Tag: death

Posted in Oscar

For All That I Carry

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

There’s always music on in this house. Always sound. For now, for these morning hours on this day, it is as silent as it will ever be. Lucy is at a friend’s house, waking up soon at a sleepover before spending the day with the sitter. TV is off, there’s no music; every single device on silent. The dog sighs occasionally, the cars pass outside the window. It’s early enough on a Saturday that the general sound of two men having a conversation across the street carry over. I’ve opened the window, the first time in months; there is no breeze, and the shade is still deep. I’ll have to remember to close it soon and turn the AC back on. 

Seven years ago, time stopped somewhere on Tuesday morning, July 17th and didn’t start again until 6:34AM on Thursday, July 19th. The time between exists only as a liminal space, a time hung in the balance of disbelief. 

Today, at 6:30, I held the tiny urn to my chest, cold stone, until it was warmed through, and I felt the cool patches from where I had given it my warmth. I set it next to his crown, then struck a match; the tiny stick splintered, enough fibers holding together that the flame didn’t fall. I lit the candle, the one given to me by someone else who had similarly birthed stillness, and sat. The Mother watched over, her face serene in the candlelight.

I spoke to him for a minute, words so similar to what I tell Lucy – I love you so much. I’m so proud to be your mama. I love you, I love you – and more that I hope never to say for Lucy – I miss you every day. 

My body knows the time without checking my watch. My whispers trail off, and I let the minute of his birth pass in silence, acutely aware of the emptiness of my hands and my womb. They ache for the tiny life they once carried. 

Then I rise, and gently lift the baby blanket his Nana made, the only thing I have left that held him besides my own skin. I opened my phone and pulled up the video of Andrea Gibson reading their poem “Love Letter from the Afterlife” to their wife. I let it play, feeling the words echo in the empty parts of me. “One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born –“ 

The playback stopped. I looked over at my phone, laying on the bed. The video was still up, so I didn’t move, just closed my eyes. Waited.

Waited until my body sobbed, unbidden, and I reached for the phone. I picked it up without touching the screen, and – 

“ – and they are all the more excited.”  

The mortal death of Andrea Gibson hit me hard this week, in this space between Hawthorne and Oscar’s birthdays. They left right smack between them – 9, 14, 19. I can’t ignore the symmetry of those dates strung together. I haven’t written since their death, but I’ve felt it coming, the words building up behind a dam made from capitalism and parental responsibilities. Apparently now is when the dam breaks. 

Every year, I try to be gentler with myself in this between time. I liken it to the days between Christmas and New Year in workplace. There’s no deadlines, no major work being done – I know that’s not true for everyone, but in my world, the fiscal year is separate and tends to be when the rush of deadlines hits. And, in so many ways, it is a new year for me. Forget CE/BCE or BC/AD. Life is divided differently for me, and I think, for all those who have carried both life and death in their bodies. There is the Before Oscar time, and the After Oscar time. And so, when the clock strikes midnight tonight, The Year After Oscar 7 begins. I’ll return friends calls and texts, and get the weekly grocery shopping done. I will set the new year off with music in my soul-home state, and dance with my amazing, brilliant, feral child as it echoes off the lush green mountains. Hawthorne and I played that music for hours and hours for both of the little lives we shepherded. How fitting to find the concert there, ten miles from Lucy’s birthplace, on the first day of AO 7. It also feels a little strange to think that’s what I’ll be doing merely 36 hours from now, from these moment of heaviness that drag my fingers to the keyboard to catch everything that is pouring out of me faster than the pen can. The reams of paper I already go through. 

Seven years. I’ve written before how “should” is a four-letter word. He should be seven; he should be starting second grade a few days before Lucy has her first day of kindergarten. We should be shopping in West Lebanon for new clothes for them to start school in our tiny town of Stockbridge, Vermont. Should sucks. 

Lately I have been feeling called to lean into my witchy aspects more. I started keeping my tarot cards closer, and being less prescriptive with my own self on when I use them. I’ve been reading more, and while I roll my eyes at the algorithms, enjoyed the content that’s crossed my feeds. I’ve been listening to my horoscope from an astrologer and witch I feel a connection to, and have finally done my star chart. But I find myself wondering, this year, about the symbolism and signs around Oscar. So, I did his star chart – and downloaded the full explanatory report, because again, I’m just learning. He’s a Cancer sun, like his Papa, that I knew; also Libra moon and Leo rising. 

Today, he would be seven years old. Today, grief weighs seven pounds and one ounce, and is the heaviest it ever is. I’ve tried to explore numerology before to no avail, and today is no different. I feel no connection to it; maybe I don’t understand it enough, but today does not feel like the day to pursue it, either. 

Today is a day to give myself the space to feel what needs to be felt, just like I did on Hawthorne’s birthday last week. That day I walked over 18,000 steps on the beach and on a hike at the (poorly named) World’s End park, and I found what I needed. Today I have some options after writing – writing is compulsory, after all – and whatever feels good, I’ll follow. Last week my therapist asked what containers I have for all this grief; how do I hold it? And really, the containers are the same as they have always been. Writing, and natural spaces where the air isn’t crowded with voices.

So if you see me today, just give me a wave. Leave a message at the tone, drop me a text or a DM, and just know that I’ll get back to you in the new year. 

Posted in Current Events, Memoir and Memory

Careening, Curating, Creating

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

My thirty-ninth year has begun. 

I’m not one of those people who has a birthday month, or even a birthday week – unless it’s the usage of the extra day of PTO given to me by work, or coupons in my email that I mostly discard. It’s never been a big deal. As a kid, there was always a family dinner on the day of; I’d still get chastised for what or how much I ate, dessert was often forcibly shared. Honestly, looking back, I can’t remember most of the parties with friends; those that I do remember, were they mine, or my sister’s that I helped with? No idea, especially since my parents were pretty content with “this worked for the first one, let’s do it again.” 

I remember my 16th birthday, not for any sort of license or freedom, but because it was the first time I had to call 9-1-1. 

I remember my 21st birthday, going to Fenway with my boyfriend and my bestie and spending $16 on one beer and two hot dogs. I’ve always been a lightweight, so the pint of Sam Adams kept me warm in the chilly April evening.

I remember misunderstandings and hurt feeling with Hawthorne until we figured out birthday traditions. It had always been far more special for them than me, and it took time to get used to it. They wanted me to take the day off and spend it with them, both for their birthday and ours. I always prioritized theirs, when it came back to the issue of PTO. We got the hang of it, and spent most of them fishing, with some sort of seafood for dinner and chocolate for dessert, and cards we delighted in picking for each other. 

I remember the first birthday after Oscar died, and how I felt like I didn’t deserve one. 

I remember the first birthday after Hawthorne died, and how desperately I wanted no one to acknowledge it. I didn’t want to celebrate. One of my besties ordered dinner to be delivered to my house, and that was the perfect balance of being taken care of and left alone. 

I remember writing about birthdays before; but if I go looking to make sure I don’t repeat myself, I’ll get distracted, and this post will end up in the growing file of “unfinished and-or unpublished blog posts.” 

I remember turning 37 and feeling unable to function, turning the age Hawthorne was when they died. I remember the jokes with their friends about careening towards forty, and feeling like they stopped mid-pinwheel.

I know the most recent years have been dinner with the cousins and cake; I remember last year being the first time I wanted to celebrate in what felt like forever. I got to spend the weekend with some forged family. I was only recently back on my feet from my health scare, so things were a little weird.  

This year, I was excited for the things surrounding my birthday, the time I’d get to spend doing things I loved. 2025 has been full of change, heartaches and utter joy smashing into each other. With so much in flux, I was even less concerned with the actual date than usual. 

