For the first time in a while, I’ve not been sure what to add to this blog, as might have been obvious by the more than two weeks that have passed since my last post.
Some of it might be professional pride. There are only so many variations I can use to write “I miss Colin” or “It would have been better if he hadn’t died” or “It’s very hard to keep on going without him.” As a writer, I want to do something a little different every time I sit down. And yet, it’s only been weeks since I wrote that I need to keep this blog going. Not for the couple of dozen of people who follow it. Not even for me. But for Colin. He only got five years and almost two of them were spent with his illness hanging over him like a dead weight. So, I have to keep trying.
And it’s not as if nothing new has happened. The apple in the photo is from Colin’s tree, the one his day care gave to us after he died. It still barely comes to my waist, but it produced five fairly big apples this year. None of us has trusted ourselves to cut into it and taste it, but, from appearances, it’s nicer and bigger than most of the apples that come off of our significantly taller and older apple tree in the same yard. It is coincidence? Is it a sign? you know that we choose to go with the version of the story that makes this a sign of Colin looking down on us.
Perhaps the gap in writing can be attributed to my 50th birthday. And it’s not as if I feel much older or wiser (certainly not much wiser, when I think about certain irresponsible behavior with alcohol on the night of my party), but I find myself getting hit with the idea of my age that much more often, in ways I don’t really remember since when I was about 7, and had a week of sleepless nights when I finally had the realization that I would grow old and die. Notice that, when I was 7, the possibility of a young death didn’t even enter my mind. I tried to picture how I would look when I was old and remember being terrified by the idea that I would be frail and helpless. And it’s not quite as bad this time – honestly, I’m in far better shape than I would have ever expected at age 50 – but there are the moments. It probably didn’t help that, in the week before my birthday, I had to write or translate accounts of people dropping dead at 54 or 57, which feels very close. And, true, I shouldn’t lose sleep when thinking about the case of Michael Williams – I have no plans to pick up a drug dependency in the next four years – but then there was a recent case of the German ambassador to Beijing who dropped dead about a month ago. If there’s been a cause of death, I still don’t know it. And he was 54. And I suppose things like that freak me out a little bit more than they did pre-50.
I keep coming back to the idea that so many people are freaking out about the pandemic because it’s made it so clear to so many people in denial that we’ll all die some day, and it might not be peacefully in bed when you’re 90. It might be a truck or a stupid virus or it might be cancer. I hate how well we’re aware of the fact. My children know they’re not mortal. Aside from that weird week when I was 7, I spent most of my childhood thinking I’d live forever. Now I feel like a harbinger of death most days, always reminding everyone that their kids might be the next to die and that, yes, they too, will also die.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think people dread my presence. If you squint and apply enough alcohol, you can forget the worst of it. But it will just keep coming up at the moments you least expect it and then I’ll have to be the one reminding everyone that you’re going to die, because my son did, so I’m well aware these things are going to happen. And I know you all know that. All I can say is that my awareness of death now versus how I felt before Colin got his death sentence has been pretty radical.
So, I guess, reading this, I know why I’ve been avoiding another blog because, this is some depressing stuff. But, then again, I don’t suppose anyone tunes in here for their daily dose of positivity.
Life goes on. Perhaps in turning 50, I’ve decided to resist the virus. In the last two weeks, aside from my party, I’ve been to: a bar; a restaurant (actually, the same restaurant twice); a sauna; and a house party. Precautions were taken each time, but we still went. So, I don’t think anyone is laying down and waiting to die. At the same time, at the bar, which was a work event, I finally met a colleague I’ve only ever gotten to know via Slack. And I couldn’t help myself. At some point, pretty much out of the blue, I found myself telling her about Colin, because I thought she should know. Because if I keep telling his story, then he’s not quite 100% dead. I suppose it all flows together, moving on with my life and holding on to his life and death at the same time.
Hopefully the next blog will be more of an upper. Perhaps we’ll try the apples and I can give an update on those. Take care everyone.