casket covered by a white cloth with a gold cross on top, stopped in the aisle next to the pews toward the front. C looked worn and tender and fragile and all I could think was how this could not be undone. And how much she would have to go through before that became a reality she could recognize and live with. She has two other children, they are who she lives for now. For a while, it might not be enough.

At mass, I listened to what the priest said. I remember two things from the priests at Philip’s wake and mass. At the wake, the priest said, “They say time heals all wounds. It doesn’t.” And I was grateful for this truth. At at the mass, when the priest said, “Please kneel,” he looked directly at me and said, “If you can.” A kindness I did not expect. So I sat until my mother’s disapproving finger poked me so hard from behind that I sank to my knees. 

I couldn’t say what the priest talked about during Philip’s mass. I’d never found comfort in anything to do with church and the only thing that existed then, all that my senses were aware of, was that Philip was dead, was lying in that coffin, was never to be as I had known him. But at B’s funeral I listened. The priest was a nice looking man with a short grayish beard, somewhat young for a priest, with a clear and earnest voice. So sure of himself as he asked us to remember the most important day of B’s – the day he was baptized. For that, you see, opened him up to the other sacraments and assured his place in heaven next our lord and savior. And we were to take comfort in knowing that that was where, even as he spoke, B was.

A glance at Natalie that was returned by her told me we were thinking the same thoughts. I do hope there were those who could take comfort in those words because there is nothing worse than losing a loved one – a child – and I know when Philip died I found comfort in nothing. But were we to understand that B is now is with the lord, which is where one wants to be in death (?) but that the only way one could get there was by being baptized? So where did one wind up if one wasn’t baptized? Did believing your loved one was a member of the right club make it all better?

I was fuming and in that, I might be missing much. This argument is old for me. The first time I came across it was when my four-year-old niece was dying and my brother was, for a time anyway, born again. He’d told me only those who accepted Jesus Christ as their savior would go to heaven. “Well,” I answered, “what about…oh, I don’t know – what about Chinese people?” “Ignorance is no excuse,” he answered.

And what about YOUR ignorance, I wanted to scream? It’s religion that does itself in with it’s rules, cruelties and inconsistencies. It is religion that causes me to turn from God, and I am not alone. The path to God need not be marked so. It cannot be marked so, not if it holds love, tolerance and compassion within. And if not love, tolerance, compassion, what is it for? So many will say, “I am spiritual, not religious” to distance themselves from what religion is teaching. So many will suggest calling God something else – Higher Power. What I recognize as the power, the force greater than myself is what I call Life. And when I need to talk to Life, I call on Philip, who might’ve been taken from me in body, but never, not ever, in spirit.

© 2022 Denise Smyth

Reckoning Part 2

05 Sep 2022 7 Comments

by Denise in Alzheimer, Death, Death of a Child, Family, Money Tags: , , , , ,

I have a habit of thinking that death solves things. Mostly my own, because that would take are of it all. If asked, “what did Philip’s death solve?” my answer would be that is not what I’m talking about here. But the question intrigued me enough to forego listening to my usual podcast this morning during my walking and instead think about this. Soon as I the cross T’s and dot I’d on this mostly-finished post, that’s what I’ll write about next.

 Philip is my son, he is not, was not ever, something to be solved. He was something to live for because love is what there is to live for. I am not someone who particularly feels loved whether or not I am, and maybe that is why life has always felt too hard. But before I go down that road, I want to get back to my mom. Writing is the way I look at the thing instead of wishing it dead to avoid it.

It came as a surprise to both my brother and me to realize my mom’s financial situation. We had to consider if assisted living was something that might be necessary for her. There is no clear answer and since it’s unaffordable maybe there doesn’t have to be. Other than the fact that Alzheimer’s progresses, there is too much uncertainty about it. My mom’s short term memory is shot. But she isn’t doing things like leaving the oven on or getting up in the middle of the night and wandering around. She’s angry that we’ve taken her car away and is constantly berating me and my brother to others for doing this to her. It doesn’t matter how many times we tell her this is what her doctors want, how many times we ask what, exactly, is the advantage of this to me or my brother? She’s resentful – and who could blame her – that her independence is being eroded, that she’s paying someone to go to her house and keep her company three times a week. That’s what’s so hard about where she’s at right now – she’s enough in the disease to warrant attention, but not enough to make her forget what she’s losing. 

