Category Archives: Hope

A message for a message seven years later

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Facebook has its pluses and minuses. However you’d like to categorize it, being able to message people in your Facebook “network” can be a plus or a minus. Yesterday, it felt like a big plus. Seven years ago, a former high school classmate experienced the death of her father. She was clearly stricken with grief by it, and posted the eulogy she wrote for him as a note on Facebook. I saw it in my feed that day in 2008, which was the year we both graduated from college, and I felt so awful when I read it. I could feel myself tearing up, my face getting hot while reading through it, wondering how terrible and alone she must have felt while delivering that speech at her father’s funeral. I knew I had to say something to her, even if we were never officially friends in real life. So I sent her a Facebook message, expressing my condolences, and I told her that I really believed her father was watching over her life now in another form, and that in another form, he’d always be with her.

Yesterday, after I uploaded my Facebook/Instagram post about Bart representing Ed on Ed’s birthday, this same person reached out to me to say how moved she was by my post. She said that because Facebook stores all old messages, my message to her all those years ago immediately came up when she started typing in my name to message me, and she remembered how happy and grateful she felt that I’d reached out to her all those years ago. Honestly, if she had never messaged me today, I never would have remembered ever reaching out to her and writing this message. This was part of her message to me yesterday:

“I saw the photo you posted for your brother’s birthday and I wanted to tell you I’m very sorry for your loss and that you’ve been so strong. I think it’s wonderful that you bring Bart with you wherever you go. It’s really beautiful and I’m sitting here with a couple tears in my eyes looking at your Instagram photos with Bart everywhere with you around the world. Ed is so lucky to have you as a sister, because he can still see the world through you. I think you already know without me saying this that it’s totally fine to cry, even after years have passed – because I still cried this year on my dad’s birthday, too! No one will forget. Thanks for sharing with us all.”

Facebook forces us to remember the thoughtful messages that others have written us, which I guess is sort of a nice thing. It also allows us to reach out and be supportive to others who may not be close to us, but sort of still know us, because sometimes when you least expect it, you can get support from those you never really thought cared at all. That’s pretty amazing sometimes.

36

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Dear Ed,

Happy birthday – today you turn 36. The reason I am not that excited about this is a) you aren’t here anymore, so what does this really mean, and b) I’m in a moment where I kind of hate the world. I had some successful client meetings the last few days here in Atlanta, yet I still feel dissatisfied. I woke up on your birthday morning crying, thinking how upset I am that you are dead. I wrote an Instagram post telling my Facebook and Instagram world the meaning of Bart and how he represents you and how I want you to travel the globe with me. It feels so empty. All of that feels empty. People are commenting and saying what a great sister I am. Was I really that great, Ed? You know what I would prefer? If no one complimented me and told me I was a great sister while you were dead, and if you were actually alive and healthy and well and happy. I guess that is too much to ask for. Sometimes life really sucks. But you already knew that, right, and that’s why you decided to peace out. God, that makes me mad.

I don’t know why, but this year has been much harder for me to deal with than last year in terms of not having you. When the anniversary of your passing came and your birthday last year, I actually kind of had it together, and I wasn’t crying or anything. I felt like it, but I didn’t. This year, it’s really different. I feel like everything is triggering me to think of you and tear up, wishing you could have had a tiny piece of the privilege and happiness I’ve been able to have, and wishing that you could be on this earth with me again. There’s too much you didn’t get to experience, Ed. It makes me so upset when I think about it. I never got a chance to fully express myself to you, and I don’t know if I will ever really get over it. Sometimes, I just feel so lonely, like no one understands or cares enough. This donor drive is driving me crazy. I don’t want to take it personally when people don’t respond or donate, but I can’t help it. I almost feel like it’s an affront to you and what you mean to me. I just want you to be back, and it’s so hard some days. Everyone who can’t empathize in the slightest, I want them all to fuck off and go to hell and perhaps get hit by a truck. That sounds terrible, doesn’t it? You’d get so mad at me if I said that in your living presence.