It rolled in like any day, which honestly, is the way I like it. The child was a creature – I believe putting on shoes was the breaking point, but that could have been another day. I went to work, saw a friend who’d stopped by for a visit; her little man being exactly 38 years and 10 months younger than me, we obviously celebrated with sweet baby snuggles. I spoiled myself rotten at the bakery with croissants the size of my face and two different types of cake. My own man was celebrating, his first day at his new job, and he came over afterwards. We dragged the kid out for a walk, managing to catch that golden hour in warm spring air before diving into literal pounds of seafood – fried catfish for me, mussels and shrimp for him – and hot dogs for Lucy. We’d had edibles for an appetizer, and cupcakes throughout the night.

And it was wonderful. A normal day, a normal amount of stress and grief and work shit; magic and cake and love sprinkled throughout like Funfetti. 

I don’t stress much about aging. I have a few grays – still a countable amount. I’m starting to see fine lines at the corners of my mouth and my eyes, evidence of a lifetime of emotion. My belly is round and soft after carrying kiddos, a little extra flesh under arms when I flex. My knees ache when my weight goes up, old sports (and general lack of grace) injuries make themselves known. I groan when I have to change positions at the end of the day, and I use the heated seat in the car to make my back feel better no matter the temperature outside. I’ve got probiotics and aspirin in my pillbox, and the biggest contained of ibuprofen you can get.

I am always learning to take better care of myself; it is an ever-continuing education. I got new reading glasses with the blue light thingy, and a recommendation for yellow-tinted lenses for night driving with the influx of stupid LED headlights. I’ve had my cervical cancer screening, and check my skin for changes in freckles regularly. I finally hit my weight loss goals, and am trying to focus more on movement than scale numbers. I’ve dealt with consecutive injuries – right bicep, right ankle sprain, left bicep – so just now feeling ready to dust off the gym membership. 

I am trying to incorporate both physical activity (walking, gardening) and deliberate rest and relaxation into my days. My man has been teaching me to play video games on the Switch – resurrecting my love of Tetris and Spyro, and introducing me to Spiritfarer.

I’ve been working on a social media exit plan and reboot, working to cut down the time I lose to anxiety and distraction on my phone. I’ve fully deleted TikTok, tumblr, and Twitter. I’ve closed my personal Instagram, keeping my author IG and Threads accounts, as well as my Facebook. However, one of the best things I did was to delete Facebook from my phone. Not my account – I still have it, personal and professional, but now I have to use the computer to use it. I don’t know about you, but scrolling on a laptop is not the same thing as just thumbing the screen on my phone. 

The screen time itself was not the issue; it was what lead to the screen in the first place. I remember Hawthorne telling me they used their phone (reddit, mostly) to keep themselves distracted from their physical pain. I remember with extreme clarity the moment I decided that was a good idea – sitting on the red couch in the new spot I’d chosen after they died, Lucy napping in her swing. I couldn’t read. I didn’t want to watch anything; everything reminded me of them and I couldn’t choose something new. I picked up my phone. 

More recently I’ve come to realize just how much I rely on scrolling to “manage” my anxiety. Once that rise of overwhelm started, that whiny, physical discomfort of having to do something I didn’t want to, or was anxious/nervous about, or I just… didn’t want to be so damn present, I picked up my phone. And I hated it. I didn’t want to do it, but I had conditioned myself. And then it got to the point where it didn’t matter why I’d picked it up – to make an important call, check the weather for the day, see the picture from Lucy’s school or message from my man – I’d end up scrolling. I tried setting limits and alarms; that only worked when I handed someone else the control to set the password on the parental limits so that once 11pm rolled around, my phone became just a phone with an alarm and messaging. But that didn’t stop the scrolling the other 18 hours of the day. 

I need environmental and engineering controls. I don’t respect self-imposed limits; if someone else were to tell me “no, you can’t go there,” but they leave me with the key? Eventually I’m going to be the horror-movie blonde who finds a way to justify exploring it and discovering the consequences for herself. For something like breaking self-imposed limits on screen time, the consequences (feeling guilty) just fed back into the reason I picked the damn thing up in the first place. 

I don’t want to be scrolling. If I’m using my phone, I want it to be because I want to be – not mindless distraction. I kept my games – Wordle and Squardle and Killer Sudoku. Those are daily things I enjoy spending time on, sipping coffee sitting in the car or on the couch. No guilt. I kept Instagram on my phone, and Messenger – I don’t get stuck in those and lose time. I kept Threads – now that one I have a limit for, because I do get distracted, but so far, it’s quite easy to come back from and there haven’t been any negative feelings. Reacting to everyone for Facebook birthday wishes on the computer was a pain in the ass, and forced me to take the time to do it by hand and actually read the names of everyone who left one. 

There’s no guilt for me in deciding to pick up the Switch, or play an extra Sudoku game, or indulge in more smut on my Kindle. There’s no uncomfortable shame in using my laptop to make a post, or edit, or put new words down. To me, that means that my amount of time using screens is within healthy parameters. 

It’s also forcing me to face my anxieties differently, especially at work, or with interpersonal things. I no longer have that easy distraction. It might not seem like deleting a few apps and accounts could do that, but I simply don’t use what remains the same way. I’ve sat on less emails, had to apologize for not getting back to people sooner less, been (somewhat) more prepared for things. I’ve managed to do not distract myself away from some emotionally painful things, both work and personal. I’m fact-checking what I do hear, trying to be more responsive and less reactionary. It feels impossible sometimes, what with the current state of the politics, but it’s absolutely necessary to my mental health. 

Best of all, it’s re-lighting some of the creative candles that have sputtered out. This right here, case in point; like I said, multiple unfinished posts that may never see the light of internet fame. I’ve been playing more with collage, with markers, with coloring and stickers. I’ve picked Master Class back up, and have been watching the creative folks I follow on Youtube more than fifteen-years old sad music videos. 

One of the posts I have hidden away is mostly memes about why we need art; about art as revolution, creativity as response – to injustice, to war, to fascism, to a government that doesn’t seem to want so many of us to exist. I may resurrect it (though Easter Sunday would have been better for that I suppose). 

At the moment, however, I feel like I am the center of six orbits that both intersect, and remain out of sync, with each other. I don’t like this much unknown, this much simultaneous change and ambiguity. It’s not comfortable. It doesn’t feel good in my body. But if wisdom comes with aging, maybe this is the evidence – my phone is in the other room, and my battery is dying; I don’t have time for distraction. I’ve cultivated what I am able to take in, and focusing on what I’m able to do, to take action in the ways that don’t empty me. 

And so I leave you with this; one quote in one picture, what would have been the capstone to the other post (and the article above about Ethan Hawke’s TED Talk).

Let us grow and age and create, speak and write and do language; and let the 39 dripping birthday candles blow out, and not one more. 

Quote by Toni Morrison on a background of library books with an open notebook and quill in an inkwell. The quote reads "This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal."
Posted in Hawthorne

Entry to the Memory Museum of the Chaos Muppet

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

It’s been four years since they died, because time is both nonsense and inescapable.

Four years. The memories come in italics now; softer around the edges, less of a bloodied scalpel excising moments to peer at under the microscope, watching the grief-heavy wounds lay open. They weave in and out of ordinary moments like sutures stitching past to present; I rarely flinch at the piercing anymore. The big days, though  – the anniversaries, the birthdays – those still make the scars throb in remembrance.

Four years since I was held in their strong arms, since I whispered I loved them and kissed their forehead. Four years since I rubbed my fingers over their baby duck hair, newly buzzed; four years since they could laugh with delight. I think of all that laughter silenced, all those stories that died with them. They are by no means the origin story of my own writing, but on my dark days, I am reminded of all the stories I carry – Hawthorne’s and Oscar’s and my parents and father-in-law – that may also, one day, die unwritten. 

