Sleep in Heavenly Peace

I learned weeks ago why the ghosts took Scrooge to his past haunts. Some places take you back in time, with or without the apparitions.



My friend Candace killed herself when we were young and foolish enough to think that the world began and ended with the love of a boy. She ended her world shortly after the boy broke up with her, and changed all of ours as well. Her wake was held at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Roebuck, where my nephew and niece happened to have their piano recital twelve years later.



Not knowing exactly where my little relatives would tap the keys, we first went to the chapel - the only building I had ever visited at the church. When we opened the doors I saw her casket again. Her almost-black hair straight and neat, her terrible makeup, her colorful-not-at-all-Candace dress. I think it was purple. I saw it all and I felt it all and the world didn't make sense, even with my little girl in my arms.



I wish there were a moral. I wish that there was some lesson that could be learned from her tragedy. I wish that some part of it made sense, or that after all of these years it wouldn't bring me to tears. But, there is none. It doesn't. It never will.



Suicide is selfish, irrational, thoughtless, cruel. But I'm not mad at suicide. I keep telling myself that I'm not mad at Candace anymore, either. I'm sad that it happened to her, sad that it happened to me, sad that it took so many lives with one bullet, one irrational obsession over one stupid boy - assuming that was at least part of the reason. But, I'll never know. And, it doesn't matter. It changes nothing.



The recital wasn't terrible. In years past I would have broken in such moments and turned to drink or long whining discussions with close friends, but the panic attacks and hopelessness have subsided. I woke from the nightmare, listened to the eager little voices sing their Christmas songs and the hopeful pianists pick their tunes and I packed my toddler into her car seat and headed to another Christmas party. I learned no lessons of tragic past and I do not keep Christmas every day of the year.

I will never forget Candace, though. May she rest in peace, and may we all learn to let her do so.

You can't have everything.

You can't have everything, baby.

I couldn't have you. I couldn't have every first step, every waking breath.

I couldn't take you to the park when Spring arrived, or kiss you on the cheek the first time you fell down.

Just a few hours a day, and then weekends and holidays. We'll take you to the beach for a week during the summer, just long enough to get close so that we can send you back again.

If I'm a full time lawyer, does that make me a part-time mom?

I just don't know, baby. I don't know what to do. I want to make you proud, but I don't want to lose you.

You can't get off the track, or you can't get on again. But what if that track leads me away from you?

I hope you'll understand - that you won't feel abandoned. That you won't commiserate with the other kids at after-school care about how your parents both work and left you there.

I hope you won't resent me about time and religion - we're already going to screw with you on that one.

Sometimes I hate the feminists, baby. Without them I'd just be one smart stay-at-home mom.

My little sunshine

I am not going to turn this into one of those parenting blogs - the ones where you learn that Anna decided that she hates peas today. While her shaking her head emphatically at me each time I tried to approach her with peas cracks me up, I understand that for most readers it would not.

I post the picture to the blog and I write about the little one because she has been a bit all-consuming lately, and it's lovely to be consumed with love. This picture epitomizes her view on the world - she is just happy. She is glad to be anywhere and she loves everyone, and if you do anything remotely entertaining she will give you the biggest grin possible. She doesn't know a stranger and she is interested in everything and everyone. My new goal is to approach life with the same openness and loving heart as my seven month old. May she hold onto this view of life as long as humanly possible.

The Crow

For some reason we loved “The Crow” in high school. We were obsessed with the flick, and rented it often on our lonesome Saturday nights with a tube of chocolate chip cookie dough. Our metabolisms were much better then, and for some reason we could all stomach the treat – the roll was finished by the final gun shot, by the final closing credit.

There was something beautifully tragic about the lead actor dying during the making of the film. He gave his life to his art, and we were all inspired. More so by his hanging dark locks, black lips, and deep eyes – but inspired just the same. The guns, the violence, the passion - it was a cruel world and we all wanted to be his muse.

One year out of high school, and the cruel world caught up with us. A bullet changed it all with no reasons, no final note. I called to pick her up for a party, and her mother answered in sobs. I remember hearing “Candace is dead.” She stated it as fact – as a verb tense that was incapable of change. I heard it as fiction, unable to grasp the reality of her choice.

She asked why Candace would do this to herself, and then repeated “why” over and over and over again. I didn’t understand. Nothing made sense. All I could tell her was “I don’t know.”

I spread the word to the Crow crew and we skipped the cookie dough. We ate Pizza Hut cheese sticks and Chinese food instead. For some reason that’s what we wanted and on a day like that day my mom was at our beckon call. She couldn’t really help with the agony, so instead we received comfort food.

I remember laughing at her funeral when her ex-boyfriend sat on a tack. Her mother joked that Candace was getting back at him, and we all chuckled. I think we just needed to, knowing that the next few days and months (and, it turns out, years), would be a few laughs short.

I sometimes wonder if she were alive today if we would still be friends; or if she would even care now that a boy named John broke her heart so many years ago. It doesn’t matter. Candace is forever frozen as my friend who wore high socks, short skirts, and loved to roll her eyes at the attention she received from men. She was left behind with me as all of our other friends went off to college, and we spent many a night kissing drunken fraternity boys in dirty houses on the Southside of Birmingham. She would sit for hours looking for four-leaf clovers, but refused to believe that her life was capable of hope or change.

I remember drinking too much and crying too much and wanting to find an answer, but none ever came. There was no reason – at least none that would justify or explain.

Looking back, I sometimes find purpose in her tragedy. No matter how bad it got for any of us who knew her, that was never an option. None of us could or would go out like that – not after Candace. Sure – scars fade after time; but wounds like that never really heal.