Assisted living sounds like a good idea – she’d be in her own apartment but have people around to help her as well as people to keep her company. My mom is alone most days. Before her diagnosis, I don’t know what she did, but she kept herself busy. I would go weeks without talking to her. I have a strained, difficult relationship with her, always have. The last time I tried to address it with her – to what end, I do not know – was a couple years ago, before Alzheimer’s. She looked at me and said, “What do you want from me? I am who I am, and I’m not going to change.”

That was the exact right question to ask me, and I still have not looked to find the answer.  

These last six months or so I’ve had to be in contact with her in a way I never have, especially since I moved out of her home forty years ago. I remind myself I do it for R, my brother, and M, my sister-in-law because it is not fair to leave this all the them. In terms of actually seeing her, they are more involved. They live closer to her and R works in Brooklyn and so can stop by at times after work. Plus neither of them are awash in resentment toward her. It’s the classic story of siblings being raised in the same house but each one having a different story to tell. It doesn’t help that I am four years older than my brother or that I went to public school, he went to Catholic. Our lives even then were separate. At the time, Catholic School was considered “better.” But I didn’t want to go school with nuns and uniforms so my parents let me go to public school. R didn’t have a choice and I have to wonder, looking back, what that says about my family. Certainly it strengthened my conviction I was an outsider, but in a way that made me feel I had some power. I got to go where I wanted, R could deal with the nuns and their disciplinary rulers (at the time word was if you didn’t behave the nuns would whack you on your backside with their rulers. True? Who knows?)

Being in contact with my mom is not pretty. It might, in part, be one of the many reasons I am finally able to write. Because what I am seeing is bringing up feelings so overpowering I don’t even know who to talk to about them, at least not in any kind of depth. Timed three-minute AA or AlAnon shares doesn’t do it, the culture I see at my small office is concerning, and I am trying too hard to to understand this to be distracted by anyone who might make some off-the-cuff suggestion that might too easily cause me to think that I am making a big deal out of nothing or that I need more compassion because my mom is elderly. It has been too long since I’ve been able to sit and face what is happening and while talking has its place, writing is how I discover.

My mom is a social creature. Before I hear, “we all are,” let’s agree there are degrees. I am introverted, my mother is not. When I was growing up, she used to work for my Uncle M at his lumberyard. Even after he closed it years ago there were still things she did for him, right up until a few months ago when we took her car away. I never thought much about what she did to keep herself busy, even after my dad died. We led separate lives in separate states and interactions with her were awkward if not painful. I never cut her out of my life, but I did keep it to a minimum. Having to be in contact more lately has given me a look into her life and it’s painful. I see now my mom kept herself busy shopping and meeting friends, getting her hair and nails done weekly. Other than watching TV, she has no interests, She doesn’t read nor does she have any hobbies. She takes great pride in her appearance and in discussing her mental deterioration with others who need to know what to look for, I have heard, ‘What are you talking about? She looks terrific!.”

Maybe this helps to answer the question my mother posed: What do you want from me? I want you to show me. How am I supposed to live? How do I love? What matters, what truly matters? How, at 64, how do I live a life that will make me understand it was worth it, that I figured out what matters? Because I am not going to find it in my hair or nails or the skin I resent for wrinkling. And I am not going to find it from my mom who has always been disappointed in me – my hair, my hands, my face, my feet, my choices. And now, rather than condescend to her because of what I consider her vapid choices – I am falling apart because even though people come and regularly take her out, even though she has more friends and contacts than I do, what she mostly does is watch TV and talk about how boring life is. Her biggest pleasure is being told how good she looks and is this really what it’s come down to for her? And what have I learned? Sure, I’m “different.” I’ve no interest in manicures or pedicures. I do love clothes, get my hair done every three or four months and yes, I love it when I’m told I look younger than my years. But what else? I spend my days working, then going home and reading. I love my daughter as much as I can, keep her in mind always, find ways to show her my love. But there are ways in life I’ve given up and there are things about the kind of life I want to live that I try not to think about, that I’m frightened to consider because I believe it’s not possible. Am I really no different than my mother?

© 2022 Denise Smyth

His Ashes

02 Sep 2022 2 Comments

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

When Philip died I wanted him cremated. I thought Phil might argue – we were both raised Catholic, and from what I understood the church did not allow cremation. We married in a Catholic ceremony, had our children baptized, had them make their communion and confirmation. I did what I thought I was supposed to do for my kids as far as religion was concerned, especially because Phil was serious about it. I was not. As a child, I was let out of public school at 2:00 on Wednesdays to attend religious instruction. Even then I was no believer and decided God was something grown-ups made up to explain what they couldn’t. 

