August 20: Supernatural Event, Why, Maggie Nelson, Adventures of Stickman

What did it feel like?  He felt the way that young girl whom he and Annie had once seen falling through the air had felt.  Expression tormented, he spent a long time before the mirror, reading into his own face great foolishness.  He did not like to look back and recall the last days of that other Ives.  He wanted to be drunk.  He had nothing to say.  Getting two weeks' sympathy leave from the agency, he spent much of the time pacing up and down the hall and standing by the windows.  It meant despairing about the supernatural and yet waiting every night for a supernatural event.

That is Ives' way of grieving.  He's angry, confused, and heartbroken.  A devout Catholic all his life, Ives, for the first time in his life, questions God's wisdom and goodness.  I think, in his pacing and staring out windows, Ives is waiting for some sign, anything at all, to provide some sense to a seemingly senseless situation.  He's dealing with the big question that plagues anyone who loses a loved one, especially someone very young.  That question is simply "Why?"

I have been asking myself that question a lot today.  I returned to work this morning.  It was difficult walking into the medical center.  Everywhere I looked, I saw my sister.  Walking through the parking lot.  On the stairs.  In the hallways.  Once, as I was looking out a window on the third floor, I swear I saw her in the rain, in her blue scrubs, carrying her ever-present mug of ice water.

I don't understand why my sister had to suffer so much the final year of her life.  Or why she had to die.  She was a good person.  Selfless, for the most part.  On more than one occasion, when I was strapped for cash to get my car fixed or buy Christmas presents for my kids, money would suddenly appear in my checking account.  Sure, she could be stubborn to the point of exasperation.  In the end, however, if I asked, she gave, no questions asked.

I don't see any divine plan in this big pile of cow shit.  I just see shit.  During the course of the day, I would get hit by a tsunami of grief.  I would sit in my chair or stop dead in my tracks, choked with great liquid sobs.  It felt like I was drowning.  Literally.  Then I would float to the surface again and be able to move.

I know I will never understand the "why" of my sister's death.  It will never make sense to me, and I will have to learn to accept that.  I know God doesn't make mistakes, but, in this case, I think He had better options.  For example, there's a certain billionaire running for President of the United States right now who would have been an excellent alternative, stupid hair and all.

Not that Saint Marty is telling God how to run the universe.

90 from Bluets

by:  Maggie Nelson

Last night I wept in a way I haven't wept for some time.  I wept until I aged myself.  I watched it happen in the mirror.  I watched the lines arrive around my eyes like engraved sunbursts; it was like watching flowers open in time-lapse on a windowsill.  The tears not only aged my face, they also changed its texture, turned the skin of my cheeks into putty.  I recognized this as a rite of decadence, but I did not know how to stop it.

Adventures of STICKMAN