Without You

This week didn’t really reveal anything new about grief or dealing with 3’s death. However, as it is our first official “big holiday” without him, it’s still a substantial milestone.

Like I’ve said before, having family gatherings without 3 isn’t a recent development since his suicide. 3 would habitually show up late, or not show up at all. Family dinners, picnics, birthday celebrations – it was almost more of a surprise if 3 *did* show up! Therefore, sitting down for Thanksgiving dinner without our brother/son/uncle didn’t feel particularly strange. It was barely a half-full table anyway, with S, K, R, and their respective families missing, too.

That’s not to say that it was an easy day for everyone. At some point, Stepdad asked Mom what she wanted for Christmas “…that [he] can give [her].” Mom, understandably, started to cry, knowing that none of us are going to get what we really want this Christmas. When R and his girlfriend came home and bought everybody Subway for lunch, he remembered 3’s comparatively odd perennial sandwich order: ham, swiss, and A1 sauce.

Then, today, my aunt, Mom’s younger sister, came over and pulled Mom aside. She had happy news: my cousin Kel is engaged. That’s wonderful, but both Kel and her mom were worried about my mom. Kel is only 2 months younger than 3, and they grew up together, classmates until going to separate high schools. There are dozens of pictures of 3 and Kel in school, at family gatherings, and dressed up for school formals.

Naturally, we’re all thrilled for Kel. Her fiance is a great guy (and they’ve been dating FOREVER), and it’s always fun to have a wedding in the family. Yet, after my aunt left, Mom broke down, reminded yet again of things that her son will never do. 3 should be at Kel’s wedding. Hell, he more than likely would have pulled her fiance aside and given him a good old-fashioned big-brother type talk. Like everything else for the rest of our lives, 3 should be here for it.

I don’t mean to imply that it’s been a miserable Thanksgiving weekend. It’s actually been pretty great. Lots of smiles, LOTS of baby time, and more delicious food than I should eat in an entire year. All in all, I think our family is doing quite well; I’m oddly grateful that we’ve had nearly 11 months to prepare for our first “holiday season” without 3. I’m thankful for the truly exceptional amount of support and love I’ve received over the past year. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday, too.

Holidays Suck

Today, I drove home for Thanksgiving. Good stuff, right? I get to see most of my babies, get some time off work, get to gorge myself on all sorts of awesome food…

Then, on the drive home, I got a text from O. His dad passed away on Sunday.

Uuuuuuuuuugh. I *hate* this. HATE it. Can bad things just not happen to people I love? Please? O’s dad was a wonderful guy, hysterically funny and endlessly kind. After our college graduation, my parents had to leave early, so O invited me out to dinner with his family. His dad didn’t bat an eye at some random white girl (O’s family is Mexican) joining their celebration.

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, I got home, and Stepdad told me that one of our old middle school teachers had died. Calling hours are this evening. Because, apparently, everyone just dies around the holidays. 3 years ago, KP’s dad passed away just after Thanksgiving. 3, obviously, died just before New Years. I am not OK with this pattern. Make it stop.

There are, of course, qualitative differences between O’s dad and former middle school teacher. Teacher was quite a bit older, had grown kids and grandkids, and had suffered from a long illness. O’s dad, on the other hand, was relatively young (barely 50) and healthy. He did not have any grandchildren – O’s wedding is this coming June (also, while I’m asking for things, can people just stop dying right before weddings??). Not that either situation is “better” than the other, but these unexpected deaths are just not OK with me.

O’s dad is my first experience from the “other side” of tragedy. It sucks. I now have some semblance of an idea of what O is going through, and I’d give the world to keep him from having to go through this. It’s awful. I don’t want to see any of my friends or family have to deal with the death of a loved one, especially so young. If it’s the kind of thing you do, please pray for O’s family and Teacher’s family. This Thanksgiving is probably going to be the worst of their lives.

Stage 3.5 and a Brilliant Analogy

Many people are familiar with the “Five Stages of Grief:” denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Originally conceptualized by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to describe the feelings of people who have been diagnosed with a terminal illness, these stages are now often used to categorize reactions to any negative or traumatic event. Of course, they’re largely unscientific and not at all universal, but we’ll ignore that part for now, because the model partially fits my thoughts from this past week or so, and I’m going to use it if I damn well please.

As I’ve thought about 3 over the past few months, I’ve spent a lot of time telling myself that if only things were a little different, I would feel better in my grief. If only that friend would ask me how I was doing, if only I had a significant other to lean on, etc. I know that “bargaining” won’t bring 3 back, but maybe if I just do something a little differently, some of the pain will go away. My own Stage 3.

Then, naturally, I remember that nothing is really going to fix things. My brother is dead, and no amount of hugging or fictional boyfriends is going to make that fact better. Grief is grief, and I’m going to have to deal with it – with ALL of it. Because my brother is dead, and that is absolutely and completely horrible. Stage 4: everything sucks, and nothing is going to make that not true.

Part B: At some point in the past few days, I made what I consider to be a pretty big stride in my coping with 3’s death. I was able to acknowledge the possibility that, at some point, I will likely regain the level of happiness that I had before December 30th. It won’t be the same, obviously, but there is no way that the entirety of my life from here on out will be wholly less enjoyable that the 26.5 years before 3 killed himself.

