Anonymous Narratives that'll make a grown man cry.

Tearjerkers

I was six or seven years old when I first learned that I was adopted. My siblings and I were playing in our family’s suburban backyard, equipped with a swimming pool and a clubhouse, while my mother and father gathered palm fronds and threw them in a garbage bin. When they were finished, my dad took off his gloves and corralled my two brothers, my sister and me over to a spot by the lake. As I sat crisscrossed and picked at blades of grass, my parents informed us that while they did not bring us into the world, they were our “real” parents in every other sense of the word. 

Then they offered to answer our questions, and that’s how we learned that we had three other half-siblings, and all sharing the same biological mother. I’ll call her Jane. Jane was unfit to take care of us, for reasons I wasn’t yet ready to understand, but my mom had assured me that one day I’d be able to meet her and find out for myself.  

Before we moved to the suburbs, my parents owned and operated a jewelry business together in the city. My mom and dad had been married for six months when they applied through the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services to become foster parents. Shortly thereafter, they were in a meeting at their bank when HRS called to deliver news that there was a healthy baby girl in need of a foster home. Two weeks later, my parents picked up my five-month-old sister, Rita. 

My birth mom had attempted to take on the onus of parenting my older sister by herself, just as she had twice before, until the state eventually terminated her parental rights. This time didn’t prove to be any different. When Rita was 12 weeks old, Jane called the police sounding agitated and incoherent. When a squad car finally pulled up, Jane ran out into the street and set my sister on the hood. She told the police and an HRS protective investigator that she was at her “wit’s end” because my sister wouldn’t stop crying. Once again, Jane relinquished her child to the care of the state. 

My parents loved Rita. They’d bring her to work with them, keeping her in the back office of the jewelry shop and taking turns caring for her while the other worked up front. Photo albums and home videos from that time reflect the happiness and love that my parents poured into this new life. They nurtured Rita in the ways that my birth mom couldn’t. 

My mom stayed in touch with Jane’s brother John. Uncle John lived just a few hundred miles away, and would often drive up to see us, bearing gifts and bizarre stories. He’d spent his early 20s investigating some of the first American UFO sightings, and recounted his excursions to anyone who would listen. We all loved Uncle John, and his presence in our lives reinforced the common link between the siblings. 

One day, a couple of months after Rita’s first birthday, Uncle John phoned my parents’ townhouse in the city. My mom answered. “Jane had another baby,” my uncle reported. “It’s a boy.”

I was 13 years old when I first heard Julian’s story. At this point, I’d spoken to my birth mom over the phone a handful of times, mostly on holidays. Our conversations could at best be described as whimsical, but the truth was she was mostly erratic and difficult to keep up with. My mom, who worked as a psychiatric nurse practitioner, explained to my siblings and me that Jane had schizophrenia. My dad never tried to conceal his disdain for her. When she’d call the house, he would intentionally let the phone ring until it went to voicemail. 

We were in the family minivan one afternoon when tensions had begun heating up, as they often did. My dad was angry that my younger brother Tommy and I had been skipping out on Sunday school. At the time, my dad was being sued by a former business partner who was trying to steal the company, and it was wearing on him. After I retaliated by confronting him about forwarding Jane’s calls, he finally collapsed under the weight of it all. 

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” he yelled. My dad is six feet, four inches tall, and a powerhouse of a man. When he raised his sonorous baritone to a shout, it was terrifying. Then, in a slightly softer voice, he said, “She almost killed your brother Julian.”

By the time Jane gave birth to Julian, there were numerous hospital records expounding on her mental illness, and the hospital staff was instructed not to leave her alone with the baby. But through cunning, Jane managed to exit the hospital with Julian in her arms. At the height of winter, she got on a plane with my one-week-old brother and flew across the country, living as a  vagabond and sleeping on sidewalks. She kept this up for weeks until she finally capitulated and called my Uncle John to bail her out. He pleaded with her to come back and grant parental custody of Julian to my parents. 

When Jane handed off my brother at the airport, she told them that he had a cold. His diaper was many sizes too large and desperately needed to be changed.

The next morning, as my parents got ready to take Julian to the doctor, he stopped breathing. My dad was on the phone with an emergency dispatcher as my mom performed CPR on my newborn brother. My mom went with him as he was airlifted in a helicopter to the hospital. 

At five weeks old, Julian weighed less than his birth weight. He’d contracted pneumonia while in my birth mom’s care, and spent a week in the intensive care unit as my parents waited for him to recover. 

“One more day and he would’ve been dead,” my dad said in a broken voice. He was behind the steering wheel, sobbing now as he finished telling Tommy and me about how our brother had narrowly escaped death. I felt a lump rise to my throat, and I couldn’t speak. I’d never been so angry in my entire life, sitting there reliving my father’s trauma, trying to picture my life without Julian. 

As the years went on, I began dissecting my own feelings of rejection and guilt. There were countless instances in which my mom came home from a 13-hour workday to hysteria and chaos. Many objects were broken or completely destroyed from us fighting, playing or a combination of the two. It was becoming more and more apparent to my mom that while all of us were healthy, intelligent children, none of us had passed through Jane unscathed.

When my sister Rita got addicted to drugs and started stealing money out of my mom’s purse, my mom didn’t give up on her. She did everything she could for Rita, paying for multiple stints in rehab until Rita finally got clean. When Tommy got kicked out of school, my dad added 40 minutes to his morning commute, without protest, in order to take my younger brother to school the next district over. 

But my parents didn’t just deal with our bad days. They were right there for the good ones, too. When Julian displayed an affinity for acting, my mom and dad were in the audience when he performed as the lead in our high school play. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve looked up to find my parents settling into the crowd at one of my gigs. 

My parents chose us and accepted us, and never gave up on us. They kept my siblings and me together, and a collective sense of camaraderie has flourished among the four of us. We all share a bond that will forever unify us, distinguish us and strengthen us. 

The continual selflessness and support from my parents encouraged me from an early age to begin cultivating a sense of gratitude. It continues to inspire me to act selflessly. And while I occasionally contend with feelings of guilt and imposter syndrome, I never lose sight of how grateful I am to be here, every single day.

Doe Print Value - Openness

Doe Print Value - Curiosity

Ancestry

I Was Adopted: My Parents and the Significance of Selflessness

No one ever wakes up in the morning and thinks that being a refugee is the ideal way to live. I became one before I ever knew the meaning of the word, and I’ve been running away from that label since I was ten years old. Yet here I am, still a refugee. I even have a number that classifies me as such. I am a man without a country—my family and I were outcast and left for dead in the middle of a never-ending civil war. All of these things have driven and defined most of my life, and the boxes around me have led to many dead ends.  

My story is complex, which makes my existence in this country complicated. I am a Congolese man who has identified as a refugee, asylum seeker, immigrant, “man of color” and African, just to name a few. Like many individuals seeking the American Dream, I’ve experienced a mixture of ultra-highs and severe lows, leaning more towards the latter. The fear that any good thing that comes into my life has a fast expiration date torments me every day. Perhaps, fundamentally, I believe that there is something wrong with me, and therefore I don’t deserve anything good.

