Word Play

As a little girl, I remember learning the word “fuck.” I repeated it over and over again with emphatic volume in the laundry room. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.” My brother overheard me and told me to stop. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I was free. On fire. He pinned me to cold cement floor and told me he was going to tell my parents. “Fuck, fucker, fucking, fucked!” What was once unknown and forbidden was now mine. I feared no punishment. I felt powerful and alive.

It’s been almost 40 years since I learned that glorious word, but it still feels just as good to say. It’s not just the long, drawn out “f” or the hard “ck” closer that makes me smile (though I do love them both), it’s saying something taboo, uttering a word that no one is supposed to say.

There is another other taboo word that I’ve come to know in the past year. It’s a word that carries an immediate feeling—a word that instantly connects me to whoever says it. Instead of power and control, this word brings a sense of sadness, calm, and even a small hint of joy. But it’s a word most people don’t want to hear. Not from a friend, not from a co-worker and most certainly not from a child. It’s uncomfortable and intimate. And, get ready, I’m gonna say it…

Grief.

There is something so raw and open and untidy in that word. It hangs on the lips like a sore—blistered and open. Only there is no drug you can take to ease its discomfort. No salve to numb the pain. Believe me, I’ve tried finding a remedy. There isn’t one.

Felt in solitude, grief is empty and forever. You don’t get your loved one back. You don’t get another shot at saying goodbye. You don’t get to make even one more memory together. Like all emotions grief is felt alone, but it doesn’t have to be lonely. There is something so beautiful in the raw openness of grief—shared grief—that it feels almost soothing.

Before I truly understood grief—before my mom died—I worked at a counseling center devoted to grief and loss. I remember vividly something a client once told me. He said he wanted to go back to the week of his brother’s funeral. That being around people who were wiling to share their grief together felt wonderful. Sure, he was still mourning a huge loss, but somehow he felt seen, understood, and connected during that week. Powerful stuff.

Anyone who has tasted grief knows it’s distinctive flavor. There are no gradients, no “better” or “worse” feeling of it. By savoring the bittersweet flavor together, though, it’s bearable.

There is strength in numbers. Fuckin' right there is.

Unless

Below is the essay I read at the Listen to Your Mother Twin Cities show on May 8th 2014. It was a wonderful opportunity to share an very private experience with lots of wonderful guests.  Enjoy!

Unless

By Laurie Lethert Kocanda

May 8, 2014

Listen to Your Mother Twin Cities

She looks likes you, this stranger. Same conservative dress, same comfortable shoes, same short haircut. Even walks like you: careful and slow. I stare at her, maybe a little too long, but she doesn’t notice. Doesn’t notice the obvious longing I feel when I look at her. When she glances my way, I smile and turn away quickly because I don’t want her to know what I’m doing: pretending she’s you. Pretending she’s my mom.

I walk behind her into the grocery store, blurring my eyes just a bit so that what I see reflects your presence even more. I’m trying to remember, to feel like I’m with you again. I’m not exactly following her, but I am pacing myself in hopes we converge near the end of the produce section.

I see her wedding band and wonder if she has kids, grandkids. I wonder if they know how lucky they are to have her. Alive and mobile. I want to speak to her, say something. But I’ve nothing important to say, really. I just want her to hear a few kind words; something that tells her she’s special.

Our carts bump. “Oh, excuse me,” she says, surprised. “No problem,” I assure her. “I needed something to wake me up.” My words fail to communicate any real sense of kindness, though I’m hopeful it shows in my smile. She grins back at me, repositions her cart, and heads off toward the bakery.

I don’t see her again until I’m back in the car. I wave as I pass by her in the parking lot. As she disappears out of sight, a shadow of shame moves over me like a hard-earned hangover.

I am a cheat. 

The last time I saw your face was just before we closed the coffin at your funeral mass. I kissed your forehead and touched your hands; neither felt like you. Cold and hard, the exact opposite of what you were in life.

It was me who picked out the clothes you were buried in. I brought them over to the funeral home the very day you died. I picked the collarless blazer you bought when we went shopping many years ago, the blue one with gold buttons and flecks of purple and pink. The casket hid your shoes, so I settled on your blue flats—well worn and comfortable.

