Seven years

It has been seven years since that awful, awful day, when Emma was killed and an emotional nuclear bomb blew up our family. I still vividly remember everything about getting that phone call - the shock  and devastation are burned into my brain. Thinking about the ensuing months when we were all sad and wrung out and gritting our teeth, just trying to get through it, still gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Time does make it easier - the grief is not as raw, not as close to the surface. But it settles in and just becomes a part of you. It affects your attitudes, the way you interact with the world, how you look at your life. 

Though I am loathe to ever acknowledge anything about her death as a "positive," I do think that going through that grief has made me stronger. Kinder. More patient. A greater sense of perspective. 

I thought it would make me more fearful as a parent - that I would want to cover my kids in bubble wrap so that nothing would ever happen to them. Actually, the opposite is true. I want them to take chances and have adventures and experience everything. 

But I remind them of what it would do to me and their father and everyone else if they died. 

When we were at the beach, Zeke was swimming in the pool and a lightening storm was rolling in. I told him to get out of the pool, and he was resistant.

"Mom, it'll be fine. Nothing's going to happen. The odds of anything bad happening are so low."

"That may be true," I responded, "but it's not a big deal to get out of the pool for 20 minutes while you wait for a storm to pass. You know that I am not a fearful person and that I generally play the odds when it comes to risk assessment, but if something awful were to happen, I couldn't deal with the fact that it was 100% preventable. This family cannot handle another dead child."

When I said those words, he understood me. He nodded quietly, got out of the pool, and gave me a hug. 

Josh called me the other day just to talk. The time leading up to the anniversary is anxiety producing for everyone, but for him most of all (obviously). We talked about life, which is pretty good for both of us. We talked about our children, who are beautiful and wonderful and thriving. We talked about what everyone experienced in the aftermath of Emma's death and then Lori's death, and how it shaped them. 

I still can't fathom how he found the strength to keep going - not just keep going, but to really live. To experience happiness and love and satisfaction in the trajectory of his life. 

A couple of weeks ago the kids and I went to a local lake to have an end of summer beach day. I was sitting in the chair under the canopy and looked at Josie, who was eating garbage-y snacks and being sassy and joking around. She is funny and sweet and gorgeous - tan, taller than I am, beautiful long legs. 

I was immediately hit with the thought of, "what if I were to lose her, the way Josh lost Emma?" My chest tightened and I inhaled sharply as tears filled my eyes. It's incomprehensible. 

But I don't let that kind of thinking consume me. I can't. It's bad for me and it's bad for them. They need to feel free to go out into the world without being afraid. 

 She would be 24 now.  A fully formed adult. What would she be like? What would she be doing? 

In two weeks, we'll do the yahrtzeit climb, honoring her and so many others. I love the ritual that it has become. 

Tomorrow I am climbing the via ferrata along the east wall of Arapahoe Basin (again). Greg and I climbed it last month, and it was amazing. Seriously so much fun. But we had had to turn back half-way because of storms in the area. They gave us rainchecks, so we're doing it again tomorrow. 

I will say the Kaddish at the summit, for her and also for everyone lost on 9/11. There's something wonderful and moving about being on top of the world and sending blessings out into the universe. 

But today, I will mourn and weep and miss her. 

Happy birthday, beautiful. In the fields of this day, hear a song.

My dearest Emma,

You would have been 22 years old today.

Everything is making me cry.

Zeke was Charlie in his class's production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory yesterday. He worked really hard to memorize his lines. Josie and I have run lines with him over the past few weeks. I have helped him on the singing part - how to do some of the harder transitions to the high notes. How to think about what his character is going through in the moment so that his actions and reactions feel more authentic.

And he nailed it. The whole performance was so cute - all the kids were great. Their energy was amazing. Zeke hit the high note at the end of The Candy Man. We were all so proud.

I cried. Such naches.

My parents flew in for the performance, because that's what we do in our family. We show up for each other. They cried, too.

Assuming all had gone according to schedule, you would be graduating from college right about now. Maybe you would have ended up at the Naval Academy. Maybe you would have taken another road altogether. Whatever your choice, I know you would have done great - with your work ethic and your zest for life, you would be successful at whatever you decided to do.

We all would have shown up. We undoubtedly would have cried.

I have had a number of photos printed out to put on the wall next to my staircase. It's mostly pictures of my own kids, from trips that we have taken, but I also have one of my grandparents at my wedding, and one of you and your sisters when Hazel was a baby. You were 11 - Zeke's age.  My parents and I were looking at it yesterday, missing you and mourning your loss.

The school district where I work experienced a school shooting this week. A young man who was 18 years old, who was three days away from graduating, died when he rushed the shooter to try to disarm him. He was his parents' only child, and by all accounts he was a wonderful person. A great kid.

I know what they are going through because I watched my brother, your mother, and your sisters go through it. It makes me cry to think about it.

You were a wonderful person. You were a great kid.

We don't always remember you with sadness. We frequently remember you when we're telling funny stories. Like the time when we were at the Outer Banks when you were three. Your parents went home early and you stayed with my parents for a few extra days. We were driving back to their house and we stopped at a diner for some food.

You were delightful and adorable. You had a super cute (and totally developmentally normal) speech tendency in which you mixed up hard consonants that were made with the back of the throat with those that were made at the front of the mouth. "K" became "t." "G" became "d." "Come" became "tum." "Girl" became "durl."

We were finishing lunch and getting ready to go when you said, "where are you going?"

"We're going back to Virginia," I said.

And you responded, "can I tum?"

I laughed and scooped you up and gave you a kiss. "Of course you can tum, silly."

I would have taken you anywhere you wanted to go.

We all miss you and think about you and talk about you. We won't ever stop loving you.

Love,

Wendy

Twenty-one

Dearest Emma,

Today is your birthday. You would have been twenty-one years old.

Generally, I do not cry anymore every time I think about you. I do cry every time I talk about you, but usually I can think about you without breaking down.

But not today. I cried the entire drive to work this morning. I had a sense of deja vu, calling back to the plane ride to Boston for your funeral, when I leaned my head against the window and wept the whole time.  I'm crying as I write this.

