Godammit, I’m Mad!

It’s been nearly a year and I’m surprised to still be here. I swore I’d go after him if he left. But things are complicated.

June 6 will be a year. I know it’s just a day on the calendar but still I feel the weight of its significance. I have to go to the grave, where I’ve had to pay for a granite marker. I don’t think I can bear it but I have to. I haven’t been back since we buried him. Mostly because I pretend he’s around, maybe in another room or maybe in New York, where he lived for so many years.

When no one can hear me, I whisper to him and beg him to come back. Maybe he’ll hear me and change his mind.

I’ll miss him every day for as long as I live. It’s better when I stay in denial.

I wish I could hug him and smell him. I’ve been reading all the email we sent to each other: All the links to things we thought were funny or enlightening or stupid, all the mp3’s he sent me, all our complaints and encouragement. Thank god for email. It’s so full of our relationship. It’s a way to spend time with him. It’s something to treasure.

If I have to keep living, maybe I can do something that Max would be proud of, or maybe I can help with suicide prevention. In the end, even though I know there’s no god or heaven or hell, I know we’ll be together.

Some days are easier than others.  I’m still thinking about the Bitter Intellectuals project. Max would love it. We need a url to get started.  Just try to bear with me while I work through the bad days.  xoxo

There aren’t really stages of grief, there’s just a big rupture and then a big mess of denial, anger, shock, guilt, etc. etc etc and none of it is orderly. Right now I’m in a state of disbelief and I’m guessing it’s adaptive, to keep mothers from flipping out.

I am seeking solace anywhere I can find it but I can’t listen to the news or look at fashion.

I’ll tell you what’s good: TV.

TV is a great panacea and pacifier. Reality TV is best. Crazy “Housewives” screaming at each other is like manna from heaven. My husband and I are taking comfort there. Scream and fight, Housewives! Never stop!

True Blood worked for me but not so much for my husband. He’s just not gay enough, I guess. When Sam and Eric eyed each other up, the thrill was electric, wasn’t it?!? Eric’s butt was too small for my taste but on the whole it was a yummy festival of hot gayness.

TV is my church and I will worship there. My bed is a place to hold Max’s stuffed animals from his babyhood. My fridge is stocked with weird leftovers from the meals brought over in sympathy.  My tolerance for idiots is being severely tested. My gratitude for kindness is fine-tuned. I can report that aside from TV, you really, really need friends.

Love is all that matters. Remember how we learned that before? It’s easy to forget. I’ll try to remind you, and you can try to remind me.

This is Mandy. Today I learned that she died from an overdose. I don’t know what her drug of choice was. I think she took anything she could get her hands on. I met her at the rehab place where I went every week to visit a loved one.

She was a very wounded girl who I wanted to save, but you can’t save people. That’s supposed to be obvious.

She was around 23, anorexic, miserable, desperate and defiant. She manipulated everyone around her. Even me. I didn’t really mind it, though. I wanted to help. I thought she just needed love and support. Everyone at the rehab place expected her to end up dead, such was her commitment to hurting herself.

One day after she left L.A., I erased her text messages, thinking they took too much room in my phone. I kept one though, and I don’t know why. It says: “Thanks, I had fun today.”

Poor little Mandy. Underneath the tattoos and bravado, she was an innocent child who someone must have damaged long ago.

She used to put her head down to show me her blond roots, which she hated. I always responded by showing her my own roots, the gray ones. It was like an alien greeting and it made us laugh.

Other people are reeling from losses today, and my heart aches for them, but it aches most for Mandy.

Send her a prayer to the god of your understanding.