June 2020
We are back on a plane.
Again, attempting to distract from, or escape, our reality.
Tomorrow will mark one year since I watched my mother die in a Detroit hospital. That hospital was a dump.
We had been at St Joe in Ann Arbor for 3 weeks before the change to Henry Ford. At both places, I can remember almost every move. Every room. Every Doctor. Seared. St Joe is a gazillion dollar facility. It has a fancy hotel vibe. With a bird’s eye or fly on the wall view, a sign of PTSD, I replay it all.
All the time.
Transferring to Henry Ford was the beginning of the end. Somewhere in my body, I knew it. Mom took a huge turn for the worse on the ambulance drive to Detroit. A sign. My stomach hurts to think about it, but I can’t stop the thinking.
Lately, the world has been in a state of extra turmoil. In the middle of a world pandemic, the US has begun a civil rights uproar.
Two weeks ago, white cops, in broad daylight, killed an innocent black man. It is injustice in the highest form and an absolute tragedy that disturbs any sane mind. His death, for all to view via video, has created an anger and uprising for equality, especially for safety, to become the norm. And although I do not have much emotional capacity to hold that event, or much of anything, I can back that anger.
Unfortunately, in contrast to the peaceful protests, riots have become rampant, as well. In conjunction, there is a sudden shift and abandonment of COVID precautions, and I can’t back that.
People are tired and angry. And sometimes that can make a person wild.
For the first time in my life, I am able to remotely relate to the wildness. When anger overtakes, a body can resort to animal behavior. I’m not excusing destruction, but I’ve felt the desire.
Last May, when my dad and I took my mother to the emergency room, she had a bellyache. Later, when they began to admit her, the attending doctor talked with my dad and I.
And He. Was. Terrible.
After the initial 30 seconds of conversation, I already knew I did not like him. With a thick accent, he scared the shit out of us with his cold communication. I advocated for further gallbladder scans. He strongly disagreed. I went home to bed and figured I would never see him again; we were no longer in the ER.
Beginning a short 9 hours later, I saw that guy every single day for the next 20 days.
On day 2 in the ICU, he admitted mistakes. It was her gallbladder.
He looked into my face and I felt absolutely wild. If I had been pushed one iota further, I could have destroyed everything in my sight with my bare hands. I could have ripped his head off. I could have stolen every item in the gift shop with a weird smile on my face.
I wanted to do all that, for I was nearly wild.
Perhaps the difference between that sort of raw anger and other anger is the pure desperation. I knew this Doctor’s mistakes were potentially fatal. And in ways, they were. At that stage in the health game, there was nothing that could be done to backtrack the mistakes, and I felt incredibly desperate.
While looting and breaking businesses, I wonder for how long in their lives the participants have felt pure desperation.
Instead of physically assaulting that Doctor, I chose a verbal form. He was a rotating doctor from another country. Certainly, I was not a representation of grace in the USA. Each day that followed, the doctor was visibly uncomfortable in my presence. My dad teased me. My husband was not surprised. Prior to my mom dying, my feelings have always been easily apparent, and also expressed.
The movies on Delta have not updated since we flew a month ago. A few new movies interest me, but I fear any sadness in the unknown plots. This past week I have been brought to my knees multiple times and I am not looking to do that here, on the plane. My little one has already cried for 10 minutes in flight. She is desperate for her Maya.
We are not overly excited about this trip. This trip is a mental health necessity and we are feeling that. It was another last minute, desperate decision. We love the faces of the folks we will see in AZ, but long to see my mom’s face: In real time. She had the best smile. She loved Arizona. Parts of me hate the entire state now. Selfishly, I want my brother to move back to Michigan and I can cross AZ off my map for good. I have taken this same flight path a hundred times in my life, mostly with my mom in tow. Somewhere, there is a photograph of me as a toddler on my mom’s lap, in flight to Arizona. I’d dig it out if it wouldn’t make me melt.
Scrolling through the movie choices, I came upon RENT and pushed play. When I was 13-16 years of age, the musical RENT was a big deal. It was new and raw and progressive. I loved it. I saw it on stage at least 3 times. I blared the music from my 6 CD system in the trunk of my silver escort, professionally installed by Mickey Shore… heck yes.
Assumingely, I saw the movie when it released, but I do not recall it. As I watch it now, it is easy to cringe. There is shmacting. Anthony Rapp was not made for the big screen…Put down the camera, Mark. Really.
The setting of the movie is NYC, mostly in a run down building. The main characters are poor, culturally diverse, and passionate. As a privileged white teen, I somehow thought I could relate. Maybe I just wanted to try.
Within the first 20 minutes of the movie, the landlord shows up. I don’t remember him much from my former fondness of the story. Now, over 20 years later, he is immediately my favorite person I see in the movie.
He is clean. Played by the handsome Taye Diggs in a V-neck sweater, Benny declares his goal to clear out the homeless people in the area and build a profitable structure. He looks organized and educated. I like him. He makes sense to me.
As I scrunch my face up at Mimi, the pretty drug addict, and wonder when my boy Benny will return to clean up all the trash, I think, “When did I become an old white lady?”
Nothing feels simple or even happy. Basically, I am just trying to get through this week and teach my girls to love others. Since my mom died, much of my energy is spent guarding my feelings and whatever sneaks out isn’t pretty.
