nick and will

I hate the way people talk about [[death.->2]]

For the longest time, I didn’t think it should even be talked about. Ever. [[next->3]]

During the months after Will died, I was infuriated by anyone’s palliative attempt to sum up his life for me. "He was this." "He did this" As if I needed a recap from them. I knew what he was. I knew what he'd done. Why couldn't they just say they were sorry? [[next->4]]

There were reasons for my bitterness. Will was an incredibly private person, and lived a life whose contours few people knew about. I probably knew the most about it. But it didn’t stop people from coming up with some Hallmark one-liner that I felt I had no choice to accept. It felt insulting, like they thought they knew him better. [[next->5]]

After all of this, I’ve come to a conclusion. Be aware, it's an intense one. I believe that a person’s fear of responding appropriately to bad news makes them selfish. "fear of responding appropriately" - meaning, the fear that they would say something wrong, plus the pressure to say something right. [[next->5b]]

These are the questions I want answered, in order: How should we respond to death? Is there a right way to do it? Isn’t there a right way to do [[everything->7]]?

I have some idea of what I think we should say. Of what we COULD say. What do you think? [[A1: "Yes, I want to know"->8]] [[A2: "Chase, you are a crazy person, please have some sympathy"->9]]

THIS is what I wished all of my friends would’ve done. [["I bet this is complicated"->8a]] [["Dammit, now I'm nervous for this"->8a]]

If you think I am merciless, you likely will not benefit from hearing any more of this story. Please [[start over->1a]] if you'd like, but be mindful that it will all be the same.

It's actually very simple. I wished they would’ve hugged me, said that they were there for me, and not said anything. Saying stuff is what gets you in trouble. [[A1: "Ok, fine"->10]] [[A2: "Wow, that was easier than I thought it would be"->10]]

This morning, I am in bed thinking about another friend of mine who has probably died. He was in the Oakland fire on Friday night, and has been missing for over 24 hours. [[next->11]]

The funny thing about experiencing grief for a second time is that it all feels familiar. I know what to do, how to take care of myself. When I got the call yesterday, I had hope, then felt stupid for having hope. I don’t like being surprised. I hate being on a losing team. When I was a kid, I'd warn my parents against having a surprise party; I couldn't predict how I'd respond when everyone jumped out, and would sometimes rehearse these responses in my bedroom. My brain told me to prepare for the worst. [[next->12]]

I don’t like that I am this way, but I am trying to find a better way to be. [[next->13]]

Yesterday I asked myself, what should I do? Now I ask you, what would you do? [[call friends->13a]] [[call parents->13a]] [[listen to Nick's music->13c]] [[be with people->13d]]

I'm glad to hear that's what you would do. Perhaps you are a stronger person than me, in that you are able to be truly open with others. Of course, I tried doing it too. It makes sense in these moments to call friends, to stutter, to lose control of yourself. I did that yesterday, but now I feel stupid for doing it. Invulnerable, hardened. Like I gave up a part of myself by needing solace. I even feel stupid for writing this poem, but I think it’s important to discuss the things we do when we’re at a loss of what to do. [[What's next->14]]

For a while I thought the best response to grief was to sink into it. Computers allow this to happen. In my bed, laptop resting on my belly, I open old photos and videos. I sit here so long, rooted so deeply, that after a day I cannot feel my legs. I did this after the election, and I'm doing it now. But you can only do this for so long. [[next->14]]

Being with people is the best choice I can think of, and probably the healthiest. Nice job. I would challenge you, though, to think about what will happen if you spend enough time with these people. People for me are an escape. If I spend too much time with them, the patina wears off, and I start to feel again what I'm escaping. Because it is you, not the group, that the feeling is coming for. [[next->14]]

[[As you can imagine, social media makes this harder to negotiate.->15]]

Here's what I mean by that. When I was 13 years old, in a time long before social media, a girl from my middle school died on the baseball field. It was during gym class, and her entire softball team watched her get airlifted out of our tiny town. I didn’t like the girl very much — I won’t deny it. This is probably another merciless thing to say, but she was mean, annoying, and often lied. [[(Merciful voice: but she was only twelve. I suppose she never had a chance to grow out of that.)->16]]

In the months following her death, in a time before social media even existed (but the social impulses for it, atavistic, deeply-ingrained, already did), I saw people from my middle school exploit their connections with her. Even my friends, people I loved and trusted, wore necklaces with her name on it. [["TAYLOR"->17]]

It is not up to me to adjudicate their grief. To appraise it. Maybe they were grieving in their own way. For many of us, it was our first experience with death. As I watched my friends, I felt that they weren’t so much grieving Taylor, her name, as they were grieving the fact that they now knew what death was. [[next->18]]

