So his body was there in the box. We watched it lowered into the ground. My aunt sobbed into the shoulder of my cousin's only real beloved of his lifetime. A picture of him sat there, so we could see him smile. It was hot in the sun and freezing in the shade. My daughter hid her face in my neck and asked if we could just go see Barkely (my aunt's dog, who my daughter does not even like).
All I could think was, these are the rituals of death. His body is there, in the casket, a simple, wooden box that sends him back into the earth from which he came.
She opened the bathroom door with a key, his body blocked the door, she noticed the purple color of his arm ("that's not good." She thought to herself.), she noticed the thin white cord around his neck. She noticed his head back and the peaceful look on his face, the most peaceful look she's seen in a long time. And all she could think was, "well, he's okay."
"He's not okay." Her fiancée told her. "Call the police."
The police rush in, straight upstairs. They come back down, more slowly. "He's passed away. There's nothing we can do."
Then the coroner comes. He talks about limbs getting stiff. About moving the body. About objective stuff that doesn't relate to the boy he was, the man he became. That's not Carlos. That's a body that used to hold Carlos.
That's not Carlos.
These are the rituals of death.
"I don't want a funeral," she says. Why? Carlos would not have wanted a funeral. Carlos wanted his spiders to be taken care of. Carlos wanted his mother to have peace. Carlos wanted the fuck out.
"I'm having a funeral," his father says. "I'll be there," she says.
Because we all mourn in different ways. We all have different ways of dealing. He needed the ritual, the ceremony, the words, the prayers, the large gathering.
We gathered. Those who loved him, loved him deeply, for his greatness and for his pain, for his innocence, even as a twenty eight year old man, and for his transgressions. We loved him not in spite of his "flaws" but because of them. Because you cannot be Carlos without the flaws, you cannot have the sweetness without the bitterness. You cannot love so deeply if you do not also hurt so deeply. His emotional depth knew no bounds, and in the end, that is what killed him.
There were many people who also gathered because it is what you are supposed to do, which is kind of funny, when you think about it. Carlos rarely did what he was "supposed to do," and so if he visited us today, on this gathering day, if he laughed at all, it was at that. Haha. A good chuckle. Silly humans.
But she knew. "I'm here. She thought. I'm still here. And I will recognize you in the clouds, in the surf and in the sand. I will remember you when those desert lizards cross my path and every time I spare the spiders lurking in the corners of my room. I will feel you patting me on the back. I will hear you comforting me in my loss"
We are sad. Those of us who loved him. Those of us who see him in the ones who made it. "Why couldn't he make it? Why couldn't he find a way?" We ask ourselves, selfish in our need to have him here in our lives, even at a distance.
The answer is so simple that it is beyond us: this was his way.
How simple and yet how complicated for those of us who fight to live. My grandmother has battled two cancers and survived running herself into glass shelving in the pitch black, fighting to live, to breathe, to stay here longer. "I love life," she says.
And her grandson smiled at death.
There we were, eating cookies and laughing and crying and sharing moments and memories.
The great love of his life, a young, beautiful, broken, but healing girl was there. I watched my daughter reach out to her, "can I play with her?" Celaya asked. She had never met this young woman of twenty eight. She had only met my cousin once, in passing, at one of his darkest times. She reached out, recognizing a kindred spirit. Brianna brightened, "exploring" the area with my daughter for a few moments.
Tears hid behind my eyes all day, dew drops ready to fall as I thought, "these are the rituals of death."
We acknowledge that this is now part of our story.
This is part of my story now. My cousin killed himself. He took his own life in a way that is unique to all others of which I know. And now I look at my daughter and I see my cousin. I see depth, empathy, emotion, an angelic sweetness that is unearthly. I see my daughter ask if she can hold your hand, if she can let the ants run up her arm, if she can gently cradle the ladybug or the roly poly bug. I see my daughter's heart break for a crushed snail, for a smushed acorn in the street. I see her frantically want to save the crushed Cheerios from the wheels of the shopping cart, and I think, "how do I love you enough to save you from this fate?"