Phil would take the kids to church on Sunday. I refused to go. We had one argument about it, with him insisting I should go because what would we tell the kids if he was going but I was not? The truth, I answered. Mommy and Daddy think different things about God and it’s important to Daddy that you go to church. I don’t know that we ever actually had to have that conversation, but we were ready.

 As of 2016, the church’s guidelines on cremation changed. It was allowed, but you were not to scatter ashes or keep them at home in an urn. They should be kept in a “sacred” place, such as a church cemetery, which I’m sure one would have the privilege of paying for. At any rate, Phil did not object to cremation, so Natalie and I pored over a catalogue of urns to pick the right ones. We should not have to do this, I told her. If we are catalogue-shopping it’s supposed to be for shoes or clothes or the very best in cookware. But we all know where “shoulds” and “supposed-to’s” leave us, so we did what we had to. Natalie chose a tiny urn in a blue velvet box that could travel with her, I chose a small, elegant slate blue with a muted silver top for Phil (who did not want to be involved in the process) and the bulk of the ashes went into a large gold urn with a band of inlaid white material for me. I chose it over the floral cloisonné urn I preferred, and I am still trying to figure out why. There was a reasoning going on in my head that I can’t articulate. All I can come up with is maybe I thought what I wanted was too feminine, maybe I thought the gold was more dignified…it bothers me terribly, both as a  mother and a writer, that I cannot come up with the words to explain this, and that my choice here might have been based on a “should.”

I do know that I thought that once I actually received the urn it would look better in person and I would be happy (is that an appropriate word for my feelings regarding the container of my son’s ashes?) with my choice. I wasn’t. At the time it was low on the list of Things I Am Grieved About. I put the urn in my bedroom and put Phil’s in my living room as he said he wasn’t ready to take it. 

There were a couple times over the years when I made an effort to find an urn I’d like better. The floral cloisonné was no longer available and I couldn’t find anything else I cared for. I still have Phil’s urn as he never asked for it and at this point, I am hoping he doesn’t. Because the last year or two I was starting to feel the need to let go of my urn and Philip’s ashes but I’d like to keep the small, elegant urn in the living room as it feels like just what I need to have.

I couldn’t figure out what to do about the growing need I had to let go of Philip’s ashes. Stories about people getting rid of loved one’s ashes center around the favorite place that person had so there’s some meaning to the thing. I don’t know of any special place of Philip’s except Underground 8 – now called The Meat Locker – in Montclair and spilling ashes on the floor of a music venue isn’t something one does. That I knew of no place shamed me. If I was a better mother, we’d have had a place, a perfect place, something we shared. If we were as close as I say we were, why wasn’t there a place? I can see now how I would torture myself about this, how easily I shame myself. Plus I didn’t talk to anyone about it so it festered.

A few years ago Maria’s friend developed leukemia and within about six months of her diagnosis, she died. When I was at the shore back in June, I overheard Maria talking about taking her ashes out on her boat and scattering them in the bay. And there was my answer. Maybe Philip didn’t have a place, but I did. And not only a place, but a person. In the beginning days of this blog, when telling the story of finding out about Philip’s death, I’d written how Maria was the first person I called when I found out he died and I knew she was in her car before I hung up the phone. Who more fitting to do this with?

So on a Saturday afternoon back in July, Maria’s husband M took us out on the boat. I walked down the pier with the urn, heavily laden with his ashes, hugged in my arms round my belly. M helped me into the boat, Maria following behind in tears. All I can say about the way I felt was small. I think that speaks to powerlessness, the way, as a child, choices were not mine to make. Because while I was choosing the time and the place to let go of Philip’s remains, I had no choice that all that was left of my son was a pile of ashes.

We rode in silence into the bay until M stopped the boat where he thought it appropriate. Is this okay, he asked? I nodded my approval, but really, what about this was okay? The ashes were in a huge, thick, unwieldy plastic bag inside the urn. I took care in pulling the bag out, in making sure the ashes went into the gently lapping water and not onto the boat or blown back in my face. If you’ve never seen them, cremation ashes are gray and fine and powdery and they left a trail as the boat, motor off, bobbed along with the water. When it was finally done I looked up and nodded. The boat started up again and as we swung around, the ashes trailed along on top of the water and Maria and I waved our good-byes.

I thought I was okay but by the time I woke up on Sunday morning I was not. The world was hostile and I was without words. There was too much life around me. Three of Maria’s grandkids, 11, 16 and 18, were also at the house that weekend. And where Maria and her grandkids are, drama reigns. That means life is loud and evident, that meant there was no room for me. So while I originally planned – as I always do when I’m here for the weekend – to go straight to work from here on Monday morning, I quickly packed and headed home as soon as I finished my coffee. And once I got there, I went into my dark bedroom, got under my covers and cried for the rest of the day.

