01/13/23

I don’t want to talk about the end, I want to talk about the middle. The most challenging part for any writer, the best part as your daughter.

There was the March we healed our codependency by binging all of Schitt’s Creek in a week.

There was the summer I pretended some girl was bullying me at camp so I could spend my days going to lunch with you instead. 

There were the Friday afternoons where you’d write notes to get me out of PE so we could go shopping. It was during one of these Fridays that your sister called to tell you she was pregnant and the three of us were so enmeshed, it felt like this was our baby too.

There was the Justin Timberlake concert you dragged me to when I was 10. I kept falling asleep as he grinded to Rock Your Body and you prodded me awake, making futile attempts to get me to stand up and dance.

There were the Pokemon movies you took me to, the Rugrats sequels you endured, all the times I begged you to watch Rocky and Bullwinkle because I was utterly besotted with Natasha.

There were the brownies we baked for Dad, the way you patiently allowed me to help, until soon I took the reins as the family baker, reins you generously handed over. 

There was the car accident we got into when I was little, the one I don’t remember.

There was the trip we took to Paris, the one where you were about to back out of before I broke down at the airport because it was unfathomable to go anywhere without you.

There were the nights you slept in my bed, even when I was in my 20’s, because Dad was gone and you hated sleeping alone. 

There was that week in Tokyo when you took us to Kiddy Land every day, content to spend your vacation in a toy store. You got tired of eating sushi every night and let Lucas go to omakase with Dad while we stayed at the hotel and ate tuna tartare with French fries.

I stopped eating meat because you did, convinced our stomachs must be the same.

At lunchtime, you used to drop off chicken nuggets from McDonalds because I was so picky, and the other girls got so jealous, the school had to ask you to stop.

You ate dulce de leche out of the jar in London without even a hint of shame. You got nervous when we would wrestle with Dad, even though I reassured you we loved it. Any hint of violence, loud noises, even locked doors – it all transported you back to your childhood. 

You started having a panic attack when we flew to say goodbye to your mother. I noticed immediately, carefully attuned to the subtle ways you exhibited fear. We started to sing Tomorrow, quietly belting that the sun would come out, Dad’s fingers linked with yours until your forever dazzling smile started to creep its way onto your lips. 

I watch movies alone now. I don’t want to share them with anyone else, don’t want their opinions clouding the ones I’m developing for you in my head. There were the films we talked about seeing, the ones we never got the chance to because we weren’t aware we were on borrowed time.

This conversation feels too one-sided.

Easier to read yet another murder mystery, to allow myself a brief respite from the suffocating truth:

My mother, the most intoxicating person I have ever known, is dead.

Yesterday, I reached to grab a glass bottle, one you bought to be kinder to this planet that is no longer yours. I paused for minutes, like a photograph, my arm suspended in the air.

How tempting it was, to bring the glass down on my head. How tempting it is, to jump out a window. To wade into the ocean with rocks in my pockets. To stick a knife into my leg.

One small cut a day. It would make it easier. 

Except it wouldn’t, because you’re watching.

Every day I try to give you the very best show I can. 

But a survivor who’s lost the will to survive can only try so hard.