Transcript: Episode 261
261. The Worst Day
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
If you stand on our front porch, there's a view like none other that has given us such peace and strength over the last year since moving here. I have a rocking chair on the porch. And I can sit and read, or just watch the birds, or see the children play. The house sits on top of the hill, or in the middle of it with the backyard going up higher into the woods. And the front yard is a long way down, steep for mowing in the summertime, but with roses lining the path and stair steps down to the pergola where we have the fire before the trees that the children called Narnia because of the lamppost that shines in the night. Our houses on a road in the country that curves around, a long way down before the stop sign, past the cows and horses, pigs and llamas, and other chickens like ours. It gives the children room to ride their bikes when I go on walks, so that they are active and with me, even during the pandemic, but also gives me an illusion of space to myself for a moment, but never long.
But when I sit on the porch I can see across the valley with the mountains that surround us. They call them mountains here, but I've lived in the Alps, and I know these are hills. And because it's wintertime all the leaves have fallen, and so we can see further all the way to the lake. And to the right is a line of trees that separates our place from the farm next door, and their land that goes out towards the road that leads to the highway. And with the leaves all on the ground, we can see through the trees if you'd send just right, with a tiny glimpse of the highway itself that we couldn't see the rest of the year when everything was green.
And that place on the highway, that exact place, is where my mother was killed. I don't know what the chances are of that. That I would now live here, standing every day looking at where she died. No one planned that.
When we had to leave Kansas City so quickly for the pandemic, when the hospital told us to go, we came back here to be sure the husband's parents were okay. And as we searched for a home, we made a circle on the map. And there were only two homes available that would fit our family. We're not picky, there's just a lot of us. One of them was closer to his parents, but also in the country. But the day before we were supposed to meet them to sign the papers, they decided to sell. Paying our daughter's medical bills, we're not in a place to buy a home right now. We've just sold the other one to pay the hospital. So it was not an option for us, and this was the only other house on the map.
No one could have planned it. I don't know. And even the husband said, “What are the chances of that? “Only in your life,” he said, “would that even be a thing.” Because I guess there's so many things in our life, so what's one more.
But I stood there every day this winter, listening to the children play, but not watching them. And sensing the birds fly past, but not hearing them. And throwing corn and seeds and worms to the chickens, but forgetting to delight in them. Because my eyes were locked on that spot of highway where everything was finished. Just like that. And how hard that was to feel the weight of that. Layers of grief that's complicated, without anyone to explain why. But also, at the same time, feel as if we had been set free, and wonder, “Do you feel guilty for that?” But that's what I felt when suddenly both parents were gone for good. And it was over. And done. And they weren't coming back.
But still, it was hard. And I wondered what to think and what to feel as I've stared at that spot on the highway from my own front porch. As if God or the universe wanted to make sure that I knew, wanted to make sure that I saw, wanted to give me time to let go.
I wondered if that's what was so hard about leaving the therapist, because of the history that she held, or because of the care that she gave. The one who was my not-mother and my not-friend, and now not my therapist.
I thought about the therapist that we had, that we just wrote to, that we found last fall, and shared chapters of the books with to process as we sent them to editing. Something we decided to do specific to that task. And what it's like letting those words out into the world, but making sure we weren't alone as we did so, even when it pushed us to the brink and nearly did us in last year. But we pulled through, and pulled ourselves together, and we did it. And when the editors called to say it was ready and gave us a publishing date, we went to call our new therapist to tell her the news, to update her as we continued to plan for releasing bits of our story. Not everything. Not everyone. Not all of it. Not all of us. But story enough and agreement enough to maybe offer hope through hard things and to share our version of lived experience with the world in case maybe it helps someone help someone.
And when it was time for our appointment, we sent her a message about the highway that we could see. Because today's the anniversary of when our father was gone and our mother was killed on the way home. Maybe that seemed like something that maybe we should finally talk about in therapy while at the scene of the crime, living by the highway.
But before it was time, her office called, which was unusual because she always just sent me the link and I click on it for our video telehealth. But we answered the call. And someone from her office told us she was gone. And it was done. She tested positive for COVID five days ago. And just like that, she's gone.
