A Post Mortem Thank You Note

I used to be one of those kids who could ID what they wanted and make a bee line for it. Tunnel vision- what I wanted I got- sometimes in non kosher ways. But that decisiveness and drive were in me. Somewhere between patterns handed down from parents and surrogate parents, life kicking my ass, and living unconsciously and for and through my ego, I lost them. I always joke that if you hate to see me agonizing  over choosing  between two jolly rancher flavors, you really don’t want to see what I’d be like buying house. My head is always spinning, always weighing everything in an endless torment of factors and facts, when I should really just be discerning enough to look inside and get my answer. And I say should be, because inside all of us there is that spiritual self- that along with  body, emotion and intellect- is the wisest part of us and it has all the answers, the answers that our past traumas don’t let us trust. I don't trust myself.

 For all of the previously stated, to me, people who can intuitively skip the bullshit and not only know what they want but take immediate steps toward execution, are a bit of a rare miracle. We mostly live in transference and ambivalence, sometimes not even our thoughts are our own. All these rule books, written and unwritten, the shoulds and should nots. How freeing it must be to inherently know to follow your heart. To say no timid yeses , to have our no’s not be tepid no’s. To have the greatness to take bold steps and then not look back or retreat. To say FUCK, YES and ABSOLUTELY NOT. And mean it, and stand by it.

I lost my father when I was twelve, and at that juncture of an impressionable age I happened to have the fortune to have befriended a girl who was an only child. She became one of my closest friends throughout what have now been three decades. I was that kid her parents invited over all the time, on weekend getaways and even family vacations. So close was my relationship with her parents that in our twenties their daughter and I got in a fight over a boy and I threatened to them to not go on the trip. I told on her, she told on me. Typical family dynamics between siblings.They mediated, we made up, and we all went to Cancun together. Years later I was a bridesmaid at her and that boy’s wedding. That man who treated me like a second daughter gave her away.

My memories of him include the one where he  gave me my first job out of high school which consisted of making a report of the closing of the Coffee Sugar and Cocoa Exchange and sending it out, via fax, (ha!) to the major coffee growers in El Salvador. He also was the first person to ever fire me. Maybe because instead of doing the report I ate sandwiches with his daughter in her room. What I remember working with him is that day in day out I was both intimidated and mesmerized by this man, this force, that took over , loud, assertive, busy, determined, authoritative, dynamic. I never saw him blink or fret. Regardless of what he was pursuing  he always went for it-he never half assed a thing. If he ever had doubts, self or otherwise, it was never apparent. 

Last week his life was taken from him, brutally, cowardly. There will most likely be chatter about the circumstances, speculation. Big small talk for those who have nothing better to do. It’s just too easy for people to weigh in  and judge. It’s easy to condemn. You see, pointing out that the neighbor needs to clean up his yard is easy, even when our own yard is in front of you in desperate need to be  worked on. Destroying things is easy. It’s easy to ruin a reputation or break a heart. You know what’s admirable? to repair. Because it takes the very best disposition in us to repair broken things, things that aren’t whole or even useful. It’s hard work, it takes thought, and time and focusing and empathy. The bad in us comes to the surface readily, almost automatically. The good has to be pulled from depths of our soul that we are not used to tapping into.

 I have the leisure to be sitting at home doing one of the things that I enjoy the most because my boss-, for reasons that I completely understand- would not allow me to be absent for the two days I needed to travel for the funeral. I  went into his office knowing that I’d probably come out of it with no job to come back to. I was right. I had to choose- take the two days, pay my respects, kiss my lifelong friend or get a paycheck. I, unlike Don Marcos, have spent the last shitty year in painful ambivalence- weighing in on  my life, my marriage, my opportunities and  my choices. I’ve been to more therapy than I ever thought a person  would need in a lifetime. But as I stood there there was no ambivalence, and the best way to pay my respects to that man who was kind to me and generous beyond what most people reading about him in a newspaper will ever know is to have calmly looked around and made my choice. No weighing and backtracking. Clear as day. A paycheck over sentiment? (and here I can hear his voice) ABSOLUTELY NOT.

May you rest in eternal peace - and thank you,thank you, thank you.

Seventeen

 When I was seventeen I had mostly dreams, a unencumbered future, a HUGE crush on my best friend, and perhaps a tiny bit of teenage angst. I had by then experienced my  fair share of sadness, having lost my father and grieved the death of my close friend Karina, but I always found enough reasons to be happy.  Like sunflowers, I followed the light - And it was luckily right there in my environment. It was in the face of my friends and the unity of our class as we entered our senior year in high school.

  It always strikes me as brutal how alone, sad and attacked kids in the United States feel in contrast to my own teenage experience. I wonder if it was the small size of my school and class,  the fact that we started together in Kindergarten and saw each other grow into the eighteen year olds we became as we left for college , or the  blessed lack of social media. We had slam books but the slamming was never horrible or aimed to cause irreparable harm. We were held  accountable for the smack we talked , as we did not have the luxury of anonymity or hiding behind iPhone screens. We were family, and like family, we did not always like each other but the bonds of every day motions  created an inevitable closeness that does not allow for  wanting to harm someone you've seen grow up alongside yourself.

Twenty two years later I find myself thinking of a seventeen year old boy who took his own life this past weekend. When I first heard about it I had the same reaction as everyone. Tragic. Such a young life. The words depression, breakup, and bullying were mentioned.  I also heard he belonged to my club and participated in water sports there. " One of the good , polite kids", someone said. So what drives a nice boy to jump in front of a train? 