Today is rough. Twenty-one is a big birthday. Official legal adulthood. In my mind, you are a kid - a kid on the cusp of adulthood, but a kid nonetheless. But you would be heading into your last year of college. You would be preparing for what comes next. Independence. Pursuing your interests. Pursuing a career. 

When I write about you, I try to think of something we did together - keep alive the memory. It's playoff hockey season, and you were a Caps fan just like the rest of us. You were always part of the group that went to a Caps game the night before Thanksgiving. You and Jason always hung out at that game - he really loved you.

I ache with the longing to talk to you, to hear about your adventures. Maybe you would come visit and I would take you snowboarding. Maybe we would go on a roadtrip.

With each passing year, the thought of who and what and where you would be becomes hazier.

I think a lot about your father. My brother. I wish you could see how extraordinary he has been and continues to be in the aftermath of all this tragedy. He is so solid, so steadfast, so decent, so good. He is such an amazing father to Ollie and Hazel, just as he was to you. He has found a way to live with joy, with new love, with hope.

I don't know that I could have done it. I mean, I could have done it because there's no alternative. But it's hard to fathom.

Our lives continue. They are productive and mostly happy and full.

But there will always be a big hole where you should be.

I will continue to do my annual climbs in your memory - your yahrtzeit. You will always be part of us, part of our narrative. We will always love you and miss you.

All my love,

Wendy

Yahrtzeit

At first, a thing you did becomes a thing you did again. And then it becomes a thing you do. It's a Thing.

For the first anniversary of Emma's death, I had some of her ashes and thought it would be fitting to spread them from the top of a mountain. I found the hard climb, and the little ceremony I did at the summit, to be life affirming and emotional and moving and cathartic.

The next year, without even realizing it until it was upon me, I needed to do it again. I hadn't planned it, I hadn't even thought about it that much, I had been sick for over a month. But deep down, I felt like it had to be done, so I did it.

And then it became a Thing. A thing that I would do every year, with its own rituals and requirements.

Christin does it with me every year. We do a different fourteener every year. I wear my green Boston Red Sox hat every year, because Emma was a Sox fan.

Without fail, I cry at the summit every year.

This year we decided to do Grays and Torreys, two peaks that are part of the Continental Divide. They are next to each other but have enough of an elevation drop (at least 300 feet) between them that they are officially classified as different peaks. I don't know who makes up the cabal that decided that 300 feet was the standard, but there you have it.

Because we knew it would be a long day, we decided to stay up in Georgetown for the night so that we could get an early start. We were up at 4:15, out the door by 4:50, and on the trail at 5:30, well before sunrise. Christin is the gear queen, so we were well kitted-out with headlamps, but we could have made our way by the light of the stars and the glowing waning gibbous moon.

Moonglow at 6:15 a.m.

The trail is immediately difficult. The first half hour or so is always hard, because you're getting your muscles and your lungs and your heart warmed up. Plus the trailhead is over 11,000 feet, so you're already at altitude from the very beginning.

On the early part of the trail. You can see the two peaks (Grays on the left, Torreys on the right) with the saddle connecting them.

At first, it's a steady, if not particularly steep, uphill climb. Some of it is on an relatively easy dirt path, but much of it is loose rocks that require care and caution to avoid slipping and falling. Then it gets steep and stays that way, all the way up to the summit.

And it's hard. Man, is it hard. People in these parts like to talk about certain 14ers being "easy." Grays and Torreys are on that list. But for me, there's nothing easy about it. Climbing steep mountains is hard. Altitude is always hard. It forces me to be focused and determined and disciplined as I keep putting one foot in front of the other to make it to the top.

On the steeper stuff, I work in intervals of 100 steps - 100 steps, then I can stop and take a breather as my body works to make new red blood cells. When my breathing gets a little easier and my heart isn't pounding as hard, I say, "ok, let's go," to myself, and I start another round of 100 steps.

Along the way, we say hello to people and their dogs, admire the views, have some water, have a snack, take a picture or two.

The view back, looking at the long gulch we just hiked 

You count steps, you count switchbacks (only 5 more ... only 4 more....). I have an altimeter on my phone, so we counted that as well. "We're at 13,800 - only 400 vertical to go!"

And then we were at the summit of Grays. 

The summit of Grays. You can see from my mouth that I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to stop cryiing.

True to form, we got to the top and I started to cry. I continued to cry as we took our pictures. 

I think about Emma a lot as I hike. What she was like, what she would be like now. What she might be doing. Who she would be. She's there helping me through the steps and the breaths and the exertion. At the top, I get to let it out. 

Then I have to calm down and collect myself, because there is work to be done. There is another peak to climb. I don't know where I will find the reserves to do it. My legs are exhausted and shaking. 

The view of the saddle and Torreys from the summit of Grays.

But there is no way forward except forward, so off we go. Down the saddle, up another steep, steep peak. Even Christin, who has a much easier time with altitude than I do, is struggling. When we get to the low part of the saddle and then have to start ascending again, I can almost hear my muscles say, "bitch, what the fuck do you think you're doing?" It seems impossible.

Fifty steps. Stop to breathe and stretch my lower back. Remember why I'm doing this. "OK, let's go. We're almost there." Fifty steps...

And then we're there. We always get there. It's what happens when you keep going.

Torreys summit

What a gorgeous view

wow

where we've been, and where we're returning

And then it's time to head back. The descent is always welcome, but by the end of the day, it's as grueling as the ascent was. The unstable, slippery rocks are even more unstable and slippery going down, especially when your legs are toast, you're tired and hungry, and you're engaging every muscle in your core and thighs to maintain your balance and pace. 

Then it starts to hail. Because of course it does.

Christin, being the gear queen, simply shrugs and takes a rain jacket and rain pants out of her pack. I, on the other hand, am thankful that I thought to buy a $2 plastic poncho at the Family Dollar the previous night.

 And then we're done. We're exhausted and sore and shaking and our feet hurt. I feel like I couldn't hike another 10 feet if you held a gun to my head. But we did it. Eight and a half miles, 9 hours, two peaks, sandwiches, Kind bars, pop tarts, water, and a large can of Arizona iced tea.