I am a husband to an American white woman, and a father to a mixed American son. There are questions in the back of my mind every day: Is this the day that I will be kicked out of this country that I have grown to love? Is this the day that they will come and take me away from the ones I love the most in this world? These constant thoughts haunt me and could affect my wife and son on any given day. I worry about their well-being simply because they are connected to me.

I carry a level of insecurity when it comes to being my son’s father, and it leaves me with an endless slew of questions. Am I doing enough? Am I challenging him and loving him enough so that he has the tools to make good choices when his time comes? How can a man without a country teach his son about being a free man and the responsibility that that freedom comes with? How can a man who has been an alien and a refugee for most of his life teach his son about being a citizen of the most developed country in the world? 

Getting deported is still a real possibility for me, and I often think about the immigrant fathers and mothers who have had to leave their sons and daughters behind for the simple fact that this land deemed them criminal for attempting to find refuge from their horrifying circumstances. I can’t even begin to imagine being forced to separate from my two-year-old. I am crying writing this because this could happen. Not being able to tend to my son in the morning, make him breakfast, watch Coco with him, give him a bath after dinner, hold him tight while listening to his favorite songs before putting him down at night. How scared he would be, not understanding what’s going on.

This country represented a lost hope in a dark world. Well, at least in my world. I can’t help but feel extreme sadness and disappointment knowing that this isn’t the same place I read and dreamed about while sleeping all those nights amongst the stars on the floor of our tent in a refugee camp.

My son’s existence as a Black boy in America won’t align with much of his peers. I don't have great-great-grandparents who were slaves, so I don’t have the pain and loss that most Black Americans live with. However, I am not exempt from the maltreatment of Black people in America and the world at large. I have experienced racism countless times. Despite our experience here, I don't want my son to grow up in fear for his life like I did. Finding my footing in this world as a Black man is so much more nuanced than meets the eye. It is incredibly challenging to live and thrive in a world that never was set up for people like myself. I am tired of being the one who has to be resilient and strong. I used to have dreams of dying alone and being forgotten because life experiences have taught me so. Having my wife and son in my life to bear witness to my greatest, and not just darkest, moments has brought so much meaning into everything I do. 

My two-year-old is the freest human being I know. The pureness of his heart and his adventurous spirit are intoxicating. I am thankful that he doesn’t have to go without food or know the feeling of being homeless like his dad knew all too well. I have lived in poverty for most of my life, and I find myself waking up every morning fighting for him to never experience the realities I’ve faced. I feel guilty about a lot of things, one being that I don’t speak to him in French as much as I should. Raising him to be bilingual is definitely a goal of mine. It’s one of the few things that gives me an advantage that many Americans don’t have, and I would love for my son to have it to connect him to his Congolese heritage.

I desire for my son to live abundantly, and to never worry about his fundamental needs. I hope that he will always have a true and healthy perspective of the world and human beings. My entire journey has been about breaking the cycles that tie me to poverty, homelessness and facing countless restrictions as a man of color. My son being born as an American already puts him at a greater place of privilege than his father, and I hope he never loses sight or understanding of that. The challenge for me is to raise him up from a place of abundance. This has forced me to face and deal with the injustice I see every day. Things that I kept hidden without knowing are all surfacing and now require attention. 

Although I am nowhere near to healing as I would like to be, every day is a step towards that goal. Perhaps it will take me a lifetime to deal with all that has caused me harm from the day I was born. One of the things I am learning from my son is how to be present at any given moment and to celebrate small moments as well as big ones. I am a very lucky man; I should have been dead a long time ago. Yet, here I am telling you this story. It’s true what they say: “A bit of hope and imagination can change the world for the better.” Every time I look at my wife, I am excited to have a partner and a dear friend with whom to share intimate moments of love and passion in life. And every time I look at my son, I am filled with great hope for the future.

Best of 2021

I’m a Refugee and Want a Better Life for My Son

I grew up in the ‘80s, when bangs were big and shoulder pads were plentiful. My parents fought to make a living after a huge economic recession in the early years of my life. I remember the feeling of fear and uncertainty as my dad searched for work. 

He worked as a roofer in a rather remote area of the Texas Hill Country. Roofing in the August heat in Texas has got to be one of the worst jobs on the planet, and my dad sacrificed sleep and sanity in an attempt to keep us fed. Eventually, he transitioned to building whole houses, and the stress level just went up as he tried to hold it all together while learning the business the hard way.  

At the time, the custom home business wasn’t booming. People were struggling financially, as the country climbed out of the hold of the recession. My father interviewed for different jobs in other states that might provide more security, but nothing panned out. Instead, he and my mom carried on fighting for work, trying to make ends meet and raising three kids. It was feast or famine. Some months we had money, and others we had next to none. 

My mom grew up in Scotland, and was by nature very frugal. I know most people who grew up in this time remember plastic tubs being reused for all manner of leftovers. My mom took it up a notch, also washing out Ziploc bags, bread bags and anything else she thought could be put to use. She didn’t buy herself anything—I’m fairly sure she wore the same clothes for the first 15 years of my life, and I never knew her to go shopping for fun. 

Looking back now, I realize how hard my parents worked, not only to keep my brothers and I fed and clothed, but also to keep us free from their grown-up worries. We played hard, making use of every inch of the property we lived on, finding adventures as we explored the forest next to us. 

As kids, we weren’t conscious of how much money we had, but we did understand how we were doing based on my parents’ stress level and where we shopped. Most weeks, we strolled down the generic aisle that grocery stores had in those days, with the depressing black-and-white packages that blandly stated what type of food they contained. We would also go to the day-old bread store, where we’d sometimes find very little and other times score big loaves of bread (cinnamon raisin being the most exciting variety), and even pastries. 

On one of these occasions, my brothers and I were following my mother around the tiny shop. We’d finally made it to the checkout line and were desperately hoping that we were almost done with the shopping. 

A little old woman with a different skin color than us was checking out in front of us, trying to buy a loaf of bread and a chocolate cake. She pulled out her cash to pay, and realized she didn’t have enough for both. Her face fell, as she put her head down and paid for the loaf of bread, leaving the cake behind as she hobbled towards the door with her cane. 

I watched my mother, who had barely enough money for our bread that week, pause for only a moment, looking from the chocolate cake on the cashier’s shelf to the back of the woman slowly making her way out of the store. She slapped her money down on the counter, picked up the cake and ran—with the sweetest gift of love and sacrifice in chocolate form—to the little lady getting in her car outside. I remember the look on the woman’s face: sheer surprise and wonder that someone had noticed her pain and had stepped up in compassion and kindness.

It was a simple gesture, and we didn’t go hungry because of it. But my mother’s sacrifice that day stuck with me, and I can still see that little woman’s blissful face in my mind. To me, it’s a symbol of the way compassion and sacrificial love can break down all sorts of barriers, even if it’s just in the form of chocolate cake. I am convinced that for that woman, it wasn’t just cake that my mom gave her. It was the gift of being seen, loved and given hope for another day.