Here’s my analogy: Losing 3 is like having to take a huge chunk of money out of your retirement fund well before old age. That money is gone, and it’s a big setback to your savings. You keep investing, and keep building up your account. Eventually, the account reaches, and then surpasses, the level it was at before you had to take out the money. Things get better, and you have more savings than you did before, but no matter how much money you accumulate, you know that it will never be as much as it could have been had the fund not taken such a big hit.

Losing 3 knocked me back quite a bit. I don’t know how long it will take to regain the level of contentment I had before his death. Good things are still going to happen; I fully expect that the best years of my life are ahead of me. I’ll just never know how much greater my happiness fund could have been if 3 was there to celebrate with me.

You Won’t Like Me When I’m Angry

In January, I’m moving to Ireland to spend 6 months doing research in Dublin. The chance to live in Ireland was a huge part of why Dream Job was so dreamy in the first place, and ever since I got the job, I’ve been excited to start my Irish adventure.

During the conference in Dublin last month, I learned that my advisors in Ireland have very specific plans for my research, none of which truly align with my explicitly stated interests. Earlier this week, I got an e-mail from those advisors, indicating that they think I’ll be living in shared accommodations while I’m there. My contract for this job stipulates that housing in Ireland will be provided for me. I guess it was never specified what kind of housing, but I certainly never thought I’d be required to live with other people.

When I got that most recent e-mail, I was IRATE. You’ve already taken away all freedom in my work, and now you’re trying to tell me that I have to live with [a] stranger[s]? Hipster Professor, the younger of the two advisors, glibly wrote that he’d lived with strangers before, and it’s always worked out for him, and it’s a great way to make friends!

Slow your roll, HP. I’m not doubting your experience, but it in no way informs mine. I’ve had a less-than-pleasant experience these past few months living with a roommate I’d never met before, but it’s more than that. When I live with someone I don’t know, I’m always on guard, walking on eggshells. Don’t be too loud, don’t leave a mess, don’t take up too much space, all without any guarantee that said roommate will offer those same behaviors in return. There’s no time to truly relax. In a carefully-worded e-mail that my close friends would have recognized as Condescending Bitch Mode, I told HP that I would rather pay for housing myself than live with strangers.

Obviously, there have been a lot of things out of my control this past year, 3’s death being the worst. It’s already been made clear that my work, while in Ireland, will not be my own. I refuse to abdicate freedom of my living arrangements on top of that. You can tell me how to do my job; I am, after all, a very junior researcher. You can not tell me how to live the rest of my life. Don’t concern yourself with my apartment, or whether or not I’m making friends. I’m a grown-ass woman, and I can take care of all that as I see fit.

I do feel badly for HP and the Dragon Lady (scary, super-powerful other advisor). They, like my poor current roommate, had no idea what they were getting into. Now they’ve gone and made me angry. I trust myself enough to believe that I will still be a phenomenal employee and do great work for them. It’s just a matter of how much control over my own life they make me defend.

The Resilience of Siblings

I’ve written before about how much I love all my siblings. Despite not even knowing each other for the majority of our lives, we all get along marvelously. At S’s wedding, all of us (except S, of course) hung out in the hotel the night before the ceremony. Two of my cousins joined us and were marveled at how much we acted like “real siblings.” We only use the step-sibling distinction when forced. Poor R, standing at the head of the receiving line at 3’s calling hours, got so many confused reactions when he introduced himself as “3’s brother” that he finally gave up and started saying step-brother. [Note: most of this confusion, naturally, came from my dad’s friends and family. For obvious reasons, Dad didn’t spread the news of Mom’s remarriage and our expanded family around his hometown.]

As much as I adore my family, we weren’t always the best at staying in touch. Until recently, most of us lived in different states, and we would only see certain sisters and brothers a couple of times per year. We were all Facebook friends, of course, and had a blast when we got together, but there wasn’t a whole lot of day-to-day interaction. After the babies were born, there was a little more sharing, and I would stay with J and her husband when traveling, but still not a lot of unplanned conversations.

Since 3’s death, and especially this week, I’ve noticed a distinct change in my relationships with my siblings (OK, with my sisters. R still isn’t one for random phone calls!) Last weekend, I called J to share the story of my heat-loving roommate, knowing that J would appreciate my propensity for ruining things by opening my big mouth. Later, K texted me, asking what my schedule for the holidays is, wanting to make sure that she and her family get to see me before I leave for Ireland. SL texted me a new picture of Wonder Woman, followed quickly by a photo of Bubby, who didn’t want to be left out of the picture-taking fun.

Maybe I’m just noticing these things more. Maybe I’m making more of an effort, too. I guess it doesn’t really matter. I’ve heard stories of families falling apart after suicide, for whatever reason. I’ve certainly fantasized about letting loose a vicious diatribe to my dad’s family and cutting off ties with most of them. But when it comes to my own siblings, I could not be more grateful that 3’s death seems to have brought us even closer.

Also: quick story. I’ve long believed that God often chooses to speak to me through music. Well, now 3 has picked up the habit. The other day, after having yet another conversation with someone about my lack of dating life, I heard The Band Perry’s “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely” on the radio. That’s fine. Nice song. Then I switched the station, only to hear Rob Thomas’s “Lonely No More.” Alright, jerk. I know I’m single. Get out of my radio 😛