One of the things I thought about as I hiked was the nature of memory, as it pertains to those we have lost. The truth is, most people die and after a generation or so (or less), they fade into history. We're not famous. The events of all our lives - triumphs, losses, love, pain, tragedy - all of those things that are so huge and elemental and overwhelming while we are alive - are often buried with us.

Rituals help. Birthdays, anniversaries, memorials, regular trips to a cemetery. In Judaism, it's the yahrtzeiht - the annual recitation of the mourner's kaddish on the anniversary of a person's death.

The rituals keep a person with us. The memory endures.

I'm not one for prayer, but this thing - this annual climb in Emma's honor on or near the anniversary of her death (which is today) - is an even more powerful substitute for me. It's not just words, or just a feeling. It's an act that requires every ounce of energy, endurance, strength, determination, and concentration I have. And because she is with me for all of it, it's all of my love as well.

This is Emma's yahrtzeit.

Into these last nine beers, I have cried a million tears

It has been two years.

So much has changed. Life proceeds apace - children get older, we pursue happiness and lightness and love.  Even so, tragedy has continued to strike in surreal, unfathomable ways. But Emma's death is the epicenter of it, with waves and tremors flowing from that one horrible, heart-breaking event.

Grief is such a bizarre, fluid thing.  It doesn't proceed in a measured, predictable way. On a graph it wouldn't be a straight line, ebbing with the passage time. It comes in waves with the unpredictability of a tsunami triggered by unseen forces at the bottom of the ocean.  Some of the roughest edges of the initial shock and trauma wear off, but the feeling of loss never goes away. It just becomes more familiar.

Obviously, the "milestones" are difficult - the anniversary, her birthday. Other times as well - I recently saw a Facebook post by the UVA alumni association welcoming students back to school, and I started thinking about the fact that she would be 19 now and a sophomore in college.  I sometimes feel like she lives on in my head and I follow her imagined progression through life.

It's a miserably poor substitute for celebrating the real thing, but better than nothing, I guess.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the two of us.  We were in the Outer Banks on our annual beach trip. I think she was two, and she was this delightful, hilarious, bubbly little girl. I don't remember what we were talking about as we played with Play-doh, but I love the conspiratorial looks on our faces, like we were up to something that no one else was in on. I have this picture in a frame in my room and it makes me smile every time I look at it.

My brother continues to be a model of grace and strength. Tonight he and some of his friends will gather at his house and hang out around a fire in front of Emma's tree in their back yard.  He's referring to it as a "tears and beers" event, which I love.

I will try to celebrate her life similarly. I've shed tears, I've looked at pictures of her and smiled and cried, and tonight I will raise a glass to her memory, which lives on in my family, and always will.

If the thunder cloud passes rain, so let it rain

I didn't think this one would freak me out so much.

As I said in my prior post, it's so awful for her family. But I barely knew Sarah, so her death wasn't really a personal loss to me.

And yet.

I'm so weary of one tragic death after another.  Of people whose lives are ending way, way too early. Emma was 17.  Lori was 45. Sarah was in her late 30s or maybe 40.  I'm weary of people in my life being devastated by loss, over and over again.

I consider myself a really tough person. But right now, I am a total fucking mess. I'm not sleeping except to have brutal dreams. I'm in a constant state of anxiety and exhaustion - I'm so tired, and my chest feels constricted, like I need to keep taking really deep breaths but I can still never get enough oxygen. Everything is making me weepy.  I feel gripped by tension, and nothing seems to ease it.

Over the past couple of years, I've discovered that when I'm supremely exhausted, my sense of taste is thrown off. Things that would ordinarily be delicious to me taste wrong and unpleasant.  And last night, in an effort to try to distract myself, I cooked a complicated dish that should have been yummy. But it tasted awful to me, and I ended up throwing it away and going to bed at 7:15.

I also feel very alone right now, like I have no one to comfort me.  The friends who I would normally look to to help prop me up are far away, or out of town, or dealing with their own shit.  My family is far away. My children are on a two week vacation with their dad.  I have an overwhelming desire to be enveloped in a warm hug, to have someone say, "it's ok, everything's going to be ok." But for the next week and a half, I come home to an empty house, and it feels very lonely.

I have things to look forward to, thank goodness.  In a week and a half a bunch of my dearest friends from India will be visiting, and we will have a joyous time catching up.  Y'all know how much I love my India peeps.

And then a week after that, the kids and I are leaving for the Outer Banks for two weeks at the beach. As ever, it will be a welcome respite, a time to relax and swim and read books and eat ice cream and bask in the love of family.  Y'all know how much I love the Outer Banks.

Looking ahead is keeping me going.  I can grit my teeth and gut it out until my children come home and my friends get here.  I can exercise to the point of exhaustion. I can go for long walks and look up at the sky.

It will pass.

What next?

Every time I get news about a death in the family (or in this case, extended family-in-law), I think, "ok, this really has to be it.  No more."  With Emma it was shock and horror and bottomless sadness.  With Lori it was shock and anger and a feeling of exhaustion, with some despair for my brother and his girls thrown in.

This time, with the news that Lori's younger sister Sarah died today, after years of ravaging her body because of personal demons, my reaction was just shock.  But not even very much - quite honestly, the shock stems not from the fact that it happened, but that it happened now, a mere 4 1/2 months after Lori died.  That within a less than two year span, her parents have lost two daughters and a granddaughter.

I don't know how a person deals with that.  I can't wrap my head around it.

To be clear, I don't consider this a personal loss. I didn't have any kind of relationship with her, nor did Josh.  I don't need any personal condolences.  Rather, my sadness stems from the fact that it's such a tragic waste of a life, and so desperately, unfathomably awful for the family she left behind - parents, brothers, and a grandmother.

It's too much death. Too many funerals. Just too much. This is Greek tragedy level shit.

Weird things pop into my head. First was that I received the call from my mother rather than my father.  Her vocal inflection for announcing death and destruction is different from his.

Second was that I felt genuine pity for someone I've been rather severe with, in terms of my assessment of her culpability in her other daughter's demise.  But whatever failings she had or has, nobody deserves this.

I was talking to Josh, and we both remarked on how yet another death reinforces, once again, the importance of finding joy and purpose and beauty in every day.