I miss you. It goes without saying, but sometimes, it just needs to be said. As human beings, we don’t say how we feel enough, which isn’t right because of how short life is. I wish I could have told you more, but now, all I have left is my occasional prayer to God, this blog, and my Instagram/Facebook posts speaking to you. I miss you. I love you. I have nothing else left to say now, but I hope you are well where you are and think of me occasionally, lovingly. I really wish my brother were here with me today.

Love,

Yvonne

 

Humanity

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Tonight, I hosted a client dinner for a party of 15 here in Atlanta, with two of my colleagues who traveled down from New York for the meetings we will be having these two days. And for the first time ever, I almost burst into tears in the presence of my clients while hearing one of their stories. Thank God I was able to maintain my composure.

One of the new employees hired on the analytics team at my client’s company sat next to me at dinner, and we were getting to know each other and each others’ life stories. He is quite an eclectic man: he came out to his parents at age 15, got kicked out of his Christianity cultish parents’ house, finished high school while living with extended relatives in a better neighborhood in Fort Worth, then joined the army for six years. He’s always had an affinity for numbers and for analytics and visual representations of everything, which is ultimately what brought him to my client. But the story he shared with me, which if I remember correctly, was from his experience after he left the army and was working for the government, touched me to a degree I have never felt before in my life.

He told me about how he was doing forensics work, and a body of a John Doe was brought in who was killed in combat. For days, they waited for family members, friends, anyone to claim him, yet no one did. What are they going to do? He thought. Because he had served in the army, the government ultimately paid for this man’s funeral, but when the funeral was scheduled, no one came… except my client and his then colleagues. The few of them came to the service, and were amazed that no one had showed up — not a single person. And this man still had no identity. He just couldn’t believe it, my client said. How could not a single person in the entire world not recognize or claim to know this man.. or not even show up to his funeral? He felt so hurt, to think that a human being could die and not have a single soul care or show up to his funeral on this earth.

He went back to the office and started looking over John Doe’s charts, and he thought, I want to memorialize this guy, this John Doe. How can I do this? How can I do something small in my own life to remember this man that no one else wants to remember? I want him to know that someone did remember him, and that someone will be me. He thought for a while, and remembered he’d always wanted to get a tattoo on his body, something that was large and all over his arm and maybe even spreading out to his back, something that was meaningful. And so he decided to take this man’s DNA sequence and have the entire thing tattooed on him, from his left forearm all the way up his shoulder, and down the middle of his back. He already had part of his arm revealed with his short-sleeved shirt, and so he showed me part of the DNA sequence and the detailing.

I could feel my eyes watering when he shared this story with me. “I don’t think it’s a big deal,” he said to me, smiling and laughing. “This is the sort of thing that people in my circles do all the time! But as I meet more and more people, I’m realizing that maybe it’s not really ‘normal’ after all. But I figured – if no one else will remember him, I can, right?”

This man’s humanity really touched me. I had to try really hard to fight back tears as he told me this. Who in the world would do something like this — remember a guy he had absolutely no connection with in life, feel sorry for him because no one came to his funeral to “claim” him, and then decide to “remember” him by tattooing his entire DNA sequence on his physical body? He didn’t want this stranger to be forgotten, so he’s literally stamped him on his body, which it will be on forever. I told him that I found his actions incredibly endearing and admirable to a level I’ve probably never heard of before.

It’s almost always a common nightmare people cite — who will come to my funeral when I die? How will I be remembered, if at all? This John Doe will be remembered by my client forever.

 

Reading to soothe

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I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night. I kept tossing and turning, flipping my pillow, looking at the clock as each hour would pass by. When I eventually fell asleep, I dreamt that I was back in my bedroom in San Francisco, sitting cross-legged on my bed while facing Ed, who had a large hardcover book open in his lap. I felt miserable, and I had asked him to read me passages from a book that would provide me hope and inspiration. He read passage after passage of who knows what large book it was, and with each passage he finished reading to me, I asked him for another one, and another one, and another one. I didn’t want him to stop. He didn’t seem impatient, though, and continued to read each time I asked him to continue and find another one that would be inspiring. In the back of my mind, I was scared that if I told him I was okay and that he didn’t need to find me another passage to read that he would close his book and leave the room, and ultimately leave me forever. I couldn’t risk that. I needed to keep holding onto him. If I could still hear his voice, I knew I would be okay.