Acts of Kindness

Motherhood

My Mother Taught Me Generosity Even Though We Were Poor

Drugs & Alcohol

Up, up and away! Time to get out of the house with The Doe.

Travel

Stories that can only be told from the land of the free, home of the brave.

American Stories

LGBTQ Voices

Earth Day or any day, let's celebrate our planet. 

Mother Earth

The Doe celebrates its authors this Black History Month.

Black Voices

Extra, extra, read all about it! The news-media industry has shifted dramatically over the last decade—heck, within the last two years. Between print journalism, podcasting, social media and infotainment, The Doe turns over every rock in this evolving ecosystem.

Media

Stories of starting over and finding the fresh.

New Beginnings

The ol' nine to five has changed quite a bit in the past couple of years, from working remotely to, well, not working at all. This month we take a look at how cash still does rule in our capitalist society and what the future of business and money might just look like.

Money

The Doe's editorial team takes a look back at the year and shares its favorite narratives.

It’s 1 o’clock at night and I can't sleep, even though I've been awake for 48 hours.

I'm waiting for an emergency alarm that can ring at any point. And as soon as it does, we have to pack our things and run away to the nearest bunker as soon as possible. It’s no movie: It's really happening. It’s still unbelievable.

There’s a lot of news. Some true, some fake, but both kinds are succeeding in scaring the shit out of us. It’s been 24 hours since the state of emergency has been declared in Ukraine. In a short period, a lot of things have happened. The airspace was closed. So we no longer can run away from here.

I'm an Indian who came to Ukraine to study medicine. There are 18,000 Indians here like me. Some of them even booked a ticket to India right after the universities declared they would go online. But as the students reached Kyiv, they got stuck as the airspace was closed.

Conditions are scarier in Kyiv than here, as it’s one of the main targets of the Russians. I'm living in the western part of Ukraine, which we thought would be relatively safe. But the Russians bombed an army base nearby. Since then, people here are panicking. We can't say for sure that we're safe. As soon as an emergency was declared, people got up at 5 a.m. to run to a supermarket to store food and to ATMs for cash. There was a huge line for anything and everything.

Tonight, as we were about to rest, we noticed that the lights in the streets were off. After a while, we got the news that three Indian students were dead in Kharkiv. Kharkiv is close to the Russian border, so there is much more panic there than here. People are stuck in the metro stations. They can't go out. For the first time, I got really scared. I live in a hostel on the top floor. Right after hearing about the death of the fellow Indians, a boy came running to our room. He said, “Turn off the lights quickly and come to the bottom floor. If you leave your lights on, the missiles may come and hit here.”

When you watch a movie, you relate to the hero, not to the sidekicks who die. I feel like I am in a movie and I am a hero. I will surely get out of it alive. Anyway, we turned off the lights immediately. We got dressed and took our passports and backpacks. My hands were shivering. We got news that there might be an alarm and, if it rang three times, you would have to get down. So we just waited.

Meanwhile, there were videos in our student group about the blasts going on in Kharkiv. My roommate's brother is stuck in Kharkiv. We’ve heard that the bordering countries of Ukraine, like Poland, Slovakia and Romania, would let us into their countries to take shelter. Now we have a goal to get there as soon as possible. We may go there by ourselves, but it feels risky. So we are waiting for the embassy to get us a bus or something to take us.

I hope I'll be alive to see this narrative published on The Doe.

Collection

Justice

I Am in Ukraine: This Is What It's Like

“Is 4 o’clock too early to open a bottle of wine?” I stare at my husband as if waiting for approval. I know my body needs something. Not food. Not water. Something to make me disappear, someplace to go. I don't wait for an answer; I uncork the wine and pour myself a massive glass.

Since my sister, K., was murdered, I numb myself, become small, become as close as I can to nothing at all. I want to sink inside the soil, mix with her bones, her arms, her strong hands that couldn’t defend herself, wrap my body around her body. I want to place my palm upon her beating heart. 

Except it isn’t beating because he fucking killed her. 

It’s Wednesday, May 26. My sister’s husband of 25 years waits until she gets home from work to shoot her, to make her voiceless. Before that, he says his goodbyes to his mother and brother, changes the insurance policies, eats lunch at a local cafe and washes a load of clothes, which are still spinning in the dryer when we find her sprawled out on the tiled floor. She doesn’t see him coming behind her. He pulls the trigger three times to the back of her head. He’s a coward like that, sneaking and stalking in the shadows like a roach. 

I’m mowing the lawn, listening to an audiobook of Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth on my headset when he kills her. I’m at the part where the boys in the castle throw rocks at helpless cats just because they can. Cornish hens with red potatoes are baking in the oven. The weather in Duluth is unseasonably warm and blue and happy. I’m wearing a Lady Gaga T-shirt and ripped black shorts, the same tattered clothes I end up wearing to the hospital that night. 

A friend calls at 5:15 p.m. “Have you heard the news? The cops are surrounding K.’s house. I think he did something to her.” 

The next thing I know, I’m inside a pale-colored room that smells of disinfectant, my sister’s Tabu perfume and something hideously sour. K. is attached to a ventilator. Swirling tubes snake from her nose. Her hair had just been highlighted in caramels and blondes, and streaks of black mascara are dripping under her bottom lashes. She looks natural, except for the blood that has dried and hardened on the right side of her head. 

Once I catch my breath, I kick the bedpost over and over until the top of my tennis shoe cracks. I circle the room, pleading to a silent God, “Let her wake up. Wake up. Please wake up.” Her eyes remain shut like a porcelain doll.

Two guards stand on each side of the doorway like bar bouncers, a procedure they must follow after someone is murdered. They place M., her killer, in another hospital, which is also procedure. All of these safety precautions set in motion after my sister is already dead.

Five days after the murder, I stand at the church podium and say, “My sister is gone, and I don’t know where to go from here.” The silence hurts my entire body. It is loud, and ironically what killed her in the first place. It’s the same silence the elders exhibited when she was excommunicated from the place she worshiped for not attending marriage counseling. The same silence that destroys so many women who are not believed, heard or seen in a patriarchal society. 

After reading several of K.'s journals, I’m startled by her pleas for help, “He pushed me. He’s a pig. He has no morals. I wish he’d go to Iraq and die. I didn’t deserve this. Help me.” Reading the words, oh my God, the things she never told me. I see more silence.

After the memorial service, I don’t stay for cakes, cookies or tater tot hotdish. I need a bottle of red wine or two to dull myself, reduce myself. No, this isn’t my new normal. I hate when people say that. It’s my new abnormal. Nothing is normal about your sister being murdered by the man you eat Sunday dinners with after church service for decades.

I stop at the liquor store in West Duluth on the way home and place six bottles of Cupcake red wine on the counter. The young man ringing me up jokes, “I see we’re having a party, huh?” I can’t make eye contact with him because I know if I do, I’ll choke him with the strap of my Coach bag and howl like an animal caught in a snare.