As Josh put it, it's time for full-on zero-fucks-given mode.  Not irresponsibility or foolishness, but casting aside all of the silly fears and self-doubts that so often keep us from going after what we want.  Climb mountains, seek out love and adventure, travel, get laid, bask in the joy of friendships.

Just fucking live.

Hey Nineteen

Dear Emma,

Today is your nineteenth birthday.  It's been over a year and a half since you left us, though it feels like a million years.  We are through the Year of Firsts, so this birthday doesn't feel quite as agonizingly raw as last year's.  It's more of a settled-in sadness.  Grief that sits in your bones, emerging like the pain of arthritis on a gloomy, rainy day.  Making you say, "oh, right.  There it is again."

I was thinking about what I was doing when I turned 19. My parents were stationed in El Salvador at the time.  Sam was there with them while your dad finished high school at a boarding school in New England, because the high school in Salvador wasn't any good.

I was in my second year at Virginia.  I had just pledged a sorority, was trying to figure out whether I wanted to major in something, and if so, what.  Exploring romances and adventures, going on road trips, staying out too late, having crushes, acting like a stupid teenager.

Where would you be now?  What would you be doing?  At the Naval Academy?  Studying engineering?  Having silly teenage adventures of your own, figuring out who you are in the world?

Thinking about that is the hardest part for me.  Of course I miss you - I miss talking to you and hearing about what you're up to.  I miss seeing you at Thanksgiving and at the beach.  But I didn't live with you or see you every day, so your absence feels different to me than it must for your dad and your sisters and your friends.  As much as anything else, I mourn the loss of the life you didn't get to live - the lessons and the heartbreaks and the adventures and triumphs that you would have experienced.  I mourn that loss for my brother and my nieces and my parents as well - knowing how hard it must be for them to not be with you.

We all loved you so much.  We still love you.

I was looking through old pictures and found this series of shots that I took when I was up visiting you when you were about four.  You had a little guitar and some sunglasses that Melba gave you and you were rocking out, singing and playing.  All sass and sunshine.

It was a joy to know you.  I will never stop loving you or thinking about you.

All my love,

Wendy

The final straw

So many cards were stacked against her.

Depression ran in her family, and it affected her.  While she was bubbly and funny and interesting on her best days, other days were a struggle.

I have been lucky in my battle against depression.  It took me a long time to understand the symptoms and to know how to deal with them, but I've gotten there.  Between that, regular exercise, and medication, it's managed. Now when I'm sad, it's because I have something to be sad about. But I don't get that amorphous, free-floating sense of anxiety for which I am unable to pin-point a cause.  I don't remember the last time I had that feeling of a heavy, cold metal ball lodged in my chest when it wasn't tied to an actual event.

She wasn't so fortunate.

And then tragedy struck.  First her daughter was in a terrible accident that almost killed her. And she - the mother - suffered tremendously.  She was traumatized and haunted by the accident, which she witnessed.  Day to day life was difficult.

And then, a few years later, at the point when she and the rest of her family finally felt like they could put the accident behind them - when they could finally relax and exhale and feel like they weren't constantly in the clutches of fear and anxiety of something bad happening - tragedy struck again.  Her daughter - the same daughter who had been in the awful accident - was killed in a car crash.

She never recovered.  She was incapacitated by grief, and her physical health suffered as well.

As an added twist, she was abandoned by her own mother.

Her father lived with his new family 6 hours away, and they were rarely in contact.  And her mother, also depressed but one whose disease manifested itself in an incomprehensible cruelty, turned on her.  When her mother wasn't ignoring her, she was accusing her of causing the daughter's accident and then her death.  And the accusations weren't oblique or simply implied - they were expressed and deliberate.

"It's your fault."  "She's dead because of you." "You must have done something to the car she was driving."

These are actual words her mother said.

I can't imagine anything more callous, hateful, or cold-blooded. To be treated that way by one of my parents would wreck me.

Rightfully so, her husband barred her mother from their house and their family.

In the end, the weight of all of the tragedy, trauma, and parental neglect crushed her.  In the end, the thing she needed as much as anything else - the thing that could have helped her deal with everything - was the love and support of her parents. And when she couldn't get it, it sealed her fate.

In the weeks after her funeral, her mother reached out to her husband.

"Can you forgive me?"

I guess that the feelings that would be familiar to most decent human beings started to nag at her. She felt guilty.  As well she should have.

But it was too late.  The answer was "no."

Reality bites

The process feels so familiar that it's almost seamless, like stepping back into a room that I only just left a few minutes before.  I walk into the house and it's filled with the same people who were there last time.  They all know me and they hug me tight and whisper, "I'm so sorry."  I hug them back and we say some words about how awful it is, and maybe crack lame jokes about how "we've got to stop meeting like this."

It's surreal.

There's food and beer, and we sit around and tell stories, some of them relevant to the situation, others more random and organic, as if we all just got together on a Wednesday night to hang out. Politics.  Gossip.  What the kids are up to.

But then it's the day of the funeral, and as the time grows closer and we're dressed and heading to the funeral home, that's when the walls really start to close in.  I look over at my brother and see that the strength that he's been projecting up to now is starting to crack.  He's such a rock, but he's hurting.

In the room where the service is, there's a slideshow of pictures, playing in a loop.  Pictures of Lori from all different points of her life, looking vibrant and happy, her bright blue eyes shining.  It's so fucking sad.

But what's even more heartbreaking are the pictures of her and Emma.  Emma as a baby, as a toddler, as a teenager.  Seeing them together is a punch in the gut.

Josh has kept it together so well, but when it comes time to eulogize his wife, whom he loved with his whole heart, that's when the pain he feels becomes so obvious.  That's when everything shifts from surreal to utterly fucking real.  He cries and tries to speak, but has to stop to compose himself, until finally his older daughter joins him at the podium and reads the words that he can't bring himself to read on his own.  It's an extraordinarily moving moment, actually.

He lost his daughter and then his wife in the span of a year and a half.  His daughters lost their sister and then their mother in the span of a year and a half.  Plus a few weeks ago, one of their dogs died when she was hit by a train.

It's beyond tragic.  If someone were writing a fictional story with these facts, an editor would be all, "ehhh, it's too much. Too melodramatic.  Not believable."

