I wake up each day thinking of Maya, her sweet smile and her sense of humor. I go to sleep each night longing for her company, for the moody teenager who I always loved to hang out with in spite of it all. I try to wrap my mind around “gone”. I cannot process it really, not yet. I cannot understand what this means. I will never see her again, never hear her laugh, never try to make her smile, never see her sadness or her joy. It is too much, too much to comprehend really. All of the poetry, readings, talking and crying don’t seem to make it comprehensible. Not yet.
I keep thinking about the cliche of “adversity makes you stronger”, and “pain is your greatest teacher.” I don’t want to be stronger or wiser. I just want Maya back. And yet, I cannot have her, and that is my path. If I accept what is, can I bear it? If I let go of the hope, can I survive? Will I be stronger and wiser, or just crumble under the weight of it all? I cannot reconcile this. My head hurts in the thinking about it. My body, like never before, reveals my anguish. Mind and body are one like I never knew they could be.
So many unanswered questions. The not knowing hurts so much. The work is to accept that which I do not want to accept yet. Maybe in time…
Making Truffles, 2011
Hanukkah Presents, 2013
Last night we celebrated “Jewish Christmas” at our house. It is just an annual tradition, a few friends come over for dinner on Christmas Day. Our New Paltz version of going out for Chinese food in NYC. We eat, make chocolate truffles, enjoy each other’s company. Maya’s absences is palpable, yet I continue, in large measure with the loving support of friends and family. I don’t know much for sure right now. But I do know that I could not survive this alone.
I am reading all your entries and thinking about what you are saying and sharing. I don’t have any answers, just presence. Even from my perspective, as a friend, it is so hard to fathom. All I know is that you’re brave and honest and open. And that you, along with your friends and family, are with you on this journey. Love you
Dear Mathew,
You will never be alone. You are too loved by too many for that to ever happen. I am not sure what I can do for you that in any significant way will help, but I can assure you that I am here for you, Elise and Adin, always.
Jody
Dear Mathew,
I want to be here, on these pages, to bear witness to your journey toward your “new” life. Your words burn with an unintended brightness, an exquisite pain, which I understand only too well. At some point in our lives, we get to live in the day to day experience between the two worlds of the seen and unseen.
How hard it is to come to grips with the reality of the death of one so young! So much reliving the initial moments of the event. In time, during our tragedy, I realized that I had been living with PTS (post traumatic stress) as well as all the “what if’s”. It took a great toll, as well as a year to pass through this phase. I wrote poetry, sat in nature, most especially gazing into the night sky, with the intention of staying in connection with our Brian (age 19). It worked! Time passed, and one day I realized it was no longer useful to relive the time of death, or even the sense of tragedy and unfulfilled potential. I had somehow, come through the other side of loss, with the realization that he was now forever with us, in every way, because although the body may have dropped away, the relationship, his love is ever present. May this happen for you both, on your terms, within your own timeframe.
With love and understanding
Peace, Mercedes Calderon