I open a bottle when I arrive home. It helps me escape until the next day and the day after that. When I awaken with a throbbing headache, I’m swallowed up again by my sister’s murder, the shooting, the holes in her head, the organs being removed to be arranged inside another body and I worry about whether I have enough wine to last me through the day, the night, the rest of my life. 

The drinking started as soon as K. was pronounced dead. I picked up wine on the way home from the hospital and proceeded to drink the entire bottle that night. Besides killing myself, which I have actually considered, I can’t figure out another way to relieve the ache of not having my sister on Earth. So I drink from beautiful flutes I purchase from T.J.Maxx for their elegant and ladylike shape. A real alcoholic drinks from a jelly glass or directly from the bottle, right? I drink to forget. I drink until the universe disappears. 

I’m drowning in sorrow, but I’m still rational enough to know alcohol won’t cure the irrational part of me that wants to die too. The part that wants to place rocks inside my pockets and walk directly into Lake Superior. 

I’ve been writing this story for 10 years from different angles, while gulping cabernets, merlots, pinot noirs and Chiantis. The story keeps changing. In the beginning, I sat in the dark with a bottle of wine at my side, clicking unpolished nails against plastic keys. In the beginning, a therapist, who I called Dr. Stinkin’ Thinkin’, asked, “If I could give you a pill to make you forget, would you take it?

I screamed, “Yes! Can I have one now?”

Today is another day, another year. Now I want to feel everything, resist nothing. My sister’s story matters, and I want to remember the details. A glass of wine or two is okay, but I’m more interested in staying sober than deadening myself into nothingness. I tried to become dead while I was still living, but this was just another kind of cage that kept me from moving forward. 

This yearning gets me up in the morning, gives my pain direction, motivates me to support other women trapped inside their own snares. Although I’ve never been a cutter, I imagine this is what it feels like. The pain makes me remember I’m alive, makes me know my blood is still flowing red and warm and with purpose. And to be honest, I need the pain. I want the pain because forgetting my sister is more unbearable than remembering.

Grief doesn’t end. It bites with its sharp, insidious teeth at unexpected moments, although it's no longer my enemy. Instead, it’s become the greatest master class I never signed up for. I’ve come to realize that God lives, but the devil is real, too. He may be sitting at your kitchen table this very moment. Mostly, though, I’ve come to recognize that, unless I embrace this profound loss and walk directly through the flames, I might still be getting plastered every day at 4 o’clock.

Instead, I’ve decided to walk out of the darkness and into the light.

My Sister Was Murdered: Drinking Couldn’t Help Me Deal With the Pain

I recently drove down the main road near where I did most of my growing up. It’s not something I enjoy doing, though I hope one day I will associate it with happy things. This time, I noticed how short the distance was between my old street and my primary school. It used to feel like it took forever to walk there. My mom would do my hair, give me my packed lunch and we’d be on our way. I’d hold her hand and we’d walk together. As a small girl, it was like a hike, but it really only took ten minutes, maybe even less. I needed my mom every single school day to get me from A to B safely. Nothing could hurt me if I was holding her hand. 

When the time came for her to stop walking me to school, I was beside myself. Each walk felt impossible. She started by walking to the corner with me and watching me go. I got used to it, as kids do. I made it work. There was a time when she took me to school for the last time, and I didn’t even know it. When she did my hair for the final time. When she kissed my cheek for the last time. Hugged me. Rolled her eyes at me. Made me a cup of tea. These tiny, seemingly inconsequential things now feel so big. So important. Things I want to remember. But the reality is, I probably won’t. Not forever. 

My mom passed away in the summer of 2020, six days before my 21st birthday and ten days after her 49th. Her struggle with mental health and addiction had been long and complicated. It had been a ticking time bomb. After a few close calls, we knew this was the last go. I was in a constant state of anxiety. My brain was trying to prepare itself for the worst, the very thing that I had feared my entire life. But there is absolutely nothing to prepare you for something like this.

Losing a parent isn’t how you picture it. It’s also not what the movies show. It isn’t some big dramatic moment where you fall to your knees and scream, even if that’s what you feel like doing. When we heard the news in the waiting room, I only remember frowning. Shaking my head. I didn’t even cry right away. My life changed completely at that moment, but my body didn’t catch up. If I moved, it would be real. The only thing you can do in these life-altering moments is lean on those around you. It’s a test for those closest to you. If your friends stick around through something like this, they’ll stick around for life. 

From that point, it felt like I was missing a limb—like someone had come along and stolen something from me. It didn’t matter that we were expecting this outcome. I felt cheated. I needed this situation to have a creator so I had someone to blame. I was entirely different but somehow exactly the same. A struggle I didn’t prepare myself for was the one with my own identity. This won’t be the case for everyone dealing with this, but my mom was my very best friend. It didn’t matter how much she put me through; I was aware that it wasn’t her fault. I couldn’t blame her for things out of her control. The biggest part of me still looked at her and saw Superwoman.

I grew up around her, my dad and three brothers. We girls stuck together. We did everything as a pair, and I’ve grown up to be a lot like her. We used to joke about it. We used to say, “The apple never falls far from the tree,” except my apple was stapled to her tree. She gave me the best parts of herself. It had me worried that she’d given me the not-so-good parts, too. So much of me is what she gave me. During some of the worst times, when she was unwell, I was so involved that I couldn’t figure out where she ended and I began. It’s an impossible position to be in as a young woman.

These years defined the first part of my adult life. I was almost in the role of the mother, worrying and panicking at every corner. Since her passing, I have had to spend a lot of time with myself—really spend time with myself. That sounds strange, I know, but it was important to get to know myself outside of my worry for her. It was only then that I was able to separate us—her from the woman she raised and only ever wanted the best for. I am like her in the best ways (and some not so good), but it doesn’t matter. I am me. I know this is something I’ll continue working on. I’ll still have days where I look in the mirror and think, “Bloody hell, I look like my mom,” but I want to be happy when I do. I’m reminded of when the nurse came into the waiting room afterward. She grabbed my face and said, “Your mom will live on through you.” At the time, I was angry and upset. But now, not so much. I hope she does live on through me. 

The whole five stages thing hasn’t helped me. They may help you, and I wanted them to help me, but they never did. I’ve always liked things to have a rhyme and reason. An order. I expected these five stages to make sense for me. But I was all over the place. Yet another thing you can’t prepare for. Yes, you’ll be angry. You’ll be sad. You’ll deny. You’ll lose sleep. But it doesn’t happen in a specific order. Sometimes, it’ll just be a little bit, and sometimes, it’ll be all at once. People around you will also forget. This huge thing that will be at the forefront of your mind for years will not be at the forefront of theirs. But even when it slips their mind, it doesn’t mean they don’t care about you. 

My memories hurt me the most. As I struggle with my ongoing mental health problems, that nasty side of my brain reminds me of moments that I don’t want to remember. But one thing I feel grateful for is that most of the time when I think of her, I don’t think of her looking sickly and weak. I see my Superwoman. 

