The Play

When will I stop listening for the gunshot on March 19? When will I be able to leave the house without asking myself, if I’d stayed home that day would he still be alive? If I’d just told him I love you that morning would it have been enough to tip the balance? Why did I hesitate that day when I so often added those words? When will I relinquish the magical thought that doing it differently this year would bring about a different outcome, and he’d re-emerge from his other dimension and join ours again? When will I be able to drive away from the house on March 19 without thinking I was causing his death over again, abandoning him again, complying with the script of history instead of fighting it, re-writing it, recreating it?

Like a late night re-run the morning passes and everything is old and familiar and predictable; I know the words and the actions, the schedule. And now he is heading to class. And now he is handing in his last paper. He’ll get an A. And now he’s returning home unexpectedly, instead of going to his on-campus job. And now he is gently taking down the family portrait from the kitchen wall and placing it in his back pack. He will be adding his gun to that bag soon. A gun we didn’t know he had, didn’t want to know. A gun he kept hidden from us but legal, documented, following all the rules of safety. And now he is driving to the lakefront and choosing his location. He will lie down on the levee in view of the water, out of site of the houses. He will listen to the water and the birds one last time. He will breathe in the smell of spring grass and dust, oyster shells and fish. He will turn his face to the sun and feel the warmth, closing his eyes to savor the last moments of life. Then he will turn his right shoulder towards the ground and with his right hand pressing his gun against his heart he will squeeze the trigger and muffle the shot with his body, not wanting anyone to see his wound if they walked by.

A neighbor will hear the shot and call her friend who lives across the street from us. I think someone just shot himself on the levee near my house. I’ve called the police. I wonder who it is. And soon afterwards our neighbor will see a car pull up in front of our house and two plain clothes policemen will walk up the path to our door. Mal will be doing the dishes. I will answer the door. Does Malcolm villarrubia live here? My husband or my son? Your son. When was the last time you saw your son? Do you have id? Mal it’s the police asking about Malcolm.

They’ll come in then and we’ll sit down at the kitchen table. Is Malcolm in trouble? Ma’am your son is dead…we found his body…

And the air will be sucked out of the room and someone will be screaming I don’t understand over and over but in a soft voice – the screaming going on inside her head. Then the script will take over and we will be actors in a drama we would never audition for, and cannot remember the words to. But somehow we will move from one scene to the next, lip syncing while someone speaks our lines for us and someone else rearranges the set. Now the funeral parlor, now the house again, and then the chapel at Jesuit and someone is lowered into the ground.

I wish the play were over and we could go back to normal but someone is asking me to move closer. I don’t want to move closer I don’t like burials. Is this someone we know well, everybody here looks familiar. And then there is a party at our house. Where’s Malcolm, he should be here if we’re having a party? Why is James in town shouldn’t he be at school? Then everyone leaves and the play seems to be over but no one has told us how to exit. We are left on stage with the empty theatre and echoes of the last scene. What do we do now? I don’t know. Do we sleep? How can we sleep? It’s not our life any more it’s a play. Do we exist between the scenes – an R and G question? Will someone enter soon and give us our cues? And the floorboards in the darkened theatre creak in sympathetic tones as the lights slowly dim.

From Faith to Doubt to … Hope

This is a draft of an introduction to my next book. I would very much appreciate feedback.

Natural disaster, institutional evil, the suicide of a loved one. The experience of each of these tragedies results in grief and loss: denial, anger, blaming, depression, and eventually, so the theory goes, acceptance and renewal of hope – a new beginning. In the face of tragedy, understanding the common stages of grief and loss can offer victims some sense of order in an otherwise chaotic emotional landscape. But what if, while reeling under the impact of a tragedy, we also face the loss of our religious faith, and along with it the very structures of meaning that have held us together for so long? What if we find ourselves doubting the goodness of our church, the existence of God, the purposeful nature of creation, the meaning of life, the very possibility of hope?

Three separate tragedies – Hurricane Katrina, the Catholic abuse scandal, the loss of a son to suicide – connected through the common ground of grief and loss, and carrying in their wake a profound challenge to religious faith. This may seem too wide a topic for a single book, but it can’t be: this book is not an intellectual exercise; these tragedies tell the story of my life. The questions I raise here surface from the depths of my own grief and sorrow and from my desperate need to reclaim hope, the hope I once relied on, the hope I tried to offer my students, the hope that my son wrote of, even as he prepared to die.