That’s what was needed. I am not, and even then was not, sorry for what I’d done. I wasn’t prepared for my reaction but how does anyone prepare for a possible adverse reaction? I do not know what that means, never did. I can’t predict when I’ll be overcome. When Philip’s birthday or death day rolls around I don’t necessarily go into a funk. That’s more likely to happen afterward, when spring rolls around, because January, his birth month, and February, his death month, at least make me feel his presence. Every spring I lose him again as time is relentless and that’s the season things start coming to life, but not Philip. Never, not ever, Philip.

© 2022 Denise Smyth

Blood From A Stone

31 Aug 2022 3 Comments

by Denise in Death, Death of a Child, Family, Lonlieness Tags: , , , ,

When Philip first died I thought, what could ever bother me again? What could ever be so bad that I would care that much, as long it wasn’t about Natalie? I saw his death as the second worst thing that could ever happen to me, as the first would be to lose both my children. 

Ten years on and things do bother me. Writing is my attempt to keep them in perspective, writing today is just to vent because the post I’ve been working on is so difficult to unravel I am starting to lose my shit. How to examine life with my family, something I’ve not taken a good, close look at? Not just my growing-up-with family, or my married-with-kids family, but my large, extended family, too. I’ve kept a distance from them since I was old enough to move out on my own at 22. I’d see them at family occasions but was never one to reach out. On my mom’s side were six brothers, most of whom married, some of whom had kids. On my dad’s side were two sisters, but they wound up moving to different states and since my mom didn’t much like his family and she ruled the roost, my focus has always been on her side.

I didn’t even much keep in touch with Maria, my sister-cousin. I never made a conscious decision about my family one way or another. I was absorbed in my own life and my family was on the periphery. I didn’t like my parents, loved my aunts, uncles and cousins but felt different from all of them. Plus – and this is something I don’t yet understand about myself – I don’t maintain bonds with people. I have no friends from childhood, was unable to stay married. I make friends here and there, invariably let them fall away. I shy away from people in general, I spend a lot of time alone. My children are the exception. 

I come from a loud, funny, boisterous Italian family who got together every Sunday for dinner. Might sound like a minor point, but since my mom is the only female out of seven children, once she married her last name changed which meant my last name was different from the rest of the family and when I was old enough to realize that I added it to my list of resentments as well as the list of Why I Am Different From Them. I put myself in a double bind – I resented my immediate family for what they couldn’t give me and was desperate but unable to feel part of my extended family. I didn’t blame them. It was my fault. They were uninhibited, I was self-conscious. I wasn’t funny the way they were. I was withdrawn and uncomfortable and had a book with me wherever I went. I once heard an aunt remark, “Look at her. She forgot her book so she’s reading the TV Guide.” I don’t know how she meant it, but I took as some kind of slur against me.

I did not come from a family of readers – the only one who read was my dad and I looked down my nose at him as he read what I considered cheap, easy-read paperbacks. Were they? I don’t know. What I do know is I was a sensitive, precocious kid, possessed an intelligence neither of my parents had, was exceptionally bright in school. I clung to that intelligence because it was all I had, at the same time feeling ashamed of it as it was something that yet again kept me apart from my family. No one in my family went to college and that was the track I was on. My dad’s reading was inconvenient for me because I wanted to be nothing like him so I had to write it off as inconsequential. I might have felt sorry for myself for feeling like an outsider, but I also cherished it. 

And I started drinking when I was 11 because it was just too much to deal with.

I do not want to get into politics in this blog. It’s too painful. I used to follow the news avidly until Philip died. I felt flayed by his death and anything contentious was like sticking burning brands into my already tattered flesh. It was all beside the point. I am bringing it up now to make starkly clear the differences between me and my family. They are all rabid Trump fans. As in Michael-Savage-believing, Alex-Jones-listening, January 6th was no-big-deal-excusing, Trump-can-do-no-wrong affirming, MAGA-flag-flying Republicans. I am not. 

That screams volumes about the differences in the ways my family and I approach life. Inherent in that is a wound that won’t heal. I’ve never asked myself what it is I want from my family. Love, of course. But I can’t say that they don’t love me…I want to be seen. There. That’s what it is. I am not seen by them and having said that, it is way past time to let it go. Blood from a stone and all.