His friends came by the shop today  to buy flowers and little succulents to put in a memorial at the train station. They weren't capitalizing on  their grief as an attention grabbing vehicle, like some adults I've encountered in similar situations. They seemed stricken but only in the way girls that age can be. Their faces a mix of sadness and youth and sweetness. As I wrapped each bouquet  trying to be sympathetic and professional at the same time, my heart broke a little. How does one cope with an event like this at such a young age? How does one say goodbye to a friend one had no idea was in so much pain? Why does a kid with his life ahead of him have to feel like the only way to make things better is by dying?

Driving back home this evening I was about to pass the train station when I felt the need to say a little prayer for him . The flowers his friends bought were there, along with little pots of  succulents, desert plants - soaking wet , like me, under the rain. And his picture. He reminded me a little of my friend Marcela's little cousin, who we still call Eduardito, despite the fact that he's in his thirties now.  He was smiling at someone , looking to the side. So young. I tried to say something and all that came out was  " I'm sorry, I'm sorry". I'm sorry you felt hopeless, I'm sorry your sadness was so great you needed to escape it in such an extreme and terminal way. I'm sorry we as humans in general, aren't better.

How many faces do we see every day?  Have we any idea of what is really going on behind each one of  them?  People we work with, the guy we see every morning in line for a Starbucks coffee, the guy who gets the door.  What about those closest to us?  Is it possible that two inches away from us they feel like they're drowning? How would we all look if our mental and emotional wounds were as visible as our physical ones? Would we be capable of being cruel knowing someone is in excruciating pain? Would seventeen year old kids still jump? I did not know him, or his family, but I know this- we all can and we  all should be better. We are starving for empathy and love as a society.  We all need it and  we still don't give it. There is so much at stake and the lack of connection and community thread and legitimate caring is taking its toll on all of us. Sure, we can't be responsible for everyone's feelings- we can't , in that sense, save the world. But as a very special woman I recently met said to my group in a retreat in California " You can't carpet the whole world, but you can put on shoes".  We can't change people's reality, but we can adjust the way we behave in the world. Put on your shoes. Be gentle, be kind.  Please. Teach your kids. Pass it on.

Little Women

1990's

I grew up in a society whose silent message to girls  was that it was important to be pretty and amiable. Looks and charm were the golden key to go from living off your parents to living off your husband, with a pit stop in college along the way. The women I grew up around- bejeweled, slim, sartorially savvy- they did not  have jobs or work. I make the distinction because house work, for stay at home , present, involved mothers- is very hard work. No, the women I looked up to had great hair, and drivers and the invisible hands of staff that kept their  pillows fluffed and their fridges full, their children's needs met. I thought that was the blueprint of a great life.  It is only now that I am their age and that I've made my own choices  that I see that their life was not one big holiday like I once thought. The vulnerability of signing your life away to some dude is an incredibly high price to pay for so called comfort.

2000's

My first failed attempt at marriage, after dropping out of law school to follow the blueprint. The neglected child still living in the young woman that I was scratches her head in confusion. I had waited all my life to be loved. So wasn't love supposed to carry the day? I lived in ambivalence, going  back to school being my logical choice but always in the backroads of my mind the thought that my Prince, my White Knight was still out there. And he was coming to save me- save me from myself , save me from having to make my own decisions, which I was never trained or encouraged to do. Save me from fighting my own battles. So I went  on to  kiss a lot of frogs. None of them turned into a Prince. I finally  graduated from law school and was by that time gainfully employed. I had great friends. My life was not what one might call too shabby. Regardless , all of that did not make me feel that good about myself because being smart and accomplished meant nothing to me if  there wasn't a man in my life to validate the qualities I possessed, but was blind to. I wasn't enough.

2010

I was no longer a bar star, and quite enjoyed working at a law firm as an Associate. I had started moving up on the ladder and even had my own paralegal. Unlike a former one who in hindsight hired me  for being -for a lack of a kinder word -"a piece of ass",  my boss  then treated me with equal respect as he did the guys and paid me equally too. I had started to discover the joys of independence. At the same time I started to discover the joys of a relationship free of drama, not coincidentally, with a man who treated his mother with the most respect I have ever seen from a son. We stayed together long enough for the subject of marriage to come up. We said our I do's, and I started from scratch in a new country, dependent all over again.

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2017

It appears that I did nothing but chase romance down for the best part of my twenties, as opposed to some young women who had a clear path in mind. A career oriented path. These women became CEO's and CFO's and Marketing Wizards and Doctors. and Mathematicians. These women became bosses. These women somehow had night vision for what I failed to see- that all a woman really  needs to become who she wants to be is already within herself. Then society comes along and tells us otherwise. And we believe it. We believe the story we've been told over and over and through the years. It is a belief so strong to shake, a lesson so hard to unlearn that it has taken me a lot of observation and soul searching and therapy to finally value myself and to see everything I have to offer without belittling it, without shying away from it like some unsolicited compliment. At thirty eight years old I can finally say I know my worth. And I don't need a man to prove it to me. I have a family (both by  blood and friendship) that I'm an integral part of and has taught me lessons in loyalty and kindness,  a raised scar that proves I'm a mother and that I have made sacrifices for it,  a degree that proves I'm smart , whether I work or not- a badge that says I'm a firefighter, someone who gives a shit. I have an oil painting of my child  done by me that proves I have some talent. And still, at the end of the day I am  only one of so many women,  the ones we know, the ones we cross paths for two seconds at an airport, or barely register at drop off at our kid's school, all with our own stories to tell, tapping away at my computer in my little bed in a little suburban town. Yes, you could say I'm just a number, but I beg to differ- I am, we all are, so much more.