And I'm standing on the porch, looking at the highway, feeling cold and frozen and shaking. And I don't know what my feelings are, or if I'm allowed to have them. I'm not her family. I'm not her friend. But she was important to me.
But also new, compared to the therapist that I've known since I was 16. Except I don't know her at all, even, because she's a therapist and I'm just a person. She doesn't remember before, but we do, and that's okay. But I don't want anything to happen to her either because she's important to me and we care for a long time.
And I thought how there's something sacred about therapist and client that no one else ever knows, or shares, or experiences, or understands. And even when you're very careful with boundaries, and even when they're good and follow the rules and you try your best, it's still something special. Something more than everything else, and yet dissociated from everything else. Making it both the most real relationship and nonexistent one, all at the same time.
This therapist was new to me. Only a few months. But she was helping. And like the others last year, kept us alive. And I was grateful. But I don't know that I have permission to cry. Being in the wrong circle, always on the outside looking in or across at the highway where my mother died.
And standing there, I realized my grief last year was not just leaving the therapist, it was feeling what had never been. And my parents dying was what Laura Brown calls the “death of hope.” Because time ran out and nothing will ever change. Even if I already knew it. So maybe I was already feeling and processing before I knew it, before I could see it, before the leaves fell.
And I realized that's been the trigger. And my birthday party relationships, it was never about the birthday. It's that one of them has loved me like a sister who has gone beyond my grief, in a place I can't think about or feel, and one of them has lost a child like I did long ago and so alone, and one of them lost her mother in an accident. And so they know. And seeing them, and talking to them, and being with them, makes me know too. [Sniffling]
And now standing in the cold part of me thinks, “Wait. I'm ready. I'm finally ready. Let's talk about it.” And I can't because now time ran out and she's gone. I missed my chance because I took too long. And there's no one I can tell what that means to me. Because I'm no one. Because the therapist is not my mother, and not my friend, and now not here. And I am again alone.
And all of that is selfish because her real family grieves and her real friends know. And the world in which she lives, lived, sees, saw, her.
And I thought, “What piece of her do I get to keep that was only mine, for me, and not just what she said to everybody?” The way a girl I once dated had already slept with everyone, so there was nothing special about what she offered me. And why is that what I'm thinking about standing here, realizing my therapist has died, looking at where my mother died. And how messed up is all of that? And how messed up am I? And who is going to help me now?
I confess that my gut response initially was to run back to the therapist who has been there all along and who says her doors are open. Because that's who she is and what she does.
But I remembered the grief from last year, and see clearly the weight of what I feel now, and I understand it all differently. And I know that going back would betray that part of me that worked so hard to teach me how to feel. And I know that I'm not actually helpless even though I feel overwhelmed. I am not a victim here. It's a tragic thing. It's a sad thing. It feels big in a series of big and tragic and sad things. But it's not the end of the world. Because I'm still here.
And so I wondered, “How will I grieve this? How will I move through this? What will I do with the layers I can now see?”
I read her obituary on the porch where I could see the highway and it talked about how she volunteered at a nursing home. I wanted to honor her in some way. Her gift to me, keeping me alive, not knowing she was going to die. But I am no one, and not in a circle to contact them to ask them to help me. That's not how it works. But when I read her obituary, it talked about how she volunteered in a nursing home. And so the children and I gathered the last of the winter roses and we took them to the nursing home here, and spread them out in front. And a woman there cried her tears for mine, and gathered some and took them to the window of her mother. And we watched them for a moment before I pulled the children away, because staying would be intrusive in that sacred moment. And because I always find myself on the outside looking in. But at least we did something good, and something tangible we could feel to honor her, to say goodbye.
I don't know what happens next or what you do with that or where it goes, and what's emotion and what's pragmatic. But I knew what she would tell me, to just start tapping until I could feel my feet on the ground again. And to accept whatever came up, to notice it, to feel it, and accept it. And so I'm trying, and I'm okay because she taught me how to be.
Our love for our therapists is okay, you guys. It's a thing, ever so appropriately. But a year when life and death has meant everything, it was something to acknowledge, something to accept. Even when that means letting go.
[Break]
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