When Watching Someone Die

When watching someone die, be very quiet.

Listen to the machines beep, her paper lantern lungs fill with air for the last few times.

Listen to the deafening silence as life slips quietly from the room.

Hold her hand, withered and grey with skin as thin as promises.

Hold the hand that used to hold yours.

Stroke the palm that used to stroke the side of your face.

The nurses will offer you water because you haven't left her side in two days, but whisper it because death is a quiet happening.

Step out into the hall to weep when the cries shake your shoulders and threaten to escape as a scream.

When you feel the loss and unfairness of it all jumping at the back of your throat, excuse yourself.

Keep the lights dim, and watch.

Wait.

Pretend your heart didn't stop and your stomach didn't sink every time the signs of life on the monitors hesitate for a moment too long.

Brush her hair for her, the way she used to brush yours.

Say thank you. For the lessons and the recipes and the wiped away tears. For the phone calls you should have returned sooner, the birthday cards with the five dollar bills and pictures of kittens that came every year, even after you were far too old for cards like that.

Tell her you love her, and you forgive her for her sins.

You forgive her for the scars she gave your father that resulted in the scars he gave to you.

Whisper that you love her even though she was complicated, damaged, lost.

Someone has to love all the broken people, all the lost and invisible people, she used to say.

When you'd ask why she'd wink and say they were the ones that deserved it the most.

Before it's too late, say goodbye.

You'll know the moment she's left you.

You'll know because everything will be the same, but all the sameness will be so amplified by how wrong it is for none of the rest of the world to have changed, that the simple fact that the sky is the same blue it always is will be blinding.

Idle conversation will be maddening.

The sound of people laughing outside this room will be heart breaking.

You'll know the moment she's gone, and you'll always know what time it is on the East coast.

What Do You Want to Leave Behind?

Have you ever thought about your obituary?

This might sound morbid and weird, but....when do I not sound morbid and weird?

In my high school English class we were given the assignment of writing our own obituaries, as we'd want them to be, if we passed away. It could be as if you died tomorrow, or in 80 years.

Mine was sarcastic, and not serious at all.

I think I wrote that I died by being crushed by an elephant while dressed as a giant peanut.

My teacher wasn't amused.

Bill and I were talking the other night about all the places we want to go, and all the things we want to do, and what we hope our lives will be like in 5 or 10 years.

It made me think about that obituary I wrote.

I don't want to die dressed as peanut.

I really don't want to ever do anything dressed as a peanut....

So I rewrote mine.

"Sarah passed away over the weekend, passing peacefully in her sleep on a beach side Palapa in the Maldives. She was 112. Sarah led an adventurous life, having traveled to over 60 different states, islands and countries in her lifetime. Rarely seen without her camera, she leaves behind bookshelves full of photo albums for her two children, Lainie and Jackson, both grown with children and grandchildren of their own. In the 112 years she lived, she made every effort to make the most out of every second. And whether she was hiking through a jungle in Indonesia, or savoring espresso in a small cafe in Rome, or reading Dr. Seuss to her children, and eventually her grandchildren before bed, she approached every moment as if it were a great adventure. Sarah will be buried at sea, and following the services will be a very awesome party for all the people she loved, where no one is allowed to wear black, and everyone is required to have a shot of Patron and laugh about the good memories she left them with."

What do you want yours to say?

Suicide Prevention Week

You may not know it, but this week is suicide prevention week.

Suicide seems to have always been a weird and morbid constant in my life.

The majority of the people I've loved who have passed away, died at their own hand.

The most prevalent loss being my Uncle Mark, in 2001.

My uncle Mark was an artist in Chicago.

Relatively successful, a jewelry maker, a painter, a sculptor and occasionally for spare money, an amazing carpenter.

He was my dad's little brother, and the closest person in my dad's family to him.

When he died on November 29th, my whole world changed.

I woke up to a note in my bathroom from my dad saying he had to go to Chicago to take care of Mark, and he'd be back as soon as he could.

I had no idea Mark was dead.

My dad was gone for a month, and my sister moved in to help out.

We waited.

We talked to my dad.

We wondered what happened to Mark.

On Christmas morning my dad finally came home.

He told my sister and I that Mark had died, from hanging himself in his kitchen a month before.

And then my dad went to bed and didn't get back out for months.

When he did, he was never the same person.

A lot of people think when they kill themselves that their life is the only one they're ending.

It isn't.

Their death, and the feeling that everyone who loved them has that they died by choice, and what a terrible betrayal that is, changes everyone forever.

The guilt and the anger and the regret and the terrible aching loss....I see it all on my dad's face still to this day when Mark's name comes up.

And what we're all left with....the scraps and the keepsakes and the little insignificant things we hold onto to try to keep those lost people close...an old t-shirt, their jewelry, the motorcycle they used to ride that sits unused in my side yard, their leather jacket that hangs limp in the closet, pictures that we still look at to try to discern some kind of sign that of what he was going to do...all those things that we can't let go of, that still do not equal a life.

They do not add up to one single second with that person who's gone now.

They don't mean as much as one breath from their lungs, or one more glimpse of their face.

They're nothing, and they're painful, but it's all we end up with when someone we love more than they could ever have loved themselves, goes away.

Just remember you're worth it.

You're loved.

You're needed.

More than you think, and more than you'll ever know.

Depression lies, and there is still hope.

Even if all you can do right now is cling to the couch and weep, hold on.

Keep going.

Keep fighting.

And ask for help.

Because somebody out there loves you.

Even if you don't love yourself right now.

1-800-273-8255

National Suicide Prevention Hotline.

Call it, if you need it.

Please.

For me.

For Mark.

For my dad.