It’s been 20 years since Laura passed.
I have things I want to say, some thoughts.
I barely know where to start and this will likely meander a lot.
First thing I need to discuss: losing Laura was trauma.
It took me a lot of years and a fair bit of therapy to understand that.
Knowing it sooner might have saved me, and some people I loved, some grief.
But I didn’t.
Anniversaries
20 years ago today I lost Laura, and it was the first real time I had anniversaries that are painful.
Losing someone like I did comes with two painful anniversaries: the anniversary of their death and their birthday.
Each day rolls around yearly. And the birthday should be a day of fond memories but it just didn’t manifest that way for me. Largely because aforementioned trauma.
As you get older, these days multiply as you lose close friends, family, and pets you were close to.
I’m old enough now, 49, where I have racked up a lot of painful anniversaries. I often feel like it’s every day.
January
January has a bum deal. It’s like most(certainly not all) of the terrible shit I’ve endured happened in January.
I lost Laura in January.
I had a stroke in January.
In 2017, I had a bobcat break into a chicken coop and killed almost all of my chickens.
This year, I lost Max.
This particular January has been the worst.
20 years of ugly Januarys, but this one… ugg.
Trauma // Memory
20 years on, my instinct isn’t to reflect on Laura and how much I miss her. It’s been a lot of years/months/days of pain for me, so much so, that what I tend to reflect on is the aftermath of it all.
And that’s the real sadness, ya know?
The trauma became like a cocoon over time.
Scar tissue grown over an old wound.
And it festered, badly.
That still hurts.
But I can barely even feel why anymore.
I was reflecting recently how I can barely remember the events of that day.
I write a lot. And I wrote a lot then, and there’s a lot of documented evidence.
And all that helps keep some things in my memory. But when I read it, I have no memory of writing it.
But if I didn’t write it, and have a paper trail, I’m not sure I’d remember much, if anything.
I find things. I find the receipts from shipping Laura’s unfinished works to Kambriel. And I remember all the talking to Kambriel, wanting things to go to her, but I can’t remember precisely how it all transpired. Or even shipping things to her. But I clearly did.
What I remember from the day she passed are images, stills:
Her breathing getting shallow.
Watching a second hand on a wall clock tick, but my memory of it is in slow-motion.
I remember the sensation of it being over, and my heart sinking in my chest, being aware of the totality of it.
I remember being on an elevator leaving the ER. I can’t even remember who I was with, precisely. Family, surely, but who? I don’t remember. I feel like Laura’s mom maybe, but I really don’t remember. I was in shock.
Sometimes I’ll read what I wrote all those years ago and memories come back but I don’t know if they are real or imagined.
Old
I’m 49. I’m not really old. I simultaneously feel stuck in my 20s and like some elder that’s seen the birth and death of suns and universes. I feel stuck in a brain from 20 years ago.
I look at myself in the mirror and outside of some grey in my beard, I don’t see 49 at all.
But I also feel like Roy Batty at the end.
I’ve… seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
But, I don’t know that what I’ve experienced is a huge deviation from what everyone else has experienced.
Different, sure.
But at this age, we’ve all seen things.
The main problem is: I had a stroke. I’m weaker. I’m broke and broken. Traumatic events hit harder. While 20 years ago may have been when it peaked, when I have setbacks now, they pull me down harder.
Looking ahead
I’ve been working on projects that explore all this. I have for decades, but I mostly scraped all the initial drafts, or repurposed them some years ago.
What I’ve been working on is more experiential to my life now, vs what has passed. Sometimes in direct contrast but sometimes precisely as it is.
I’ve been dabbling in visual art. Not just photography, but painting and collages.
Though, lemme tell ya, painting is hard with my numb hand.
More overall projects vs just images.
I make the art.
Build a frame.
The whole piece has a story all the way through.
I intend to tie audio to that as well, of which I have things half finished and in good progress.
20 years later, I still think about Laura a lot.
Daily.
And the guilt I have about how the aftermath went down.
It wasn’t pretty.
But I’m mindful that it’s part of an overall story I’ve always tried showcasing in my art, and what I’m working on is a direct evolution of that.
It’s part of my therapy, and ever letting it get away from me was more personally destructive than I can ever articulate.
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