Recently I’ve been frustrated with writing, having trouble with the final edits and the publishing aspect of finishing my current book. Someone close to me, unafraid to ask hard questions in hard moments, reminded me that I have Hawthorne’s stories to finish, too – and my own. The combined taste of frustration and “I love you” is familiar, one we share between us over Hawthorne, who introduced us. I’m forever grateful. 

And so, I woke up this morning to write, the still-full moon hanging in my window. It is Mabon, when the days and nights are cleaved in two, a changing of the seasons that heralds the rise of the Holly King. There was a partial lunar eclipse last night, and I felt both the weight of memory and the breeze of Hawthorne’s laughter as I watched the little bite disappear. Hawthorne had been adamant about charging our crystals during a lunar eclipse just before their birthday in their last summer, and so we laid them out on the windowsill at the top of the stairs. On nights like that, with the moon full and glowing, we spoke smugly of the lack of light from streetlamps and local businesses. We reveled in the quiet and dark of our mountain, scoffing at our days in the city, so clearly behind us now. We were never leaving this place where we didn’t have to play “were those gunshots or fireworks?” during the summer (they were gunshots) and there were no neon or LED lights to interfere with the moon. 

When the pain from their last surgery didn’t fade, and they struggled to hold on to hope, they cursed themselves for trying to charge the crystals during an eclipse and vowed to never do that again. I’ve kept that vow for them, though mostly unintentionally.

I often wonder if Hawthorne had lived, and been somehow left unchecked, if they would have become a hoarder. They were a collector, a maximalist, someone who could fill an empty space in haphazard form and sit happily in the chaos (until they needed to find their inhaler). When we cleaned, I could hand them a shoebox or a junk drawer full of random, stuffed-in things, and that would keep them occupied for the three hours it took me to clear out six totes old clothes and switch the summer and winter wardrobes. They’d tell me stories that the items represented, or reminded them of, or had absolutely no discernible connection to anyone but themselves – and only in that moment. The thread between the item and stories sometimes never revealed itself again.

I’ll admit it took years for me to get comfortable with this dichotomy of tidying. I know I look back with far more fondness than I felt most of the time. I would be able to empty boxes (for a while, it felt like we were always moving to a new place) and find new homes for things I wasn’t allowed to throw away at a comparatively ridiculous rate while they sprawled on the bed, a box of treasures spread before them. This would happen, too, when we were just tidying the house. One day I removed a small bowl (meant for food) from the windowsill to cries of “no, don’t, I was saving that!” only to look in it and see an empty stem of grapes, a small rock, a guitar pick, and some pistachio shells.

“Why, muppet?” I asked, showing them the bowl. 

They peered in and shrugged, their signature sound for “I don’t know” sitting in the air between us until their peal of laughter as they looked up and caught my eye. I threw the contents into the trash bag, squealing “Noooo! Grapey! Rocky! Shelly!” as they laughed harder, tears gathering in their eyes. “P-p-p-picky! Not Picky!” By this time, they were on the floor giggling uncontrollably, braced against the chair they’d been sitting in. I shook my head and put the dish in the sink. 

I miss their laugh. I miss their stories, and their music. 

Dawn is breaking now, the tallest trees burning with color as pink clouds streak slowly across the sky. Most of the leaves are still deeply green here, but I remember that morning in Vermont. The world was turning gold and amber around us, the remaining greens poised to flame into vibrant yellows and reds. The sun sparkled on the dewy grass, the not-quite frost sliding off at the first rays of light. The sky was sharp and blue, horse-tail clouds distant and starkly white. By the time I stepped outside, there were no other cars in the driveway, those of the first responders pulled over on the side of the road instead. Lucy sat in her stroller, entertaining the half-circle of volunteer firefighters who watched her. The men stood far enough away to be able to claim “not it” for a dirty diaper, and close enough that they would get anything she dropped. She babbled and laughed, and that moment crystallized in my mind. 

Recently I (finally) cleaned out the toolboxes. I had been meaning to for years, just one of those projects that is always somewhere in the back of my mind (untangling the clump of broken necklaces, hanging up my hats, scrubbing the walls along the stairs where I spilled coffee about knee-height). I put my music on and emptied it, wrench by hammer by screwdriver. I grouped them, then gathered the random hardware – the screws and loose zip ties and washers to who-knows-what. When that was done, I looked back inside; what was left behind could be read like tea leaves. 

Hawthorne would have had a field day about this collection here. It would have resulted in hours of stories and laughter, and too many beers. It’s fascinating to me how a handful of random shit could representatively encapsulate them, or at least, the version of them they brought to a shared space with hammers and drill bits. I swear I could create a miniature museum dedicated to my wife, and everything pictured here would be in it, tokens from seasons and phases of their life. They would remind me where the rosary came from that they couldn’t just throw away. They’d talk about JPUSA, and the beautiful girl they fell in love with before being shunned. We would remember EMS stories together, the good and the bad, and the silly flogger they made with a nasal cannula, gloves, and medical tape. They would swim the shark (box cutter) through the air and make up a little song, if Baby Shark hadn’t come out yet. They’d call Ella over, all high-pitched and hysterical, and explain to her that she could not eat this old-ass piece of dog food, but it was OK, they’d go get her a treat (ella had been sleeping until this point). They’d defend keeping a stray match, and they’d want to leave the half-finished toolbox and take the weight and go fishing (we didn’t use weights).  They would ask the shark (again, box cutter) to chomp open the Altoids tin, because they couldn’t remember if it was an emergency fishing kit or emergency fire starter kit; clearly it had to be one or the other, as indicated by the stray match and fishing weight. At some point they would have dropped the (BOX CUTTER) and screamed “AH! SWIM AWAY! I DROPPED THE SHARK!” 

Elsewhere in the house, I still have the drivers’ licenses of two other people that were not me or Hawthorne. There are countless keys and pieces of bike locks that don’t go together. There are lists and half-filled notebooks with turtles and absolutely no concept of how to chemically write H2O.

In which strand of  the thread did they live? I want to find the one where Hawthorne woke up without the blinding pain, without the need for 90-proof medicine in plastic handles. I want the one where we went to couple’s therapy and figured out shit out, and bought a place in the mountains to raise our feral child and sheep and chickens. I want the one where I finally got them on a plane, where we went fishing in Alaska, where we vacationed once in Trinidad. I want the one where they never fell down the stairs, where the medical system believed them and treated them appropriately, where they didn’t lose their wedding ring in the river. 

I want the one where our memories come back in bold, in large font, in a Spread Eagle Feminist shirt and fist raised. I want the mornings of serving them coffee and first breakfast while they played guitar, eager for the People’s Jam and Heather’s bagels. 

I want them to know their kid loves fresh dill on salmon and barely eats bread. I want them to know the laughter of their kid is just as raucous and infectious as theirs, but with less albuterol and more lung power. I want these things that will never happen. 

The ink has long since faded from the receipts in their wallet, the thin paper blank and smooth. There are still moments, hours, days that I am angry, days where grief strips me raw so I can do no more than scream at the sea. And it’s okay. I’m not fighting them or trying to get rid of them. They come, and they go. 

I’ll take the memories I get and keep them, become the hoarder of their tokens and their left-behinds. I’ll tell their stories, and let their old guitar be played. I have kept the notes and given away the books. I’ve bundled the zip ties and let go of duplicate tools. I’ve kept the pictures and trashed the hat box. I am down to a single box of nostalgia clothes, tucked away in the closet, and I wear their socks in the winter. I might hoard these moments, but I will continue to curate the collection, and let go what no longer brings forward the immeasurable love that we shared. 

And fuck knows I’ll be finding these in random places until the day I die.

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

The Secret that Insta Therapists Don’t Want You to Know!