And is that even my job? Is it even possible?
I don't think so. Not anymore. Before my cousin killed himself, completed his journey here on this plane of existence I would have argued otherwise, but now, no.
If anyone loved, anyone accepted, anyone gave, more than Carlos' mother, in all the right ways, not too much, not a smother, just a support, not a squeeze, just a hug whenever he needed one, it was her.
All I can do is hold her hand when she asks, mourn the lost life of the snail with her, pick her frantic body up out of the cart so she can retrieve the fallen Cheerios. I am here as her guide.
The pastor said today that we have no control over our lives, over who our parents are, the paths we follow.
I disagree.
I imagine Celaya chose me, her soul reached out to mine, she needed a mother who would "taste" her mud pies, who would give her space and freedom and at the same time open arms and a predictable routine.
And I know Carlos chose Deena, his energy called out to her energy, so strongly that despite her being unable to bear children he reached across another woman, a biological mother, a birth giver, from another country, to bring Deena to him, to witness his entry into the world, to live in a trailer with him in the dingiest corners of Mexico, to bring him back to her space, her haven, her sanctuary. A mother who would feed his reptiles when he was away, who would send him care packages when he was out of town, who would listen to him philosophize for hours.
This was always his end. This was the path he was on from the very beginning. He began with her, and he needed to end with her. And he never would have been able to complete his journey on his terms, in his way, with a smile on his face, but for the mother he chose.
These are the rituals of death.
Tuesday, January 12, 2016
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Blissful Suicide
They say "celebrate the life and mourn the death."
With Carlos I think it's the reverse. I cry for his life, for his pain, for how dark it had finally gotten that he finally gathered the courage to flee his demons after twenty eight years. I celebrate his death. For him. He won his last battle.
As far back as I have memories, to when I was nine, when he came home to the states, I remember an angel.
Only, ever. An angel.
He had a big, fluffy, curly afro as a baby, and a big, wide smile. "Is that real?" People would ask my aunt as we walked through a store with my cousin. "No. I put a wig on my one year old." She would roll her eyes. Even then, people didn't get him. But she did.
He loved dinosaurs when he was a toddler. He played with Power Rangers as a kid. His first bedroom was bold reds, blues, yellows. Happy colors. And he was a happy kid.
Except for when he wasn't.
Mostly, I think that when he wasn't happy it was because he was beginning to realize that his skin didn't fit right. The world was too small, too straight, too.... just wrong.
When he wasn't happy he went to a dark place, inward, deep inside, and voices told him it was him that didn't fit right. He was too big, too crooked, too... just wrong.
And, on some level, I think what the voices said was true. He didn't fit right. He was too free, too wild, too open, too observant, too wise, too... unearthly.
An angel. A tortured angel.
He saw through all of us, through the need for a BMW, the need for the perfect hair cut, the need for an office job that pays 50k a year with health benefits and a 401k plan. He saw the depths of the ocean and the smallest creatures as they crept. He saw life as fragile and imperfect and too goddamn fucking hard.
Once, in the car when he was a young boy, he was struggling with a math problem in the backseat. I remember the despair when he said "Ugh! I'm such a loser! I'm no good at this!"
My heart breaks for that kid. The kid with lizards that he kept so carefully in a room whose door always had to be closed so as to maintain the right temperature as the beloved lizards, Luna and Sun, crept along their branches that reached up to the ceiling of his room. That kid loved life, just not his own.
His mother always assured him that he was not a loser, that she loved him, that he was perfect the way he was, dreadlocks dripping down his back, plain black t-shirt over slightly baggy jeans and worn tennis shoes, drinking his yerba mate before heading off to another job, this time at the vet, that time at the shelter, this time at the reptile room, that time at the smoothie shop.
