Wave

I will kill myself soon. But until then how do l tame my pain?

I am in the unthinkable situation that people cannot bear to contemplate.

Their promise, my children's possibilities, still linger in our home.

I would plead into the darkness, where are they, bring them back

And as the wind gusted against those windows, I saw how, in an instant, I lost my shelter. This truth had hardly escaped me until then, far from it, but the clarity of that moment was overwhelming. And I am still shaking. They would indeed be aghast to see the mess I am now. This is not me, this is now who I was with them.

I must stop remembering... The more I remember, the greater my agony. These thoughts stuttered in my mind... I must be more watchful, I told myself. I must shut them out. I couldn't always keep this up.

I will kill myself soon. But until then, how do I tame my pain?

the reality of being here eludes me, I can’t focus, I am dazed. And I want to stay this way. If I have too much clarity, I will be undone, I fear.

Seven years on, and their absence has expanded. Just as our life would have in this time, it has swelled.

I steer clear of telling. I can't come out with it. The outlandish truth of me. How can I reveal this to someone innocent and unsuspecting? With those who know my story I talk freely about us.... But with others I keep it hidden, the truth. I keep it under wraps because I don't want to shock or make anyone distressed. But it's not like me to be cagey in my interactions.... But now I try to keep a distance from those who are innocent of my reality. At best I am vague. I feel deceitful at times. But I can't just drop it on someone, I feel--it's too horrifying, too huge. It's not that I should be honest with everyone, the white lies I tell strangers I don't mind. But there are those I see time and again, have drinks with, share jokes, and even they don't know. They see my cheery side. And I kick myself for being a fraud.... I can see, though, that my secrecy does me no favors. It probably makes worse my sense of being outlandish. It confirms to me that it might be abhorrent, my story, or that few can relate to it.

Maybe it is not so overwhelming after all, to dissolve the divide between now and then. In those months and months after the wave, I could hardly bear to hear the names of my children’s friends. And when I began to see them again, I was afraid of being reminded of how my boys would be, of knowing what they are missing. I see my children’s friends often now. They are bubbling over when we meet, I enjoy their sparkle. And they make my boys real, so they are not beyond my field of vision, as they were in those first years.

The more I remember, the more inconsolable I will be, I've told myself. But now increasingly I don't tussle with my memories. I want to remember. I want to know. Perhaps I can better tolerate being inconsolable now. Perhaps I suspect that remembering won't make me any more inconsolable. Or less.

I was dizzy in that room. I felt faint with disbelief. I held on to the seat of my chair to stay upright. I knew what was going on, but I couldn’t absorb any of it.

Occasionally an insensitive relative might walk away if I mention my anguish, and I reel from the humiliation of my pain being outlandish, not palatable to others.

Somehow on this boat I can rest with disbelief about what happened, and with the impossible truth of my loss, which I have to compress often and misshape, just so I can bear it -so I can cook or teach our floss my teeth.

The more I remember, the greater my agony.

I must stop remembering. I must keep them in a faraway place. The more I remember, the greater the agony.

Broken and bewildered, my brother had the house cleared and packed away, painted and polished, all in the first month or two after the wave. For him, that was the practical thing to do, to impose order on the unfathomable, perhaps.

How hideous, that there should be a pecking order in my grief.

Thank you most of all to Mark Epstein, my extraordinary therapist. This book would not exist without his guidance and persuasion. With him I was safe, to try to grasp the unfathomable, and to dare to remember.

But I have learned that I can only recover myself when I keep them near. If I distance myself from them, and their absence, I am fractured. I am left feeling I’ve blundered into a stranger’s life.

By knowing them again, by gathering threads of our life, I am much less fractured. I am also less confused. I don’t constantly ask, Was I their mother? How can so much of my life not even seem like mine? I can recover myself better when I dare let in their light.

I’d never heard shrieking like this before. So wild, wretched, it frightened me, rattled the wall I was holding on to. This noise was crackling into the numbness in my head. It was blasting the smallest stir of hope in my heart. It was telling me that what had happened was unthinkable, but I didn’t want this confirmed. Not by wailing strangers, I did not.

These blue whales are unreal and baffling, yet surrounded by them I settle awhile. Somehow on this boat I can rest with my disbelief about what happened, and with the impossible truth of my loss, which I have to compress often and misshape, just so I can bear it—so I can cook or teach or floss my teeth. Maybe the majesty of these creatures loosens my heart so I can hold it whole. Or have I been put in a trance by these otherworldly blue whales?

Is this truth too potent for me to hold? If I keep it close, will I tumble? At times, I don't know.

I stun myself each time I retell the truth to myself, let alone to someone else. So I am evasive in order to spare myself.

But here in my home, I will be destroyed by getting too close to the life I lost.

In a few hours it will be light. It will be tomorrow. I don't want it to be tomorrow. I was terrified that tomorrow, the truth would start.

I hadn't shed a tear all day, and I wasn't going to. Not with all these people here, not now.

I trip up constantly, between this life and that.