Dueling Dualities and a Two year old Shit sandwich 

I finally got COVID.

After years of general avoidance and one acute instance last year of caring for my husband and child without testing positive myself, that second little line made an appearance. I’m not sure if it’s irony or synchronicity; and while I’m sure that the distinction is important, as I sit in my sickbed it doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Two years ago in July my mom and sister also were laid up with this plague on different sides of the world, Sara in the Dominican Republic and Mom back in our valley. Sara tested negative the week before her attempt to ignore gravity failed on the 25th, two days after her birthday. Like all the members of my family before me, the illness has been relatively mild in symptom though completely disruptive in daily consequence. 

Mom and I were trying to remember the last time I was sick enough to spend the day in bed and decided I was still in single digits of sun revolutions. My faithful little black cat has been plastered to my side, making up for the week we were out of town just before returning and testing positive. The irony is that our vacation (where it seems I picked up this lovely little bug) was about as isolated as can be. There was no plane trip, or amusement parks, packed beaches or crowds of any type. We took almost all our meals to go and ate at the rental because of our dogs.

There is little rhyme or reason to these things anymore and so the ‘how’ is less important than the reality of ‘now.’ 

It feels like a synchronic irony that I am being made to sit with my thoughts and few meaningful distractions while what would be my sister’s 38th birthday and deathiversary pass. Unwanted time to reflect on all the things that have come and gone. I remarked often when processing Sara’s death how adjacent life manages to be unaffected by the gravity of personal loss. The moon, sun and tides keep their immortal time. The only ending that matters to them is the supernova and consequential black hole of our sun. I am left to sit here and ponder how my sister’s supernova resulted in my own black hole. A point that seemed to pull everything toward its center to unknowable destinations beyond. 

Life post Sara has been different, yet the same. 

Because our last decade together was physically so distant, there is very little about my daily life in Maine and family routine that has changed. The biggest change has been the construction of Mom’s adjoining unit and her move here to live with us. I can’t articulate the joy this has brought, especially in this current situation where I can’t hug or care for our daughter and mom’s presence is indispensable. A thing made possible by Sara’s passing.

There are still many ways grief visits me. Most salient is seeing others with siblings growing old together, this my most stark touchstone of untimely loss. Watching holidays, reunions and family trips forever out of reach, but still available to others. These tableaus make me as joyful for them, as I am sad for myself. Like when my cousins (my dad’s sister, both him and her are gone more than a decade now) comment on how happy they are to see me living with my mom, knowing they are missing their’s. When we make these comments to each other, remarking on how glad we are to see the other in the company of our own missing family part, there is no guilt intended. It is an expression of deep heartfelt joy at seeing a gift not possible personally. A thing happily witnessed in the life of another, in a way only the bereaved fully appreciate.

There is an internet story about a man golfing with a widower friend and complaining that his wife wants him to cook chili for dinner again, resulting in their golf game being cut short. After a couple more holes and a noted change in the widower’s mood, the friend asks him what’s wrong? He says quietly “just cook the chili.” While the story may or may not be true, it is an excellent allegory for how I feel as the years go on without my dad and sister.

When someone is with you it becomes easy to take them for granted. To be bothered by their inconsistencies, inflexibilities and foibles. My mom’s Tai Chi teacher and dear family friend refers to these things as someone’s “beauties.” He is a wise and deeply sarcastic man, and lover of all the less savory bits of existence. He is adept at expressing joy and distress in equal measure, while not placing value on either.  A man who lives his life without a rug to sweep things under, all things are up for discussion. He loved my sister her whole life. I was sitting with him on a beach when my Oma passed just six weeks after Sara. When I saw my mom taking the phone call from my cousin, I said to him “I think Oma died” we nodded to each other and continued to watch the pelicans dance above the waves as my daughter searched for sand dollars. Enjoying the earthly moments we were still blessed to behold together. 

A shared, silent and unvarnished acknowledgment that life goes on, until it doesn’t.  

The number two seems to be a theme in this writing and as I think about it more, I find it is rather apt. Sara and I were two of a kind. There are only two of our four original family members left. Today is two years since she died, two days after her birthday. Having a mom who has practiced Tai Chi daily since she was twenty means the symbol of the Yin Yang has always figured prominently in my life. A talisman of balance and two opposing forces dancing together eternally, dueling dualities. These two sides are indivisible, one does not exist without the other. They give each other meaning and power. It is easy to forget they are not a static form but one born of moment, representing the push and pull of all existence. 

I appreciate my life and the people in it much more because I have experienced deep sudden loss. As much as the void left by my dad and sister still hurts, it has made space for whatever I want to fill it with. I know that these are far from the worst things that can happen. In Duma Key, Stephen King writes “God always punishes us for what we can’t imagine.” I am a person with OCD and lifelong intrusive thoughts of catastrophe. I can imagine so many worse things than the untimely loss of my dad and sister. It is still a bitter fruit that juxtaposes every other flavor in my life, so I will let it make the remaining meal sweeter. I still have that choice. As a chef I know that the most important ingredient in any dessert isn’t the sugar, but rather salt. Those who leave it out, or put only a token amount find their confections one-sided and often left unfinished by their consumers. 

Sara’s last few drawings were produced with a ballpoint pen as she sat isolated in her room in the Dominican Republic waiting for that little line to go away. Much as I am now. They are beautiful reminders of her talent, things that would not have been possible without an illness that made her sit still. Final gifts to the world just before she left it, to be among the stars.

I can only hope that I have more time to experience life and share it with family. Their birthdays and anniversaries are good reminders that future seasons are not a promise to anyone and to enjoy the salty bits of life with the sweet. Life is in a constant duel with death and I hope that I get more years to bear witness to the push and pull of grief and elation. A full life is not without loss. People often ask how I’m doing, wanting to know what it’s like after a death they don’t want to contemplate in their own life. I understand the curiosity mixed with hesitation and fear that these honest inquiries will bring about a new wave of grief. 

I can only speak for myself and say that life goes on, if you let it. 

I have written before about how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole of loss and how the creatures down there are not fluffy bunnies. Life’s only constant is change, and so is grief’s. It is equal parts holding on and letting go. Missing them, and acknowledging that my life did not end with theirs. It seems impossible that it has only been two years. Time is measured differently when it comes to death. The only thing like it is watching children grow. Somehow time is compressed and expanded simultaneously and you experience life in a way completely different than before. 

Two years into this shit sandwich, a lot has changed because I let it. “The world has moved on.” Another apt Kingism that often comes to me when I think on these things. It’s ok for everything to be different, for the whole world to have transformed so profoundly that it’s unrecognizable. Though I find it more likely that it is me who has changed into a version of myself that I never wanted to imagine. Having navigated waters and situations I would rather never see, I have landed in a foreign place I never meant to visit. In more ways than one. 

As I sit in my sick bed, surrounded by our little Maine homestead, two years post sister I can say that I am happy. Not with the details, but with the possibilities I still have. The permutations of my life are no longer endless, as many doors have closed for good. That is the way of things. There is an important distinction between dual and duel. Life has split for me, but I don’t have to be at war with that reality.

Happy birthday Sara! I’m not as mad at you as I was two years ago and for now that’s going to have to be enough.

Be well, and thank you for reading.