 I have felt guilty for not keeping in touch with them, particularly aunts and uncles. But that guilt was born from realizing Maria does keep in touch them, always did. At this point in our lives we are down to two aunts and two uncles, but she invites them to her home, makes plans to go out for lunch or dinner with them, calls them regularly, has group texts going that even include my brother. I don’t even know what I would say to them if I called, and to be fair, I know those group texts are Trump-related so why would I be included in them anyway?

Recent interactions with my two uncles (my mother’s two remaining brothers) regarding my mother’s Alzheimer’s and her financial state have shown me who these men are as well as helped me understand why I do not and cannot consider them the kind of family I can turn to. I’ll be going into greater detail about this as I write more about my mom and Alzheimer’s . But since I started working for Maria’s husband two years ago (he’s a doctor, I’m the office manager), since I’ve been coming down to the shore and spending more time with her these last three years, and since my mom developed Alzheimer’s, I’ve been forced into family dynamics in a way I have never been. I am seeing real, adult reasons why I can’t have the intimacy I imagine other families have, not childish projections of being not only unloved but disliked by them because I am just not enough. And as usual, while I am very good at seeing the why’s of the thing being unattainable, I am not well-versed in the how’s of getting what I want. I’d do well to first consider what that is.

© 2022 Denise Smyth

What it Takes?

27 Aug 2022 2 Comments

by Denise in Addiction, alcoholism, Death, Death of a Child, depression, Grief, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

I started this blog a year after Philip died. I was as raw as I’d ever been – no, more raw then I’d ever been. I spent years trying to put words on what I felt like. There was no other way to survive. I wrote that there weren’t words to describe what I was feeling because the usual words – grief, despair, agony, etc. – were words I’d used before and what I was feeling was beyond any of that. So I strung words together best I could and made whatever sense I could.

Over the years, grief’s hold on me lessened, old habits of depression felt normal, life felt hard and unmanageable. Writing no longer interested me, quilting did. That’s where my creativity took me for a few years until I lost interest in that, too. I’d write posts here and there but not much else. I started watching a lot of TV and just didn’t care too much about anything except Natalie. A couple years ago, as I mentioned in my last, I started reading about the Tudors. Kings and queens fascinate me, Game of Thrones had ended, reading finally gripped me the way it did when I was younger and would not go anywhere without a book. I still watch TV here and there but it’s reading that I’m mostly caught up in.

Still, not much creative output. It just seemed easier to let it all go and wait. For what? I’ll leave it there for now.

I am at the Jersey Shore at my cousin Maria’s house and will be here until Labor Day. So much to say about this, but not now. When I’m here I usually go for a walk first thing in the morning, around 6:30 or so. When I’m back I make coffee and sit outside to drink it. Her house is on the bay, her backyard spa-like. There are multiple places to sit or lounge, a dock with her boat and jet-skis, a pool and a jacuzzi and her big, beautiful, long-haired German Shepard to keep me company. Last night he slept with me, the only male I’ve had in my bed for a decade.

When I sat taking it all in this morning my mind was going its un-merry way. I’m 64 now, and I can say that physically I’ve had a good 63 years but things have started going wrong and I hate it. How unfair, I was thinking, that we are born into bodies that take up way too much time distracting us from what really matters, yet distract us they do. Whether we’re young and insist on basing success upon physicality or older and doing the same but with the bitterness of our aches and pains, what’s the fucking point if we have to constantly deal with our bodies?

Somehow, I caught myself. Is this what I want to be thinking about? Am I even thinking, or is this just mind-meandering, an updated version of former, similar unhappiness? And I remembered earlier years of writing this blog, when I certainly had a lot to be unhappy about. But there was a quality there that stood in sharp contrast to what I’d just been doing. Of course I was inconsolably, desperately, unhappy. But I was somehow with it, open to it, and willing to put words on it. It was not work to do so. I was too devastated by Philip’s death to be anything else.

For years I have been unable to be in that place. It’d been suggested to me I was having a “dark night of the soul,” that I would come out of it. Just words, I thought, because it’s been years of it. A matter of will? How does one will oneself to care? I don’t know how to explain how I got there any more than I know how to explain why today I’m able to sit with this, why or how I’ve been able to write these last few posts. I coast along, not forcing a particular direction. That’s what I’ve been feeling like for years and not caring to do otherwise. I’m not saying I’ve made a big change, some willful decision, but – for this moment, at least – I am wanting to think about what is going on. With me and Maria, my mom and Alzheimer’s, my extended family, my addictions, my solitude and most of all, my children.