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

The offrenda is small this year. Symbols and touchstones take the place of photographs. A tussy-mussy of marigolds snatched from the last scraggly pot at a pumpkin farm lie wilting in front of the tiny urn and crystals. The light from the small candles barely reaches to the floor before the altar. This simple and unplanned space is all I could manage this year.

It has been a rough six months, on the heels of a difficult winter. 

Every time I feel like I’m turning a corner, that my mood and energy will start to improve  – with this new therapist, this new medication, the hours of sunlight a day –  something interrupts my anticipated progress, and I am grieving all over again. 

I grieve the hours stolen from me – by the depression, by the job, by the stupid amount of time I spend driving place to place. I am grateful for the pay and the health insurance, and the meaning buried deeply in the work I do. The traffic exhausts me and by the time I arrive home, it is all I can do to empty lunch boxes and get dinner together. 

I grieve the energy and patience lost to having to shoulder parenting a toddler alone. I am grateful for my village, without whom Lucy would not have had a birthday celebration or trick-or-treating on Halloween. My Target receipt would be miles longer for clothes and shoes, and I would have missed out on music and so much conversation with other adults. 

I grieve for my wife, as a widow. I grieve for my son, as a loss mom. I grieve for my daughter, as any parent does, as there aren’t enough hours in the day to both function in this world and to focus on her joy and her journey. 

I grieve for my friends and family who have suffered at the hands of others, even as they fight back against oppressive systems. I grieve for strangers who went bowling, for strangers who find themselves displaced and endangered as war rages in front of their eyes and ravages their families. 

I know that I cannot take on the sadness of the world, and that is not my intent. Nor is it my intent today to use this platform to provide a beacon of hope or light or whatever positivity I can muster. 

Because right now, even as I wait for my daughter to awake, for dear friends to arrive, even as a new exciting chapter is opening its pages – amidst the small joys, I am weighed down by everything from war to neurotransmitters. There will always be people who measure their power in the taking of human lives. The oceans are warming and the sea is still rising. My first child and my wife will still be gone from this plane. My brain will never make its serotonin quota on its own. These aren’t lamentations or intrusive thoughts; these are irreversible facts that I have to acknowledge every day.

I think we do a disservice to people suffering when we cannot acknowledge it without also providing some sort of golden thread of hope.

I’m not saying give up on hope. I’m not saying that we, collectively, should stop lighting candles or saying prayers or looking for the helpers. I’m not saying don’t continue seeking and demanding justice and ceasefires. I’m not saying little moments, gestures of kindness, or offerings of hope aren’t massively important. 

I’m saying that shit’s just heavy sometimes, and the presence of heavy shouldn’t automatically trigger a response of lightness. The “equal and opposite response” law isn’t an evenly spread layer of karma that makes the balance evident. Balance in the universe doesn’t trickle down to the individual level, and we don’t need to fall into the trap of false or toxic positivity to try to make ourselves or others feel better. 

So if all you can see right now is dark, I get it. I see it too. And it’s enough to acknowledge that. Whatever you can muster, in whatever season you’re in, is enough. You don’t need to look for the lesson or the silver lining. You don’t have to think your flaws are beautiful, or that blessings always wear disguises. 

There will always be heavy shit, there will always be darkness, and the seasons will change. If all you can do is acknowledge that, it’s enough. 

Posted in Hawthorne

No Less Magic Than Before

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

It has been three years.

I sit here this morning, heart heavy but failing to weigh me down. I may find myself sinking later, pressing down to the floor, our songs playing and the curtains pulled. For now, I’m following what feels good, what feels fitting; and so this finds me at my favorite local café with a hot mocha, coffee cake, and classical music to cover the soft sounds of the other patrons studying. I came to write, and through that, hope to process the past weekend in a way I couldn’t while I was in it.

It’s been so long since I have written here in this space, and the years have been so full of both planned breaks and impromptu hiatus, I almost don’t remember what I’ve written. I’m not even sure I know where to start. But Sunday morning found me sitting there in the mountains that I called mine for nearly six years, and I felt more at peace and at home than I have in a long time. 

It was almost the anniversary: almost three years to the day since Hawthorne died, and this stopped feeling like home. At least, I thought it did. The immediate loss and grief, the overwhelming urge to run away is not forgotten. Neither, though, was the slide of my shoulder blades down my back as the mountains came into view on I-89. The folds in the rolling fabric of trees that covered them, growing shabby as summer so quickly faded, blanketed me with warm welcome. 

I was visiting with dear friends, a trip that got postponed from a summer of illness followed by Covid last year. Lucy was there, of course, and nearly twice as tall as when we left. The magic within her is likewise sparked by the return. She’s asked to watch TV a couple times but is mostly content to play with one of us, read her books, and plow through the donuts she asks for. Plus, I’ve told her that the TV isn’t working, just like every AirBnB we have stayed in. An unfortunate coincidence, should she ever call me on it (and one day, she will — she’s not yet four, and has already asked if it is plugged in, needs to charge, or needs new batteries).

I’ve been here twice more since the people’s jam for Hawthorne the July following their death, which was the most fitting celebration of their life I could have ever hoped for. The first was earlier this year, a random rainy Saturday in June where I let the tires point where they may, and stumbled upon a local author/book fair in the center of Woodstock. Lucy and I got maple creemees, and we took the dog and played at the river in the rain, driving all the way home stripped and wrapped in blankets with the heat on. Then just last month, another branch of my village spent two nights here, soaking in the music and the mountains. We stayed in Killington, and as the stars prick through the dark sky, I felt at home.

Those trips were lovely and I’m so glad I went both times, but now, I don’t ever want to leave.

Overnight the mountains started to dapple with color; green, still, with tints of yellow and ochre. The wind rustled leaves gone dry at the edges as the first showers of foliage began to fall. Every now and then a beech nut clanged off the metal roof above me on the covered porch, making me jump in the relative silence of the forest.

The whole weekend was magical. Friday morning, I took Lucy home, and brought our friends to see the river and the road we had called ours for almost six years. I took the backroad, turned onto the dirt road that warned against using GPS in that area. I parked just over the bridge and we walked the same path I had walked for so long, the same run that I’d taken with Lucy asleep in the stroller before the world changed under our feet. But this road was the same. The house, no longer ours, stood the same; there was evidence of updated utilities and the skeleton of a structure where the woodpile had been, likely for the same purpose. The grass had been recently mowed, and the meadow looked more natural than ever. 

The streams that tumbled down the mountain looked the same, and the track of the river hadn’t changed much. It sounded like home in the water, and the air tasted of it as it crossed my lips. Lucy dragged a stick around in the dirt, running to my outstretched hand as cars announced themselves far enough away for her to be safe running ahead. We walked up to my Mother tree, standing tall and proud as ever. I leaned forward and placed my hand along her bark, and felt the warm beat of recognition. 

Later that day, we had a picnic in the cemetery where Hawthorne and I would walk. We all trekked up the hill, leaving the blanket (and most of Lucy’s lunch) at the bottom. I spread myself over the thick green moss and let myself sink, sink, gentle and slow. I tried to teach Lucy how to respectfully explore the graves, with gentle hands and careful feet. Most of it went unheeded, and she log-rolled away from us down the hill, laughing wildly, whenever possible. 

We journeyed throughout the day, my friends exceedingly patient with multiple stops where I’d see friends and folks I hadn’t spoken with in two or three years. I continued to be shocked and humbled by how many people recognized me, and more, recognized Lucy as the little tiny potato that Hawthorne and I had so welcomed and wanted to share, only to be mostly denied by the onset of Covid.

We did all the beautiful, mundane things that made up our lives in Vermont – went to the coffee shop and bookstore, got sandwiches at the local general store, visited the library, and shopped at the little grocery store. I bought eggs and tomatoes for dinner at the farmer’s market, and sat in clean air on green grass while Lucy played and danced. I ate a whole pint of small tomatoes, the aromatic scent of their stems filling my head with memories of tilling, digging, and planting. 