Degrees of shared experience

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I was in my office kitchen cutting fruit yesterday when a colleague walked up to me to express her condolences about my brother. She was on the limited e-mail list I sent out to colleagues, letting them know I was participating in the Queens AFSP Out of the Darkness walk this year, and requesting a donation if they wanted to contribute. She told me that she admired my courage in sharing and discussing something so hard so openly, and she found my story very well written and heart felt.

She also told me that her best friend from college had a brother who also committed suicide. It happened when they were in college. She’s in her thirties now, and she said that to this day, her friend won’t admit to anyone that the cause of her brother’s death was suicide, and she refuses to discuss it openly with anyone — even her, and they are best friends. How did you know it was suicide? I asked her. Apparently, they found her brother and were there when the EMT came and pronounced it self-inflicted. She said it was obvious from the scene that it was suicide.

“That’s why I think it’s great what you are doing,” my colleague said to me. “It’s amazing that you can be so open about it because I really think it will help other people be more open to talking about something so sensitive.”

That’s easier said than done. Every time I get another donation notification, I feel all at once this overwhelming sensation of gratitude, and simultaneously a sense of misery that my own brother is dead as a result of his own doing.

Post traumatic growth

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The other day, I read an article in the Huffington Post about “post traumatic growth.” It’s exactly what it sounds like: in the face of extreme tragedy or trauma, individuals grieve and get through this period, emerging stronger, more resilient, sometimes in very dramatic and visible ways. I thought about myself dealing with Ed’s death and how my perspective on a lot of aspects of life have changed. Sometimes that “change” is not always so visible to outsiders, but it’s visible to those who know us deeply and really listen to the things we have to say.

I was saddened to hear of the passing of a former colleague’s younger brother via Facebook (because this is how we hear about not just engagements, marriages, and births, but also deaths now). She left my company in the beginning of the year, and we always got along and had decent small talk. They had recently taken a trip together and hiked gorgeous areas of Hawaii, and he suddenly passed away late last week. He was just two days shy of turning 24. Because I know how isolating and awful it can be to face this type of tragedy, I knew I wanted to say something to her, if even just a few words. She was aware of the loss I experienced with my own brother, and of course, I didn’t want to make my outreach about myself and my own pain. So I sent her a private message and let her know that I read her obituary post for her brother and was sending my condolences. Losing a sibling, especially one who is not at a “normal” older age to pass, is probably one of the worst and most devastating losses one can experience. Siblings share a bond that is unique, and so the feeling of loss is unique, I told her. She responded right away and said she appreciated my words. She just needed to get through this time and have hope.

I wavered between sending this article to her or not, as I didn’t want to come across as presumptuous or like I was some know-it-all when it comes to loss, but decided to preface it with a “trigger warning” and say that perhaps this was not the right time to read this, but maybe she could read this article later when she had more time to digest and grieve. At the end of the day, she read it and reached back out to me. She said she was really happy I sent this article, and that this article actually gave her increased hope for the future.

It’s hard to know how to respond to other people’s loss and grieving when it happens. It’s difficult even when I’ve experienced it myself because everyone reacts so differently to death, as well as to how other people respond to them, whether they are very close or very distant. But as I’ve always thought, reaching out to say a little is better than doing absolutely nothing at all.

Changing nappies

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Tonight, I went to visit my colleague, who just gave birth to her first son two weeks ago. While sitting there with her, her newborn, and her friend, I watched from the corner of my eye as her husband went around the apartment, tidying up one thing, washing grapes and preparing refreshments for us. When it was time to change the baby’s diaper, he quickly picked the baby up and said he’d take care of it while my colleague sat and socialized with us. “We tag team!” my colleague said, when her friend made a comment about how they split up baby and house responsibilities post giving birth. Before having the baby, she told us, she’d never changed a single diaper in her entire life. Neither had he. But they both learned, sucked it up, and they deal with it together.