There’s one change I want to note. In my early 40s I decided to go on antidepressants. I’d been in therapy for 20 years at that point, sober for about 17 and still depressed. I’d had several therapists suggest medication but I’d wanted to get to the bottom of my misery without chemicals. Finally I thought, “what the hell” and started seeing a psychiatrist. That led to over 20 years of trying this med and that med and settling on Wellbutrin for about 14 years. At some point that wasn’t working, so my doctor tried adding this other med and that other med and when, in 2010, I had a meltdown, my mood-managers got together and decided an anti-anxiety medicine was in order. By then I was hooked on thinking some kind of drug has to help me and when I was prescribed Gabapentin I thought I hit the jackpot.

Gabapentin made me feel good about being alive. It was not subtle, like an anti-depressant. Its effects could be felt within a short time of taking it. But I am an addict. So if a bit of something shifts my mood enough that I feel good about being alive, then more of it must make me feel even better about being alive.  It was prescribed, so it was okay. I managed to get my initial dose raised about as high as it could be, then started taking none on one day so I could take extra another day. I talked about this to no one. Eventually Gabapentin worked against me. I was irritable, forgetful and nervous and fearful of everything. I was also trapped because I saw no way to stop taking it. 

Except I did. I’m not sure when except that it was months and months ago. Sometimes I wish I paid more attention – if you know anything about AA, anniversaries are a deal. People might say, “the person who woke up the earliest is the one with the most sobriety” but I believe few really feel that way. I was as caught up in year count as anyone else – had I not started drinking when Philip died, next year would’ve been 40 years, people would’ve admired me and I’d have eaten it up. But I also know the emptiness of that – needing that kind of recognition and approval does not fill the hole that demands it.

I still see no clear cut path as to how I was able to stop using something I swore I couldn’t live without. If I’d asked for help – as I did when I went to AA  – then the steps would be obvious. But this I did mostly by myself. I began to ask Philip to help me as – and again, I will not get into this now – he is very much with me and it is he who I turn to for help every day. Between the two of us I managed to stop by tapering off. I did not involve my psychiatrist. The only medical professional I turned to was S, the Physician’s Assistant who works in my office and who is my practitioner. When I was down to taking the bare minimum before actually, finally stopping it altogether, I was not feeling well. Not emotionally or mentally, but physically. Weak, tired, fatigued – not the kind of symptoms I could find while trolling the internet for “Gabapentin Withdrawal.” My PA suggested I might need to stay on one or two pills a day. I refused. The weeks went on, the symptoms went away. It was over.

Next went Abilify, which was supposed to enhance Wellbulltrin. That was easy, I did not feel any different. And finally, Wellbutrin. For both of these I spoke to my psychiatrist as to how best to taper off. I am well aware one does not just stop taking antidepressants on a whim. I received my instructions, bid her good-bye, told my PA what I was doing and that if I needed her, I’d let her know.

I am now off all of it, and have had no repercussions. I tapered off the Wellbutrin more quickly than advised because through each stage I had no adverse reactions and because sometimes I know my own body better than somebody else. Again – I wish I kept track of when I did it, again I can say it was sometime this year. So I’ll leave it that 2022 was the year I stopped taking prescription medication designed to make me emotionally and mentally “better.”

I’ve written all this because I assume it is an aspect of why I have the ability I’d believed I’d lost to sit and think about the life I experience. And for all the decades of trying to deal with my life through alcohol and drugs, both legal and illegal, the only organic way I have of doing that, of attempting to take myself seriously and at least try to find meaning, is writing. And that requires removing whatever blocks my process.

NB – This is my story, my experience of working with a psychiatrist and the medications I was prescribed. It is no one else’s and I am certainly not recommending anyone flush their medications down the toilet. I am not a doctor, I have not even done any amateur research into this topic. I do know there are levels of depression and psychosis and when someone needs help, my only suggestion would be to find a doctor you trust to help. I consider myself fortunate that I was able to leave behind Wellbutrin so easily. And whatever I’m going through now is not something medication, prescribed or otherwise, can “cure.”

© 2022 Denise Smyth

Prelude

14 Aug 2022 2 Comments

by Denise in Addiction, alcoholism, Alzheimer, anger, Death of a Child, Family Tags: , , , , ,

I am angry, I wrote in my last. Once I had someone sigh and say, “That again?” Yes, that again. Like what, it has a term period? A date of ending, when I can check it off the calendar as done and over?

Truth is, what I have needed to do is slow down and pull apart the tentacles of my anger, to look at what it is these tentacles are clinging to. I’ve pushed aside, for later, what seems too unwieldy in order to peer more closely at those things I feel ready to contemplate. And there is nothing I am angry at that is not born from a lack of control. Nothing.

