Year Two...

The night air has started to turn cold, the sun is setting noticeably earlier than it was just a few weeks ago, and I see people around me beginning to use their light therapy lamps.  With all this, I’ve realized it’s been a while since my last post—one written during the summer while I sat in a dark, still room, watching little bits of light make patterns on the wall and remembering days past. 

Between then and now, I have helped my daughter move back to the States for graduate school, had someone fix the blinds, made it through the start of the fall semester, checked the sky. and found that, as predicted, Orion has indeed risen, and the High Holidays have come and gone. The first anniversary of the October 7th attack has also come and gone, and like most Jews, I have spent a lot of time thinking about the events of not only that day but the subsequent year. 

Though there are so many things to consider and so much loss of life to mourn, as a mother who has experienced the exact type of evil that led to the headlines about infants being murdered shortly after their birth, on a personal level, the attack provided one of the most visceral reminders of Jake’s death that I have ever had. As a result, I have found myself in a place I’ve been only twice before—the two years immediately after his death and the two years after the birth of my daughter.  It seems I grieve most intensely for periods of two years, a time during which I walk the space between life and death, never fully here, but never fully there either. 

I barely survived either year one or year two the first two times, and in that regard, this past year, year one of the current cycle, has had, shall we say, some closer calls than I may have indicated to anyone while they were happening.  However, though they were closer than I let on, they were not as close as they were the first two times, and while I would not describe the grief I felt this past year as less intense than before, I will say I was better equipped to handle it most days.  Age, experience, and not having been pregnant or having had a baby this time around are all certainly part of that, but I think that equally, and perhaps even more important, are the people, mostly women, by whom I am now surrounded.  The ones who answered late-night messages when I was in pain and needed to talk, the ones who let me cry at their dinner table on Friday nights, the ones who told me over and over and over again that my life has value and they want me here, with them.  The ones who pull me closer to life on the days I am tempted towards death while I walk the strange space in between.

In addition to all the events I listed above that have taken place since my last post, I started working with an editor on a project that may eventually turn into a book.  Though it is still very early days, the whats, hows, whens, and whys of telling the story are starting to take shape.  Regardless of which parts we are going over though, the work she likes the best, at least for now, is raw and unedited, lacking the precision of a scientist or the restraint of a professional.  She likes the letters to Jake, with all their sorrow, all their pain, all their love.  She likes the times I write about the tree in my childhood backyard—the one in which I sat when I was very young, looking out at the foothills, thinking I might be safe there, away from all other people, the one I rested my back on when I was fifteen and pregnant, staring up through the leaves to the sky, wondering what life might be like as a mother, the one I clung to, one arm wrapped around the trunk, the other with its fingers dug into the soil while I wept silently into the grass after he was gone.  She likes it when I describe the fog in which I live—a fog so thick that it silences all sound and stops me from seeing anyone or anything around me, a fog so thick that I am perpetually alone in its mist.  She likes the work that tells her who I am, not just what happened to me. She likes the work where she sees and feels me on the page.

This is a new type of writing for me, and admittedly, I find the lack of precision, the lack of restraint, and the level of vulnerability a bit unsettling.  But, always one to push myself as far as possible in the name of growth, I decided to practice all of these in a single post, however uncomfortable it might be, because in the end, there is no one who deserves to see me on the page more than you—the ones who helped me through year one and the ones who will be here for year two, whatever it may bring.

So, in that spirit, I wrote you a raw, unedited, vulnerable note of appreciation that also lacks the precision of a scientist and the restraint of a professional.  In it, I think you will see me, rather than the things that happened to me, on the page.  I’m still getting used to all this, so though it is rather short, it is raw and real, and I hope it captures the beauty of what you did for me this past year.

Thank you for holding my hands, whether you knew it or not, while I was at the store, staring at a box of razor blades and thinking about how fast this could all be over—I left without buying them, your hands stopping mine from reaching for them.

Thank you for speaking to me, whether you knew it or not, when the unrelenting thoughts about how much better the world would be without me screamed in my head—your voices quieted those, told me that’s simply not true, reminded me that I am loved, and asked me to stay.

Thank you for walking with me, whether you knew it or not, when I slipped out of the house very late at night or very early in the morning, my gaze locked on Orion, crying the same silent tears I learned to cry so many years ago—your steps matched mine the entire way, not leaving me until I was back at my front door, home before anyone realized I was gone.

Thank you for being with me, whether you know it or not, when I write and begin to tell the parts of the story that I haven’t told anyone yet, the parts I’m just starting to talk about, the parts where I put myself, not just the things that happened to me, on the page—you are within the words, you are between the words, you are behind the words.

Love always,

Elizabeth