If you are looking for a story of spiritual transformation, a wrenching tragedy followed by a poignant renewal of faith, then this book is not for you. If you need to find immediate comfort, and the reassurance that God has a Plan and everything happens for a Reason, this book will not serve you well. I’m telling you this because I don’t want to cause any more pain: grief and loss are too damn difficult already. But if you are grasping for a raft in the midst of overwhelming tragedy, emotional chaos, or spiritual drought, if you are disillusioned with organized religion, and not even sure about God, let alone God’s plan, then we are on a similar journey and maybe we can share the road for a while.

Typically, spiritual odyssey stories generate speaking engagements, t-shirts, and affirmation cards. They take the reader from the pain and chaos of suffering, sin, and loss to the comfort of forgiveness and the renewal of faith. This story travels in the other direction: from a career teaching theology and leading liturgical music — feeling that I was in God’s hands — to the desolation of suddenly feeling that God had let go.

I used to readily call myself Catholic; now I don’t know what label fits. If “Catholic” can be a cultural descriptor, the way “Jewish” is for many Jews, then I am certainly Catholic. I was born and raised in the Church, received all the relevant sacraments, earned two degrees from Catholic universities, taught theology for nearly three decades in Catholic schools, and raised two sons in the Church. I would not hesitate to check “Catholic” on a census or on a hospital admissions chart. Nonetheless, I am currently ambivalent about God and find it too distressful to attend Church with any regularity.

My story will not nurture a soul hungry for immediate spiritual enrichment, but to those who are struggling to make sense of suffering and God it offers the consolation that you are not alone. It may even help you let go of the guilt of doubting God. And for those who are searching for some sense of meaning and purpose when life seems devoid of any, perhaps it will even offer you a little hope. That is certainly my hope.

Spring cleaning

Grief, like spring cleaning, is all about baby steps. Last week I decided to sort through a desk drawer and made piles, what was important enough to keep and what I was willing to part with. And then my husband sorted through the discards and pulled out a map of Austria, Malcolm spent a summer there, and a pair of nail clippers, Malcolm cut his nails with those. I know, that might seem morbid – nail clippers. But after those first horrific hours passed and it began to sink in that we would never see him again, I collected his hair from the drain in his shower; if I had found nail clippings I would have kept those too.

It has been four years, as of yesterday. Four springs when we have asked ourselves, are we ready yet? Is it time to clean out his room? Timing is very delicate here. When my husband washed my son’s sheets a few weeks after he died, it nearly put me back in the hospital. How could he decide to get rid of any of Malcolm’s smell. How could he? I was hysterical, hardly able to breathe through my sobs. Now only traces of his musky odor linger … a camping jacket, a knitted cap. And our younger son’s friends have slept in Malcolm’s bed during Mardi Gras visits, and I have replaced the sheets.

Going forward there will be hundreds of decisions to make. Every article of clothing, every note, every memento. His desk contains fragments of the life of the boy and the man, from grammar school to graduate school. Every one of them precious, every one of them a tenuous connection, every one of them holding out the elusive hope of an answer. What if there’s a letter hidden between pages of a book, a note in a pocket? Some revelation of a broken heart or a paralyzing fear. But did he really know why, on that day in March, 2007, just three hours after handing in a paper to his professor, he took a gun and shot himself through the heart?  I’m not sure any more.

I think this spring what we need to let go of is our need for an answer. Maybe then we will be able, finally, to let go of Malcolm’s things. But not this year. Not yet.

Victims of the Storm

“Think about PTSD like the water level in a river,” said University of Mississippi Medical Center researcher Dr. Scott Coffey, who was part of a two-year study published in 2008 on Katrina-related PTSD in lower Mississippi. “If the river is running high and there is a rainstorm,” he said, “the river may flood because there is very little room for error. That’s kind of how it is with PTSD. Your stress is high, then when a little rain comes along, it goes over its bank. With PTSD the river is constantly running high.”’
http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/2010/08/26/1243746/gulf-grapples-with-mental-health.html#ixzz0y3GTiHYW

People who struggled with depression before Katrina were less able to weather the psychological effects of the storm. Suicide rates tripled in areas along the coast, and that is only an estimate. Many suicides go unreported as such.

Was Malcolm a victim of Katrina? Not in a direct sense, maybe, but I am sure Katrina was one of the currents in his “river” of stress and anxiety. After the storm he worked for contractors gutting houses; he walked in the debris of people’s lives every day. In January, 2006, when the University of New Orleans opened up again, he drove to his on-campus job, and to class, through the devastation of Lakeview. Day after day he saw evidence of the precariousness of life and the elusiveness of safety in a community at the mercy of the weather. As he came to the end of his course-work for his M.Ed, he had to face the fact that he was moving into adulthood and independence. However much we tried to assure him of our constant support, however much we slowly walked him through the minutiae of adult financial responsibilities, however often we tried to convince him he was already a really good tutor and youth mentor and would make a great teacher, I think he was slowly drowning in his fears and insecurities.