Later, back at the house, everyone gathers again for beer and deli and coffee cake and condolences. And eventually, the youngest daughter, my niece who is Zeke's age - who has been remarkably composed in a way that's hard to fathom - finally falls apart.  And I find myself sitting in the bathroom with her on my lap as she sobs uncontrollably on my shoulder.

I hold her as she cries and cries.  I can't say anything except, "go ahead and cry as much and as long as you need to, honey.  We can sit here as long as you need to."  I rub her back and stroke her head and hug her to me.

"I want my mom," she wails.  "I want my sister back, I want my mom back, I want my dog back."

I bury my face in her hair and start to cry as well.  The depth of her loss and her grief is overwhelming.  How is an 8-year-old child supposed to deal with something like this?  How is her sister, a 13-year-old child, supposed to deal with something like this?

What I do know is that if anyone can guide them through, it's my brother Joshua.  His strength, his decency, his integrity, his commitment to doing right by his girls - all of that will be their saving grace.  He will lead them and protect them.  And his family and his friends and his community have his back - being here and seeing the extent of the support he has, the amount of love and respect he has among his friends and family, is awe-inspiring.  He's such an amazing guy, and everybody sees it and loves him for it.  It makes me proud to be his sister.

But damn, the road ahead will be long and bumpy.

I am weary, let me rest

Bad luck, I guess. It floats around. It's got to land on somebody. It was my turn, that's all. I was in the path of the tornado. I just didn't expect the storm would last as long as it has.

- Andy Dufresne, The Shawshank Redemption

At this point, all that keeps running through my head is a question.  "When is it enough? At what point does the universe recognize that one person has shouldered enough of his share of tragedy, trauma, heartbreak, loss?  How much does one person get saddled with before the fates decide, 'yep, we've tormented him enough, let's move on?'"

That's all I can think of today, ever since I learned that my sister-in-law Lori - my brother Josh's wife, Emma's mother - went to sleep last night and never woke up again.

She had been battling demons for a long time.  Emma's accident, and then her death, devastated Lori beyond imagining.  But I spoke to her a few days ago and she sounded good.  There was a lightness and clarity to her voice that I hadn't heard in a long time.

But when I asked Josh what happened, he said that she died of a broken heart.  A part of her could never conceive of continuing to live in a world without Emma in it.  And now she doesn't have to. 

I can't make any sense of it. It is beyond the capacity of my brain to accept or justify, under any concept of the cosmic forces of fairness or justice or decency that might exist.

But of course, the problem is, there are no cosmic forces of fairness or justice or decency.  It's all bullshit.  There is no god, no inherent benevolence or goodness at work. It's all random and arbitrary and unfair, whether for good or for ill.  Horrible things happen to good people, and great things happen to horrible people, and that's just the way it is.  So fucking get over it.  Be happy or don't.  Hug your kids closer today or don't.  It doesn't make a goddamned bit of difference.

Because otherwise, what could possibly explain or justify my brother Josh being the one to suffer this kind of tragedy, again? After everything he's already been through? How can my nieces lose their beloved sister and then their mother, in the span of less than two years?

When Emma died, the power of the shock, in addition to the power of the grief, was overwhelming. It was unfathomable.  How could this happen to her, after everything that had already happened?  I felt like my heart was bursting with every imaginable facet of grief, but also with every imaginable facet of love as well - love from family, love from friends, love sent from well-wishers from across the globe.

And now?  Now I am numb. I am furious. I cast a narrowed, jaundiced eye upon the world and think, "et tu?" at everything I see or encounter.  

There are little things that keep popping into my head.

Like the particular tone in my father's voice that is now instantly recognizable as Barry's Vocal Inflection for Announcing Death and Destruction.  "Wendy, Emma was hit by a car..."  "Wendy, Emma was killed in a car accident..."

Today I answered the phone just as the kids and I were heading into the car wash.  "Wendy, Lori died last night..."

I love my father, but I am weary of that endless loop of his voice that I hear in my head, announcing the various tragedies that befall my brother.

Then there's the fact that this kind of horrible thing always seems to happen when my mom and dad are apart.  When my grandma Ruth died, my father was white-water rafting in Idaho and was totally incommunicado - he didn't even know about it until days later.  When Leo died, my dad was in Denver.

When Emma died, my mother was in Brazil on business.  When she found out from the embassy duty officer that my father was trying to reach her because of a death in the family, she thought to herself, "it must be one of the kids or grandkids, because the old people are all dead." She spent the long flight home crying on the shoulder of her coworker.

And this morning, my mother had just arrived in South Africa on another business trip.  She got the news, talked to my dad and then to me on the phone, and got on another plane to come back.

What do these patterns mean?  Nothing, undoubtedly.  None of it means anything.

Once again, we will head to New Hampshire and circle the family wagons. We will try to provide each other with comfort, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to fathom the unfathomable.

We've gotten depressingly good at it.

Release

Later on, when we were driving through Breckenridge on our way back to Denver, I was talking on the phone with my mom and joking about how climbing a 14er is like having a baby, in the sense that you get selective amnesia and forget how grueling and painful it can be - otherwise, you'd never do it again.

Because hours earlier, when we were still a steep, rocky half-mile  or so from the summit (or maybe it was more - I was so fried that it was hard to tell), breathing air that seemed to have no air in it, I couldn't help thinking to myself, "this is so brutal.  My lungs are on fire and my heart is about to pound out of my chest and my legs feel like stumps.  Why am I putting myself through this again?"  We were climbing up a bare ridge above the tree line, to a point that seemed to not get any closer no matter how many "75 steps then 50 breaths" I did.

The view up from 13,500 feet.  Only 750 vertical feet to go, but it looks and feels endless.

But of course, that pain was the point today.  It hammered home that I am alive.  Physical suffering, as hard as it is, is life-affirming.  And I was climbing today to perform a specific task.

The ashes arrived late last week, in a small, rectangular box taller than it was wide.  I had initially thought I would do the hike on Saturday or Sunday, but then decided that there was no better way to celebrate Rosh HaShana than to do it today.  It would certainly be a more meaningful, spiritual experience than sitting in a synagogue with strangers.