It was Saturday night that hangs on a string around my neck and pressed to my heart, never to be lost. We were at the Wild Fern, a pizza café that defies simple explanation. It is the heart of the magic of that corner of the world, and is fed by the rivers and the trees all around it. I had planned for this to be as beautiful as it could be, and was given more than I thought possible. I had taken some edibles a couple hours before the show, and they kicked in just in time for the ride to the Fern. Once there, once inside, I was caught between two worlds. The front view – a 180-degree semicircle that bisected my body along the coronal plane – was the present, the now, the moment. Pressed up against that, all behind me, it was a Thursday night in the late winter, with Lucy a tiny bundle being passed from person to person, the cold night outside no match for the warmth of the kitchen and the music inside. I existed there, in that liminal space between, fully present in both. If I turned quick enough, I had a flash of that night before it slipped back behind me out of view. I could see the lights and the darkness outside, I could feel Hawthorne’s hands on the small of my back or my hips. It was as real as the Saturday night I faced.

This feeling stayed with me for hours, and I sank into the comfort of it, of being deeply aware of its transience, and soaking in every moment I had. On the stage outside was Rick Redington and Tuff Luv. With three fire pits glowing and Lucy dancing for hours, the band played. Bass, guitar, and drums all seamlessly blended to evoke emotions that swirled along with the fire smoke and prompted Lucy to yell, “rock and roll!” half a million times as she played air guitar and punched her fists in the air. 

The music paused for a bit, as Rick introduced the next song and from the shadows pulled out a different guitar. It was unusual; small, double-necked, and heartbreakingly familiar.

Hawthorne had found this old guitar, a bit busted and unstrung, at the local dump on a Saturday morning that we were set to return to Buffalo for a visit. They didn’t know anything about it other that it clearly needed to come home with us, as every cast off guitar they’d found before had. 

But this one was different (and more, I remember writing about it here). We brought it to our local luthier (because of course, hidden in the Vermont mountains we have an incredible luthier), who took wonderful care and brought the guitar back to life. It turns out it was a custom build, a small harp guitar, most likely from the late 1800s. One neck was strung like a guitar with a fretboard, and the other side reminded me more of a viola or cello. I wasn’t the expert, that’s for sure, but Hawthorne held that guitar with the highest reverence. 

When they passed, they left thirteen guitars that I suddenly had to figure out what to do with. I kept a few that I knew were intended for very specific people, and the rest went to Rick, as I knew Hawthorne would have approved. That was a bond between musicians, and the harp guitar was a natural fit.

So there, sitting around the fire with our daughter dancing, Rick and I told the story of the guitar, before he played. I’d heard him play the song before, but not like this. Not holding a piece of Hawthorne so close that I could hear them in every note. Not with the stars shining down on me and Lucy. My tears fell fast and hot, soaking into the ground as my breath sobbed out. My friend held on and let me lean even as she cried herself. 

For weeks, our closest chosen family has been telling me the ways they’re feeling Hawthorne and experiencing their presence, especially with the advent of fall and the time spent in Vermont. It’s been hard to respond over the feelings of anger and jealousy that I have not felt them. 

Sitting there, listening to the harp guitar sing under Rick’s skilled fingers and vocals, I felt Hawthorne’s embrace. My face pressed against the night sky, against their chest, I wept out the pain and sorrow of the years prior – the words unsaid, the “I love yous” and “where are you for this?” unanswered. My soul cried out and was soothed; my heart broken and gently held. I was wrapped with the long-ago night of music and family and Hawthorne and magic against my back, and the current moment of unimaginable community and love and love and love.

The night continued on after that, and the nights began to blur together. Lucy fell asleep in friends arms with the stage lights shining and bass line thumping, just as before. I had one of Hawthorne’s flannels to keep me warm, and we stayed until the crickets took over for the band and it was the music of the night that echoed off the mountains. 

It’s daylight now, and I’m nearly two hundred miles away. It was – is – hard to come back. I look up from the computer now and then to the café around me, half expecting the music to be wafting through the trees that surround me as I feel myself back in my forest. Everyone seems blurry and little unreal, as if the café has been the image imposed over the forest and not the other way around. The image fades when I remember to remove my reading glasses, so I don’t. Let me be there, in that other world, with the industrious squirrels under the music of the fairies. 

There is a melancholy in me, sorrow that has softened with time and carries gentle waves of yearning – to have Hawthorne back, to feel the warmth of their love, to return home to our mountains and their arms. And while those things will never be realized, I can easily trade any windswept moors to wander despondent for the cool forests and running rivers of Vermont. 

I will make my way back there. To visit, and one day, to stay. To return to a place that gave me so many memories, so much community, and family and music and love. That time isn’t here yet – I’m still in that space where I need the distance as much as I need to know it is there. I will get there; after all, I am forever a child of the woods.

Posted in Current Events

Safety First, or, As American as Violence

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

Today I discovered that the FBI released a public service announcement and website on how to attempt to survive a mass shooting. The FBI. The biggest law enforcement agency this country. It’s not even new; it was released three years ago, and just happened to hit my feed today.

Run. Fight. Hide.

If this messaging sounds familiar, there’s a reason for it. 

American politics and policies have long put the onus on the victim to protect and defend themselves. It didn’t start with active shooter drills in elementary schools. Gay folks in the armed forces were taught that they could avoid sexuality-based violence if they kept their mouth shut. Women have been taught for decades how to avoid getting sexually assaulted. Black families have taught their children how to interact with cops so they don’t end up jailed or killed. 

Systemic issues should not place the burden of safety on the individual. And yet, here we are. 

This country was built on the blood and bodies of innocents. The colonizers didn’t see indigenous people as people. Still don’t. 

This country was built on the backs and by the hands of people stolen from their homes and enslaved across oceans. The slavetraders didn’t see black people as people. Still don’t.

This country was built on the unseen labor of women and fertile wombs. The patriarchs didn’t see women as people. Still don’t. 

This country was birthed from violence, and begets, and begets, and begets. 

“It could never happen here.” It could. It has. It does. It will.

Four years ago, I was in the minority (along with my public health friends) who were aware that this country was not prepared for a pandemic. You can’t shoot a virus, so I guess there wasn’t much funding. 

Twenty years ago, I didn’t live with the weight that any day, in any public or semi-public place, I could be a victim of a mass shooting. Columbine was supposed to be a once-in-a-generation tragedy. So was the Oklahoma City Bombing. So was 9/11. 

It has been going on so long I don’t even want to say that it isn’t normal. Because now, it is. 

In my line of work, we like to use simple visual tools to convey big ideas (stay with me here). The one that comes to mind is from OSHA, the organization responsible for ensuring occupational safety. Here it the hierarchy of controls, courtesy of Wikipedia: 

Can you see where we are on the chart? Where marginalized folks have been for generations? 

We are at the personal protective equipment level. 

The hazard has not been removed. It will not be. 

The hazard has not been replaced. It will not be. 

People have not been isolated from the hazard. They won’t be. 

The way people operate their day-to-day lives has changed, it can be argued; but not for safety, not on a societal scale. 

We are at the point of the triangle, where the individual must accept that no one in power is going to do fuck-all for them, and it is their own responsibility to survive the violent actions of other individuals. 

I’m not saying it’s not an important video and message to get out; I’m not saying it won’t save lives. It will. My point is, even though it shouldn’t have to, there are not enough people with enough money and enough power who can eke out a single fuck to give.

I don’t have a solution. Well, I have some ideas, but they keep getting squashed in the hallowed halls of the government. Call this a rant, call this screaming into the void. The video tonight just made it crystal clear that, for some time now, I’ve understood that on any day, it could happen here. And you know what bothers me about that, is how matter-of-fucking-fact it was. Just like, oh, might rain on Thursday. Might cause traffic problems. Might get shot while doing the grocery shopping this week. 

