Yesterday (may 4th )my nephew Elijah would have turned four years old. Oh, wow where is time going.
I just learned that today/tonight, yesterday (I'm writing at a weird hour. sorry) that the fourth of May is Star Wars day or something. He was born on Stars War day.
I have had many discussions at work about nerd culture and whether I fall into the category of nerdom. It's weird, I didn't think that there needed to be any discussions on whether I was a nerd. Apparently they weren't friends with me in high school or college.
It wasn't until I moved up here that I learned that my nerdy, and geeky and book wormy self does not automatically classify me as a nerd, per se. Not to any of the people I hang out with anyway.
In actuality, I am a person (by somes standards) who has all the nerd like qualities while lacking the essential 'depth' to earn the nerd badge. The depth stems from the fact that I have never seen Star Wars and apparently any one who considers themselves a nerd has had to seen Star Wary.
Yep, I may be the only person in the whole entire world who hasn't seen any of the movies. And not because I haven't had access to them but because, in all honesty, I have had no interest in seeing them.
I like some space movies, but this one has never drawn me in. And, like my hesitation with Doctor Who, I'm afraid it's nerdiness will suck me in.
So I haven't seen them. I haven't even made the attempts to. And apparently in nerd land, or being a human being land, this disqualifies in terms of labeling myself a nerd.
And today of all days I learned that the 4th is a huge stars day. Everyone at work kept saying things like "my the fourth be with you' while I shrugged my shoulders and went about my own solitary business.
When someone asked what was wrong, I mumbled something along the lines of 'i don't give a shit about Star Wars day' and sulked away. Because May 4th will never be Stars Wars for me. It will always be Elijah's birthday. It will always be some day that we won't be able to celebrate with him. It'll always be a day where I'd like to acknowledge he existed among the stars just for a little while.
Grief continues to be a very weird thing. I am more emotional around his birthday than the day he died. For the past two years my family and I have used July 4th as a celebration of his short life. We pretend that the fireworks that light the sky are for him in some weird celebratory way. That everyone is kissing the sky with their praises of him.
But on his birthday, I can't escape the reality that the day of his birth will always be difficult. It will always remind me that time continues to go on without him. That every year we get older and form new memories and bonds and yet he will always be a life interrupted in our story.
And I don't know anger. Not real anger anyway. I don't know how to be completely pissed at whomever for his death. I can only feel this incredible sadness around his birthday. I can only imagine who he would have been. And the truth is more devastating than fiction.
We weren't incredibly close to his mom (my brothers ditsy ex-girlfriend). She moved away before Elijah was born and remains in the Midwest somewhere. She was a nomadic sort of gal with no homestead and an eagerness to escape. We have stopped any and all communications with her even though she calls every once in a while to see how we are doing. We blame her in a way. We have our reasons.
And I know, that if he'd reached four my mom, brother and I would have been very distinct relatives to him. We would be voices on the phone. Corny birthday cards and oddly smiling people in photos to him. We wouldn't have known him that well, I wouldn't be able to tell you his favorite color or tv show. I wouldn't be able to describe his laughter or cries. I would only be able to tell you that I loved him because he was family. The first born son to my very immature brother.
Even then this reality of what his life at four would have been is not what keeps me up at night. It is not what makes me sad on the fourth of May. The toddler I imagine him being and the life I wished he would have had continues to weigh heavy. I am overcome by tears from time to time; at work, walking home, or in my room at night because what I mourn the most about his death is that he will never get to be a part of this stupid beautiful, terrifying and strangely comforting world.
He will never get to not watch Star Wars or misbehave in public to the point where my mom gives the evil eye. He will celebrate holidays with us or graduate kindergarten. He will never grow to hate or resent us, like we all do of our relatives. He will never grow to accept our craziness for love and to bury his face in our shoulders.
And everyday the world just keeps revolving and happening and going on. We just keep getting older and celebrating dumb Star Wars day and being alive ....and he's not here to be apart of it. And I don't think I'll ever get over that. I don't think it'll ever make sense of that in my mind.
His birthday continues to be difficult. We continue to talk about him as the 'baby'. As if he isn't really gone at all but instead just tucked away into some pocket of time we aren't allowed to access yet. As if he is hiding and waiting for us to find him.
But it's weird to say that with time, grief is becoming bearable. That the will pangs of sadness flood me even more than the did when he died, I am learning to adapt out of love. That with time, we aren't forgetting him, we are just learning to adapt around his absence. Out of love. It what keeps us going.
It makes it easier, knowing that while time is erasing the particulars of him from my memories that I can hold on to the fact that he continues to be loved (terribly) and missed (terribly) and mourned (terribly) on May 4th. A day that will forever be his. Out of love.
5 comments:
hey there, i ran into this blog and got immediately attracted by its peaceful mood. i chose the last post to read and i'm glad i did because i've been through a very similar experience. by years i found out it never goes away, but it gets easier to maybe accept it..maybe that's why we're afraid to forget the people we love sometimes, but we'll never stop loving them. i'm sure of only one thing, whether they're around or not they know how much we love them and this thought just comfort me and take away a bit of the guilt we're feeling. i hope that you feel that way too.
after i read the post even though i don't know you guys, but i felt that the 4th of may is Elijah's day because it is.
i'm really sorry for your lost and i'm sorry for the long comment and sorry if i sounded like a smart ass who knows everything. i really don't mean it.
thank you for sharing this beautiful post :).
Thank you.
And you don't sound like a smart ass at all. I promise :). It actually means a lot knowing that there are people that can relate. Sometimes you can feel so alone with grief that all you really need is for someone to say 'they know how you feel' to put things in perspective.
Thanks for reading Everything was (and i apologize for the debbie downer posts), and thank you, thank you, thank you for your kind words. I feel less embarassed for posting this post now.
I can't say I know how you feel, because I have never had to deal with any baby-or-child deaths. Other deaths, yes. Ones that happened when I was small, and so I never got to know the people who died. But I miss them. Terribly. And I love them. Terribly.
I had this training session at the animal shelter last week, on taking care of bottle baby kittens (tiny ones with no moms). Very often, bottle babies die - because they're tiny, and they're fragile, and even when you do everything you can, the world is too much for them. The woman doing the training has been doing bottle babies for 10 years. And she said: "it is sad, when they die. But you know that in their life they were warm, and well-fed, and loved. They died being warm and loved, and with a full belly."
And honestly? That's not such a bad thought. Isn't that what we all want, really? To be warm, and well-fed, and loved?
I'm a bit jarred by this post because yesterday, after a student recommended it, I started reading a YA novel called Dear Zoe. The narrator is about 14; her toddler sister was hit by a car and died. On september 11, 2001. So the narrator writes about the struggle, because that day is, for her, all about Zoe, when for everyone else, it's all about sept 11.
Stupid Star Wars.
I was thinking of you and your nephew all day yesterday (and that heartbreaking song from *Where the wild things are* - which, now I think about it, is about being warm, and well-fed, and loved).
you are welcome, always :).
I'm so sorry for your loss, again, each year and every year. I don't think it ever goes away, the grief. A lot of belief systems try to make death acceptable, try to make it easier and even embraceable. But I believe death sucks, it is wrong, it is the ultimate foe. We were never meant to die.
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