Happy Birthday, you two. I’m thinking of you.
Yesterday was A’s sister’s birthday. I think she’s 53, maybe 54. Soon, she will surpass her brother in age; I sincerely hope she does; he left us far too young. Last year, I sent her a “Happy Birthday” note, because it was on my calendar, because I wanted to, and because I still had hopes of an ongoing relationship. I was A’s personal reminder secretary, and it’s the only job I’ve ever had that I liked; my only other official task was choosing CDs to play when we drove around in his truck. I didn’t send her a note this year, other than one from my heart through the ether to her, and I like to think that maybe her day was a tiny bit better because that blessing found her. It’s not important that she knows it came from me. I’m done trying with his gang; I cannot say that being done with them feels good. It just feels a lot less bad than having my expectations, however unrealistic, disappointed again and again. They do not need or want me in their lives; I get it. I was a stranger when they met me, and a stranger I will remain. In my head, I knew that building a friendship upon a foundation of the death of our only common connection was nigh on impossible; but my heart, bless its naïveté, dared to hope. There is a tiny corner of my heart, a spiritual Miss Havisham, that continues to prepare for the possibility that they might one day surprise me. There’s no reasoning with her, and she’s not hurting me (much) so I guess I just have to let her be.
Today is A’s grandson’s first birthday, a grandson that he knew was on the way and was excited about, but who was not born for almost 6 months after A passed. I send love through the ether to A’s daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids, too—every time I fly over L.A., every time a birthday arrives—because I haven’t had any contact with his daughter, other than a single, brief phone conversation the day we found out he’d died.
Their lives go on without me, and I still think of his family and friends frequently, though I doubt they think of me. I don’t get worked up about it anymore, beyond a sigh and a shrug of my shoulders.
I feel that way about a lot of this stuff, now: I don’t like it; I can’t do anything about it; sigh; shrug. Acceptance, when it comes to bereavement, is more resignation-flavored, I think. I think often about the concept of acceptance, and what it means to those who still retain their innocence, and what it means to those of us who have been stripped of that luxury, a luxury we didn’t, and couldn’t, even acknowledge until it was gone. “Acceptance” is a word those who don’t know throw around, and it merely highlights an ignorance more blissful than they realize.
I never had any choice but to accept his death; no one offered me a do-over. Not once did I think that refusing to believe it would bring him back. He stopped answering his phone; he didn’t send me e-mails; we didn’t talk; I had to cancel the trip to see him because there was no one there to visit; I struggled alone through SFO with luggage and guitar, and all the emotional baggage, because he wasn’t there to help me. I accepted his death; his absence was the single pertinent fact of my life for a very long time. Acceptance is not, and never was, the issue.
Understanding is, and that is not to be had. That is the soul-level frustration that haunts me. But I know it is not for me to know, or I would. I don’t like it. I can’t do anything about it.
Sigh.
Shrug.