Jerks Are Everywhere, Talkin’ ’bout Death, Eatin’ Sandwiches

I’m one of those jerks who talks about death.  Writes about death.  I never, never, never, talk about death.  That would be wrong.  I just sit in the lunch room and stew over my mess of nerves, and my regular compulsion to cry and I think to myself, “I want to talk about death with someone. I should have a frank discussion about the mind-numbing feeling of grief that disengages me from the most basic of humans facts…like that one time I forgot I was in the bathroom…on the toilet…doing my business…started crying…and completely forgot why I was there.”  I want to tell someone at work this, but then I’d be the guy who may not have remembered he was in the bathroom.  Side note: I always remember when I’m in the bathroom at work.  It’s a great place to hide and get away from people. I have admitted that to people at work.  I have almost no shame.

But I am ashamed of my grief.  I sat through lunch today, and all I wanted to do was tell everyone how suddenly miserable I was after a random song popped up on my playlist that she loved.  It was Jimmy Eat World.  My sister was always a little bit stuck in her high school music preferences.  I’m sometimes shocked she liked any new music.  She literally picked five bands in 2002 and never looked back.  Never looked forward either.  Just stayed perfectly, musically preserved in amber.  I always tried to get her to listen to new music.  But she just made faces and asked if had heard Jimmy Eat World’s new album.  I always thought I had.  I was usually about three albums behind.  I wasn’t ashamed of my general ignorance of her musical tastes.  But I am ashamed of my grief.

I sat in the lunch room surrounded by teachers (I’m a teacher myself), and we were having a miserable conversation.  We normally have a good conversation, but today was just kind of miserable.  It’s that conversation you’re embarrassed to be a part of because the one guy leading it is just really passionate about something embarrassing in an embarrassing way.  I get it.  I’m passionate about young adult literature (because it’s AMAZING–read John Green, The Fault in Our Stars, and tell me I’m wrong), and I like to think I’m not embarrassing about it because I mainly have conversations about young adult literature with young adults.  I find this perfectly reasonable.  However, there’s always that guy who has his two talking points, and they’re not interesting to anyone but people who like to shoot things (normally, that would be me) or appreciate the third retelling of how he met his wife.

There we were, listening about the cupcake incident that led to their eventual nuptials, uncomfortable that we had all heard the story but too embarrassed to admit it.  We had all crossed a bridge, and we’d crossed it together.  We were to blame and we knew it.  I wanted to get up and say, “I’m feeling terrible, and I was driven to mental instability by a song.  A song.  Three minutes and thirty-nine seconds of pure pop fun, and I thought to myself: well all I want to do is cry.”  I was in the middle of a class, and I tried to do the best to make realistic nose-blow-y sounds while trying to secretly dab at tears.  I don’t know why I bother.  All the student know.  I’m sure they make fun of me.  I don’t think children are terrible.  I just know what i would have done when I was in ninth grade and anything happened to/with/near anyone.  I was a sarcastic son of a bitch.

It was a conversation from hell.  Not only were we all trapped listening to this story.  We could only feed into it.  We were trapped in the monster’s cave, and we were offering ourselves to the beast!  Clearly four highly educated professionals should have known better, should have been able to navigate away from it, should have been able to muster a conversation shift, should have added a clever way to exit, should have offered nothign but awkward silence as the cupcake story came to a crescendo and someone dropped the cupcake, or bumped someone and it fell…I’m not sure.  I’ve only heard it four times, and it’s all ready too much for one mind to manage.

All I wanted to do was cry.  I had to leave.  I just left. I’m cupcake-wife-shooter-guy’s boss.  He can do nothing to me or say anything about me that will ruin any social capital I have in the building.  I was also feeling miserable.  I went into my classroom–which I share with cupcake-wife-shooter-guy–and locked the door.  Cupcake-wife-shooter-guy left his keys on his desk, and soon returned, knocking on the door.  I needed some alone time. I went to the bathroom.

