Grief edits, grudge math, sadness fatigue
Today, I stayed after school to shoot the breeze with a kid who told me she felt bored and lonely. We sat in my office and I made her laugh and she made me laugh, and then I said, “All right, kid. I’m going home.”
Because there were other things waiting me. I had to do a thing for a friend. Take the dog to pee. Drink a water. Do another round of edits on my book. (Aside: I have been so blessed as a writer to have the most outstanding editors. Editing is the most important part of the artistic process — at least as far as my long winded, spazzy writer self is concerned.)
So I sat down outside on a camp chair. It’s getting to that real sweet spot weather-wise in Tucson. The last couple of days have been in the mid/upper 80s, overcast, dreamy. I sat down in a camp chair with my computer and my headphones and I made those fucking edits.
If you’re going to make the fucking edits, make the fucking edits.
I’m still leaning heavy into my “fucks” in mourning and remembrance of my Uncle Al. (I do not drop F-bombs at work, obviously.) My uncle’s services will be held tomorrow in Iowa. I know nothing more than that. I sent flowers. He would have fucking hated the flowers so I made sure the card attached was “in the style of Alan Gruber.”
Yesterday, I felt like walking and looking at the world and remembering my uncle. I have no funeral, no wake, no service, no tradition to partake in to partially resolve my immediate grief over his loss, so I am trying to invent my own ways. One was a long walk with one of my best friends (Mike Levin), that concluded on 4th Ave where Mike shouted to God and everybody, “Thank you, Uncle Al!”
But I needn’t worry for his memory. All over the globe humans are shouting their thank yous, in their own ways, to my Uncle Al. He was unforgettable to everyone who met him. I’ve seen countless people, this week, on social media refer to him as a “second dad.” Wow. That’s some fucking success. That’s the success that matters, and that’s presently not at all the type of success that pays the bills.
What does pay the bills? Who the fuck knows. What I do know is that Capitalism kills. Killed my uncle. Might kill me, too. Healthy people don’t live and die under the kind of stress life in America necessitates. They can’t possibly.
Though my uncle was much older than me, he was not very old by “modern medical science” measures. His death has brought up a lot for me about what I want for myself going forward, about how I can be kinder to myself, gentler with my body, more forgiving of others and myself.
Things are desperately difficult right now, reader. I cannot lie. My health remains good, and my American life feels more and more burdensome. And as every single k-12 educator in this country knows, this is not a year for the faint of heart, mind, or spirit. And even those of us who are quite strong of heart, mind, and spirit are really struggling right now. Be nice to teachers, you fuckers.
And I’m sad. I’m just plain sad because someone I really loved, someone who I always knew, died way sooner than I thought he would because I did somehow believe on some ridiculous level that, at the end of the day, my Uncle Al was fucking infallible.
He wasn’t. Neither am I. Neither are you. Doesn’t that make you furious? It makes me furious tonight.
The last death that really impacted me in any meaningful way was the death of my last grandparent, my grandmother in spring of 2019. My grandmother was a smart woman and she “peaced out” at exactly the right time in her American life. On levels both personal and political. Seriously. That woman was wise to the very end.
Anyway. When my grandmother died, in the Pre-Pandemic times, in my pre-stage iv cancer times, I agonized over how I was going to afford tickets to fly out to see her, I flipped the fuck out and had to get subs for my classes and all of that for what? I got to Iowa and it was good to see a handful of people, but one never gets quality, meaningful time during “events” (and death, in this fucking country, is another Hallmark Event — it’s big fucking business). One never really gets anything out of it but tradition. And what good has tradition, particularly American, “Western” traditions ever gotten me?
So my new tradition: fulfill my responsibilities to the best of my ability, try to eat, try to sleep, don’t drink booze, don’t smoke cigs, try to limit dairy. No amount of travel, in this moment, will change the fact of my case: a dearly loved one died to this life, and this is one of the worst parts of being human because it hurts more than damn near anything life has got to throw at us. And it feels, sometimes, like it’s happening to us. I can get real lost in that murky feeling: why is this happening to me?
And nothing is happening to me. I’m sitting in my yard, wrapping up a blog post after a day of teaching and editing and writing. I will make myself some tea and talk to Sarah and then I will watch an all-too-gripping documentary or foreign film until my brain has mercy on my body and lets me sleep.
Happy Monday, fuckers.