My real grief scares me.
In my younger days, I was more energetic to promote change. A college friend and I received a grant to run an after school theatre program at a local high school, which was diversely divided and experiencing tension. Idealistically, we wanted a platform for kids to write, tackle, and perform the things that plagued them. At the university level, I performed in a group using theatre as a platform for social, cultural, and educational awareness.
Quickly, it was discovered that High schoolers, especially underserved and angry ones, can make for a challenging group to work for and with. I often found myself thinking, “get it together.”
What exactly was I hoping they got together? And how many others projected that onto them each day?
Nearly a year out now from my traumatic experience, I find myself and others encouraging me to “get it together.” Our lives have been disrupted long enough; it is time to embrace the ‘new normal.’
What exactly am I supposed to get together? My weepiness? My urge to toss our television off the deck? For my hair to stop falling out in clumps?
Presently, as I type , the hooligans in this movie are dancing on tables. It is stupid. And It’s also a challenge not to sing along.
George Floyd is the name of the man who was recently killed. I couldn’t watch the clip. Instead, I read the article and sobbed. It is reported that as he was murdered, he cried out for his mother.
His mother had died a couple years earlier. This grown man cried for his dead mother as his life slipped away.
When I close my eyes, I see my mother die, one year ago ,and then I visualize Mr. Floyd yelling for his mother, and I could barf.
I don’t think it gets more desperate than a child wailing out for their mother. Sometimes I feel the need, but I squelch it.
Feeling all the air escape my body as a person knelt on my neck, I’d call for my dead mother, too; no ounce of energy left for squelching.
Mothers are helpers. Mothers are comforters. Mothers love unconditionally.
Mine did and I can’t find her.
Every time I enter her house, my eyes still look for her in her usual places.
It seems she was violently plucked from her places.
Last July, a family friend held a birthday BBQ for her partner. She begged my dad, me, and the girls, to attend. We were reluctant and raw. It had been only a few weeks since my mother had died.
I drugged myself up and we went. While mingling on the deck, my dad’s neighbor approached me, whom I had only briefly met once before, and offered his condolences. He then proceeded to tell me how I would feel over the next year. “It takes a year. I have seen it over and over. You will be feeling much better in a year.”
As I walked away without speaking, I visualized taking the metal meat skewers from the grill and plunging them into that guy’s eyes.
Tomorrow marks a year, Doug, and I still hate you.
I feel wild anger inside.
You lied.
RENT was edgy 25 years ago. It showcased homosexual relationships, cross dressers, homelessness, AIDS. The movie can feel cliché now, but back then, the musical did not. Young people were ready for something that felt more real…. Mark and that damn camera documenting the everyday struggles of New Yorkers.
As I selected this movie, I almost suggested my oldest child watch it in flight. She loves music. Then I remembered that she is a child and the content is completely inappropriate.
“What kind of mom would do that?”
I am guarding my children from the real world. It is too painful.
I guess I am also shielding them the fake real world, too. For now.
Idina Menzel plays a protesting lesbian, Mimi, in RENT.
Nowadays she is known as a Disney queen, Elsa.
People change.
My mother worked hard her entire life. Her childhood had its share of challenges, mainly a broken family. She gave me the life she had wanted, but didn’t get. She moved us to a town with the best school system. It was full of white children. But my parents’ friend group was diverse and I am thankful. She gave us it all.
In a traumatic turn from her new house, built in one of the most desired towns in the state, my mother ended up in downtown Detroit- a city of passion and strength and plenty of trash. I drove past meth-heads and crumpled buildings, at 5 in the morning, to watch my mother die in a curtained off area, with cracks in the walls and an open toilet.
As we fly now, my oldest child watches Uncle Buck in the seat behind me and tries to control her anxiety. I do not have the emotional capacity to hold her. My little one sleeps stretched out next to me as the folks in RENT sing in unison on my tiny screen.
Angel, a supporting role, is dying and they rest of the friend crew belt, “Life goes on, but I’m gone. Without you.”
This trip was not a choice. I am desperate to get out of Michigan in an attempt to ease my pain. Reliving is more trauma. The past few weeks have brought many “where was I this same time last year?” thoughts and scenarios. I have driven a certain road and sobbed. I dropped off my kids to play with certain friends and was immediately in déjà vu of leaving them there last year, all of us feeling broken, as I went back to the hospital for another shift, and I drove away shaking.
My dad, my girls, and I will land soon to again carry our emotional baggage to my brother. Last night, each child came to me separately to say they didn’t want to travel. We don’t want to give energy to the worst day of our entire lives.
A day that was 1 year ago, yet feels like only yesterday.
I close my eyes and I am there, as my mother took heavy breaths and very faintly smiled as she took her last.
It runs on a loop, seeing it all in 3rd person, like it isn’t my life, like it could be Mark’s fictional footage.
The trendy New Yorkers on my screen sing a medley: “Will I lose my dignity? will someone care? Will I wake tomorrow from this nightmare? …..life goes on when I’m gone…no day but today… the fire’s out anyway….. “ and it fades to black.
Tomorrow afternoon, in the desert my mother loved to visit, the surviving 3 of our original unit of 4, my mother’s favorite people, will be together as we pass 525thousand, 600minutes since she left us.
I will want to cry out for her. But I’ll squelch it.
Not That Good Grief 