How has death touched your life, and what lasting impact has it had?

I've been lucky enough that no one who I was very intimate with has died. But the deaths that I have experienced all touched me with this singular feeling: a wish that I had reached out more while they were still here.


Other than relatives who I didn't have any real connection to (biological grandparents), my first loss from death was in March 2012, when Carol died. I knew Carol from the six months I lived at Serendipity, when we often attended the same family dinner. We hadn't been close then or been in touch after I left Serendipity, but Carol had made me feel included and cared about and as a proxy parental figure that meant a lot. I felt sad but grateful to have had the short time to know Carol.



My first lose of a close connection to death was someone I met through livejournal, Laura (musicandmisery). Laura died April 2, 2013, and I found out through facebook, which I was grateful for because there was no way for me to learn about it through livejournal and the idea of just never knowing is horrific. It was a shock to me because Laura was so young and we hadn't been in good contact for a year, so I didn't know what was going on (I think health problems?). Laura's sister friended me on facebook afterwards and we sort of vaguely interact here and there -- I think for both of us it's a kind of connection to Laura.

I had had Laura on my short list of people to meet, but I never had anyone to go with nor the guts to try and plan a trip to New York alone -- and even if I had managed that I wouldn't have had the money before it was too late. I still ache over that missed opportunity because Laura was really special to me. I can't explain why mostly because my memory is terrible, but it feels like we just felt the world in the same way. We both are the kind of person to cry at human kindness, even between two people we don't know and can't really relate to, and twice as much between other animals. And that's not something I have often had in common with people. I think if we had lived near each other we would have spent lots of time together.

We also have the same birthday, so every time our birthday comes around I think of Laura. And there was this mega-adorable little kid on MasterChef Jr season 5 who reminded me SO MUCH of Laura in smile and spirit that I cried. A quote from that kid: “You gotta stay focused, you gotta stay true to yourself and you gotta cook your heart out!”



Then in February 2016, there was Vanessa, someone I met in college who I felt admiration for and wanted to be friends with, but I never got up the courage to really express that, and then she died. I learned this when I went to her facebook with the goal of reaching out and saw the wall filled with "gone too soon" messages. I felt really overwhelmed with "why didn't I reach out sooner" then. Vanessa was also very young, in her early 20s still I think.



Then March 27, 2017, Topaz' Papaw died. (his funeral was actually on the same date that Laura died) He had lived a full life and was in failing health so it wasn't a surprise but he was someone I felt a deep and intuitive connection with and I felt so sad that I had never tried to connect on more than a friendly-stranger level. Shortly after I met Topaz' family I hit the lowest point of my life so it took a while before I could even think about connecting with strangers, and after that I felt it wasn't allowed because I'm used to everyone being bloodist (saying that family isn't yours unless you are related by blood), and by the time I felt like I was allowed, he wasn't able to connect on a mental level due to Papaw's dementia. I feel like there was a sliver of time when I had a chance but I didn't realize it and I hate that I didn't realize it. I felt so grateful to at least be able to connect in our own unspoken way though.



Then November 26th of 2017, Topaz' Memaw died. She was a fierce and accomplished person who fought for an equal rights amendment and wrote a book about her life. I admired her and wished I had had the chance to connect with her more. Her dementia progressed on a similar timespan to Papaw's but was more external and had a lot of emotive aspects to it, so it was harder to handle. But it was so sweet and she was so supportive of me and Topaz.

When I first met Memaw, Topaz told her that we were partners and she was openly and comfortably supportive -- she later forgot, but knew that we were best friends and expressed strong support for that as a valid kind of family, which meant just as much to me honestly. There isn't societal oppression of best friends, but all my life I have felt that my greatest loves were treated as unimportant because they weren't romantic nor blood-linked nor legality-linked, so I have deep personal feelings of being marginalized in that way. I felt like Memaw saw us in a very true way whether she remembered we were romantic or not. I wished I'd had the chance to get to know her before dementia put the possibility out of reach.



