Cycles. Grieving. Not Forgetting.

2020. What can’t be said about it? Well, for one, a sense of happiness. The losses of habits, community, and what we thought we needed are one thing. The loss of those we love is another. The first death happened, and I gasped. I kept it to myself and pressed on. When I told people, a few weeks later, the shock hit them . . . a shock for me per se. Mostly, though, there was no acknowledgment. I lost someone, one I had been seeing. On the westside, I moved uptown, and the space and beauty of an apartment were lost as the world froze. As I unpacked my kitchen and posted jokes in a thread about the ice cream truck outside my new place, one of my oldest and closest friends died. Died while we were jesting about the damned ice cream truck. Things that happened with that have stuck with me and soured me. I’ll never mail the letter I had written his wife when it happened, wishing her love and peace. More so, as she is still friends with my mother—of sorts, I guess—and when things fell apart for us, she said nothing. I was told I didn’t deserve to grieve, among other things. To this day, I am trying to grasp what I did wrong. My acknowledgment of his family wasn’t deemed enough, and I was told how I should feel. Not sure if that one will heal. Though, a month later number three happened. 

The beginning of August, two days before my parent’s anniversary, my sister passed. Even harder to grasp, her mother waited two weeks to tell us (or anyone from what I can gather). Her body was gone, long cremated, by the time we found out. There was a memorial late that month, in Arizona, and since my Dad wasn’t welcome I wasn’t going alone. At some point, I had been demoted to a step-sister by her mother, and I was her half-sister. As kids, Andy or Vinnita, would have punched you for making an issue of our lineage. They were brutally savage on the fact that all three of us were siblings, not just them, and we have the same Dad. Andy Jr. claimed my mother as his own, and he would have made the biggest stink. 

As things go, the numbness bore down deep into my soul. It’s still there; I can’t lie. Vinnita died from liver cancer, and a myriad of complexities accompany her. It still doesn’t feel real. I haven’t grieved her. Not sure when I will. Perhaps I will sooner than not. Or not at all. Most days, I suppress the real fear that I’ll become so used to this newfound only child status that I forget I had siblings. It’s been a lifetime since Andy Jr. has been gone, nearly eighteen years now. There are deeply embedded anger in me, shame, and just damage to the core. To say I miss her is an understatement. In the past, she’d jump rails, vanish, and then she’d resurface five years later. I’d hunt her down once or twice a year, make contact, she’d promise to call, and radio silence always ensued. Usually, about halfway through her cycle, she’d contact Dad. She moved to Arizona with her Mom and didn’t tell my Mom, Dad, or me. She always said she was moving before. Usually, she’d refused to say where, but I always knew in five years she would leave a voicemail in the middle of the night, sent a text, or darken my door. Now . . . I guess all cycles end, things change, and we all move on. Or so I’m told. 

After Vinnita, my Aunt Cathy died, well, a cousin as an Aunt, family drama, some family friends died, and one of my mother’s many brothers. By year’s end, I had hit nine. One died pre-pandemic, by his hand, and then less than two months later, the dude who started this story passed. Looking back on last year is like a black hole and hit my entire body. Did I forget someone in there? Might have. 

I laid low. I pressed on or tried to do so. I made PPE for the city. I sewed so damned many masks that I hate the sight of them on my sewing table. I donated. I sold. I sewed a near unholy amount. I published an article. Did some edits on the fiction writing. Moved. During the summer, which feels like a dream—a nearly imagined mist from long ago—that is hazy and unfamiliar, I helped my parents get the final load(s) of things from the old house in Virginia to the new place in North Carolina. I got a dog. Things evolved. It’s funny how we can work through depression without working through it. 

Parts of me feels like I wasted a year. Parts of me are so numb I could care less.* Parts of my are starting to feel again. 

*In light of someone attempting to mansplain to me a few weeks ago on “I could care less” the correct way to state it is either “could care” or “couldn’t care.” Why, yes, can you tell that someone was unkind? The link is here: https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/could-couldnt-care-less