I am angry at the weather, the heat and lack of rain. I am angry that Trump is. I am angry that I – literally – do not know what to do when it’s my choice. Work and obligations aside, most of what I want to do is read, with maybe some TV on the weekends. That doesn’t much hold my interest, either, although I’m pretty happy with Succession. I don’t want to go out and meet people, there’s nowhere in particular I want to go, and I’m frustrated and angry that I am not someone who can say, “Hey, I’d like to ____ and then go find someone to do this mysterious activity with me.

I could go on. But I’m going to get to the one thing that angers me the most – my mom has Alzheimer’s and where to start with that? I will thank you all for your sympathy in advance. Direct it at her. While my part in this story can’t be unique, I don’t think it follows the usual trajectory in terms of feelings. But what do I know? Maybe posting this will show me different.

No matter what we’re suffering, our personalities, experiences, and habitual ways of dealing with things will surface and color our reactions, if not our actual actions. Sometimes we have the forethought to understand we might feel like saying, “fuck this” and then walking away, but something more rational takes over, sees the implications of such action, and maybe tries to do better.

Like me.

I don’t think I’ve ever really sat here and took a good, deep look at the relationship I have with my mother, who I see her as and who I see myself as in this context. In fact, a few years ago I decided I wanted to turn my blog into a memoir. During the writing it hit me how much a part of my story my mother is. There was an incident that occurred a few days after Philip died that I wanted to write and I went dumb. There I was, writing the most excruciating account, day by day, of what I felt like losing Philip, but I could not figure out how to describe an incident that concerned my mother. It was after that that I gave up the memoir, started writing much less in my blog. That is not the whole and complete reason for my withdrawal from writing. It is, perhaps, a tentacle.

Mom and I are oil and water, which I can pretty much say about my whole family. Yes, I am that one. I’d always felt on the outside but refused to think too deeply about why. I come from a large Italian family where every Sunday was spent at Grandma’s. My mom was the only girl out of seven siblings, which placed a unique burden on her when time came to helping with chores or taking care of the little ones. Two of her brothers were younger than she and she was often responsible for them. My mom’s 90, and there is one of them she still feels responsible for. In fact, in younger days when my dad was alive, the family joke was that if my dad was lying in the road and Uncle M was across the street, my mom would walk over my dad to get to my Uncle. Wasn’t any funnier then than it is now.

I used to think that maybe I felt odd because I was the only daughter of the only daughter. When Sunday dinners came around, My family would have to get to my grandparents’ extra early because my mom had to help my grandma get dinner ready. Soon as I was able, I had to do my part, whether it was putting glasses on the table or running downstairs to the club – where the men would gather and play cards while the women cooked – to get the men to come upstairs for dinner. 

Another reason I may have felt odd was because I wanted to drink. When I was 7 or 8 I asked my mom if I could have one of the cordials in that glass that just so cute. My mom said yes but my dad overheard and forbade it. I hated him then, but by 3 or so years later I figured out how to get some myself.  My grandparents made wine in the cellar, and while everyone (except the kids) drank, it was obvious that my grandfather was alcoholic. 25 Years in this county and he did not speak one word of English – only his native Italian. Many a time he’d be escorted into bed or another room, happily singing drunken tunes. Once, during dinner, there was a commotion during desert as my grandmother began hitting my grandfather over the head. Turns out he’d poured wine into his coffee cup and was blowing on it as if it was coffee because my grandmother had given him stern orders not to have wine at the table.

My grandmother lived in a two story house in Brooklyn on the top floor. The bottom, as I mentioned, was the club where my dad, my uncles and their friends hung out. On the second floor lived my Aunt J., Uncle G., Cousin R. and Cousin Maria, who is exactly two years older than I am and the sister of my heart.

I have lived very much outside the lives of the family I grew up with. Most of my uncles stayed in Brooklyn, cousins scattered to NJ, Long Island, Staten Island. My brother and sister-in-law moved to Staten Island, and I wound up in NJ with my immediate family when Philip was 7 and Natalie 5. I kept in touch with my cousin Maria on and off throughout the years – and if you’re a follower you might remember Maria was the first person I called when I found out Philip died. For the last two years I’ve worked for her and her husband, and they have graciously allowed me to escape to their shore home when I need to.

