Two Rivers Merge
Synthesis is magical, a healing balm – even with grief.
Michelle called me every day, even while I was on Kauai. These days, she talked about Ash’s birthday party. He’d be age-two in two-weeks. “I bought Elmo plates,” she’d told me on Saturday. “I finished the invitations” she had said on Sunday, “I’ll send them out, tomorrow”.
I later learned that Michelle handwrote every invitation, personalizing each one. I learned that she called many people every day. I understood her friend Jay’s guilt about not answering her call that Monday. I felt guilt, too, about not calling back on Sunday, when I sensed something was not ok.
I learned, from one of her neighbors, that Michelle (with Ash in arms), had dropped a rubber-banded bundle of invitations by the apartment building’s mailboxes Monday morning. I knew that the bundle was picked up and sent out, because I received my handwritten invitation to Ash’s second-birthday party, the day after I arrived back in Vermont.
Somehow, these details matter.
It’s Monday, March 21st, 2005. A nightmare wakes me up and I look at the clock: 9 am (Hawaii time). A calm, clear, inner voice says: the nightmare’s not significant; it’s the time. Remember the time. I sense that I was just handed a puzzle piece, and set it into the proper puzzle box in my memory.
Later, going back through the details, I calculated that 9 am Hawaii time was 2 pm Fitchburg, Massachusetts time. Michelle had dropped Ash off at “Auntie’s” at 1 pm. Between 1 and 2 pm, she would have picked up that man she’d known three-plus-years before, brought him back to her apartment, and started the beginning of her end.
I’m on an island, 5,096 miles away from Michelle… and wake up knowing something is very wrong, though I do not know what. As I attempt to start my day, I roll into a full-blown panic attack. I’ve never had a panic attack, but I know that’s what’s happening. My heart is pounded, racing. I’m sweating. I can’t focus. I want to jump out of my skin; I’m pacing back and forth. There is something else I should be doing – somewhere else I should be. But… I don’t know what or where. I try to clean, to eat, to meditate. And I pace – back and forth, all around this temporary island home, over and over, barely able to bare it, until suddenly – the anxiety stops. My phone rings and I see it’s 11 am (Hawaii time).
Later I learned that my daughter fell loudly into the bathtub, dead from a heroin overdose, at 4 pm. Later I’d calculate that 4 pm Fitchburg, MA time was 11 am Hawaii time. Later, my life would be changed forever. For now, who I was still exists. For now, I answer the phone and it’s my friend Dee.
“I have a lunch break coming up… thought you could pick up a couple of things… I can make us something… come over…”
Dee is cooking something. I’m not paying close attention to what she’s cooking – I don’t even remember what I bought at the store; it’s been a strange morning and I’m still feeling ‘off’. I hear Dee talking to me, like fog in the background, when my phone rings. It seems to pull my attention clearly front-and-center.
I look down and see that it’s Michelle’s number. Yesterday, when we hung up, I felt that things weren’t right. There was something under the surface; something under the veneer of two-year-old-birthday-party-planning. We had hung up. I had stared at the phone. I had wanted to call back, but Dee wanted my attention. I had told myself the take-it-for-granted excuse that: we’ll talk tomorrow. I chose to pay attention to Dee. I did not call back. That was Sunday.
Now it’s Monday, and she’s calling. Now, she has my attention.
I tap the little answer icon and raise the phone to my ear. “Hi Hunny,” I say. I hear Barry’s voice – not Michelle’s – saying: “Ami, Michelle’s dead.”
Later, Barry would apologize. He’d tell me that he repeated what he’d been told. He’d explain that he was called at work + told that Michelle was taken to the Leominster hospital… that he drove to the hospital, walked in, + told the receptionist he was there for Michelle Maglin… that someone came out, handed him her phone, and said: “Michelle’s dead”.
I guess that’s how it’s done when someone arrives DOA from a heroin overdose. No wasted time on sentimentality.
I imagine Barry standing there, in the lobby of Leominster Hospital, alone – his life partner’s phone in his hand, staring blankly at it. I imagine him, on a kind of auto pilot, dialing me – her mom… his mom – and repeating exactly what he’d just heard.
“Ami, Michelle’s dead.” I heard his voice, heard the words. It just didn’t make sense. I thought: “Why is Barry calling me on Michelle’s phone? Why is he saying this?” My jumbled mind could only decipher this as a bizarre joke. And then, a clear, calm, inner voice said: “just cry”.
Weeks turned into months turned into years. The tears slowed down. Slowly I fell back into a scheduled life, with lots of expectations and responsibilities.
It’s mid-summer to early-fall of 2017. Four friends die – one each month. One to disease, one to cancer, one to a motorcycle accident, one to suicide – all great losses. My friend Pat’s suicide is the hardest to take. At this time, I also start psychosynthesis training.