And it’s coming out like this, rage pouring through my fingers, as I sit here knowing my daughter is sleeping soundly having no goddamn idea about this yet in the next room. It breaks my heart and strengthens my resolve that I know all too soon, she, too, will learn that she might be next. 

Check out the video if you have the bandwidth. My daughter will learn how to stop the bleed. How to run, hide, and fight. 

May that she, and you, only ever know the fear of it happening and not the reality. 

Posted in Memoir and Memory

Irrational, Inescapable Fears

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

Anxiety is a siren. She beckons, her voice sliding in to wind around my mind. I don’t want to hear it; I don’t want my thoughts to follow her sly whispers, but they are drawn along against my will. She does not sing of that which I most desire, but rather, she has charmed my fear into giving her my secrets. She sings of the death of my loves while I stand helpless, of my own violent end as if I am already half-ghost. 

It was stormy last night; no lashing rain or blanketing snow, but fierce winds that whipped through tight screens and rattled loose shutters, and the temperature plummeted to -10 Fahrenheit. The hundred-year old house groaned and snapped, the heat clattering in pipes that sound off in the walls. The poor dog, anxious during any storm, was practically climbing the walls. She’s mostly deaf at this point, so whatever sense she has of storms must also be confusing when she can’t hear what we can. Still, she seems more comfortable outside than she does in during a storm. She stands facing the wind, her scraggly hair blown back as if she stands on the prow of a ship. She looks fierce in her Thundershirt and her long eyebrows swept back, and has to sniff every individual leaf that has entered the yard since the last time she was out. Then she comes in, shivering, looking pitiful, and only wants to be wrapped up in blankets.

The lights flickered as I made dinner, and I swore I could hear Hawthorne’s urgent voice. “Get the candles in one place. Fill the tub so we can flush the toilet, only pee in the downstairs one! Where are the beans? WHERE ARE THE BEANS? Oh, okay. What pot can we use on the stove? I’m going to make cowboy coffee! Maybe. Where’s the Mokapot? Better grind some coffee while we still have power, I’ll get the hammer to smash more just in case.” I think they were just waiting for their once-in-a-lifetime storm, the kind they heard about from their dad, who snowshoed to his parents’ home in the blizzard of ’77. They had already been through Buffalo’s October storm of 2006, but they wanted their legacy blizzard in Vermont.

It was comforting to think of them as I ran through my mental checklist. I knew where the candles and lighters were; the external battery for the phone was charged. We had plenty of pantry items, and we were not in a situation where we would be stuck without power or heat and with no way out. The extent of my storm prep was to text my cousins and ensure they knew that they were the backup plan if we lost power. It was too cold to mess around with that, and without another heat source.

We kept power; it didn’t even flicker hard enough to disrupt the evening run of PJ Masks. It was Friday night, so the TV stayed on a little later than usual, and we read a couple of extra books. By 8:45, I was ready for Lucy to go to bed, although she wasn’t quite convinced. As she climbed in, however, the siren’s song slipped past my defenses.

I was afraid that she would freeze to death in the night, and I wouldn’t be able to save her.

I stood, watching as she bounced around her toddler bed, avoiding laying down, and I tried to tell myself that was a silly thing to worry about. Her room was warm, the heat was on; I’d wake if the power went out and various things beeped a last complaint, and I would be awake at least twice during the night to let the old lady dog out. She was in no danger.

Do you want to take that risk? Are you willing to gamble on losing again?

I gave in.

It wasn’t hard to convince her to come to my bed. By 9PM, I had the fleece blanket I’d made Hawthorne on the bed, so Ella would have a soft, warm place for her belly, and Lucy tucked up on the inside of my bed, already hogging my pillow. I brushed my teeth and laid down, mentally checking off where my sweatpants and socks were, my robe and extra blanket for letting Ella out. It took Lucy a long time to settle down – relatively, I mean, for a three year old. Within fifteen minutes, my hand was rising and falling with her steady breathing as it lay on her chest. 

At this point, I truly do not know if I could survive losing her. And so the siren sang me to sleep.

I’ve had all the standard advice about anxiety, from deep breathing exercises to medication to “just don’t think about it.” Those things can usually keep the irresistible song to a dull roar, and I can function. 

Last night was just one of those times where it reached out and wrapped around my mind, pulling me against my own volition. I didn’t even try to fight it, not more than the most cursory effort, anyway. It had been a long and difficult week for my anxiety, and I simply did not have the effort, or the fucks, to give. Twenty-four hours later, I have no judgment and no regret. It was a simple fix; she climbs into my bed most nights anyway, jolting me awake in between puppy bathroom breaks. We all slept well and warm in the refuge of my bed.

One day, giving in to the siren may be my downfall, though it’s hard to think of how. Maybe it’ll keep me from taking a trip; maybe it will tell me to not allow Lucy to go off to college alone. I’m not really worried about that.

What I am worried about is that one day, the siren will speak truth, and I won’t hear it until it’s too late. Until I am too late.

So I listen; and some nights, when the wind whips and the temperatures dive deep, I follow her song and aim willingly for the rocks, and I take no chances.

Posted in Beliefs and Practices

Dia de los Angelitos

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

We kept the celebration small this year. The kitchen table was pulled out, the basket of condiments banished to the pantry for tonight. There were 6 place settings crowded around the square table. I pulled the three chairs I owned in around in and added the stepstool; the kiddo would get a kick out of that. Lucy had her high chair, and I was happy to stand. Truth be told I was too excited to sit. 

We set the table together, with silverware clattering on plates, as “Lucy Danger” and “gentle” don’t always go together. The sun had set already, and the sky was vaguely purple with the cloud cover and light pollution from the city refracted inside it. I fiddled with the vases of bright orange carnations, and bit my lip as I worried that they were not marigolds.

Suddenly, there was a rush of warmth and the voices of our beloved guests poured into the room. Lucy was startled and ran to grab my leg a moment, but found herself swept up in hugs.

Oh, but they looked wonderful. They’d all dressed up for the occasion. Stan, in his suit from the church picture that his wife had taken, shit, must be ten years ago now; Clark, a fresh flannel button down and pressed slacks, with his hat and walking stick and sunglasses. Hawthorne, dapper as could be in a lavender button down, jeans, vest, bow tie, and pocket chain. And Oscar, my sweet boy, in a checkered Oxford shirt and suspenders on his jeans.

He’s gotten so tall, a full head taller than his sister, who was looking at him with wide eyes from her perch up on Clark’s shoulders. He’d be four now; he sure seemed like it. Lucy kicked her legs and demanded “down, down please!” Clark lifted her off his shoulders and put her down, and I watched my children, my babies, run into the other room to play. Their grandfather went with them, a smile on his face that I could tell reached his eyes, even with the sunglasses.

I turned from hugging Stan, who followed in to watch his grandkids play, and found myself back in my spot, head under Hawthorne’s chin, their arms wrapped right around me. We fit perfectly together there, and always had. I breathed them in; sandalwood and calendula, and the smell of their skin that I remembered so well. I wanted to pause time, to feel those arms hold me like no one else could, to lay my head on their chest where it fit so naturally. The bossa nova station I had playing on my computer slid toward something slower, wrapping around us as if we needed help holding on to each other. We swayed in place a moment, then Hawthorne tugged my hand. I spun away and back in, laughing into their eyes. We danced in the kitchen like we had so many times before. 

The kids ran in, demanding food, followed by the men. Hawthorne gave me a last squeeze and let go, reaching to pick up Lucy as I turned to the stove. 

“Hey, baby. Remember me?” 