It’s funny timing that I observed this today because I just read an article that Chris’s friend posted on Facebook earlier this morning about “Five Reasons I’m Not Lucky to Have My Husband.” Her point is not so much that she’s not lucky to have him. They have a great bond, they love each other and the family they’ve created. He is good to her, and she is good to him. These are “lucky” things to have. But she is more speaking to the fact that she gets so many comments about how “lucky” she is that her husband is willing to do things like change nappies, rock the baby to sleep, and give her free time outside of the house, away from the baby, so she can recharge. Why are these “lucky” things? she asks. This is the egalitarian way in the current era we live in. This is the way it “should” be in a partnership and a marriage. Why do the men get so much credit for doing seemingly normal parenting tasks when women do not?
I’ll be honest. When I observed my colleague’s husband today, I thought in my head, wow, she’s so lucky to have him! I felt a little bad for thinking it. But I can’t help that thought because even in today’s day and age, working women are known to still do more house work and child-rearing than men. Whether it’s self-chosen or not, it’s still a fact. But it’s comforting to know that my colleague and her husband are a couple that will be part of the change I’d like to see.

Two years.

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Dear Ed,

$%&#. It’s been two freaking years. It’s so trite, but I can’t believe it. I really cannot. Somehow, I managed to get by the last two years knowing that you were not breathing in the same world as me. I spent the last few days reading different parts of the Bible. I also spent some time reading articles on grieving, or what they call the “grieving process.” One quote I read summed it up pretty well: Step 1: Grieve. Step 2: Remake yourself. What that quote does not reveal is how much energy and effort it took to get from Step 1 to Step 2. It really should look like this:

Step 1: Grieve.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2: Remake yourself.

I wouldn’t say I’ve completely done a 180 and “remade” myself, per se, but I do think that I’ve made some hard choices about people, life, and my perspective that now, life feels much different, and not just because of your absence.

I get self-conscious about it, though, and I think that maybe in some way, because of how much I’ve pushed myself in terms of accomplishment and thought process, that along the way it’s almost made me even more judgmental than I was before. It’s like that quote that Steve Jobs loved: “If you aren’t busy being reborn, you are busy dying.” It really stayed with me since I read his book in 2012. If I am not accomplishing anything now and trying to achieve something, then what the hell am I even doing here? What is my purpose? I’m still searching, but maybe I am a little optimistic when I say now that I feel better about life now than I did this time last year.

I guess that’s something you struggled with: purpose. For a good 12 years, you were a devout Christian. You felt your purpose was to serve God, study the Bible, do good work, volunteer to help those less fortunate than you. Then in the 13th year of the 2000s, you broke. You were already breaking in late 2011, but you hid it from me that Christmas. You didn’t tell me you were hallucinating. You hid it so well that I had no idea until you told me in March 2012 when you quit your Macy’s job that anything was really wrong. And even then, you described everything so vividly that I believed what you told me. How could I not believe you? I believed what you said was real and really was happening to you. It took me a full year to realize it was all hallucination. And at that point, it was too late. Your purpose was lost, and your will to live was gone. And then you left us. It escalated way too fast for me to digest it and figure out how to help. But I was too slow and too late. This is what happens when you have a little sister who is slow to process things.

You did a lot of good things with your final years, Ed. I’m sure not many people have said that to you, but I thought you tried really hard, even when I was pushing you to try harder. I only said it because I loved you. I wanted to help you, to make you realize that you were capable of doing more. I hated everyone who tried to make you think otherwise, whether it was explicitly said to you (and we both know it was) or implied. Some of that hate is still in me and will continue to live on in me as long as I breathe.

It’s hard to have faith in life sometimes, though, when I know you are gone, and when insane acts of violence and racism happen like in Charleston and Ferguson and now Hempstead, Texas. I can’t wrap my head around it sometimes, and all the violence and racism and apathy and laziness of the world starts getting to me, and I feel flushed and angry that I am just this one, single, powerless person who can do absolutely nothing to help. I couldn’t even help you. Our mom reminds me indirectly that no one has reached out to ask me how I am doing today in light of your two-year-passing mark. It’s another reminder that I try not to take too personally — that no one really cares — or cares enough. But it’s comforting and brings tears to my eyes to know that Chris’s parents and brother reach out to me to say something. No one else does. But they do. They do because they are my family now. They’re your family, even if you’re not here anymore, and even they think of you. See? There is some hope in the world. I have to take what I can get. I guess having low expectations isn’t so bad after all, is it? Our own blood family — our cousins, our aunts, our uncle — they don’t even reach out to say or ask anything to me. I can’t stand our family. But you already know that, and you gave up on them a long time ago and realized how screwed up they all are.