Last night I loaded up my pack - I filled the hydration bladder with water, made sandwiches and packed snacks, tucked sunscreen and chapstick and a windbreaker into various pockets.  The ashes went into a top pocket, along with a printout of the mourner's kaddish and a sign I made with the name of the mountain, the altitude at the summit, and the date.

The hike was beautiful but hard.  We saw mountain goats (including a mother who gored a dog in an effort to protect her kid).  We greeted and chatted with our fellow climbers.  We ate our snacks.  We admired the view.

A long way up and still a long way to go

Eventually, the 75 step and 50 breath intervals add up.  It feels like you'll never reach the top, and then all of a sudden you do.

And when I came up over the top of the rise, and saw the lonely little tree marking the summit, the weight of my task overwhelmed me and I started to sob.

Grief is such a strange thing.  I knew I would be emotional, but I was not prepared for the immediate flood of tears.

I went to a spot looking north, and tried to catch my breath.

I took the ashes and the papers out of my pack.  As Christin and I sat together on the ledge, crying, she with her arm around me, I recited the words, first in Hebrew and then in English.

Exalted and hallowed be God's great name in the world which God created, according to plan. May God's majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime and the life of all Israel -- speedily, imminently, to which we say Amen. 

Blessed be God's great name to all eternity. 

Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing,praise, and comfort. To which we say Amen. 

May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel,to which we say Amen. 

May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel. To which we say Amen.

And then I opened my hand and let her go, and said goodbye.

You're in the arms of an angel, may you find some comfort here

It has been a year.

A year of difficult milestones, a year of the ebb and flow of grief, a year of heartbreak compounded by stress and depression and more heartbreak.

On one hand, it's hard to believe it's been a year already. On the other, so much has happened, I've caromed from Death Valley-esque lows to periods of hope and back again, that the year has felt like five.  Or ten. I feel older and sadder and mortal in a way I never used to.

For some reason, I didn't think the year anniversary would be as hard as other milestones.  Events like Thanksgiving, or Emma's birthday, or the day she would have graduated from high school - those were dates that were so intimately intertwined with her.  Her absence, and the realization, over and over again, that she is gone and we will never see her again, never hug her again, never go to a post-Thanksgiving hockey game with her again, never surf with her again - the realization that she will never get to experience life as she should have -- it's a visceral, gut-wrenching feeling that makes my chest tighten and my eyes immediately start to water.

I have never been one to go from not crying to bawling in an instant - it takes a while for the emotion to build and manifest itself in tears.  But now it can happen in a matter of seconds, when I'll suddenly think of her and suddenly be sobbing.

My brother and sister-in-law have been gracious in agreeing to send me some of her ashes, so I can scatter them from the top of a mountain.  The juxtaposition of the wonderful, beautiful, life affirming hike I did last year, followed by Emma's death four days later, has turned the act of walking, of hiking, of being out in nature, into a transformative experience for me, and one that I will forever associate with her.

This weekend I plan to climb to the sky again, pushing my physical and mental endurance but also reinforcing the miraculous life and health that I continue to enjoy.  I will be carrying her with me - literally carrying a physical piece of her that I will touch and hold until I can't climb any higher.

And then I will release her to the heavens, into the beauty and majesty and wonder of the Rocky Mountains and the sky above, so that she can fly even higher, forever.

To life, to life, l'chaim, life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us

Eighteen years ago today, I went on a blind date with a guy my chiropractor had set me up with.  We decided to go hiking up in north Georgia, and we took my dog Floyd.

I don't remember the guy's name or what he looked like, but I knew I would never see him again because of this exchange:

TOOL:  So, how was your week?  Anything exciting happen in your life?

ME:  Actually, it did.  I became an aunt for the first time.  My brother and his wife had a baby today.

TOOL:  Really?  That's great!  Is it a boy or a girl?

ME:  They had a little girl.  Her name is Emma.

TOOL:  Aw, that's too bad.

ME:  What?  What are you talking about?

TOOL:  Well, guys don't ever really want daughters.  Guys really want sons.

ME:  That's ridiculous.  They're thrilled to have a little girl.  The whole family is.

I had a good time on the hike because it was a beautiful day and Floyd was always good company, but I pretty much ignored my date for the rest of the day because I found him so insufferable.

Emma's arrival into the family was a day to be celebrated, and even though we only got her for 17 years, I'll never stop celebrating this day.

But the first one is so hard.  For the past few weeks, today's date has been looming.  We've all been strapped to the front of a hurtling cannonball, heading toward the side of a hard, rock-strewn mountain with no way to avoid the crash.

I've been crying, off and on, for what feels like forever.

I know that eventually, the grief won't be quite as raw.  It will never go away, but at a certain point, constantly feeling like your insides have been scooped out isn't sustainable.  There are children to raise, jobs to be done, experiences to be enjoyed.  Life has to be lived.  Emma knew that, and it would be a dishonor to her memory to let her death be an excuse for not living as fully as possible.

In Judaism, the number 18 has special significance, because the numerical values of the Hebrew letters that spell the word "chai" (pronounced with a hard gutteral "ch," not like the spiced tea) - life -  add up to the number 18.  Eighteen is the number of celebrating life.

I'm trying very hard to remember that today.

You don't know what you've got till you lose it all again

As with Thanksgiving, which was lovely but also incredibly painful, there's another heavy milestone coming up.  Emma's 18th birthday is in a little over a week.

My emotions are very close to the surface these days.  Every conversation I have at some point turns to her, and I cry.  I'll go through periods of a few hours when I'm OK, and then a period of a few hours when my eyes are constantly leaking and if I breathe too deeply I'll break down.

I feel weighted down and anxious, like I've got big, cold rocks sitting on my chest.

Music is a time machine.

When I'm driving, I toggle back and forth between 80s on 8 or the classic 80s alternative station, and I get whiplash from the immediate, visceral associations that different songs bring on.