Lucy  nodded. “You Papa,” she said, pointing. My eyes stung, and I closed them against the wave of emotion. She was always to ask to look at pictures, and didn’t always recognize Hawthorne. “That my Mama,” she continued, the same way she told her friends at school every time I came to pick her up. “Who that?” 

“That’s your brother Oscar,” Hawthorne told her. 

She gasped. “My picture!” She strained to get away, and since neither of us knew what she was talking about, they set her down. She ran into her room. “Mama, my picture!”

We all followed her in, Oscar pushing through legs to get to the front to see. Hawthorne gripped my shoulder and tears filled my eyes.

She was pointing to a painting given to us by our beautiful and talented friends when we had been pregnant with Lucy. A branch of a birch tree against a truly Oscar blue sky – she had color matched it to pictures we posted of our Oscar sky. On the branch was a birds nest made of twigs. Inside the nest was a gold crown, and half of a perfect egg. Well, when it had been given to us, it was the shell of the egg, glued on like the twigs and the crown; the shell had been broken during the move. Lucy asked about it often, asked why it was broken. I always told her it was because she had hatched, and the crown was for her brother Oscar. He left it here when he went to the stars, I would tell her. 

Lucy climbed up on her bed, turned and gestured to Oscar. “C’mere,” she told him. “My picture. My egg broken, I hatch. You has a crown! My picture!”

Stan clapped his hand on my other shoulder. “Ya done good, kid,” he said as he turned and walked out. He wasn’t much one for displays of emotion, his own or that of others’. Clark echoed the sentiment and action. “Well done,” he nodded, before stepping out. The kids began chattering about the books on Lucy’s shelf, and we watched our babies play. 

The timer beeped, and I ran back to the kitchen. It wasn’t a traditional dinner in any sense of the word. We had chicken nachos with Chiavetta’s, shepherd’s pie, shrimp cocktail, cereal with milk, and ice cream. We sat and ate the smorgasbord happily, passing things around the packed little table, then one of the grandfathers would turn easily in their chair to place the dish on the counter. Oscar got a kick out of sitting on the top of the backwards stepstool. Wine flowed and beer foamed, raised in toast, and enjoyed without any negative anticipation. All were well here. 

After dinner was finished, I pulled out a cake I had hidden in my bedroom, away from little fingers, frosted with bright orange flowers. I lit the candle and brought it out carefully. Hawthorne, Clark, and Stan joined in singing Happy Birthday to Lucy, and she clapped along in her Papa’s lap. Between us all, we managed to eat half the cake, and polish off a tub of ice cream with it.

Despite the sugar rush, Lucy and Oscar were both beginning to droop after the meal. We moved to the living room, where there was just enough space to have Stan and Clark each take a comfy seat in a high-backed chair known for cradling its occupants. Hawthorne and I snuggled up on the couch with the kids. I took our son into my lap, and Hawthorne held our daughter. We sat and talked, sharing family stories we never had a chance to, as well as old favorites. I caught them up on the highlights of the year. They had felt some disturbance through the veil, more of the unpleasant things that I tried to lighten in the retelling. I didn’t want to dwell on the hardships and illnesses, the tears and sleepless nights. I wanted this bright, golden memory. 

We continued to talk as the candles burned low, and the grandfathers each drifted off to sleep. I held Hawthorne’s hand over the back of the couch, surrounding our sleeping babies. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open any longer, but I didn’t want to let go. Hawthorne laughed and my head came up; I’d fallen asleep and kept talking, nonsensical ramblings. I shrugged and smiled. It’s not like it was the first time that had happened. I laid my head in their hand as they murmured to me, all the little things we used to say in bed together, before they rolled over and I’d curl around them to finally fall asleep. A tear slipped from my eye – I knew they would be gone when I awoke, my lap back to being space for only Lucy, my couch and house otherwise empty. The dog would wander around, confused as to where her family went. I didn’t know how Lucy would respond. Another tear fell, and Hawthorne wiped it away with their thumb. 

The last thing I heard was them telling me they loved me, with the weight of Oscar back in my arms, before the candles faded out and I drifted off to sleep.

I hadn’t needed the marigolds after all.

Posted in Uncategorized

My Apologies to Anne Shirley Cuthbert

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

October is unpacking her bags, filling up the dark corners of my mind. She is wily; she smiles with knowing eyes and bared teeth, as she knows she is right on time. She makes herself at home, walking over victories and bright memories and turning them to dust beneath her feet. She tucks sharp, intrusive thoughts into hidden nooks and settles words that bite like vicious rats into their daytime cages. She crowds the space with self-doubt and unhappy history until there is no room left for the light to wind through. Seratonin maintains its feeble protest at the edges, still present because it has no choice, but rightfully intimidated. 

I hate October.

I used to think it was because it marked the death of my father, now sixteen years gone. It bleeds into winter, and the death anniversaries of my grandmother and my great-uncle. Our family is small, and the loss of those 3 people in a two-year span felt like a cleaver. We didn’t do holidays together anymore. My mother held hard feelings about the other family members around her perception of how much they cared; she was wrong, but the bridges had already burnt. I maintained contact with everyone; certainly no one had asked or intended, but I felt the pressure as the only thing keeping our family together at all. Now, I am keenly aware of that feeling in its new form after the losses of my father-in-law, my son, and my wife. I have almost no contact with my in-laws, and none of the wherewithal to try to span that chasm. 

I remember being afraid last year of what the dark winter would bring. I had been diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder at some point, but I’m not sure I recognized it as such until last year. I would tremble on the way home and cry in the driveway, the baby sleeping in the back, at the thought of facing another night. It was less that it was another night alone, and more the unrelenting darkness. 

The first winter after Hawthorne had been so full of things to do – pack, move, find an apartment and a job, transition our whole lives to a new chapter. Seasonal symptoms were masked or obliterated by raw grief. I didn’t have the time, mental space, or energy to even think about anything else. I was still in therapy, and trying to find a therapist in my new state to move to. I had no local friends yet, and the first Covid vaccines had just been released for those at the highest risk, so most of my family was still hibernating. October’s manifestation had been silenced that year. 

I was anticipating it to be rough last year; bad, but not as bad as it was. I functioned; I took care of Lucy, I went to work. I made plans with people, had standing dates for dinner, and tried. The exhaustion felt different; it felt false and unearned. I felt robotic, and after I had gotten Lucy to sleep, could feel myself power down. I would put the TV on and tell myself I was invested in the show, pull the blanket up to my chin, and sleep. Most nights I wanted to stay there, not having the energy to get myself to bed, but the fear of withdrawal from not taking my antidepressants eventually pushed me to my room. 

One night in February, I called a help line. I wasn’t thinking of hurting myself; I already hurt enough. I did not want to kill myself, but the intrusive thoughts of simply not wanting to be alive anymore terrified me. It wasn’t the first time I’d felt this way; the last time I had, I’d gone to a peer mental health respite house. So that’s who I called. 

Just that connection, to a landline phone hundreds of miles away, tethered me back. Two things had just happened: I had called out for help in my weakest moment, and the call had been answered with love and compassion. At 11 PM on a February night, the first flicker of dawn shone gray through the deep and the dark. 

For the holiday season, I had gifted myself a solo writing retreat in a cabin in New Hampshire. That trip came less than two weeks after that phone call, and those two actions are definitely in the top 5 best things I have ever done for myself. That was when the light began to come back. The skies didn’t fully clear for another month, but hope began to grow in the frost-hard ground. 

This past week was a harsh reminder of last winter. I’d had flickers of worry over the spring and summer that this was going to be bad again, but I felt bolstered by the work I had done. I had spent five months waitlisted and am now working with a therapist who is incredibly well-suited for my needs. I have a network of friends and family, local and not-so-local. I have lists upon lists – self-care ideas, people to call, things I’m looking forward to. I’m making a tangible toolbox with these handwritten lists, colorful stones, pretty happy stickers, and my action plan, updated and yes, colorful. 