This seems like the right way to explain: I remember deciding, as a bossy thirteen-year-old who was merciless even back then, to visit the large banner they’d put in front of the school. It was for Taylor's parents, the Simmonses, and all of us, the students, were meant to sign it. [[visit the banner->19]] [[back to original argument->20]]

I left with a friend, also 13, who was also Taylor’s tennis captain. This girl didn’t like Taylor either. Her name was Maggie. She was our homecoming queen, our student council president, our best singer and dancer; she was everything. A bit of a celebrity in our town, and somehow likeable. My younger brother loved her so much he named our family’s cat after her. Maggie the cat is 16 now, soon to die. [[Maggie (the human)'s story->19b]]

Of all the things that death does, one thing it does is challenge your integrity. How you respond to it is a question of what you will let yourself do. What you will let yourself say. It is also, to be merciful for a moment, very complicated. [[next->21]]

I watched Maggie stand in front of the banner, signing it in spite of herself with a big black marker, knowing somehow at age 13 that her doing so in good conscience would be fake. She was conflicted. I could tell this about her, because she’d waited all day to go out there and sign, and when she said the two of us should go, her tone was begrudging, like we were doing it ‘cause we had to. [[What did I do?->19c]]

I watched her. If you want to see strength in human form, try watching a thirteen-year-old girl who is also the most beloved person at your school fight back tears while in front of a colorful memorial. Watch her cry for a split second then stopper it up out of dignity, out of knowing that she’d hated Taylor, but that she still needed her moment. I was impressed. This is what respect, and self-respect, looked like. [[next->19d]]

Maggie didn't have to do what she did. She at an age where she could’ve overblown her reaction far beyond what she'd allowed herself to . Could’ve run screaming back into the school, collapsing, claiming she needed to be sent home. She could’ve spent a day at home, stoking the fears of her classmates, churning the gossip mill. Others had. But, as far as I know, I’m the only other one who knows about that moment. Now you know. [[next->20]]

Yesterday, after I received news about my friend, I felt compelled to tell someone. Even the I saw walking down the street. I don’t know why I wanted them to know. I didn’t want attention. I didn’t want their sympathy. I just wanted someone else to know what I was feeling. Probably so I didn’t have to think about it, only it, for another five minutes. My feelings colored everything I did. I was very aware that everything I did was wrong — the way I rushed through the metro doors selfishly, without waiting for passengers to exit. I felt like I should apologize to the people I’d cut off. I was not normally like this, I would say. It all unraveled from there. [[next->22]]

I am among the guilty too. To me, I am the guiltiest. At Will’s funeral, I gave a eulogy that I never want to read again. I’d spent half a year living alone with Will in our apartment. Just us, with no other friends in the area. I spoke mostly to him in those months, sharing our five years’ worth of shorthand. We had our own language, and I’d wed myself to it. But at the funeral, I was not allowed to use it. I did not feel allowed. I had to translate him into a language meant for everyone. [[Everyone.->23]]

What is integrity? Will said, it is your own standards for the way that you privately do things. It is a relationship with yourself — your process of figuring out what you allow yourself to do. It’s a beautiful, invisible thing that I did not have much of when we met, and that he often did not forgive me for not having. But Will was very unremitting in his [[standards.->24]]

Perhaps I should not judge people so harshly. -- Joanna's story -- Last year I was walking around New York with the girlfriend of someone who’d recently died. I was discussing the ethics of it, from my perspective, as someone whose friend had also died. About my uncle Mike, I said: “his friend gave a eulogy about a time when Mike clogged the toilet. Literally, that was his eulogy.” My friend laughed. She thought it was funny but wasn't persuaded. “Isn’t that just their way of focusing on the good things, though?” I considered it. Of course it was that, but I wasn’t sure that we should allow that. I didn’t want jokes. I wanted everyone to be struck as dumb as I was. To respect the unspeakability of a life ripped away from the world. Death is like staring down the earth's maw. Why do we try to talk over it? [[next->25]]

This friend was doing much better with her grief than I was. I was still shadowboxing on Will’s behalf, still turning my nose up at those ten-paragraph emails I received about the loss of Will. Can’t they just send a goddamn card? I thought. But we’d gone to Brown, so we were wordy. I was fighting on behalf of who he was, defensive with those whom I felt judged him for taking his life. What seems stupid now is how little Will would’ve cared. [[next->26]]

Last year I was walking around DC with a person I’d known for years. She had a friend from college die in a kayaking accident and needed help with her grief. The friend, Vera, and I spoke elliptically about ourselves. There we were, in our early twenties, eating fucking ice cream and talking about grief. There were children around. It was a summer day, and we were failing to communiate ourselves well. Neither of us knew what to say — were choosing our words too politely, I about Sam and her about Will. I probably hadn’t finished a sentence in two minutes. “I bet they would think this is so funny,” I said “Wherever they are.” Then Vera laughed at me. Just by saying that, we’d moved beyond the silence. Death was a thing that they did that they were probably over by now, even if we were still silenced by it. It was the best moment I’ve ever had with her. [[next->27]]

I am learning to be merciful with people, and with myself, but that is all going to be tested [[soon->28]].

