Heading for the Surface

Los Angeles, California

And then we had a hurricane. Seriously. A hurricane in Los Angeles. Ok, it wasn't really a hurricane but the first tropical storm warning issued in over a century. Hurricane. Tropical Storm. Tomato, tomato.

I last wrote about hummingbirds and rain, suicides and signs. I suppose all this odd weather was really about global warning. Still, it felt like something else was going on, but perhaps only to me. It is easy to see things and interpret them as signs. Not everything that happens in life is programmed like our morning alarms. And, some things happen once in a blue moon; which is, incidentally, a lunar occurrence that will present itself next week.

Back just before we locked down at the beginning of the pandemic, I was involved in a flight incident where we were diverted, from landing in Monterey, to Fresno. I wrote about it in the posts entitled That Was the Year that Was, Part 1 and 2. In the hours that we four women were together in the Ford Explorer with Dina at the wheel, we talked about a lot of experiences and traumas. And I told them about Tom's suicide. One of the women, my flight seat mate Courtney, remarked that what can lead to suicide had once been described to her as being underwater and not knowing in which direction the surface lies. I thought it was as apt a description as I have ever heard. Is that what separates us from the desperate ones -- our ability to navigate to the surface even when we're not assured that we can make it? And even more so, with the near-certainty that breaking the surface can still require treading water to survive when land is not in sight?

I once heard Robert Redford say about his film Ordinary People: I'm interested in that thing that happens where there's a breaking point for some people and not for others. You go through such hardship, things that are almost impossibly difficult, and there's no sign that it's going to get any better, and that's the point when people quit. But some don't. If you have done your cinema homework you will remember what the film's primary survivor had to come to terms with. In the boating disaster that took his brother's life, he had held on.

So, I wrote to Tom's niece about the loss of her husband. I wrote that the news was heartbreaking, especially as his loss had happened in such an incomprehensible manner. And, importantly (to me) wrote that the situation and story surrounding his death matters less than the insurmountable journey of surviving this profound and complicated tragedy. I was fortunate, I continued, to connect with other survivors who, along with my friends, helped and supported me through my own unexplainable loss. Why did I feel the need to reach out to this member of my husband's family, a family who were, frankly, pretty wretched to me after his death? Why do we do the things we do? In this case, because no matter how I was treated, I recognize and empathize that she is now in the club. You don't recover who you used to be after you survive the suicide of someone close to you. You just . . . don't. Life goes on, and you go on with it. But who you were before, before that block wall appeared in front of you when you were traveling at high speed; that 'before' you gets left behind. And my heart goes out to her and her sons because it will be a very slow dawning that they will remain a part of that wreckage forever.

No one in that family ever called, nor sent me a note or a card, after Tom died. No, that's not true. Tom's mother stayed in touch with me and sent me notes of thanks for the birthday and Christmas gifts I sent. Her last note asked me to stay in touch. I care about you, she wrote. As for the rest of them, his siblings, Tom had given up on all of them a long time before. And I understood. I have never, ever, in my life met a family of siblings who felt less for each other nor who treated each other with so little respect or caring. I thought maybe it was a syndrome of a large family with the siblings too close in age to each other. I'll never know. My mother-in-law was a kind, honest, good, salt-of-the-earth soul. But she raised five completely fucked-up kids. Go figure.

Los Angeles survived its tropical storm. We have survived earthquakes, floods, fires and, as the joke goes, awards shows. We will endure. But some of us still live in destruction, through no fault of our own. It doesn't mean we can't be happy. Joyous, even. But even in the midst of our joy there is always what John Irving called the undertoad. Yes, we are the water-treaders. The dancers, even. And our hearts and minds tell us that life is for the living and it goes on. We can survive the natural disasters of earth, wind and fire. But nothing prepared us survivors for that block wall that sped towards us. Nor for the knowledge that will dawn that you have left a part of yourself behind at the moment of impact, and it will not ever be retrieved.