June 2006, Berkeley, California

By Christopher Switzer

Action kept me sane the first week and half after I sat down on a crowded sidewalk, phone in hand, and asked dad to repeat what he had said.

There were calls to be placed, decisions to be made, obituaries to be written (“300 words or fewer, please, and we need to have the photo by Monday”). These were details I could cope with; I made $12 an hour in an Oakland office dealing with word limits.

I almost broke down — almost — when I realized I didn’t have an e-mail for the newspaper where mom had worked. Where do I send the obit? I asked her sobbing coworker.

“Send it to me,” she choked out, and then gave me the address.

My aunts were concerned when they saw my dry eyes. “You need to feel it,” they kept reminding me. Of course, their method of feeling involved an unseemly number of empty glass bottles with twist-off tops. I was 18, and most places in California card kids with iPod headphones around their necks when they attempt to buy large amounts of vodka.

I was fighting desperately against a sense of helplessness. She — her body — was in Utah; I was in California. As long as I was on the phone, making arrangements — as my uncle liked to say, “settling her estate,” which consisted of an ancient trailer and a clock that used to play a different bird’s call every hour — as long as I was busy, I won against helplessness. When the phone was back in the cradle, when the obituary was sent, when I lay down that night on the bare coils and tattered gray cover that qualified as my dad’s couch, I realized how helpless I was.

So I did the dishes. I swept the floor. I devoured half a pack of Camels and brought the butts to the dumpster around the back of the apartment building so dad wouldn’t know. I read Molly Ivins until my brain rebelled and my eyes closed involuntarily.

Now came the period of consolation — “She’s in a better place,” “It was her time,” and other useful things you pick up from movie scenes with big-band soundtracks and wide-angle shots of misty ponds.

Then the memorial. My dad was 15 minutes late, but nobody minded because he came a half hour ahead of Uncle David. This meant I occupied my time talking with Uncle Phillip about the Second Coming of Christ and the Ghastly Sin of Homosexuality — the usual pleasantries Phil exchanges at family funerals.

We caravanned from the city to the coast, where we had scattered grandma’s ashes a year before. My aunt forgot the words to the Prayer of Saint Francis and had to start over twice, and there were two camps competing for the final prayer — the ex-Catholics, who talked a lot about “the Spirit,” and the Born-Agains, in whose prayers sin figured prominently.

But no one made a total fool of himself, although I was lampooned later in the family gossip circuit for keeping dry eyes and a set jaw throughout the ceremony.

I rode home to Berkeley in a bus the next night, my iPod set to ear-drum-shattering volume. “Bohemian Rhapsody” succeeded in keeping my upper lip strong and my mind clear as I walked from the bus to my apartment.

I was back in my room. The blinds were closed. My bedside lamp made a small halo for me as I checked my e-mail.

An old coworker had written to me. We were so sorry to hear about your mother. My fiancé just lost a family member. We know how it is.

I could feel a huge weight crushing my chest. My eyes stung; my body ached; my hands shook. And all I could think was, “Where did I put my damn lighter?”

I walked quickly out of my room, out of my apartment, searching for someone with a light. Or an open store. Or an open flame. Please, God, any incendiary device.

The sidewalk was empty, save shapeless sleeping bags pushed into deserted doorways. The street was quiet.

Because I lived in the Bay Area, California, Land of the Healthy, Home of the Vegan, I could think of only one person who would have a light — he was European, they do those kinds of things over there. My desire to be alone and my desire to stop shaking battled it out. I wanted to stop shaking more.

I walked up the steps to his house. I rang the doorbell. I asked for some matches. He gave me some. We walked down toward the street. I fell on the sidewalk again.

The words spilled out; my speech slurred; I couldn’t stop shaking; the matches lay on a piece of cleared dirt.

And then when I couldn’t talk anymore, I sat with my head between my legs and breathed deeply. And Sebastian talked.

“My mother died of cancer when I was 12,” he said. I looked up; his face was blurred. “I didn’t know she was sick until two weeks before she died. I overheard my father talking about it with my brother. I was so angry at them for not telling me. When she died, I couldn’t do anything for two weeks. I was devastated. One day I found myself playing pool with my best friend, and all I could think was, ‘My mother just died.’ I realized that she wouldn’t have wanted me to be mourning her forever. She would have wanted me to have fun. She would have wanted me to get on with my life.”

We walked around the city for three hours that night, smoking and drinking cold convenience store coffee.

The next day, I told my best fried my mom had committed suicide. It was the first time I spoke the words without having a breakdown or being plastered.

There were no answers in my mom’s suicide. We have been trained to think of death as mystery to be solved through application of science and law. An autopsy will show from what angle the bullet entered the body; an investigation will show how fast the car was traveling; a search warrant will reveal maps of the victim’s home, ghastly instruments of death dripping with DNA, and pictures of the adulterous fiancé and her lover in Baja.

But with Mom’s suicide, the mystery could not be solved. An autopsy revealed high levels of alcohol and sleeping pills, but not the thoughts entering the woman’s mind when she took them. An investigation showed that her fiancé and two friends had been with her the night of her death, but not why she told them to leave. A search warrant found her journal and a letter, never sent, to her boss, but nowhere was a reason for doing what she was going to do, nowhere was a reason why this particular Wednesday was worse than any other Wednesday of her life.

The weight hasn’t yet lifted. Grief is not a straight progression of emotions, as I was taught in Psychology 101. It’s a confusing cycle, and just when I think I’ve gotten through anger into grief, I see a woman with a daughter the same age as my younger sister and I want so desperately for my mom to be alive so I can throttle her. But then there are periods where I can step back and see that everything is OK, that what mom left behind is more important than what she took with her. And sometimes I can even admit that she’s in a better place, although rarely does a beautiful musical score kick in.

Chris Switzer is a sophomore at the University of California, Berkeley. His byline has appeared in the Moab (Utah) Times-Independent and the Ukiah (California) Daily Journal.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Thursday, February 1st, 2007 | Email This Post

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