CW: the explicit business of death and dying; disjointed rambling
I sent texts and made calls from my car as I watched the police and coroner staff do their work. I thought as I saw them finally roll his body out
he’s under there. What’s left of him is in that white bag on the stretcher. This is real. It’s finally happened.
Finally? Did I just think that? Have I on some level always expected this to end this way, or just to end?
And now I have one final cleanup to cop. This will be third time I’ve had to settle an estate and hopefully the last. It’s a shame that as a private citizen, I know exactly which levers to pull and buttons to push. I need no help in that lane.
And then the disbelieving responses began to roll in. Unbeknownst to me, I had activated a support network that I didn’t even realize I had or needed. I am so glad that I do not suffer fools, because now I know I have some of the most equally capable friends on the planet. A longtime colleague was on her way to meet me at the apartment, but I told her no, so she insisted on meeting me at my house later that night, past midnight. She brought a box of tissues, a soothing lavender scented candle to help me sleep, and her wonderful calming presence. She took one look at me when I opened the door and said “oh my god, you’re in shock, your eyes…I’ve never seen you like this”. This is somewhere I’ve never been, I told her. Is this what shock looks like, I asked for both of us?
Laser focused. It felt as if I was moving at a different speed than the rest of the world, but I could not tell you who was moving faster or slower, the world or me. She sat with me and helped me make the list for what I would need to do immediately with input on local resources and I fleshed it out with the rest.
I still have the candle, unburned. I put it on a bookshelf with the tissues in the living room that night and forgot about it completely. It took months before I realized where the soft, soothing scent was coming from that I’d notice whenever I passed out on the couch. It now lives in my bedroom where I’ll occasionally take it down from its high shelf and inhale over it.
The following morning was Sunday, which meant I was scheduled to go to work to sing over the people of god (POG) for a few hours, plus I was on cantor rotation. Off I went, hoping the normalcy of making music would help my brain and heart. The choir is a family of sorts, a few of them knew of and had assisted me with my marital troubles, including the choirmaster. I walked into the poor unsuspecting man’s office and said “I need you to know that if anything looks or sounds weird with me today, it’s because Man Unit shot himself yesterday, so I’m dealing with that.” This stoic, introverted man immediately stood from his desk and wrapped me in his arms, where of course I began to bawl in a restrained fashion.
I went to sit in my seat and apparently I was still wearing the look I had answered the door with the night before because they instantly went all mother hen on me. More tears. Stop it, ladies, I love you, too, but I have work to do here. We can sob later.
I’d spent so many mornings staring into nothing with tears forming but not quite falling as my heart was being broken over and over without me admitting it. These things affect the music making exponentially, especially when your body is the instrument and I know now that he and others must’ve seen.
It’s a good thing I am built to keep my wits about me in times of trouble. The amount of calls I took from others grieving would have beaten a lesser person into utter submission. From the ululating Jew (seriously, she keened in my ear for at least a half hour), to the ranting ex of his (“HE’S SUCH A FUCKING COWARD HOW DARE HE”), to the drunken friend weeping, sobbing, and yelling at me “release your pain, stay in touch”, I had to wrangle them all. Perhaps it gave me something to do to keep me attentive and afloat, but I swear I got tired of what felt like sitting a nonconsensual Shiva.
I walked through some insanely tough situations without coming close to cracking. Arranging a virtual body identification with the crematorium. I could tell the agent was accustomed to dealing with the unglued, so I was pleased to make it easy for him. But how surreal was it that my last view of my husband was a picture on my phone of him in the bag? I saved it, of course. He would have appreciated how well they put his skull back together, there was merely an indentation that looked like an old wound healed, and as if he was only sleeping.
Picking up his cremains (new term I learned!), I met a very surprised staff member who ended up hitting on me after he saw my driver’s license and looked up at me in disbelief about my age. Plus he knew that I was newly single. How is it that things like this happen to me? Ever forward, just get in the car and get him home. They also gave me his final effects, specifically the Timex watch he was wearing, sealed in a plastic bag. I didn’t realize it was soaked in blood until I opened it. The stench of decomp is real, you don’t want to be anywhere near it. He would’ve found that an absolute hoot and it gave me a rare moment of genuine laughter. The damn things really do keep on ticking.
The admin office at the apartment complex was unexpectedly helpful. Like everyone else, they found him to be a warm, considerate, and friendly person, possibly the best tenant ever. Even though we’d just renewed the lease, all they asked was that I clean out the apartment as soon as I could (waiting list) and I was free and clear. I took my criminal court lawyer friend with me because her eyes and brain could handle it. I sent her in first, actually, to tell me if I could do it. I wouldn’t normally do such a thing, but she was there, willing, and insisted. She took longer than I wanted. HURRY UP FFS, I yelled from the front stoop.
It took four to six trips. The first with lawyer friend, another solo in the dark of night to strip the bed and dispose of the blood soaked sheets and others by day to assess what to keep and haul it home, then the last to meet the gotjunk truck and finish. Yes, I warned them that the mattress was a biohazard before they got to it. I figured they got way too many nasty surprises, and I didn’t want to be responsible for one of them. Again, sitting in the car, watching his life roll out and hoping his spirit wouldn’t be too pissed about the disposal of his hoard. I freely admit that I wept as I exited the complex for the last time and thought if I had to visit that particular part of town ever again, it would be too soon.
Months later, the ME’s report came. Perhaps it was just my eyes, but I’ve read many autopsy reports, and I felt I could hear the writer’s admiration of Man Unit’s single perfect shot. Again, he would’ve been pleased because we were macabre like that.
I was able to send a portion of his cremains back to his home state of Michigan with one of his cousins who had come down to visit other family, along with the trove (10+ cube boxes) of his mother’s writing and pictures for the genealogist aunt of his family.
I was asked if he left any note. Not exactly, but in the notebook he’d written in before, there was one single entry. He’d ripped out and discarded everything prior because he didn’t want to remember his darkest, most unhinged and angry days, he told me. It is dated February 26, a few months before he gave in.
So on the day I’d picked for dying, in the mail that evening was were two envelopes. One contained a spiritual solution; the other a financial solution.
My acceptance from TAC.
My window stickers from [the rideshare company].
Well, alright, universe, ok. Both contained 2 different versions of “it’s official” and “you’re in.”
Well damn, universe. Ok.
I’m off on another wild adventure.
Instead of putting a bullet in my head, I put a nail in the wall.
I’d been living on borrowed time since February. On one hand, I wish I’d known. On the other, I don’t think I could have made much of a difference because I was already doing everything in my power to keep him beside me.
On Being Brown 