If someone reading this is worried that they won’t be able to unsee their unwell relatives, you will. You eventually won’t remember how sick they looked. Eventually. I’m still working on this. I’m trying to get to a place where I can indulge in nostalgia without breaking down. It took me the better part of six months to look at pictures of my mom. It took me seven to put up a picture of her in my house. I want to get to the point of thinking about my life—the life before her addiction and struggles—in a happy way. 

The toughest part is that I still need her. I wish I could still call her up and tell her what I’ve been doing each day. I have moments where only her advice would suffice. I still need her to do my hair once in a while. Now the journey from A to B is different. It’s the journey from where I am now to the rest of my life. And it will be long. Worse than any hike you’ve ever been on. It’s forever without my mom, a seemingly impossible journey. If I look back to the corner, she won’t be there watching me to make sure I get there safely. She’s not holding my hand anymore. It’s going to take me a long time to accept this. As long as I need it to.

If you’re grieving, do not let anyone decide how long you grieve for. This is your process and yours only. Progress is not linear, and most days will be bad. So bad. Some days will be OK. Some will even be good. You will never forget them. I think I felt that the more time was passing, the worse it was getting. I was further away from the event itself. I didn’t want those memories to falter. But they haven’t. I have them stored away safely for when I’m ready.

Mental Health

What It’s Like to Lose Your Mom When You're 20 Years Old

During the Nakba in 1948, when there was a mass exodus of Palestinians expelled from their own houses and lands in the place that right now is called Israel, around 3,000 people built tents in my neighborhood on the borders of Al-Bireh. My family are natives of the city and have been living in the same place for decades. Over time, as the camp grew and became more rooted, we found ourselves surrounded by crowded concrete buildings populated by more than 10,000 people, with my house in the middle. We found ourselves as a family living in the extreme conditions of our neighbors, plagued by overcrowding and inadequate sewerage and water networks. 

Despite the change, my family has always been welcoming to our refugee neighbors. The crowded conditions haven’t dampened the inhabitants’ genuine caring and natural bonding, which have made them resilient and steadfast. I have been told many stories about my grandmother. She was the godmother for the camp, who opened her house to those who needed help and defended her young neighbors from Israeli military attacks with her special weapon: her slippers. 

I lived through the Second Intifada in the early 2000s. I was five years old when it started. I remember the sounds of bombings, shooting, arrests, and Israeli tanks and troops in the middle of the night. I remember the shouting and wailing of mothers for the lost lives of loved ones. I witnessed my dad being arrested by Israeli soldiers. I wondered at the time where they were taking him, and if they would take me as well. Later, my mom calmed me down and told me he’d come back. After a week he did, with tears in his eyes. I didn't know what happened and no one told me. 

Now I am 26 years old, and I still don't feel safe. The regular midnight raids on the camp scare me. Since childhood, my worst nightmare is a tank demolishing my family house over our heads, the way I see happening to our neighbors. Living an everyday life is a dream to me. I ran to Ramallah to find a decent job where I can fulfill my dreams, but the brutal reality keeps chasing me because big cities are not far from political events. Settling down seems impossible when one day you have a job and the next you don't.

When I want to travel from one city to another through military checkpoints, young soldiers no older than 19 point their guns at us, ready for any ambiguous move to give them a reason to open fire. I have to carry all my identification documents with me every time I leave the house, even for a short trip. Usually, the drive from Al-Bireh to Nablus takes an hour. Sometimes, we have to roam for six hours to reach my relatives' house in Nablus, crossing one checkpoint after another. 

Having my belongings searched by soldiers, or even being given a full-body security scan, has stripped my feeling of safety and personal privacy. In my short lifetime, I have seen the wall built around Palestinian cities and villages, disconnecting them from relatives and friends, and zoning them into fragmented IDs. To me it is an apartheid wall, segregating people from each other based on identity and race. I live one hour away from the sea but can't reach it because I need a permit from Israel. 

How do I see the world? Through the eyes of my foreign friends who tell me stories about their countries, cultures and lives without borders. It confuses me. I don't know if it makes me happy or sad to hear how easy life is supposed to be. I am overwhelmed by the fact that the world is moving and I am standing still, gathering my shattered, sabotaged dreams.  

It is depressing to live in a reality where human needs are only measured by what you do today, not what you aspire to achieve tomorrow. In the end, my only consolation is hope.

Short Reads

Insiders

I Grew Up in a Palestinian Refugee Camp

At some point in the past, I heard about an activity called firewalking. Those that do it have to work for months to build resistance on their feet before they’re able to walk on extremely hot coals in places like Hawaii. It’s uncomfortable and painful but, over time, their feet adapt and are able to make it look easy. 

I think that’s a good analogy for how I handle the emotional stress in my life. Most of it just feels like training. The longer I live, I build up calluses to some of the most heartbreaking and earth-shattering events, and I keep meeting people who have seen different kinds of tragedies in their life. More often than not, their experiences make me question the gravity of my own. They’ve planted an empathy in my soul that’s made me conscious and careful about whom I lend my concern but, once I do, understanding and compassion blossom in a way that makes it hard to put into words.

It’s taken years and a lot of good friends to teach me not to compare my own pain to others. There are people who have experienced trauma from a sibling constantly knocking their ice cream to the ground as kids, and that’s just as valid as someone who’s visibly seen a child die. We’re all subject to the perspective of whatever we experience—and no one’s process is any more or less valid than another. I wish I could repeat that sentence over and over again so as a culture we could decide collectively to never be dismissive of someone else’s experience. No matter what story people share with me, I make it a habit to understand how they process it. It’s so important not to judge the gravity of someone else’s experience because what could be an anthill to one person could be a mountain to someone else. True connection comes from seeing it as they do, not as you do.  

I’ve never experienced ice cream pranks with a sibling, but I have experienced a child dying—twice, in fact—and I can tell you that nothing prepares you for that. For nine months, as your baby is on its way, it’s easy to think about the kind of parent you’ll be. There is so much joy and desire to celebrate every day because another person loves you enough to bring new life into the world with your name. To have that taken all away can really make you question a lot of things.

The date was September 4, 2008. My partner and I had gone to sleep as usual, with our five-week-old son asleep on my bare chest. Every other night, when I could hold him and talk to him, I breathed over him a prayer for all the things he would be one day. I listened to his breathing so I could feel in sync with the rhythm of his every breath, for as long as I could. I was so thankful to be a dad.  

When morning came, however, something was off. He was still warm as I slowly rose to wake him for his breakfast but he wasn’t moving, and his chest had stopped the normal rising and falling at some point while I was asleep. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I reached for my glasses and couldn’t find them, choosing instead to see him as best I could with my nearsightedness. 

Was that blood coming from his nose? My partner, in a frantic yelp, exclaimed that his face was blue. When did that happen? Where were my glasses? I tried to do whatever version of CPR I could remember, being careful of my strength so as not to crush his fragile chest. My partner was screaming something. Cover his nose? Breathe into his mouth? I felt for the air entering his lungs to come back out, to somehow let me know there was a chance of reviving him, but I knew. I looked at her. She was still panicking, but I already knew. He was gone. 

