Interlude on Loss

When you lose someone you love, you feel like the world should move differently, alter its form in some way. Even in those moments when you wouldn’t have been in that person’s presence - driving to the train station in the early morning, standing alone in the shower, sitting in an afternoon meeting, brushing your teeth - you feel as if the universe has shifted in some way, and those otherwise mundane moments which would not typically have given rise to thoughts or connections with your loved one all of a sudden feel as if they are suddenly unfamiliar, heavier in some way, that the person you lost somehow changes the way your toothbrush feels on your teeth. They are present in death in ways they wouldn't have been in life.

But the world, despite your opinions, doesn’t change. People shuffle on, come and go, stop to grab coffee in the morning and a six pack on their way home as if nothing catastrophic has happened, as if there isn't actually a hole in the universe. Only your world has changed, splitting off from the rest. You long to experience the mundane again, just one more time, you tell yourself. But this time, you won’t just get up and leave for the office, leaving her sleeping soundly in your bed. This time, you’ll stay put, sit in the kitchen and drink coffee together, hear each other breathe, laugh, chatter about nothing in particular. This time you'll stay put, in that moment, because this will be the last coherent conversation you'll have, the last time you'll hear her exhale without a death rattle. 

But the heaviness returns, and you take the next shaky step forward.

The Middle Time

There were six years between my mom, brother, and me leaving Bedell Place, and when she married John. We lived during that time with my grandmother, Corinne, who I sometimes took as being too strict at the time, but I very quickly came to know her as the most kind and loving person I have ever known. Coincidental to writing this, she passed away recently, which I'll give attention to separately when I can stand to think through the details again.

My brother and I shared a little room on the second floor of my grandmother's house on Mayfair Drive. The house wasn't small or large. It was a typical north shore of Long Island three bedroom, two and a half bathroom home with a beautiful lower level, two fire places which were the joy of my existence, and a large, half-finished basement which my brother and I quickly took as our own. I remember during those years living on Mayfair Drive, despite the horrors of Bedell Place, wanting to go back there, to see my mother and father together again, but with the poison removed. 

I wanted to again ride in the way back of my dad's Nissan Z, or in the front seat of his gigantic blue station-wagon (the one I remember him drinking beer in while we drove, throwing the can out the window). I wanted to run through my back yard, a jungle of never-ending adventure, climb our cherry tree, to call "Hey!" to John Paul and slip through the small gate my father had put in the back corner of our fence, so I could get to his back yard, which adjoined ours, caddy-corner. I wanted to creep onto McGovern's farm at night with Joe, our next-door neighbor and my dad-by-proxy and by dream, and steal strawberries and tomatoes. I wanted to walk across the sod farm to my grandparent's house. 

During this Middle Time, I remember watching movies about families that split and came back together in some way: Mrs. Doubtfire, the Santa Claus. I dreamed of that happening, of my father proving himself in some way, and all of us returning to Bedell place the same way we had left: quietly, without announcement or fanfare. We would just be there when my dad got home from work. He would pick me up and spin me, just like he used to, kiss me with his scratchy beard, and we would sit at the large table adjacent to the kitchen and eat my mom's Lasagna. It would be Saturday morning, over and over without end, my dad would make magic eggs, my brother and I would watch cartoons on the little TV near the kitchen table, and we would go to Adventureland and I would dream about driving the bumper cars. My dad would stuff tissue paper in my shoes to help me get the last half inch I needed to slip past the teenage ticket-taker. We would get POP bracelets so we could ride as much as we wanted. When we got home, my dad would make tortellini and we would eat in the basement in front of the TV, we would pack the wood stove with newspaper, build a fire and melt snow on top when it got hot. On Saturdays it would either be sunny and warm, or snowing - nothing between. 

And my dad wouldn't drink. He wouldn't yell. He wouldn't hit my mom, or me, or my brother. He wouldn’t throw a two by four through the living room wall. He wouldn't come into the bathroom and vomit into the toilet while my brother and I were taking a bath. He would always come home at night. He wouldn't snap his belt to scare us into doing whatever it was he thought he wanted of his two little boys. He wouldn't pick the dog up, slam her down on the floor and kick her ribs in. He wouldn't drop a cigarette into my hair while standing in the kitchen. No, he would be like Robin Williams and prove that his weaknesses weren’t stronger than his willpower to treat us with love and care. His good nature and loving heart would prove stronger than his addictions, stronger than his anger and his rage, and he would love us, unconditionally and without wavering.

