Dear Lou,
It’s been a long time.
So long, I’m not sure you’d recognise the girl - almost too young to be
working a suicide hotline, but already so very weary - you took under your wing.
But then again, maybe you would – because in that short time
our lives intersected, you played a huge part in the woman I became.
It’s hard to know where to start, you know? There’s so much
I want to say, so much I understand now that I didn’t then, so many questions I
want to ask that I didn’t then. But most of all, I want to give you the chance to shelter under my wings – the adult wings that can now
hold as much space as you need – needed – for as long as it takes.
I can’t give you – nor do you need – the shelter I can offer
now that I couldn’t then, because I had to grow into it. But I can sit with
you, on this day of your anniversary - much as Will and Lyra did in their
different worlds – and talk to you. I
hope that’s ok.
First of all, thank you. Thank you for being you – for being
there. For being able to see past the rage and for daring to stick your arm
through it to the hurting girl beneath. Thank you for listening, so often and
so completely – and without judgment. Your faith in me, in my ability to face
situations – both small and large – meant the world and made a universe of
difference to my life. Things got better
in small ways: I remember hearing your Carolina drawl behind me on that
December day, a little over a month after you died, after my biochem exam,
saying, “Good job. I’m so proud of you.” I got the highest grade in the class.
And because you trusted me to handle the small things, you made
it possible for me to go for the big ones: 3 months and 4 days after your
death, I moved out of my parents’ house, leaving them a note on the fridge.
Despite the struggle; the immense pressure from my parents
to move back home; the overwhelming depression that roared to the surface when
I was no longer constantly fighting my family and led me to put my leg over the
8th floor balcony railing one December night; my father ringing me
on my birthday and asking, ‘So, how are you paying your rent? Are you sleeping
with your male friends?’ – despite all that, it was the best decision I ever
made. My life truly became my own that day.
There are no words to thank you for being one of the
incredible, loving people who made it possible for me to make that choice.
But that’s not all there is to say – some things are darker,
more painful. Yet they need to be spoken aloud.
Never will I forget that Saturday morning, having arrived on
shift and hearing that one of the Child Protection line workers had committed
suicide; looking up in horrified curiosity asking, ‘Who?’ and hearing your
name. Even now, I can feel the full
physical agony, as if someone was ripping out the inside of my solar plexus,
and I want to scream all over again.
Yes, even now, the memory feels like this morning's.
The fury was like a wildfire through a forest that hadn’t
seen rain in years – rage at you for making the choice you did, then telling
the police officers who knocked at your door that you were fine, only to die
hours later; rage at myself for being someone who worked a suicide hotline but
hadn’t seen it in you; rage at G-d for letting you do this. I hated you so much. SO much.
I was absolutely functional within minutes: I did a full hotline shift; in the evening, it was off to parental friends for dinner – my parents had
no clue anything was wrong, and to this day they have no idea that I had a
friend who committed suicide. The price
was dear, but there was no way I was going to become the paralysed, incapable
of functioning, manipulative energy-sucker my mother became whenever a painful
situation arose.
I did it by being angry, as I still do occasionally when I
need emotional reserves I simply don’t have; I stoked my rage at you: I didn’t
go to your memorial service; I refused to grieve you; I imagined shouting, ‘WHY????
WHY????????? HOW FUCKING DARE YOU???????? SCREW YOU, BITCH!’ at you so many
times. Then I just wanted to pretend you never existed, had never found a way
into my heart, had never been, for far too brief a time, the mother I needed. I
wanted to gut your room in my heart and redecorate so I could pretend I’d never
been touched. After all, YOU took yourself out of my life, so *I* would make it
so you had never been in it.
But love wouldn’t have it: it was your voice I heard that
December day…and so many days after. Even now, sometimes.
Even now, echoes remain. I freak out during sustained
arguments: what if something happens before we resolve this? ‘Are you ok?’ litters
my vocabulary like kebabs on the pavement on a Saturday morning. Good friends
*have* to say goodbye before extended absences, or the panic squeezes my heart
till I can’t breathe, because I can’t forget the day I poked my head into your
room across the hall and didn’t hug you because you had your back to me,
cutting out a pattern – it didn’t matter because I was supposed to see you
again. I didn’t. My parents made me
exquisitely aware of subtext and emotional resonances, you honed my edge for
catching the leading edge of depression, of the slip into the suicidal. It was
from you I learned that depressed to suddenly
light of heart was not something to be relieved at; it was something to be terrified
of, something to interrogate.
Every last one of these is a scar, but every last one of
these is a gift: even if I'm absolutely certain I’m right, I’ll put my
hand out to reconcile; my friends know I want to know how they really are;
the people I love know I love them; and that therapeutic awareness means I’ve
asked the right questions more than once.
Out of darkness, light.
And what if you were here now, and we could just talk; or if
you’d been here all these years? Would we have stayed in touch, or would there
have been a natural letting go? Would we have become women who genuinely liked
each other and shared confidences, rather than a surrogate mother sheltering a
wayward chick?
I don’t know. But I know where I’ve been – and I can talk to
you about that.
Thirteen months after you died, I was where you were – and made
a different decision when the question ‘What right have you to take yourself
out of other people’s lives?’ came to/was asked of me. In that moment, I
remembered what it felt like when you took yourself out of mine, and knew I
couldn’t do it to anyone else, and pulled my leg back over that railing. So, a
second time, you made me own my life.
It wasn’t the only time – I’ve been there a number of times
since, though not so often in recent years.
I’ve always made the same decision, though I don’t know if I always will,
because sometimes bringing an end to that pain is so desperately tempting – we never know, do we? The moment I realised
that uncertainty about each time that – or any other – decision looms, I
understood.
And I let go – the one time, perhaps, I’ve truly forgiven (both
of us and G-d) but not forgotten.
The years since you’ve been gone haven’t always been easy,
though there have been many blessings, much laughter and incredibly wonderful
friends alongside the darker times spent struggling with inner demons that
created outer heartache and pain. So many things I’d loved to have discussed
with you: men, religion, life, some of my absolute clangers of decisions,
growing up…but above all, your life. Your experience. I’d have wanted to get to
know your heart, as you’d begun to know mine. And I think you’d have loved
visiting Oxford…so much older than antebellum Carolina ;-).
Oh Lou, you’ve been gone so much longer than the length of
time we knew each other, but I miss you so much. You taught me that 30 minutes
or 30 years doesn’t matter – love does.
I love you.
And I hope I’ve done you proud.
Fried chicken and pecan pie,
Me