I stumbled woodenly out of the bed and through the bedroom, trying to find the lights. Where was the phone? I had to call 9-1-1. The power was out, my phone was non-existent, hers hadn’t been paid. I needed to find a phone. I made my way through the little apartment complex to the payphone on the street and dialed. I didn’t know what I sounded like, and there weren’t any words to share. I had no idea what to do next, and even now remembering it, I still don’t know how I made myself finish that call and walk back into the house. My partner had wanted me to save him and I couldn’t, and now, once she figured out what happened, I knew what was coming.  

As I said, nothing prepares you for that. I wasn’t ready for Devin’s death, and I wasn’t ready for my partner thinking I killed him. By the time the paramedics came to ask me what happened, I had resigned to a few outcomes that were not good, and I was still processing a lot. If this was my fault, I was prepared to face the music. It would have been nice to have the person who I loved to offer a word of support and some belief that maybe there could be another answer. But it wasn’t to be had at that moment. I had a partner who was also grieving but didn’t know what happened and thought I was at fault.

It would be another two weeks before I’d discover we lost our son to SIDS. But for two weeks, in her mind, I was a murderer. That was a mountain for both of us, and the choice I made to do my best—to be my own support rather than ask her to have a little faith that there was another answer—took more inner strength than I ever thought. To look someone in the face who is accusing you and choose to love them rather than lash back—to look for clarity and understanding rather than bitterness and indignance—takes a kind of inner fortitude most people only discover they have at a moment like that when they need it.

One of the things that helped me get through it was actually heartbreaking at the moment. I had to forcibly tell myself that it wasn’t my fault and that expecting anyone else to support that understanding wasn’t their responsibility. Let me repeat that. Even if you’ve been with your partner for years, and have shared everything together, it’s not their responsibility to give you the support you’re looking for when you go through loss. We all have to decide to be responsible for how we feel about anything.  

In part, I think when tragedy strikes, a lot of people want someone to understand, and for people to empathize, and it’s nice when that happens. But what about when it doesn’t? What about when you go through the hardest things in your life and nobody understands? Or worse, they ridicule you for it? As long as I was susceptible to others’ support or lack thereof, it was crippling. So I started to make a habit of realizing that I might be the only one who understood what happened and just be OK with that.  

Putting that kind of pressure on someone who is also grieving may be something they’re not ready for—or something they don’t have the emotional capacity to offer. Learning how to be your own comfort when things go horribly wrong is a really helpful skill, and becoming that kind of friend to other people during hard times made it easier.

When my first child died, I thought back to all the times I’d dreamed of having a son, and why I  wanted to be a dad in the first place. I thought about all the things that I would do with him and teach him the way my dad taught me. Thankfully, I have a really attentive dad, so I have plenty of memories to reflect on, like riding around our small town in New Jersey on the back of a bicycle, like the kid from Peanuts whose mom is always running into trees. (My dad never hurt us, but the resemblance is hilarious and familiar). 

All of those things that I wanted to become were still present, I just couldn’t be those things with him. I was going to have to wait and hope I’d get another chance. And it’s in that hope, and the belief that I’d get another chance, that helped me get through that. I immediately recognized that it could be a completely different situation. Maybe I’d have to adopt or become a foster parent, or maybe it could be some other circumstance. But being in that situation prepared me to be ready to give my all to whatever situation came.

Personally, I think that’s what suffering is supposed to do—help us find ways to support others who have gone through similar experiences, to be encouraging and inspiring to one another when we reach our lows. A wise person said to me that “We’re more alike than not,” so I’ve constantly looked at my challenges and tried to evaluate who I wish I was, were I in the other person’s shoes. I don’t recommend going through that kind of emotional training on purpose, and hopefully, whatever fire you walk through won’t be anything like that, but finding your inner strength can give hope to someone else. It’s one of the greatest gifts we can give. 

Firewalking: My Baby Died in My Arms and My Partner Blamed Me

Growing up, my mother and I were really close. My father walked out on us when he and my mother divorced, so, naturally, she and I had a pretty decent relationship. We moved back to her hometown when I was nine and, when she wasn't working, we usually watched movies or went for scenic drives. 

Sometimes we'd have long talks about our family or what was going on in the world. I had a parent, a mother and a friend. I'd come home from school and I'd know that after all the constant bullying, low test scores, struggling to pay attention, I could confer with my mother. There would be no backlash, no ridicule. I depended on her for that.

After I'd turned ten, she met an abusive and narcissistic asshole. He made our lives a living hell. He'd come home from work, sit down, have a beer and watch TV. Three beers turned into ten pretty quickly. He had a nervous disorder and was prescribed an entire list of medications, none of which mixed well with alcohol. One time, I went downstairs to find that he was using a floor lamp as a baseball bat. He aimed a Mason jar at my head like he was hitting a fastball. 

My mother and I were both the victims of his hate.

They were married after four years but finally separated around my junior year of high school. It felt like a completely different world with him gone. He ruined our lives for seven years. However, there was a part of him still with us after he left: his political beliefs.

My mother was a moderate Republican before she met him. And when I say moderate, I emphasize moderate. She was mostly indifferent about the government, never really going out of her way to worry about politics or bring it up around others. She lived in her own bubble. She had hobbies and dreams, she was pretty happy. And when she wasn't happy, she didn't focus on her unhappiness. She'd go through the emotions she needed to and she'd move on. However, she was impressionable. 

He, on the other hand, was insanely right-wing. He worked at a correctional facility and often came home spouting racist obscenities about the inmates. He'd say the hard "r" at the end of the N-word without remorse. I remember asking my mother why she was dating a racist, and she'd go, "No, he's not racist, he just deals with a lot at work." He was very clearly a racist, and I don't know how she could excuse it so nonchalantly. 

His interests started to meld into hers. She started hating illegal immigrants (even though she had been an illegal immigrant for a while until she finally got her citizenship). She said she wasn't racist toward people of color, but that she was just "prejudiced," as if being racist and prejudiced wasn't a possibility—or even the same thing. She would call Latino communities "chimichangas" without a second thought. Seeing both of them carry on like this made me extremely uncomfortable.

I was taught from a young age about that ancient way of thinking, and here it was, in my own environment, the fire being fueled by the people with whom I shared a house. I not only avoided having my white friends over, but I also avoided having any friends over. I didn't want my white friends thinking that I was the spawn of racists, and I didn't want to take the chance that any of my friends in other ethnic groups would be mistreated by my mother and her boyfriend. I'd come home and hear them agree with each other while they watched far-right propaganda on TV, and soon after, I'd hear them get into a screaming match. He was a domestic abuser. They hated each other. I don't know how they were together for seven years. But it seemed like their whole relationship was built on the hatred of each other and the hatred of other people.