When someone you love dies, there are waves of feeling that start with grief and shock, and then move towards denial because, how could something which has always been all of a sudden be gone? But, when you finally comprehend that the absence is permanent, you settle and accept it. I don't know what a happy childhood feels like, but I feel nostalgia for it anyway. Like death, over the next few years of The Middle Time I settled into acceptance that a chapter in my life was ended permanently, never to be resurrected. The pain of the past was beginning to be buried in the depths of me, my hope for happy times sinking with it. Childhood was dead and gone and not coming back. Time to move on.

In this time, the future became my refuge. The present was never satisfactory. The present was a constant let down. The future, on the other hand, held promise. That’s not to say that I was at all a positive person, looking forward to a fulfilling future. On the contrary, I felt the hopelessness of someone who believes, day after day, that tomorrow holds the key to happiness, but that tomorrow never comes.

Bedell Place

Bedell Place, according to Google Maps, is now called Bedell Street. When I grew up there, if years one through eight can be considered "growing up", it didn't have the clout to be called a street. My great grandparent's tiny single story summer cottage sat between two houses; one dilapidated, the other was big, brand new, and contemporary. That new, beautiful home had no business on Bedell place, but I was thankful for the people who lived there. I'll talk about them some other time. Behind our home were woods and then Jason's house - the neighborhood smelly kid whose dad was named Beedoo (I still have no idea how to spell that, but it was his name). Next to the big, new house were a bunch of horse stables, and then more woods. Across the narrow, unlined street sat 100 acres of sod and 50 acres of seasonal fruit and vegetables.

Outside, Bedell Place was a playground with unending possibilities. When the sod came up it left 100 acres of dirt, which a six year old boy finds no end to fun in. Our street ended abruptly, like my relationship with it, turning into a narrow dirt road which in turn ended at the Montessori nursery school I attended. Occasionally, my mom would walk me to school, down the dirt road, and leave me there. I hated school.

Inside my home I remember Reverend Price shouting about hell, damnation, and redemption on TV. My mother, a beautiful woman by any standard, on a ladder painting the soffit above the kitchen window, and my father swinging between a drunk, raging lunatic, and the man I wanted so badly to play tag with in the back yard. I remember the stairs to nowhere in the pantry, the ones my mom kept covered in paper towels, toilet paper, canned goods, and cleaning supplies. It ended with a mysterious severity, in darkness, with the last step only eight inches from the ceiling. It was as if our house at one time had its own loftier aspirations, but had settled and, in the end, decided to stay small. I remember turning the corner near the back door to the stairs that led to the half-finished basement, our play room and where the TV sat across from an old black leather couch that had no place in our home. I remember walking that path, the lights in the basement were off, and in the darkness seeing the glow of my father's Merit cigarette, confused at that moment because I was unsure, if I went down, which dad would meet me: the one that would say "hey buddy!" lift me onto his knee, and rustle my hair, or the one that would scream at me for some transgression of mine, like being born, call me stupid, and maybe hit me with his belt.

When a dog is beaten as a puppy, it forever loses trust in people. Regardless how many gentle hands come in contact with it, any hand brings the fear of a strike. The moral is that you cannot unlearn abuse. Bedell place was secluded, magical, and terrifying, and can’t be forgotten or remembered in its entirety, thank god.

I started keeping a journal of all the things my father did that I felt were egregious. I had no frame of reference, mind you. As far as I was concerned nearly all men went into rages now and then. But my next door neighbor, Joe, was always nice to me and he never yelled. So Joe became my point of reference. In reality, my journal probably had two or three entries.

"Daddy pushed me down"

"Daddy said I'm stupid."

"Daddy hit me with the belt"

"Daddy threw me on the sand pile."

When I was eight my brother and I went to spend the night with my aunt and uncle. The next morning Uncle Joe took us out on his little motor boat. That night we slept at my grandma's house. We never went back to Bedell Place.