She loved him even when he drank himself to oblivion to chase away the demons, when she found drugs, pipes, empty bottles, and a passed out full grown man in her bathroom, still too drunk to pick himself up and head back to a bed. She loved him even when he screamed at her "Why did you adopt me?! Why should you love me!? I'd be better off dead! I should just kill myself!" And even when she screamed back, out of years of pain and frustration, agony and a simple loss of what to say after she had heard these words hurled at her, thrown at her, leaving dents in her soul, "If you were going to kill yourself, you just would! You wouldn't be talking about it!"
Oh, what kind of mother says that to her son? What kind of son slices himself up with a knife, hangs himself from the bathroom door in his mother's house, the house of the only person he could always turn to?
The kind of mother who is out of options, who is at her wits' end, who gives and gives and gives to a man who doesn't know how to do anything but take and take and take, crying all the while that he doesn't want to take, he'd rather be dead.
The kind of son who knows that his mother's home is where he needed to die. And who is finally ready to do it. He needed to be with her even in his last moments, even if that meant she found him, even if that meant breaking her heart one last time.
Carlos was tortured soul. An angel sent here to battle demons.
An angel? You ask. How could you call this monster an angel? He terrorized his mother, he destroyed himself, he caused everyone around him pain and misery. An angel?
Yes, an angel. Let us remember that Michael was an angel. Raphael was an angel. And yes, Lucifer, was an angel. They were also the fiercest warriors. They battled demons and fought endlessly against a reality beyond our comprehension. And Lucifer, God's mightiest warrior, his most trusted, beloved soldier, dared to question his will. So we label him devil.
So Carlos questioned the world. He questioned the boxes we all live in. He never belonged in a box. He questioned the rules of the game. He was never any good at games. He battled with the voices in his head that told him he was in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong life. Just because we couldn't hear the voices doesn't mean they weren't real, demons with black eyes and charcoal wings, snickering at his pain, chasing him wherever he went, turning dreams into nightmares and love into agony. And he battled with the real live voices of those all around him who he knew were saying the same: loser, waste of life, devil. He battled and battled his way through a world he never really belonged in. And he battled his way into a death that gave him the sweet release he had no other way of finding. Like a warrior.
We say, about those who commit suicide, "if he could only have gotten through this phase, if he could only see, if she could only wait, if she could just listen."
Carlos did wait, he did see, he did listen, and none of it helped. He put his pants on one leg at a time countless times, went into work countless times, surfed through his pain countless times. He cared for animals, and he mostly remained calm and patient with those of us humans too attached to this world and determined to stay on our hamster wheels, running and running and going nowhere, then judging him for daring to refuse the wheel. We say "carry on." He did. He carried on, and on, and on. Until he just couldn't carry on anymore.
He did cause everyone around him pain, but only because it hurt us to see him hurting so badly. Our hearts break to see him so broken, and always with that broken smile. And he was so quick with a smile for so long, but it was always a smile with sadness in it. He was ethereal, made of material that shimmered if you looked too close, like he was already half spirit, but couldn't shake his flesh.
Looking back now, I hear different words in his enraged outbursts, the quieter, softer, hidden words under the shouts and the yells: "let me go. let me go. please just let me go."
There was no other path for Carlos, there was no day that saw a brighter future, the world was not going to change, and neither was Carlos, and the two could just never see eye to eye.
I'm a mother of a child very similar to Carlos when he was a child. She's sweet. She loves dinosaurs. She's an angel. She's ethereal. She's an empath that carries a sadness in her that runs deep for others' pain, especially animals and small creatures. And she's a warrior. I'm lucky my aunt and I have seen the similarities from the beginning and I can try to learn from Carlos' trouble. I can try to help her stay out of the boxes, shape the world to her vision, ignore the voices that tell her she doesn't fit.
My grandma and my aunt have said to me, time again, "you're the perfect mother for a child like her."
I would say the same thing about my aunt. No other mother could have loved Carlos the way she did. No other mother could have seen his purity through his pain. No other mother could have been strong enough to listen to his distress year after year, and still smile, still buy his tea and his granola, still keep a bed for him.