I really wanted you to come by and surprise me today, in some way. It’s what I anticipate this time of the year, that you will pop out and say hello. I’d throw my arms around you the way I do in pretty much all the dreams I have when you appear, and I’d squeeze you until you get mad at me for cutting off your circulation. Today, as last year, my senses are heightened because I know you suffered immensely and ended your life so tragically two years ago. I felt my whole body go numb this morning thinking about it. But I forced myself to wake up in time for gym class so that I’d have no choice but to push myself in group fitness or look like a complete idiot. And you know how competitive I can get in these classes. I have to have better stamina than all those others in the class. This is how I deal with losing you — I guess I just push myself even harder. At least my muscles are benefiting from it.

I miss you a lot, Ed. I don’t know if you realize how much. Before you died, I worried about you and thought about you every single day. I even watched as you slept when I was in San Francisco sometimes, especially that last time I saw you for two weeks in March 2013. What am I going to do, Ed? I wondered. What are we going to do to get you better? I failed. I don’t think I will ever get over this failure. I literally lost a life — your life. It makes me feel sick literally to the bone. I can seriously feel it right this second.

I’ll be selfish when I say this. I don’t care if no one else thinks about you, if no one else misses you, if no one else ever visits your niche at the Columbarium. All I want to say is that all that matters is that I care and love you, and I’m never going to forget you or the importance you still have in my life. Everyone else can burn in hell. You’ll always have me even if you left me. I can’t wait to see you again — in my dreams hopefully very soon (tonight maybe? Please?), and when I’m ready to join you wherever you are. You’ll be waiting, right? Right at the door for me?

I love you. Don’t forget to stop by in my dreams. It’s the only place I’ll ever fully be at peace with you. Since you left this world, I’ve never looked forward to sleep more because it means I have a chance at seeing you again. So, consider coming tonight?

Love,

Yvonne

 

Yawning in public

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Throughout the last two days at work, even though I have been pretty occupied with catching up on my very long to-do list, I randomly remember things I noticed or observed during our time in Japan. As I yawned and covered my mouth during a meeting today, I realized that on every single train ride, in the subway stations or even on the street, I never once saw anyone yawn. I’m sure it would be pretty outlandish for anyone in a white-collar work setting to yawn during a meeting the way I did, even if the person closed her mouth, as that would be perceived as very rude and disrespectful. Here, I yawn all the time and sometimes don’t even cover my mouth, whether it’s at work or in public.

I have a feeling that I will still recall tidbits of Japan for the next few weeks as I reminisce on our incredible time there and hope to go back sometime in the near future.

Dreaming of Kyoto

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Last night was our first night back in our own bed in New York in 11 nights. It was probably partially because of jet lag, but I dreamt that we were walking through the dark but well lit streets of Kyoto in Gion at night. There were all these bamboo potted plants and old tiled roofs and traditional Japanese doors, steps, and mini rock gardens. The primary colors that stood out during our walk were bright, golden yellow, warm brown, and deep, cool greens. As I entered what appeared to be a restaurant, Chris walked in first, and I followed him. He walked toward a dark room where there was a couch, and he pulled my hand toward him as he laid himself down on the couch and laid me down beside him.

The next thing I knew, it was about 2:30am according to my clock, and I woke up in our New York apartment. This wasn’t a dream anymore. I glanced around the room, not recognizing it for a moment, still trying to figure out where were were both sleeping and if we were still in Kyoto. I glanced to the left of my bed, where I saw framed photos of Ed on the wall that Chris had hung up almost two years ago. No, we’re not in Kyoto anymore, or Japan for that matter. We are back in New York and back to real life. The light that lit Ed’s photos up were not from warm Kyoto homes and restaurants, but rather the dull, cold light of the apartments outside our window.

Japan is in our past now.