Books Are Best Read After

My sister, Alex, who died just over two months ago, was a voracious reader.  I am too.  I’m currently in the middle of three books: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. LeGuin, Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein, and Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith. We’re both English teachers (her abroad, me in the States) so it makes sense, our shared love of reading.  We had so much in common–and that has been the difficulty I might never overcome: she was my best friend.

But we both read.  Each in our own ways.  In high school I was busy reading The Andromeda Strain while she read The Red Tent, or scarfing down another Agatha Christie mystery while she tread through another John Irving novel.  We were both busy understanding ourselves and our dreams through literature.  After she left the country to pursue her dreams of teaching English abroad, books were a way for us to keep the conversation going. It was always a topic of conversation whenever we spoke in person or on Skype after she moved out of the country.

“What books are you reading?” she would ask.

As an English teacher, I read a lot.  I read with my students, and require all of them to find books to read and perhaps fall in love with.  She would always argue with me about requiring Lord of the Flies for ninth graders–she hated that book so much.  “It’s such a…high school English class book.  Pick something better.” I never did.

I visited her abroad this pas summer, just two months before she died in a motor accident, and was curious to see the books on her shelf.  Her friend from Australia would always buy her some and ship them over.  He would always get her the books I told her she should read.  She was in the middle of The Book Thief, and my recommendation of The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss was next on her list.  They found The Book Thief in her travel bag at the site of her death.  I hope she had already finished it.

Alex rarely recommended me books.  She always complained she was a slow reader, but always made it through my recommendations…arguing the whole time about whether or not she thought it was worth it.  I’m never sure she did.  I raged through Gone Girl and thought it quite fun.  She could only say, “It’s kind of messed up.  Why would you want me to read that?”  And then I’d go back to the drawing board, trying to figure out a better book to recommend.

Christmas, the holiday she loved, was not always a time to be together.  The most recent few Christmases we were apart, separated by oceans.  The last Christmas I spent with her was years ago.  That Christmas she gave me a book: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I didn’t read it.  I still haven’t but just this evening, after a long day at work, I picked it up and began to read it.  It begins as the story of a love affair with books.  Something we both shared.

As I began to read it, I was filled with a joy of memory I don’t often feel when I think about Alex.  Too often I think of her and sadness takes me, but this was different.  As I read the book she recommended (quite a good book so far), I couldn’t help but imagine my delight as her delight.  Those magical moments filling up its pages making her smile, making her happy, inspiring her to give it as a gift.  Oh, what wonder she must have loved the experience of reading this book and now I am in the middle of that wonder.

I couldn’t be happier in the midst of my grief.

Today was a sad day, where all the things around me reminded me how empty I am without my best friend around to share the nonsense of my life.  So here is the recommendation.  Give books that give you joy to the ones you love.  Ask for the same. Maybe one day, in the midst of grief, you can open up a tale of magic and wonder and realize that you are filling yourself with the wonder your loved one felt too.  That joy has reminded me how much my sister enjoyed being happy.

Alex loved the movie Elf.  It was one of her favorite holiday films.  I remember seeing it with her in the theaters, along with most of Will Ferrell’s comedies like Anchorman and Talladega Nights.  One Christmas we played the movie on repeat for a full day, opting to lazily press the play button when the movie had ended, and falling in love with story all over again.  I tried to watch it the other day to get into the Christmas spirit, but it left me sad.  Movies and books just aren’t the same in grief.

When I left, the last full day I was in town, I asked if we could stop by a book store, and I bought her a few books I thought she’d enjoy.  I remember buying her The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.  I was certain she’d find it funny and heartbreaking in just the same way she always adored those John Irving novels.  And when her belongings were shipped back to us, she had read through the whole thing, the spine cracked in several places.  We never had a chance to talk about it.  I hope she loved it.  I hope she found it funny.  I hope she smiled as she read it.

Gifted books are best read after. Alex was never one to wallow or even simmer in misery.  She moved on to the next good thing.  So, I’m taking a page out of her book, and moving on to the next good thing…keeping her memory close to me as I turn the next page.