On March 28th, 2018, Saleena died. They're someone I saw at least twice a month from summer 2009 to spring 2011. After that we drifted, but I always meant to pick up again. I had wondered about how Saleena was and how their life was going several times in the months before they died and I regret thinking "I'll have plenty of time." Saleena was near my age so I never expected her to die so soon.


At some point during the past decade two of my aunts died, but I saw them only a few times in my life and never really had a chance to connect with them. They never reached out and I didn't either. Last year or maybe the year before, my last biological grandparent died but I never had any connection with her either, so I did not care.

I'm not including deaths of other beings, but trees, cats, and fish have also left little scars on my heart, usually with the same wish that I had made more time for them. You'd think with this constant refrain I'd reach out to people all the time but I still procrastinate constantly.

Doing this prompt has made me realize that of all the deaths that impacted me, most of them occurred in the same calendar week - between March 27th and April 2nd. and two more happened right before that in the same season. I suddenly have more understanding of why late March through April has been hard for me the past few years... I also broke up with Kei-won-tia in 2015, had a hiatus in my most important relationship in 2016, and broke up with Evelyn in 2017 all in that same time period. I'm feeling a little more self-compassion about my lack of productivity in the past 2 months now.

Within the past two weeks so fucking goddamn much has happened.
Papaw (Topaz' grandparent, an incredibly sweet and gentle person) died and not only was I really sad for the loss and how intense it is for all who were close to him, but I was reminded of how kind he was to me and how little of that kindness I got to experience. I felt so glad to have known him and be loved by him, because he did make me feel loved. We couldn't have said more than a hundred words to each other -- fewer than 40 if you don't count greetings and farewells. But he was always genuinely happy to see me and I never felt like he wished I was different in some way. And I love Topaz like he loved Topaz' grandmother, and they are so alike. They would enthuse together and Papaw and I would glance at each other and smile, knowing we were feeling the same thing. In another life we would have sat on a porch and smoked cigars together. We just clicked, in a very intuitive way. At the funeral the first hymn they chose was The Old Rugged Cross which was my favorite hymn as a kid, and that made me feel so connected to him and I cried as I sang along. People got up and spoke about how many memories they had of him and how steadily loving, thoughtful, and creative he was.


And I was reminded that I have no memories of the grandmother who died before I was born or the grandfather who died when I was 5, and only three memories of the one who died when I was 18, and they're all bad.

In the strongest memory, I'm about six years old and he's shouting furiously at me for touching his chair (which his other grandkids were allowed to sit in, but I was not permitted to touch). That one I remember clearly because I didn't know I wasn't supposed to touch it and I was terrified to be attacked for something I didn't know was 'wrong' and no one defended me except my mother (who he treated like garbage), and her tentatively because she was scared too. My dad was silent, my grandmother was silent. I cried, and I hardly ever cried as a child. In another, he's yelling at my grandmother because the A/C isn't up high enough. That one only stuck in my mind because my grandmother sassed him about his 'hot air' as she obeyed: one of only two good memories I have of her. And the last isn't so much a memory as a muddle of impressions of him acting so pious it made me sick after his stroke, when he started to fear death. It was all so fake and guilt-driven. My grandmother was someone I didn't really know and who definitely never knew me, nor did she want to. Being around her was like being around a pastel, rose-outlined blinking light-up sign that reads "are you acceptable yet?" She died in December and everyone else at the funeral sobbed about how accepting and supportive she was and I felt like I was at the wrong person's service.


So standing there at Papaw's funeral, realizing that the one person who felt like an accepting, loving grandparent to me was gone forever, and that I didn't even have a history to reflect on, brought up all this repressed pain about my terrible biofamily. And also guilt because who am I to mourn when people who have loved him all their lives are there? And what a terrible support to Topaz, focusing on my own shit while they're hurting. Ugh. Lots of mixed-up guts.

The two days before the funeral I was in a wedding for one of my best friends which involved a really intense two-full-day project of interacting with strangers and once-removeds who have Very Specific Ideas of What Is Proper (fortunately I really liked the other brides-minions, as my sweet friend called us rather than misgender me). That was also a whirlbang of emotions because it made me think about my own wedding so many years ago.