My cousin held on as long as he did because of his mother, the love, the bond, the only thing that kept him in his skin. He didn't stay for drugs or alcohol, for money or material things. His mother was what kept him human, flesh.
My uncle says he didn't kill himself. The disease killed him, the depression, the voices in his head.
I disagree.
He killed himself. He did not die a victim of depression or disease. He died a warrior. He killed those voices, the depression, the disease. With a knife and a rope, a smile, and a fuck you, he escaped.
If there is a God, and even if there's not, I imagine that when he finally shed his skin, finally burst free from his earthly box, a giant fellow angel swooped down from above, eager to embrace his spirit, pulling him into the shroud of her shimmering wings and whispering, "finally, finally, finally, you let go."
With Carlos I think it's the reverse. I cry for his life, for his pain, for how dark it had finally gotten that he finally gathered the courage to flee his demons after twenty eight years. I celebrate his death. For him. He won his last battle.
As far back as I have memories, to when I was nine, when he came home to the states, I remember an angel.
Only, ever. An angel.
He had a big, fluffy, curly afro as a baby, and a big, wide smile. "Is that real?" People would ask my aunt as we walked through a store with my cousin. "No. I put a wig on my one year old." She would roll her eyes. Even then, people didn't get him. But she did.
He loved dinosaurs when he was a toddler. He played with Power Rangers as a kid. His first bedroom was bold reds, blues, yellows. Happy colors. And he was a happy kid.
Except for when he wasn't.
Mostly, I think that when he wasn't happy it was because he was beginning to realize that his skin didn't fit right. The world was too small, too straight, too.... just wrong.
When he wasn't happy he went to a dark place, inward, deep inside, and voices told him it was him that didn't fit right. He was too big, too crooked, too... just wrong.
And, on some level, I think what the voices said was true. He didn't fit right. He was too free, too wild, too open, too observant, too wise, too... unearthly.
An angel. A tortured angel.
He saw through all of us, through the need for a BMW, the need for the perfect hair cut, the need for an office job that pays 50k a year with health benefits and a 401k plan. He saw the depths of the ocean and the smallest creatures as they crept. He saw life as fragile and imperfect and too goddamn fucking hard.
Once, in the car when he was a young boy, he was struggling with a math problem in the backseat. I remember the despair when he said "Ugh! I'm such a loser! I'm no good at this!"
My heart breaks for that kid. The kid with lizards that he kept so carefully in a room whose door always had to be closed so as to maintain the right temperature as the beloved lizards, Luna and Sun, crept along their branches that reached up to the ceiling of his room. That kid loved life, just not his own.
His mother always assured him that he was not a loser, that she loved him, that he was perfect the way he was, dreadlocks dripping down his back, plain black t-shirt over slightly baggy jeans and worn tennis shoes, drinking his yerba mate before heading off to another job, this time at the vet, that time at the shelter, this time at the reptile room, that time at the smoothie shop.
She loved him even when he drank himself to oblivion to chase away the demons, when she found drugs, pipes, empty bottles, and a passed out full grown man in her bathroom, still too drunk to pick himself up and head back to a bed. She loved him even when he screamed at her "Why did you adopt me?! Why should you love me!? I'd be better off dead! I should just kill myself!" And even when she screamed back, out of years of pain and frustration, agony and a simple loss of what to say after she had heard these words hurled at her, thrown at her, leaving dents in her soul, "If you were going to kill yourself, you just would! You wouldn't be talking about it!"
Oh, what kind of mother says that to her son? What kind of son slices himself up with a knife, hangs himself from the bathroom door in his mother's house, the house of the only person he could always turn to?
The kind of mother who is out of options, who is at her wits' end, who gives and gives and gives to a man who doesn't know how to do anything but take and take and take, crying all the while that he doesn't want to take, he'd rather be dead.
