Seven since
Posts I write here are always prewritten, edited, drafted, fine-tuned and shined. But this is different. Writing off the cuff or from the gut. Tonight at midnight, it will be seven years since Juan. . . left, died, passed on, passed away, released himself. . . I rarely say he “shot himself,” and instead may say he “took his own life” or “committed suicide,” but even those latter two feel invasive and disrespectful and unrefined. But suicide is all those things.
Not a day goes by where his name isn’t on my tongue, and his face isn’t in my memories. Yet. . . yet, I can never enjoy a happy memory without it ending with his death. Even this morning, as I was looking through old photos of him from 2014, 2015, and 2016, I overlooked his iconic smile or the joy on my face, and saw only the red Chucks he loved, and thought to myself, “Those are the shoes we buried you in.”
I don’t let myself off the metaphorical flesh hooks of guilt, and yet I know the people around me may grow impatient with trying to convince me differently. But it occurred to me the other day that i hang on to the guilt because if i get over grieving, it feels like abandonment. . .like letting his hand slip from mine while we are sky-high - me in the helicopter, with the wind tearing canyons in my soul - and him without a parachute cuz i fucked up and forgot to properly prepare his pack. Each year, I let a little grief go, but his life ended with his death, and every memory ends with his absence.
I’d told Elisabeth that I was going to get this date tattooed on my forearm. She gently recoiled, and I subtly repelled because we are like sisters so sometimes i don’t hear her good advice. But this morning, as Dan and I talked about the tattoo, he said “You’re never going to forget this date. And if it’s on your arm then you are just going to keep dredging it up. How about we put his name on your arm instead as a way to celebrate?” And then, in the way he’s probably said to me since i was 16, he finished the decision “Sounds good, lady.” So i relished in the sting of the spicy ink and celebrated his name.
I love this Trilety. It's perfect, what you did and what you feel and what you wrote.
I have a date tattooed in one of the folds of my brain I guess, one that left me wandering for years in guilt for not being there when I could have been. Maybe. After about 5 years, my friend came to me in a vivid dream and told me it was okay. That began the healing, and although it's been fifty years for me, the wound, as you know Trilety, never closes all the all the way.
In some ways, I wish I hadn't read this because it's bringing back stuff when it's not that time of year. But mostly, I'm glad I did because I sense the importance of your words, and how expressing your love and grief so honestly helps you. Thank you for sharing.