After he'd left, I was just finishing up my junior year of high school, which was also my last. I had enough credits to graduate and I wanted to escape the area I grew up in—I wanted to meet new people and, most importantly, I wanted to get a break from my mother. She was still the person he'd transformed her into, even after they separated. I was pretty much a stereotype, at least, for the military recruiters in my area. I was a lower-class white kid wanting an escape.

Sure enough, I joined, shipped out to training, came back home for two weeks (most of that time being spent with my girlfriend), and prepared for a new life. I had a pretty decent run in the military after that, and my mother was doing fine. Until my time in the military came to an end.

By the time COVID-19 hit in January, phone calls with my mother were getting shorter. It was like she was a completely different person. I'd see her post on Facebook saying the virus was a PSYOP or that the 5G towers were spreading it. It was like my mother had been replaced with another person. She started talking to me on the phone about someone named "Q" and how she thought JFK Jr. was still alive and was fighting an "underground war.” She even told me that there were secret underground tunnels run by Satanist, adrenochrome-injecting, Democratic pedophiles.

At this point, I was fully convinced that my mother had lost it. 

My time in the military, however, was shortened by the unluckiest of circumstances. I took the honorable discharge and got out. I needed a place to stay until I got back on my feet. So I went home. I was living with her. I couldn't walk in the kitchen to get food without her shoving some Q-adjacent propaganda down my throat. We'd get into countless arguments, back and forth, to the point where I started avoiding her. I hated talking to her. I hated the sound of her voice. The conspiracies got worse and my tolerance weakened. I was starting to lose my mind.

Then, the election came. Joe Biden won. My mother and her boyfriend were both in disbelief. Everything their Q had prophesied about Donald Trump staying in power and about the "war against the Deep State" finally coming to a turning point—it was proven false in one night.

Today, in the spring of 2021, we rarely speak while living in the same home. She tells me the vaccine will kill my girlfriend and me. She pleads for me to stay home to "protect against Chinese military invasions" through Canada. She and her boyfriend "gear up" with survival supplies and ammunition. She even asked me if I was ready to fire at police or military if Biden "ordered them" to come take away their guns. 

One of us will blindly fire at another American to uphold a conspiracy theory on the internet. One of us will not. And that is, sadly, the difference between us.

Politics

I Lost My Mom to QAnon

Grief is a strange, albeit commonplace, sensation that continues to overestimate my coping mechanisms. It overwhelms me and certainly leaves its mark. There are supposedly five stages of grief, but I challenge that. Grief is individual and unique in each instance. We must consider all of its forms. 

I am currently in the process of documenting my own experience of grief, which concerns the following stages: denial, pain and guilt, written expression, sexual curiosity. While the denial stage first occurred in isolation, the other stages I experience simultaneously. 

I lost my father to COVID-19. Born on a Friday in then-colonized Ghana, my dad was one of ten children who grew up in Offinso. Determined to build a new life, he left work in the Ashanti region to study on British shores. On January 29, he sadly passed away. Since then, I have learned that the sadness that accompanies loss cuts like a knife that leaves a gaping wound, easily reopened by the slightest thought. 

I’m rewriting the stages of grief to dress my wounds and carve out my own path to healing. The aim here is to acknowledge my suffering, make sense of it and lessen it. If you, reader, have experienced loss, I offer you my condolences. If you, reader, have not lost something or someone, then I merely offer you an insight into what the aftermath could be like. In the end, we all come out with thicker skin and a few lessons learned.

One of my first Google searches after the passing of my father read something like, “My dad died but it doesn’t feel real.” I felt as if he was going to walk through the front door of our house. I held onto that hope even though, deep down, I knew it wouldn’t occur in an earthly plane. 

This feeling makes up the first stage: denial. Simply put, it’s when you cannot grasp that your loss is, in fact, a loss. His death was hard for me to process. Once he was admitted into a hospital, I had gone from seeing him daily to not at all. I briefly adjusted to him not being around for some time but I expected him to return home. I felt robbed when that time never came. 

Coming to terms with not having said goodbye has been difficult. On the morning my dad left for the hospital, I was sleeping. You’d rarely see me awake before 9 a.m., especially as we drifted in and out of lockdown. He was meant to have a routine check-up but ended up needing urgent care with a heart-related issue. I often think back to our last telephone conversation on the evening of the day he was admitted, in which he told me not to worry and that everything will be “alright.” Laughable, isn't it? Is death a decent resolution to everything? 

Restrictions meant that we could not visit him, and when given the chance to see him in the flesh after his health rapidly deteriorated overnight, I was discouraged from doing so by the nurse and family members. My dad had been sedated during the week leading up to his passing, so he wouldn't have been able to speak to me. But at least he would have heard all that I had to say. He was pronounced dead not even 20 minutes after I gave up my final opportunity. 

I began to think about my relationship with my father. I felt as if I had not given him much during my 23 years of spending his money and living rent- and expense-free. He was the family member I felt closest to, the only one I called (weekly) when I moved away from home for university and lived abroad in Spain. We weren’t that close though. Through his death, I learned character-defining information about the man I thought I knew, which mirrored the way that he barely knew the real me. 

I didn’t say goodbye and, even though the funeral has passed, I don’t feel like I ever will. 

Considering countless what-if scenarios 

I write to address this lack of closure that COVID-19 and slight emotional unavailability robbed me of. I like to think of it as pain and guilt relief, along with the following stage. 

As a lover of words and creative expression, this stage had to happen. I find it easier to write than speak, so picking up my pen came easily. The benefits of creative expression are undeniable. Writing helps to bring feelings to the surface. Creativity helps alleviate pain by reliving and releasing it. I cried while I wrote sections of this but it’s all part of the process of healing—allowing yourself to feel at all times. 

I didn’t have a grief journal as such, but I have a notes folder titled “Dear Dad” with messages I address to him. I write to him about anything and everything, from the music I hear him in, to the times I’ve dreamed of him. My last entry was about a song he liked called “Working My Way Back To You,” covered by the Spinners. We sat on the steps in the hallway listening to it late one night while Spotify played my "liked" songs on shuffle. It brought up a host of feelings. 

Writing to or about the lost one (to say what has not been said)

The sexual curiosity stage is self-explanatory but extensive. Let me be clear: My motivation behind this stage wasn’t to go wild by having various sexual partners. Much of my sex life had tended to my bondage-loving submissive streak. I’m not saying that my dad’s death sparked my sexual revolution, but it certainly intensified my desire to stray from the conventional. I simply want(ed) to satisfy lingering desires. Life is fickle, subject to constant change, and these latter two stages are my attempt to gain control and grow out of these changes. 

I ditched Hinge and signed up for a new app that catered to couples and singles. I created a profile under an alias (as instructed), uploaded three pictures and threw together a scanty bio detailing my height, my love for weed and music, and a few kinks.