Slight scroogy tangent: I'm generally of the opinion that it's better to not get married since the institution of marriage is both rooted in patriarchy and a very powerful force for role-enforcing which can wreck the noblest of egalitarian intentions, but

I think Allison and Jonathan do have the makings of a lifelong healthy, mutually nourishing connection and I think they will manage to maintain their selfhoods despite the influence of marriage, so I can support them in this choice.

Jonathan loves Allison in a way that I have rarely seen a person love another, and I so deeply appreciate for Allison. He doesn't want to change Allison at all, and he beams at her when she enthuses over things, when she's loud and silly and flails for longer than is socially acceptable. He never looks embarrassed or like he's trying to tone her down. Never. Which, as a loud, silly, flailing person myself, makes me feel respected by proxy and so relieved that I can trust Jonathan not to mistreat Allison.

The thing I really didn't expect and that hit me hard was that their families are treating this marriage as a merge and creation of a new shared family, which is so rare and so precious. The side effect of seeing how truly Allison is accepted and valued by family and friends and spouse and how the families are taking their metamour relationships seriously reminded me of how much my spouse and family tried to change and silence me and how they never even saw me, much less appreciated the parts of me that are not socially acceptable. It was tolerated at best if they couldn't manage to ignore it or snuff it out. And I know Allison's family is not perfect! But they really do try to understand her, and they keep on trying until they get it at least partly. Allison walked down the aisle to the Star Wars intro music, and Allison's mom thought that was terrible at first but came around to it. And I like that even with a knee-jerk negative reaction, she still tries to understand.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world though, family issues or no. Being able to witness and be part of Allison and Jonathan committing to each other was beautiful and sacred to me and I was so honored to be included.

This week my landlord told me I have to get out of my house by the end of the month, and then he took it back but I definitely am not safe here so I still have to get out as soon as possible.


Last week after allll the things, I ran out of energy and I realized that I don't have any to spare right now, and that it had been at least three weeks since Evelyn and I had an interaction that was nourishing to me. I've been feeling a lot of stress trying to maintain contact because they've been vague and brusque in responses which says to me that they don't want to be talking to me (because their natural cadence is verbose and specific). But then they tell me that it's not that they don't want to talk to me, and I have to discount my own senses and logic to believe them. I can only do this for so long before it starts to wear on my relationship with myself.

They're struggling to claim their own right to self-care, which I can very much empathize with but I find it really difficult to maintain my own self-care in such a situation because all I want to do is Be the Rescuer but that is so bad for everyone involved. So basically I need them to take care of themself at least SOME else I get filled with anxious urges I then have to spend a lot of energy fighting.

They had set a goal a couple of weeks ago to have at least one hour to themself every day, but they hadn't kept up with it. They spend literally every waking hour devoted to work or another person (not by request, but from their own impulse) and this wears them out to an extreme measure, by any standards. So I told them that until they manage to have a habit of at least a small daily amount of self-care, I need to be more cautious in my investment, which I will do by not initiating conversations or plans. I told them that I'm still open to seeing them and I'm happy to respond to whatever texts/emails they might send, but that essentially I wasn't going to devote initiatory energy to them right now. I tried to put it as gently and kindly as I could, but I think it might still have read to them as "you're not good enough and I hate you, get out" because they seem to see boundary-setting for self-care as a violent act, which is part of why it is so hard for them to do.

So, since they haven't responded at all, I don't know if they are angry, or sad, or just not bothering, or what. I texted once after sending the email to ask if they would at least send me two words to let me know if they had read it or not, but they either didn't get the text (their phone has been losing random chunks of my texts) or even that was too much. I don't want to break my intention by texting again so I'll just assume they read it and didn't feel able to respond.


Feeling the connection with Evelyn crumble slowly over the past few weeks was really disheartening because I thought things were changing, and I think I had good reason to think that. They made significant progress but they just slid back as far as they went forward. They didn't dig in and stay put. And I feel loss and I fear how long this will last -- is this another Aurilion? They show up in my life for a brief beautiful period and then vanish entirely for months or years? They told me they wouldn't leave, and I believed them. But so did Aurilion promise, every time they came back. So.

Oh also yesterday was the 7-year anniversary of my divorce.