During our January break, I plan to fly to Florida, to support my long-distance-husband in moving his dad (my father-in-law) to a facility for those with dementia. It’s been a very difficult decision, a life-changer for all.
The night before flying out, I talk on the phone with my son-in-law, Barry. It’s Monday. Monday nights, Ash (who lives full-time with me now) calls “Daddy”. Ash likes to use the speakerphone, so I overhear Barry’s tone of despair. I take the phone from Ash and ask Barry, “What do you want to do?” “I don’t know” he mumbles. “Do you want to fix the engine or get a new car?” “I don’t know.” “Let’s pull the family together to help.” “I don’t know.” The last thing I say is: “I love you, Hunny”, though he doesn’t respond. I give the phone back to Ash, and feel unsettled.
I didn’t think to ask if he felt suicidal. Two-plus-years earlier, after recovering from a near-successful suicide attempt, Barry had emphatically said he’d realized he “didn’t want to do that to the [two] boys” (Ash and “little brother”, Elle). Michelle had been emphatic, too. Whenever I expressed concern that she might want to use again, she’d say: “heroin was a phase. I’m done with that”. For three years she was done with that, though I learned those were white-knuckled words. For almost three years now, Barry believed he would never end his life, though I know now that despair can overtake best intentions.
I arrived in Florida on Tuesday. The following Tuesday, while talking with Ash on the phone, I learned that Barry didn’t answer Ash’s Monday night call the night before. It was not unusual for Barry to miss a call; sometimes he got called into work and was unavailable at ‘Daddy time’. He often didn’t let Ash know. This time, though, Ash’s report settled like a sickness in my stomach.
The next night – Wednesday – I receive a call from “Auntie” Loie. Later, I would learn that Barry had ended his life on Friday or Saturday – that his body laid on his apartment floor for 4 or 5 days before it was found by the police, prompted by a well-check request.
It’s Wednesday night. I’m in Florida. I answer the phone, and Loie’s sobbing loudly. “He’s dead,” she screams. She’s hysterical; she can barely catch her breath to explain: “Ami, Barry’s dead!”
How does one respond to a person in hysterics? What does one do with this information?
I did what I had to do and became a voice of reason. Over the next day-and-a-half, I kept in touch with the family through their mode of communication: social media. I stayed on top of every post - asking for it to be taken down - to keep this news out of the public eye, until I could get home. I carefully planned how I would fly home (early) to Vermont (without alarm), gather with a group of supportive friends, and deliver the news to my 14-year-old grandchild that “Daddy died”.
Cumulative and complicated loss can throw a person into a whirlwind. After I calmly and collectively did what I had to do – viewed Barry’s body, helped clean Barry’s apartment, attended Barry’s funeral, supported Barry’s family, and mostly, supported Ash – I let down. When I let down, the storm took me. I was thrown into grief like a sharp javelin-type knife, stabbing and cutting open the past. Barry’s suicide threw me back 13-years – to losing Michelle – to the raw grief I’d first felt (for years) after hearing: “Michelle’s dead”.
That’s a lot of loss and emotional pain. I can understand if you, who are reading this, need to stop right now and take a breath. This story has a lot to take in. It’s a lot of trauma to read about. It’s been a lot of trauma to live through. Breathe it out now; let the trauma go. If I can breathe the trauma out, you can, too.
Now, it’s February 2018 (one month later) and I’m at our psychosynthesis training weekend. It’s the first one after the break. Our guide is using the psychological function: ‘imagination’, leading our cohort in a transpersonal meditation into the heart. Internally, I’m standing in front of the entrance to our heart-space. “Notice what the door looks like,” our guide says. “Notice what’s inside the heart-space,” she continues. “Find the wise entity with a gift for you,” she prompts. “Bring the gift with you when you leave,” she instructs, and closes the meditation.
That meditation proved to be a Sacred ritual. What happened ‘there’ helped me understand how grief flows in my life.
At the entrance to my heart, there were two doors. The two doors were shaped like two sides of a broken heart, the jagged edges in the middle fitting perfectly together when they closed. Inside, my heart was nothing but a salty, endless ocean. Somewhere in the ocean, I found the entity called Wisdom, that gifted me with a shoelace. Strange, I had thought, looking down at the shoelace in my hand. When it was time to leave this vast, watery heart-space, and close these broken-heart doors, I saw the shoe lace, woven between the two doors. Because of the shoe lace, the broken, jagged crack was now slightly open. Now, a steady, gentle stream flowed out of my heart-space, and entered my life.
Psychosynthesis is magic like that. In that one meditation, I experienced – in a visceral way – the synthesis of grief and life… the merging of two rivers.
Magic. Sacred. Tender. Sadness. Grateful. Present.