The kind of son who knows that his mother's home is where he needed to die. And who is finally ready to do it. He needed to be with her even in his last moments, even if that meant she found him, even if that meant breaking her heart one last time.
Carlos was tortured soul. An angel sent here to battle demons.
An angel? You ask. How could you call this monster an angel? He terrorized his mother, he destroyed himself, he caused everyone around him pain and misery. An angel?
Yes, an angel. Let us remember that Michael was an angel. Raphael was an angel. And yes, Lucifer, was an angel. They were also the fiercest warriors. They battled demons and fought endlessly against a reality beyond our comprehension. And Lucifer, God's mightiest warrior, his most trusted, beloved soldier, dared to question his will. So we label him devil.
So Carlos questioned the world. He questioned the boxes we all live in. He never belonged in a box. He questioned the rules of the game. He was never any good at games. He battled with the voices in his head that told him he was in the wrong place, wrong time, wrong life. Just because we couldn't hear the voices doesn't mean they weren't real, demons with black eyes and charcoal wings, snickering at his pain, chasing him wherever he went, turning dreams into nightmares and love into agony. And he battled with the real live voices of those all around him who he knew were saying the same: loser, waste of life, devil. He battled and battled his way through a world he never really belonged in. And he battled his way into a death that gave him the sweet release he had no other way of finding. Like a warrior.
We say, about those who commit suicide, "if he could only have gotten through this phase, if he could only see, if she could only wait, if she could just listen."
Carlos did wait, he did see, he did listen, and none of it helped. He put his pants on one leg at a time countless times, went into work countless times, surfed through his pain countless times. He cared for animals, and he mostly remained calm and patient with those of us humans too attached to this world and determined to stay on our hamster wheels, running and running and going nowhere, then judging him for daring to refuse the wheel. We say "carry on." He did. He carried on, and on, and on. Until he just couldn't carry on anymore.
He did cause everyone around him pain, but only because it hurt us to see him hurting so badly. Our hearts break to see him so broken, and always with that broken smile. And he was so quick with a smile for so long, but it was always a smile with sadness in it. He was ethereal, made of material that shimmered if you looked too close, like he was already half spirit, but couldn't shake his flesh.
Looking back now, I hear different words in his enraged outbursts, the quieter, softer, hidden words under the shouts and the yells: "let me go. let me go. please just let me go."
There was no other path for Carlos, there was no day that saw a brighter future, the world was not going to change, and neither was Carlos, and the two could just never see eye to eye.
I'm a mother of a child very similar to Carlos when he was a child. She's sweet. She loves dinosaurs. She's an angel. She's ethereal. She's an empath that carries a sadness in her that runs deep for others' pain, especially animals and small creatures. And she's a warrior. I'm lucky my aunt and I have seen the similarities from the beginning and I can try to learn from Carlos' trouble. I can try to help her stay out of the boxes, shape the world to her vision, ignore the voices that tell her she doesn't fit.
My grandma and my aunt have said to me, time again, "you're the perfect mother for a child like her."
I would say the same thing about my aunt. No other mother could have loved Carlos the way she did. No other mother could have seen his purity through his pain. No other mother could have been strong enough to listen to his distress year after year, and still smile, still buy his tea and his granola, still keep a bed for him.
My cousin held on as long as he did because of his mother, the love, the bond, the only thing that kept him in his skin. He didn't stay for drugs or alcohol, for money or material things. His mother was what kept him human, flesh.
My uncle says he didn't kill himself. The disease killed him, the depression, the voices in his head.
I disagree.
He killed himself. He did not die a victim of depression or disease. He died a warrior. He killed those voices, the depression, the disease. With a knife and a rope, a smile, and a fuck you, he escaped.
If there is a God, and even if there's not, I imagine that when he finally shed his skin, finally burst free from his earthly box, a giant fellow angel swooped down from above, eager to embrace his spirit, pulling him into the shroud of her shimmering wings and whispering, "finally, finally, finally, you let go."
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