 So, perhaps Malcolm was a storm victim, and Katrina was a part of that storm. 

His last moments alive were at the lakefront, a place where, before Katrina, he had always found comfort and calm, and that is where he chose to end his life. I only hope that in his last breaths he found that elusive calm he had so desperately sought for so long.

 

I love you, Malc.

Three years

We’re coming up to three years and I’m facing the anniversary with trepidation again, but less so than before. I remember how in those first horrific days I wanted only to be with Malcolm; I agonised over the thought that he was alone and afraid.  As weeks and months passed I felt guilty for abandoning him, for not dying too. As months passed into a year I fantasized about creating a near death experience so I could see him and hug him once more and make sure he was alright; but I didn’t want to die, I would make sure to be resuscitated so that I wouldn’t cause my family any more pain. Now, at three years, even that fantasy seems empty, ridiculous even. Now I wear his jacket to Mardi Gras parades, I read his Facebook page where friends and family still post messages, I look at photos, and sometimes, like today, I help his dad tend to his grave. A parent’s nightmare — having to tend their child’s grave. But that is the last thing we can do for him now, one last act of love.

Angel’s Son

Angel’s Song
…..
You were fighting every day
So hard to hide the pain
I know you never said goodbye
I had so much left to say

One last song
Given to an Angel’s Son
As soon as you were gone
As soon as you were gone.
“Angel’s Song” by Sevendust

This song was recorded by James in memory of his brother on his college a capella group’s last album. Tipp Your Barrista, by The New Dominions.

Christmas reds, greens and blues!

I really got into preparing for Christmas this year. We hosted the family party on Christmas Day and I did a number of creative projects to decorate. I was in a very happy place. My son James was home; life was good. Then little things just hurt — out of nowhere. James’ neck suddenly looked like Malcolm’s and made me choke up with sudden tears. I thought I heard Malcolm more than once. Then today the After- Christmas Blues hit and I have cried on and off all day.

One thing that has been especially difficult for me this Christmas is watching James in pain…it is so tough on him coming home. My husband and I have lived with Malcolm’s absence day in and day out for nearly three years. Seeing his empty chair at supper, looking at his closed door and knowing he is not on the other side any more.  But because of college James lived without Malcolm for five years before he died, and so being away from him was normal, but he always had the expectation of seeing him at the holidays and on special occasions like weddings. Now, whenever James comes home, he re-experiences the loss of his only brother as it it were nearly new and so in a more intense way. The sadness of the months since the last visit become distilled into a sudden and intense experience of loss all over again. I think it is harder than the daily loss we have lived with facing Malcolm’s obvious absence every day. Of course, I don’t know if this is true for James, I am just surmising, but I think it may be.

For all the siblings of suicides, my heart goes out to you. Be kind to yourself, talk to friends or family, you don’t have to keep your feelings locked up. You aren’t protecting your parents, they are worrying about you anyway. So talk to them.

Hope

A bunch of us walked in the first New Orleans, Out of Darkess AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention)  fundraiser walk yesterday. It was a very moving experience because so many of my husband’s extended family came out to walk with us. Even my sister-in-law’s sister! And it was in the 40′s with a wind chill in the 30′s, which is arctic conditions for New Orleans. I wore a T-shirt with Malcolm’s picture on…showing his wonderful smile. Because people need to know what the face of suicide looks like–it can look like the life of the party! Of course all of us there knew that already, but maybe you didn’t.

Do we ever really know what is going on inside another person? He may seem completely “together” but actually be falling apart. She doesn’t seem to need encouragement but might be suffering in a private darkness and needing desperately to experience a little piece of hope. We may never know it, but a single, small, unexpected act of kindness towards another person may mean the difference between hope and despair, between life and death.

Out of the Darkness

The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention is holding a walk in New Orleans on December 5th, 2009. I am participating in it and if you would like to support it you can go to this page. Or if you live locally, consider walking too.

Out of Darkness Walk, Dec. 5th

“When you lose something you can’t replace…”

Fix You, by  Coldplay  (click title for a youtube video)

“…And the tears come streaming down your face
When you lose something you can’t replace
When you love someone, but it goes to waste
Could it be worse?

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you.”

I have this song on my MP3 player and I can’t stop listening to it. Some songs just touch your heart. “When you love someone but it goes to waste..” I don’t think it is ever a waste to love someone. For however long and with whatever response, I don’t think love is ever a mistake.

“And I will try to fix you.” It is natural to want to fix someone you love when they are in pain.  You would rather be the one hurting than watch them suffer.  But we can’t fix anyone. All we can do is love them and then love them some more, and hope that one day the lights will guide them home.