Everyone has those moments in their lives when they can tell you exactly where they were when something significant happened. This past September millions of American’s spoke of where they were the moment the Twin Towers fell, veterans express where they were the moment Pearl Harbor was being bombed by Japanese pilots. I am no different. I know where I was the moment the Columbine tragedy reached national news stations. I can tell you exactly where I was when the Virginia Tech shooting began, and which desk I sat in while we watched the Twin Towers crumble in a cloud of dust in my tenth grade Military History class. I remember those moments that bind us to every other living person in the world. This is not about one of those moments.
I can tell you exactly where I was five years ago today. Not because of a national scandal or tragedy but because of its significance to me. By this time, 10 a.m., I had awoken to the smell of bacon and eggs in the kitchen that raged a war bringing a wave of nausea I had never experienced before. My mother’s house, located in Cherryville, was buzzing with family who took quick naps, and spoke of arrangements. These people patted my head, handed me flat ginger-ale and crackers and all agreed it was my “nerves”.
A few hours before, somewhere between 12 and 1 a.m. we had officially lost my step-father in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The doctors had diagnosed him with pancreatic cancer the previous April, and declared he had 9 months to a year. We were just a few days shy of 9 months.
In between being violently ill, and sobbing I plagued myself with thoughts of everything I had meant to say but had forgotten to, everything I still had to tell him. Phrases as simple as “I love you” and “Goodbye” wouldn’t cross my lips, and it I felt the shame of it stained across my flushed cheeks and weakly shaking hands.
Death had never felt so close. In high school we lost three members of my graduating class in car accidents. It was sad, and I felt the disappointment that lingered in knowing these lives were lost so young but these were not my deaths to carry. I had watched two of my aunts lose children during childbirth, and understood the sadness that engulfed my family during that time but again; these were not my deaths to carry.
This death, Gene’s death, was mine.
And in that I became a member of that world. The world where there is always a sadness haunting the edge of every moment. The world where the pain never ceases, and the guilt never fades but they become a little more tolerable every day. It binds you to complete strangers, people you’ve known for years, or someone you pass daily but never notice. It’s branded on our skin, SURVIVORS… the people who have been left behind.
Since Gene passed I’ve lost more. My grandmother, great-grand mother, my father, two aunts, a cousin… one by one. I suppose it is a fact of life, when you get to a certain age you start to expect it. Funerals almost become like family reunions.
But it doesn’t change the things you’ve lost. The moments missed. The words unspoken hang stale in the air. We remain, but we are haunted.
So today, I will raise a glass to toast one of the most influential men in my life. A man who built me, and broke me in many ways. A man I see in my daughter, appropriately named Evelyn Gene, every day. Because regardless of the amount of time, he is a man who deserves to be remembered and honored, on this day if not any other.
We miss you Gene.
cross posted at Mommy Mayham