My friend Janelle did your hair, curled back with a soft wisp of bang over your forehead. I regret not being there. We planned to bring some wine along with the curling iron, offer a toast to you, but I got cold feet when the time came. I’m sure she talked your ear off without me.

I apologize for not visiting yet. Seems easier for me to find you in that grocery store stranger than at the cemetery. It’s not that I don’t know where you are buried. I will never forget seeing your coffin as we left the gravesite, sitting all alone next to an empty tent with empty chairs on a still empty vault. I craned my neck to see you for as long as I could, until the grass and trees and cars got in the way. Until my gaze moved from the rear window to my kids, who will never get to know their grandma as adults.

If you are at the cemetery you’re trapped, beneath the earth and alone. I think of that when the weather is at its most extreme. If you really are there, you would be cold in winter, hot in the summer and alone almost all of the time. The “escape kit” we snuck into your coffin just before closing it would get you nowhere. And so I remind myself that you are not your body. I will not see you again.

Unless.

She looks like you, this young woman with red hair and fair skin. I’m watching her closely and there is no doubt she can see me. As she turns towards me, my gaze deepens. A soft pink fills her cheeks and she knows what I’m doing: I’m cherishing this moment as her mom.

She runs to her sister, your namesake, to share my attention, perhaps divert it in a moment of pre-teen self-consciousness. They start moving and jumping and running together in what seems like a dance, some sweet tandem rhythm only sisters can share.

As they stop to catch their breath, I’m tempted to say something. I want them to know how very special they are. With their dirty hands and skinned knees and unbrushed hair, they are perfect.

Nothing comes out, because there are no words to capture what I’m feeling. And just as I realize this, I see something familiar in them both—a smile, a glance, a laugh. I can’t put my finger on it, but I somehow know it’s you.

You’ve been here all along. 

When you least expect it

The problem with grief is that it is unpredictable. Things can be clicking along pretty happily, when suddenly BOOM! It hits you like a slingshot to the face. It’s like that with all the tough stuff in life, our work-in-progress topics; they develop a mind of their own. No matter how much we ignore them or pretend they don’t exist, eventually they find their way back to us like an oozing, crusty cold sore that’s impossible to overlook.

What triggers the flare-ups can be anything from the obvious—a birthday, anniversary or holiday—to the unexpected—a song on the radio, a story in the paper, a glance from a stranger.

In the almost six months since my mom’s death, I’ve had my share of emotional breakdowns, some surprising, others not as much. What’s funny, though, is that so far the obvious, more planned treks toward pain and discomfort haven’t been as effective in helping me really experience the raw emotion of grief as the unplanned.

For example, when I called my dad and unexpectedly heard his answering machine say, “I’m not available” instead of, “We can’t come to the phone right now,” I instantly hung up. Tears filled my eyes and I was immediately pissed at him for moving on with his life. Sure, it was no secret my dad had started dating soon after my mom’s death, but it was that call, that 15 second recording, that helped me realize and feel the anger that was hidden in my grief.

The holidays, which everyone said would be terrible, weren’t so bad. I prepared and disconnected, steadied myself for a week of tears that would never come.

In a recent exchange of e-mails with a distant relative (someone who’d recognized me by my maiden name on a Facebook comment to a mutual friend), I was asked, “Was your mom Maggie?” (Emphasis on the word was.) Simple enough question, but hearing my mom referred to in the past tense, stung. “How dare you?” I thought. As if she wasn’t real anymore. But then I thought, “She gone, isn’t she?” and my mind painfully returned to the morning of her death.

Last week I decided to change my cell phone contact information from “Mom and Dad” to “Dad.” I’d avoided doing it for a while, but it hurt too much to see her name appear when I made or received a call from my parents’ home. It’s always been my mom who called, my mom I called. Seeing her name appear when my phone rang felt like bait and switch. I made the change and waited to feel the pain of my treachery. Nothing.

You just don’t get to plan for it.

Music—and not the stuff I downloaded for her during the last month or two of her life—no, that would make sense. Instead, anything that speaks to loss or love is a potential trigger.

Say something I’m giving up on you.

I’m sorry that I couldn’t get to you.

So I’ll sit in the back row of yoga, in the corner of the coffee shop, with tears streaming down my face. Right where I need to be.