One of the first-ever encounters that I arranged using the app went like this: I got on the Northern line for half an hour, walked for seven minutes and ended up in the flat owned by a 31-year-old lawyer. Let’s call him Badger. Badger and I had been texting for no longer than a week or two. He wasn’t physically my type, but that's why I chose him. We sat and talked over a bottle of champagne. He only ever bought “the good kind” from small vineyards. In time, over about an hour, the conversation revealed an insecure man who overworked himself because he didn’t feel good enough. He was the kind of man who parades his self-hate with self-deprecating humor. Disclaimer: I’m not the type to reassure people, so his comments were often met with awkward silence.

Badger had a picture of his father, who died when Badger was a teen, on the wall in his living room. He said that he had no family anymore—I sensed he was a lonely man. We spoke about loss and death; I questioned how he coped with it and he asked if I was actually OK. It was an unusual exchange for two strangers meeting in person for the first time. Not long after, I ended up being slapped, rimmed and rammed on an expensive couch. Oh, and in the recently renovated bathroom, too. He’ll never hear from me again. 

Anyway (yawns), now tired of single men because I find them sadly desperate, I’ve exclusively set my sight on sex-positive couples. Yes, I’m putting my submissive tendencies on the back burner to explore being a “unicorn,” someone who dates couples. I describe my sexuality as heteroflexible, mostly straight, but I may dabble in same-sex encounters. 

Sex with multiple people isn’t a fantasy of mine, but I’m intrigued by the couple dynamic. I think it‘s endearing to share a sexual experience with two people who are bound by love rather than lust, but I’ll soon test how true that statement is.

Endless scrolling through mind-numbing apps

Denial, pain and guilt, written expression and sexual curiosity are the stages I've been darting between. Although, it’s still early. Some stages may combine, multiply or cease to exist. I feel that I will be grieving forever, which is not to say I will never be happy. I will just always recognize the loss. I won’t be caught in a loop of these stages. Why? Growth. I question where my loss sits concerning the bigger picture of my life. I find that I've experienced greater luck since my father’s passing, even though times have been difficult, and I feel as though it is because I now have someone behind the scenes who is fighting in my corner. Lucky me.

Coronavirus

I Lost My Dad to COVID-19: Rewriting the Stages of Grief

In 1995, after he lost his wife to leukemia, my grandfather wrote letters nearly every week and mailed them to his three children. The letters lay out in incredible detail my grandparents’ lives and the lives of their family and friends. 

In 2020, my grandfather died due in part to complications from COVID-19. I saw him lifeless for an hour or so after his death, and I missed his spirit; when I got back to my room, I returned to his letters. In a masterful one postmarked July 1, 1999, the date of my grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary, my grandfather encapsulates every five years of their lives in a concise paragraph.

This list includes their fifth wedding anniversary when they lived in Paris and their baby, my mother, slept in a dresser drawer; their 15th anniversary, when they moved into “a lovely Eichler house in a liberal ghetto in far-right Orange County;” and their 30th anniversary, when my grandmother was diagnosed with leukemia, but beat the odds, living for 17 more years. 

When he reached the 50th anniversary, he wrote of my grandmother: “We have lost Molly…I feel sad. But much sadder for her. She was giving so much. She had so much more to give.”

After her death, my grandfather, in his 70s, still treasured companionship. By luck, he reconnected with a former college sweetheart, Amy, and they lived a beautiful life together in Santa Rosa for 17 years. After Amy died in 2013, my grandfather moved down to Irvine to be closer to my family.

At the time, I was a 28-year-old artist, and my 90-year-old grandfather, still full of vigor and with a healthier body than mine, wanted to see all of the museums in Los Angeles. So I drove from my apartment in Culver City down to Irvine back up to museums in Los Angeles then back to Irvine. He didn’t mind the gridlock; we had a lot of time to talk.

Looking back, I don’t remember all of the words we said, I primarily remember wanting to learn from him. I remember doing my best to catch all of his personal history. Sometimes I would retell the stories back to him, hoping they would stick. But what I mainly remember is our energy, our laughter, and our ability to know each other as friends despite the generational divide.

When I was 20 years old, I came out as gay to my grandfather in a postcard. I told him that I hoped I could find the loves that he had found. I hoped my life would be as simple and loving as his life. I don’t remember us formally talking about the postcard; I knew he and Amy just wanted me to be happy. Years later, on the freeway, I would bring up my new relationships to him shyly, hoping to glean some important knowledge that would turn my love life around.

In one conversation, I remember him telling me that early relationships are so fun and full of possibilities. I never thought dating was fun, but he made me think I could appreciate the unknowing. I wanted to ask him more questions, but I usually let it go after ten minutes or so. Perhaps I was more uncomfortable than he was in talking in detail about my dating life. Though I had good reason to believe we had different perspectives on love.

For an audio project in 2014, I asked him for advice on love. He prefaced in a joking tone, “Dammit if you weren’t a homosexual, I’d have a good one for you.” And as I laughed loudly into the microphone he said, “Maybe it applies, maybe it applies.” I agreed and told him I would let him know. “The only thing I succeeded with in my life was marrying two superior women,” he said.

On July 1, 1949, my grandfather married my grandmother, Molly, in downtown Manhattan. He writes of the marriage venue as tragic at first: “The district is dingy. Papers are flying about on the street in the wind.” But quickly turns upbeat in relating the “charming” chapel and “dignified” officiant. And when the moment comes, he nearly leaps from the page: “We are married! It is as if a great burden has been lifted from me. I have never been so happy. I am floating with joy.” 

He shared a grand and interesting life with my grandmother, who he described as an influential social worker, a successful lyricist, an elegant dresser, a rose among thorns.

Follow Us

Tearjerkers

Staff Picks

I Was Adopted: My Parents and the Significance of Selflessness

I’m a Refugee and Want a Better Life for My Son

My Mother Taught Me Generosity Even Though We Were Poor

Full Collection

I Am in Ukraine: This Is What It's Like

My Sister Was Murdered: Drinking Couldn’t Help Me Deal With the Pain

What It’s Like to Lose Your Mom When You're 20 Years Old

I Grew Up in a Palestinian Refugee Camp

Firewalking: My Baby Died in My Arms and My Partner Blamed Me

I Lost My Mom to QAnon

I Lost My Dad to COVID-19: Rewriting the Stages of Grief

My Grandfather Died of COVID-19: I’m Learning to Appreciate Life Like Him

My Foster Parents Are My Real Parents

When My Mom Passed Away, the Little Things Helped Me Through the Grief

My Aunts and Uncles Gave Me Their Savings for My Education

Only a True Friend Drives You 300 Miles to Your Grandfather's Funeral

My Grandfather Lost a Lot During WWII, but He Never Lost His Kindness

As My Son Fought for His Life, Other People Made All the Difference

Life Has Been Difficult, but My Prayers Have Been Answered

Why I’m Glad My Husband Has Terminal Cancer

I Regret Having a Baby I Never Wanted

When My Parents Died, I Turned to Drugs and Alcohol

Keep Reading

Drugs & Alcohol

Travel

American Stories

LGBTQ Voices

Motherhood

Mother Earth

Tearjerkers

Black Voices

Media

New Beginnings

Money

Best of 2021

Company

Engage