My Years of Magical Thinking

Los Angeles, California

National Public Radio often keeps me company during my days. I am not much of a TV watcher; in fact, despite sitting in front of my MacBook screen at this moment, I think that time spent in front of screens is often time wasted. So I listen. NPR offers a mix of culture, news, public service, multisubject-based interviews, and entertainment. It avoids being about celebrity culture. I think that whatever the Kardashians are up to is rarely, if ever, presented. I am profoundly grateful for that. While I enjoy listening to it in my waking hours, I have sometimes found the podcast of Fresh Air to be an insomnia treatment (not nearly as effective as The News from Lake Wobegon, but still pretty good).

One day last week, I was listening to Fresh Air which was rerunning Terry Gross' interview with the recently deceased Joan Didion. It was an interview from back when she was promoting her memoir A Year of Magical Thinking. I read that book after it was first published, before I experienced my own trifecta of loss in 2014. I have been unable to face a revisit of the book, though I am sure it would resonate more greatly now.

Last week I also heard Jamie Raskin, the senator from Maryland, interviewed by Terry Gross. He is currently promoting his memoir which details the loss of his son to depression and ultimately suicide, and the January 6th domestic terrorism attack on the Capitol just a day after his son's funeral.

There was a lot of content in both interviews. But what stuck with me was Didion needing to pause to take a break as she became emotionally overcome during the interview. Anyone who watched Jamie Raskin through the process of the second impeachment of Trump will probably remember his struggle for composure as he told the story of one of his surviving children, his daughter Tabitha, and a son-in-law through another daughter, huddled in terror under an office desk in the Capitol while the animalistic crowd battered down the door and gained access.

The thing is, I have had over seven years of grief, and I can speak about Sandra and my mom with a warmth of remembrance for all they were and all they meant to me. I can tell lighthearted stories, and I can laugh at the many things they did and said that were humorous. I think about similar things when remembering my husband, especially when watching movies which contain lines he would repeat. We often responded to each other utilizing movie lines. It had become our thing, our special dialog. And in truth, since his death I have still been unable to watch some of those films which contain those lines. And others I have needed to turn off before finishing, after feeling my spirits plummet. Those are not the times when the pain becomes acute. But the pain is still often overwhelming -- a cutting off at the knees when you think you are finally now upright in your grief. But then, grieving suicide is not normal grief.

Like Didion and Jamie Raskin, I sometimes struggle to speak. Seven years later, and my voice still often catches when articulating Tom's troubles and what they brought to our lives and our marriage. While the constant anxiety related to never knowing what he might do is certainly long gone; the grief, the loss, and the waste, still captures my ability to speak freely about him when the subject begins sawing to the bone. And this incapacity sears me. I want control of my emotions and of my ability to convey thoughts and feelings, even when they are rooted in disappointment, shame, and grief. As with the trifecta of loss, I live with the triple-play of those three emotions when it comes to his death.

But life goes on and seven years is seven years. I lost two friends this past year. One was Alvin who was a light in the salsa world, and instrumental to me when I was a novice salsa dancer. He had a devil of a grin and a sparkle in his eye whenever I saw him at salsa events. He would often say to me: Tell your husband he's LUCK-KEE! He told my friend Kim (a dancer who was a Michael Jackson's Thriller video creature and who initiated my interest in salsa): Between the two of us, we're going to make a great dancer out of Deborah. I can't say he was right, but dancing with Alvin always made me a happy dancer.

Pam's loss, later in the year, completely threw me for a loop. And it taught me a lesson. We have come to rely on texting in many of our relationships, but when you lose a friend unexpectedly, you never think I wish we had texted more. Instead, I wish we had talked more and, had it not been for Covid, spent more time together. Pam and I became friends in high school and traveled to Hawaii together with my family about ten days after graduation. When my family returned to the mainland, Pam and I stayed behind and became Seaside Deadbeats, which was what a group of us called ourselves during the time we shared an apartment on Seaside Street in Waikiki. I have written about this summer, and about Pam before. That summer we got our news from the strangers we passed on the street. One exchange told us about The Rolling Stones' new album. But the most memorable was the guy who passed us on Seaside as we were heading to The Snack Shop on Waikiki Beach, and said: Hey, did you hear? We landed a man on the moon. This wasn't exactly a surprise to us, but as we didn't have a television, we missed the actual event. And, we were ok with that.

Pam died suddenly last August, but I didn't hear about it until November. We had texted all year about getting together when it was safe to do so. And when it was, I texted her to set up a plan. When I didn't get a response, I wrote it off to her being busy with reentry, as was I. But a lack of response to subsequent texts told me there was something wrong. So when I didn't receive a response to my Thanksgiving card, sent to her address up at Channel Islands, I searched for her sister's phone number and texted her to ask if Pam was ok. Patty immediately responded: Can you call me?

I wrote in Patty's condolence card to ask if we could get together and talk about Pam, and she sent a Christmas card saying that she would love that. One of the lessons I have learned in life is that we will lose people. We will lose friends and family through death, through divergence, through a number of different causes. Sometimes we will grieve; at other times we might be thankful that they or we have moved on out of each other's lives. There is always the blessed opportunity to connect with others, to hear their stories and tell them ours, even though some of my stories I can barely tell. The catching lump in my throat does sometimes break way to flowing tears. And perhaps that will always be the case. I know that Patty and I will weep when we talk together about Pam. And that's ok. But we both know that Pam would want us to be as happy as our memories of her will always be. Just as I know Alvin would want me to continue to joyfully dance. What is magical about life isn't about getting through a year or even seven years after a sad loss. What is magical is in learning and believing that despite pain, loss, and grief, the certain knowledge that life goes on can sustain us. As will our friends, including the ones we meet on our path going forward, who will share the journey with us.