Journey's Open Arms comes on and suddenly I'm 13 years old and in the downstairs of the student union building at the American International School in Kfar Shmaryahu, Israel, doing the side-to-side slow dance shuffle that is embedded in the DNA of every American teenager at middle school dances everywhere.  I can see the table of hors d'oevres, with the last few tired sprigs of broccoli and carrots lying next to the few remaining dregs of hummus in a plastic bowl. I can see what I and everyone else is wearing, including the high-waisted jeans that, for reasons I will never understand, are coming back in style.  I feel the unfortunately chosen hairstyle that I'm sporting - bangs on my forehead, even though bangs look shitty on me and my hair has too many funky cowlicks and curls for them to sit the way I want them to.  I can smell the Old Spice wafting from the face of the nervous boy with whom I'm swaying to the music.

Then Bruce Hornsby's Valley Road comes on, and I careen 2800 miles southeast and 4 years forward in time, to a hotel balcony in Kerala, India.  My friends and I are on our school's annual "mini-course" trip - a week when the high school students at the American Embassy School in New Delhi fan out across the subcontinent to get hands-on experience in the customs, traditions and history of India - and the trip we've chosen is a week at the beach.  We do some sightseeing and partake in activities with some education value. But for the most part, our chaperones are as content as we are to sunbathe during the day and hang out at night on our hotel balconies drinking beer (we didn't drink with the teachers, but there's no way they didn't know, especially because there was no drinking age that was enforced) and smoking cigarettes and listening to music, including the new Bruce Hornsby and the Range album, which was hugely popular (and which still holds up almost 30 years later).

Against my shins, I can feel the edges of the blue sarong, interwoven with gold threads, that I am wearing as a dress.  I can feel the soft humid warm air on my bare shoulders, and smell the plumeria flowers in the trees.  I can hear the voices of my friends, laughing and talking and arguing over nothing of consequence.  I feel the butterflies in my belly and chest, brought about by the fact that this week, the boy I've been crazy about all year has professed his love for me as well.  We're sitting next to each other and our arms and hands keep brushing together.  Everything is beautiful and new and exciting, and the magic of life is spread out before me like an enormous silk rug.

Suddenly I'm back in my car in 2015, on my way to Sports Authority to pick up cleats and soccer socks for the kids.  I'm sobbing, because the rush of nostalgia - that yearning for the time in my life when everything was possible - mixes with the fact that Emma's life ended just as she was getting to that point.  My head drops and the tears fall and my breathing gets ragged.  I have to pull over.

After a couple of minutes, I take a deep breath and collect myself.  I check the rearview mirror and wipe the runny mascara from my face.  I change the radio station and start driving again, off to run my errands and then meet my children at the soccer fields.

I blink, as if at pain

We were on the train taking us from the terminal back to baggage claim, part of the post-Thanksgiving returning throngs clinging exhaustedly to subway straps and poles, the travel-induced blank faces, bodies jiggling back and forth like jello.

I looked out the window and caught my reflection, and was, as ever, surprised and dismayed by how tired and haggard and old I look.

Not just look.  Am.

I tried to give myself a break.  It's a reflection in a train window.  It's shitty flourescent light.  You've been traveling all day.  You aren't wearing make-up.  It was a rough week.

It was a rough week.

I knew it would be.  And I guess it wasn't as bad as it could have been.  But it was hard.  Emma's absence was an enormous presence that we all felt.

We tip-toed around it at first.  Not in the sense that we didn't talk about her, but we definitely skirted the fact that it was The First Major Holiday Without Her.

We did the things we normally do.  The house buzzed with decisions about which sides to make for dinner on Thursday.

Dad doesn't really like sweet potatoes - maybe instead of mashing them we could do roasted wedges? 

Trust me, you may not like Brussels sprouts, but these are sauteed with bacon - you're going to love them.

They're not powdered potatoes - they make them fresh at the store!  But it's one less thing to worry about.

Why don't my pie crusts ever look like yours?  No matter what I do, they don't roll out properly.

The kids had a great time playing with their cousins.  Zeke took to rolling down the big hill in my parents' front yard, and was constantly covered with mud.  We went to the park.

We did our annual Thanksgiving run in downtown D.C. benefiting So Others Might Eat.

And it was all lovely.  But there was this unshakable underlying tension.  Sadness permeated the week, as much as we love each other.  The air felt full of tiny shards of glass that cut our insides when we breathed.  The force of gravity felt stronger, pulling us down and making us feel heavier.

We dressed for dinner on Thursday afternoon, and sat down at the beautifully set table, laden with a gorgeous turkey and creamed spinach and my mom's awesome cranberry jello mold and rolls and stuffing and gravy and potatoes and wine.

Then we collectively looked around the table, took a deep breath, and burst into tears.

We were thankful to be together.  Thankful to be alive.  But it's been such a hard year.  We miss her so much.

For the first time in as long as I can remember, I was relieved to be going home and away from my family.  Back in Colorado, I can get some distance.  I can compartmentalize.  I can let the day-to-day chaos of my own life - work, kids, house, appointments, friends -- shield me from that sadness and those tiny shards of glass.

But it still shows in my face in that train window reflection.

My soon to be 45-year-old face, which looks saggy and old and ugly to me.  My soon-to-be 45-year-old body, which looks saggy and old and ugly to me.

I was telling a friend of mine recently that I'm so much more attractive in my head - it's always jarring to me when I see my aging self in the mirror.

People pooh-pooh it whenever I say it out loud (so I rarely say it out loud), but it's how I feel.  It matters to me.  It affects my confidence and self-image.

I want my old self back.  I want the self that had discipline and will-power when it came to diet and exercise.  But when the sadness and stress moved in, the discipline and will-power moved out.

I'm trying so hard to get it back.  Because maybe if I get that back, I can figure out how to be young again.

The bright lights of Denver are shinin' like diamonds, like ten thousand jewels in the sky

Even thought we ended up here kind of by accident, as the result of a crashing economy and a desperate need to get out of Hawaii before we ended up homeless, I have come to love living in Denver beyond anything I could have anticipated.

I have lived in a lot of places in my life, and I have cherished many of them - India, Israel, Atlanta, Charlottesville.  In my mind, each is imbued with its memories of friends, romances, trips, heartbreaks, song fragments -- it is impossible for me to separate the place from the overall sense of what my life was when I was there.  I would love to go back to India, for example, but India to me is totally wrapped up with the experiences I had while I lived there - being a senior in high school and having the amazing friends that I did, the nights out at the Gunghroo, the trips to Rishikesh and Goa and Bhubaneswar, being an extra in a BBC miniseries with my friends in Allahabad, shopping on Jan Path and Saroji Nagar.  Going back now would feel so different.