When Will died, I was the resident expert on his life. His roommate, his interpreter, his defender. I felt so many obligations, and I felt guilty — guilty for how I looked to others, afraid because I wasn't sure of what others were thinking. Could I have done more to prevent his death? [[Now Nick]]

Nick is a different story. Nick was my roommate in a house with eight other people. Nick was the ringleader of a group of friends that defined my college experience. Since yesterday, these friends have been calling me often. They want to talk about grief. [[next->29]]

I don’t know what to say to them, and at first I didn’t know why they were calling. People I haven’t spoken to in years. When I asked another friend about it, she said, “they’re calling because they think you know what to do.” Earlier that morning my dad had asked how I was. I said “this isn’t my first rodeo.” But many of them are tender, familiar, experiencing this for the first time. [[next->30]]

I do not blame them for what they say, and I am trying to there for us, to be strong, as someone who might know enough to do this thing right. [[Whatever that means.->31]]

Or maybe it’s just one of those thing we have to let go. Because so many people, usually older people, are getting it right. [["OK, but I am young and I'm not sure what that means"->32]] [["Yes I am old and I'm getting this thing VERY right"->32]]

As I've said before, I believe I have some idea of what you could say to a person who's grieving. Because it’s exactly what I would’ve wanted, and is what very few people gave me. [[next->33]]

Although a few people did. [[next->34]]

Hugging is important. [[((When is it not?))->35]]

I think about the number of hugs I received versus how many I wanted. It's an imbalance. My parents were too afraid to hug me. Will’s parents couldn’t touch me — I looked too much like their son. Basically a substitute. Will’s high school girlfriend had to cover her eyes when she picked me up from the airport, noting my shoes, shorts, similar mannerisms. “I can’t even look at you,” she said. But she still hugged me. [[But which hugs were the best?->36]]

The hugs that meant the most were the ones that had no strings attached to them. [[-> ..Meaning?-> 37]]

...Meaning they were from people who cared 100% about me, as well as caring about themselves. [[-> Q: Like who?->38]]

Well, for example, There was Will's old philosophy teacher. A 70 year old lady who'd taught him at camp, who wrote his college recommendation and compared him to a supernova. (The recommendations said, to be accurate, "if there is any student who could spontaneously combust from his love for the world, it's this one.") I knew how much Will loved Joan, and vice-versa. I’d invited to the funeral even though she wouldn’t know anyone there. I don't think she'd mind me telling you this, but she was a very, very small woman. looked at me and said something like “I don’t want to lose this,” and pointed at the two of us. Then she said, "I know you're busy helping everyone else, but who's watching you?" Then she asked for my phone number. That's the kind of person I want to be. [[And it's not hard.->39]]

It's not hard because truly caring about someone, caring about them more than yourself or the respectabilty of your response, is easy. It just requires that you care about people. [[next->40]]

If a friend asked me how to be of service for a friend who's grieving, I would say this: I can remember the hugs that felt real. The statements that felt trite. These are things that people remember when they are at their worst, when they need them most. Of course, no condolence-wisher gets or deserves a performance review. But matter our capacity for mercy, we should try to do our best. [[And with that, here's my final story->41]]

I can remember that parent, a father of a friend of Will’s, who invited me for dinner after the funeral. He said, in passing, that the length of a person’s life does not determine its quality. Maybe it was something about the way he said it, or how he looked into my eyes afterwards, but for the first time in public, I was like "oh okay, cool." Then I cried. In front of another man. A nice, empathetic man. And I wasn’t embarrassed about it, because he’d said everything I needed to know he’d be fine with it, that he wouldn’t judge me. [[That is the kind of person I want to be.->42]]

Love you Nick Love you Will

On many occasions, the people who gave me their condolences were seldom worried about me. (I think every person knows how it feels to be truly 'cared for'. I could feel the lack in what they were saying. I know they too were struggling, and I felt for them, but I was hurting too.) What it felt like was that they were trying to be a caregiver for their own selves, as proof that they could. But perhaps, as a friend said, I am being too merciless. [[next->6]]