This has been a short but necessary background – next, Alzheimer’s

© 2022 Denise Smyth

Time

06 Aug 2022 4 Comments

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

They must’ve told you – someone, somewhere, many someones in multiple some-wheres, how, “Time heals all wounds.” And you probably had to find out for yourself that it doesn’t. I wrote about this once, somewhere in this blog. The priest at Philip’s wake told us so and I was grateful. There is no comfort, particularly at the nadir of one’s grief, to think, in time this will go away or one day I won’t feel so bad, I will be able to manage this. When Philip died I existed in a dimension called Grief and the idea that time would heal it meant…what? That it would be okay, that I would be okay? That there was somehow going to be something called Life as Usual?

The naiveté. The shallowness. Even if said from a loving heart with all the kindness, concern and worry that comes from the helpless onlooker who truly cares for you. This month it is ten and a half years since Philip died. Since my son died. I had a therapist ask me why I called him “my son.” He is, after all, his own person, not my possession. He has a life apart from me. Except he no longer has a life – at least on this earth – apart from me. I have two children. And calling them “my child” is an acknowledgment of the bond that can be between me and them and no other. I need that. I need to know that what was and is between us is special, real, everlasting. If calling Philip “my son” soothes me that way I’ll skip the analysis of where he ends and I begin because I dare anyone with a dead child to try to figure that one out.

Then there was Phil, seeing my grief-hysteria weeks after Philip died. “Denise,” he said, “You gotta stop. Philip wouldn’t want this – he wants you to be happy.”

I turned on him. “How do you know?” I demanded. “How do you know what he wants? Maybe he’s missing me. Maybe he’s lonely. Maybe he wishes I could go keep him company!”

Phil blinked slowly. “You are really sick,” he said softly. Which fits in pretty much with the way I view myself. If thoughts wear grooves in our brains based on usage, then, “There is something wrong with me” is my Grand Canyon.

But how did he know what Philip “wanted?” We know nothing about the dead. But when it suits us we make proclamations?

I did, though, have an experience to counter this. Driving one night, not long after this exchange, I was thinking that I was going to kill myself. I once tried – and obviously failed – when I was 21. This, too, is for another post, but throughout my life I thought the only way out of the prison of my brain and the repetitive negative thinking was death. So it was natural for me to be thinking in the face of Philip’s death, “I’m done. I don’t know how yet, but I am done.”

That’s when I heard Philip. He’s behind my right shoulder, he speaks into my right ear. “Mom,” he said, “It doesn’t work that way. You have to find the joy.” And in that instant, it occurred to me that I took the responsibility of having two children, one who died, but one who was very much alive and needed me. And I saw myself standing next to Philip looking toward Natalie, but now unable to reach her. The grief was just as intense. That’s when I knew things were as they were and I must deal with them in that way. Natalie needed me. That was all there was to know.

I also understood at that moment that suicide was not a solution. It was a continuation of what I was trying to escape. If I believed death was like going to sleep and never waking up, then suicide made sense. Philip was teaching me something different. He was telling me the way out is to find the joy. I can tell you that ten years on, I have not found the joy. I still circle back to “There is something wrong with me.” I watch people, I watch the things they do and what they enjoy and what keeps them going and I still feel the odd one. My greatest pleasure is reading, which I do for hours on end daily. Today I started to write – something I have not been able to do for years even though it is one of the things I have loved to do and it was certainly what kept me going during the earlier years when Philip died. 

I have been, I am, so angry.

But back to where I started this post. Time does have a part to play. Its passage changes things. I no longer cry for hours on end every day. The constant knot in my stomach is gone. Philip is not on my mind 24/7. I can laugh. I can hold a job. I can eat. No more drinking, no more bulimia. Outwardly, no one would be able to tell I suffered such a tragic loss, that my world is upended, that I will never be the same in ways I can only accept. And that maybe I shouldn’t accept, but I do.

I have a picture of Philip from when he was maybe 5 or 6. If I can figure out how to post it under photos I’ll put it there. He’s wearing an orange pullover with a collar. His right arm is leaning on a table, bent at the elbow, his face is leaning into his hand. He’s not looking at the camera but a bit to the right, a smile on his closed mouth, his far away thoughts giving him secret pleasure. If I look, I can just make out his left hand resting on the table, clutching a small dinosaur. He is angelic. Months ago I made that picture the background on my phone and it still unsettles me to see the beauty of that innocence. It still brings me to tears, still makes me stop what I’m doing and give pause. And I would like to say I smile to see my little boy so happy and so at peace, but mostly my heart twists into something unnatural because of what I have lost and my inability to find adequate words to share this with so that maybe someone can…help? Understand? What do I want? There isn’t any help, and from those who can understand – unfortunately, there are far too many who do – I cannot take comfort. 

© 2022 Denise Smyth

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