I have the tools, the supports, the plans to get through this upcoming winter as healthy as possible. I know who I can call when I’m sad, when I’m scared. I will be OK; it’s just that getting there is going to suuuuuuuck.

I don’t want to hate October. I’m not generally a pumpkin spice latte fanatic, but if not for the darkness, I’m much more L.M. Montgomery – I’m so glad to live in a world where there are Octobers. I like football, and apple picking, and fall fests and leaf peeping and all the beautiful benefits of living in New England in autumn. I try to fill my days with them, soaking as much sun in as I can before the light changes to gold, before the evening arrives earlier and earlier. 

The clocks will change soon. I’ll reset the three in the kitchen, the last I have that don’t update themselves. I’ll change the batteries in the closet lights so I can see my clothes without waking the little one who occasionally stumbles in for 2 AM snuggles. I’ll turn the heat on, weed the garden one last time for winter, and trim back the branches that have started to block the way to the trash bins. I’ll get Lucy a new heavy coat and new boots, and pack up my sundresses. Garland of leaves will be hung, costumes finished, birthday plans made. I will stand outside and stretch my arms out and lift my face to the thinning light, trying to warm myself like the cormorants on the rocks.

Spring will come, with its tulips and its birdsong. October will last exactly thirty-one days, and the following months at their prescribed intervals. Even in winter, the sun rises. 

I would have made a terrible Alaskan. 

Posted in Uncategorized

Reluctant Time Travel

Posted on by Queer Mama Rising

I’m back.

Back where I don’t want to belong, or at least, I don’t want to belong. Yet I find myself here, again and again. 

Back in that cool fall room, the morning mist still rising from the recently shaded lawn. Even as the leaves fell, the shadows deepened, and the buzz of insects was slower to chorus. 

Not from exertion, but from having it stolen, I stand out of breath at the doorway. My wife lays in bed, not noticing my approach. The scene glitches, and then they lay on the floor, pale and cool, wearing only red plaid boxers and top surgery scars. We had joked so often about the near-translucent whiteness of their pale skin; now it was the brightest color in the room. 

I don’t want to belong here. I don’t want to be here. 

I don’t want to find myself here, over and over, when I am running down the sidewalk, waking up from a dream, startled by an unexpected hand on my shoulder; this is where I wake. Thanks, I hate it. 

I hate that the vision I have of the love of my life is, most often, their death.

Sometimes, the doorway is as far as I get. I stand there, frozen in time, staring, unable to move.

Sometimes I feel the bones in their chest break under my hands. 

Sometimes I am pacing in another room, begging for someone to come while the first responders push breath and electricity into someone who doesn’t need those things anymore.

Sometimes I walk out the front door, dazed, and see the volunteer firefighters in a social distance half-circle around Lucy in her stroller, too small to be strapped in that way. 

I have never been in time. 

I have never had a do-over; never got there early enough, never yelled loudly enough for them to hear, never threatened – then followed through – on calling 911 if they didn’t answer. 

They never answered. 

Sometimes, in the bright sunrises over the duplex homes on our street, I’ll remember the last time I saw them alive. The soft moments just after dawn when I had tucked them in after a bath when they’d been unable to sleep, nuzzled the recently buzzed baby duck hair, and told them I loved them. Get some good sleepies, I said, and slipped out the door while they were still asleep.

What if I hadn’t? What if I had stayed while they’d slept?

For years, I have prized my early-rising morning time. My body has never liked sleeping in. And now, that morning especially, I wanted to write. I had just started really writing again – just the week before, I had posted for public accountability that this blog would be updated every two weeks. I figured the off-weekends would be the best time for actually writing, so I was at my desk with full-octane coffee. I was no longer pumping breastmilk for the baby, so when she woke up, I’d changed and fed her, and settled in her swing next to my desk for her first morning nap. I was tapping away at the keyboard – like mice tap-dancing, according to Hawthorne – when the sound of their snoring coming through the floorboards changed. I listened, and didn’t like how long it took the next one to sound out. 

Sometimes I go back to walking up the steps, and think I remember thinking about getting the phone, unlocking the door. But I didn’t then, and like I said, I haven’t had any do-overs. 

I remember the turn of the stairs, my thick socks cushioning my steps down the hall. I couldn’t hear the creak of the swing or the tinkly music, but knew I’d hear Lucy if she cried. Then I’m back at the doorway. 

I don’t know if it was grief or parenting that made me realize what a bullshit construct time really is. The two have been intertwined for me since July 19, 2018. Some days, I look at their picture and wonder where they’ve disappeared to, since the house isn’t that big. Some days their life seems like it was too long ago to count in anything but eons. 

It’s been two years since I first walked into our bedroom and found my wife, too pale and still for this world. It’s been nearly that long since I physically stood in that bedroom. It’s been about three hours since I was last there. 

This is not what I thought time travel would be like. I mean I suppose I should have expected some pain, what with the rearranging of atoms across the time-space continuum, but this keen slicing of paper-thin sheets of my heart is a little much. The wail of grief is well imprisoned, an iron mask that no one really wants to acknowledge; if they did, they’d have to face their own certain mortality, and so many people just aren’t ready to think about that. Who is? Only those who have been given no choice, their brush with it close enough to feel her breath. 

Have you felt it? 

I live with that breath inside me, entwined in me. It has the most intimate knowledge of my lungs, my arteries and veins. I have carried life in my womb, and in my arms. I have carried death in both as well. Sometimes I feel she walks alongside me, and the touch of her hand to my shoulder is the trigger that sends me back across time and land to arrive, again, at the open bedroom doorway. I am the time traveler, but it is at her whim. 

I want to belong at home, here at my desk, tap-tap-tapping on the keyboard like mice in the walls. I want to belong with the scent of farmer’s bouquets, pungent and spicy as the world turns toward autumn. I want to belong where the laughter of my daughter is, and her increasingly clear speech.

But I don’t; at least, not only there. 

Time passes when I’m in the bedroom doorway. It starts out bright, the early morning September sun streaming through the bathroom windows and onto the floor just where I stand. It moves; the beams of light grow shorter as the sun rises higher, changing the angles. I stand, staring, as the world continues to turn around me. I don’t want to belong here. 

But I do; at least it’s not only there. 

Grief is a trickster, for all her sad smiles and damp eyes. She’ll fool you without mercy. Death is the one who makes things happen, who pushes the buttons and programs the machine. Time is a construct, a scarecrow, a nonsense creation that falls apart and gets stuck back together at odd angles. These three sisters, hair falling down in mobius curls; they are muse and master. There is no one that they have not touched, not rock nor tree nor person, let alone a displaced people. We are at their mercy, of which they have none. Always a step ahead, up around a quiet corner, waiting; waiting until you are right where they want you. 

And what do we do? We fight back, because that’s what we’ve been told. On the ambulance, we raced to the scene, sirens screaming down side streets at all hours of the night, letting everyone in earshot know that we were the front line against death. We buy cards with platitudes, console people with thoughts of being in a better place and sanitized images of angels. We buy cream after lotion after facelift in order to turn back the clock. 

For all of that, though – the bravado, the Hallmark and Oil of Olay profits – we fight back with hope, and continued solidarity, intrinsic to our corporeal bodies. We rise, and breathe in, then out. Over and over and over again. 

Time passes, smoothly or in fits and starts. Grief waxes and wanes. Death eventually takes our breath for her own.

I am standing in the bedroom door, watching the chest of my wife fail to rise and fall. I breathe in, then out, over and over as I stand, immobilized, wishing for this not to be true. Eventually I awake, and I am back. I breathe in, then out. And I rise for another day.