But I think as a place unto itself - the combination of location and lifestyle and culture - Denver is my favorite place I've ever lived.  I love my neighborhood, right in the city.  I love how there is so much focus here on getting outside and playing in nature - hiking, biking, skiing, climbing, camping.  The mountains are so extraordinary.  They inspire action and achievement and greatness and happiness -the kind of happiness that comes from effort and exertion.  I love how friendly people tend to be.  I love that it's an amazing place to raise kids.

I've written about how the big hike I did the weekend before Emma died was sort of transformative, and awoke in me this intense desire to be outside and walk.  I've been walking as much as I can, to and from work (though with the end of daylight savings, I probably won't be walking home in the dark very much, though I might occasionally), during lunch, around the neighborhood with the kids, in the various state and federal parks that are an easy drive away.

I read an article recently about the benefits of walking, and the author talked about how walking is one of the most fundamental, essential, and defining activities of human existence.  It's good exercise,  it allows for clearer thinking and problem solving, it improves mood, it's a mode of transportation - when you are walking, you are experiencing life as a human being on so many levels.  That idea really struck me, and I'm realizing how true it is.

I firmly believe that it has been an essential part of my grieving process, both relating to Emma's death and to the end of my marriage.  Particularly during my morning walk to work, it's solitary time to think and reflect, which is so important.  But it's solitary time to think and reflect while I am also out in the world, seeing people, looking up at the sky, noticing beautiful buildings or interesting signs.  I get to be alone in the sense that I can put in my headphones and listen to music and not talk to people if I don't want to, but I'm still out in the world, experiencing it.  I get to process my grief while my muscles are working and my blood is pumping and the crisp air puts roses in my cheeks.  It gives me a sense that life goes on, and is worth living, and that the world is an amazing, beautiful place, and that there is still plenty of joy and love and adventure to be experienced.

When I walk to work, I walk west, toward the mountains.  I start out walking through urban neighborhoods, and then more commercial areas.  So my view is this incredible combination of city life and funky architecture and the hustle and bustle of a weekday morning and the dramatic view of the Rocky Mountains suddenly rising up from the flat of the plains.  Mt. Evans directly ahead, Longs Peak to the north, and on a clear day, Pike's Peak to the south.

Like many of the old intown mansions, this grand dame is getting some much needed TLC.  I liked the way the bare trees formed a veil in front of the house, as if modesty prevents her from showing herself until she feels she's presentable again.

We could use more "thoughtful management" in the world, don't you think?

I love the way the dome on the State Capitol Building looms up over the grit of upper Colfax Avenue.

That white snowy peak in the background is Mt. Evans (one of Colorado's 53 "fourteeners'), which I climbed last summer.

I started taking pictures, and have decided to post them dailywith the hashtags #walktowork and #dailydenver (follow me on Instagram or Facebook, plus I'll post them here).  I'm hoping that they will inspire people to get out and walk, think, look around, be in the world, and live.

Grab the joy

A few months ago my friend Jen was posting on Facebook about how Sam Bush was going to be playing in Charlottesville (where she lives).  I love Sam Bush, and commented that when I was 17, he and the other members of New Grass Revival (Bela Fleck, John Cowan and Pat Flynn) had come out to India as part of a USIA cultural exchange, and that after playing a show at the Maurya Sheraton, they all came over to my house for a chili dinner.  After much back and forth, I checked my calendar, saw that the weekend of his Charlottesville show was on a kid-free weekend, and bought a plane ticket.  Music, reconnecting with my sorority peeps that live in Charlottesville, a weekend away - perfection.

As the time drew closer, I was excited to see my college friends and go to a show, but was lamenting the fact that it's a lot of travel time and plane tickets are expensive and I've got so much shit to do around the house.

But oh my god I'm so glad I went.

It's so amazing to reconnect with old friends from college - we all keep in touch and have been to (or in) each other's weddings and celebrated births and career accomplishments, but we don't get to see each other in person that much.  As with my India friends, there's something so special about being with people who have known you and loved you forever.  You reminisce, you revive old jokes and stories of crazy college antics and catch up on who is doing what.  You laugh and laugh.

Saturday we saw an incredible photography exhibit at UVa.'s art museum and then had lunch at a restaurant at which we had once used fake IDs to buy beer.  I bought a University of Virginia car decal at Mincer's, which has been selling (overpriced) Virginia paraphernalia since before my dad was a student there.

The University is so beautiful, even on a cold, cloudy fall day.

Saturday night was the Sam Bush show.  I had stayed at my friend Nica's house on Friday night, but went to Jen's on Saturday because Nica wasn't going to the show and Jen lives within walking distance of the venue, so it just made sense.

It's a great gift to have the realization that you're experiencing an epic night while you're experiencing it.  By the time I fell into bed at 1:45 in the morning, buzzing from tequila and dancing, I had been smiling and laughing for approximately 5 hours.  It started before the show, at the apartment of one of Jen's friends, where I met a bunch of wonderful new friends and fell in love with them immediately.

It continued at the Jefferson, where Sam Bush and his band put on an amazing, high energy show that had me jumping and dancing and grinning from ear to ear.  I do love bluegrass music beyond all sense.  More than any other genre of music - and I pretty much love them all except maybe death metal - bluegrass makes my heart feel like it's flying with joy.

We ended up at the Whiskey Jar, where one of my new friends bought me tequila.  We giggled about life and men and music and sex, and we could not stop guffawing over the dude who thought that my Notorious RBG shirt was about Biggie Smalls rather than Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and who proceeded to rap toward the general vicinity of my boobs until I patted him on the shoulder, said, "ok, buddy, that's enough," and sent him on his way.

It's been a rough year, particularly the last couple of months.  But I can't function in a perpetual state of grief and sadness.  I still grieve, and I'm still sad, but life is for the living, to be savored.  There is so much beauty and goodness and fun in the world.

Sometimes you just need to cut loose and dance and giggle and drink too much and stay out too late. The shit will still be there when you wake up the next morning.