Be Brave Now Too

A letter from the 6/27 version of myself to the 7/1 version of myself

I write to you from liminality. In the space between decision and action. A space full of static and stomach aches. A gap in the universe that melts of surrealism, like a dripping clock. I write to you to travel time, to remind you that this space existed. Four days of gooey, oozing reality. I write to you as proof: you survived. I write to you with hope: you will survive this too. 

If you are reading this, your mama has died. 

How do I follow that sentence with another sentence? 

Yesterday was the weirdest day of my life. Fuck eloquence. It was the weirdest day of my fucking life. Of our life. Or really, I should not presume. You’ve lived past me, survived, perhaps you’ve seen weirder. Perhaps the dripping clock grew legs and climbed out of 1931, unhinged itself from Dali’s brush, and gripped your neck with newly grown fingers and screamed at you about The Persistence of Memory. Memory is what you have now, so the clock would be right to scream about it. 

That would be weirder, but only just. 

Yesterday was a Monday. For the sake of precision, as a timekeeper in a world where time has shed its rhythm, it was Monday June 26^th.  Yesterday, your mama decided that she will die on Friday. Friday June 30^th. She decided to die in four days.

And so you entered liminality. The space between decision and action. Between deciding to die and dying. Four days has since shrunk to three. I write to you with three days left to remind you that your mama is beautiful and brave. That she is skinny as hell and she sleeps fifteen hours a day and when she shifts positions in her bed she shouts with a shot of fresh pain. She is the bravest person you’ve ever known. Be brave now too, like your mama. 

Tone break as surrealist stylistic tool: The New Jersey Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act (P.L. 2019, c. 59) permits an attending physician to write a prescription for medication that would enable a qualified terminally ill patient to end his or her life. This Act was approved April 12, 2019 and went into effect August 1, 2019. 

Your mama was born in April. You were born in August. At home, we refer to the New Jersey Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act as MAID. We use it as a noun. As in “When will mama do MAID?” As in when will she do “the tango.” Or do “the dishes.” Or do “the ending of her life with a cocktail of medications that will allow her agency over her pain, autonomy over her illness, freedom in the face of her impending death.” 

In my mind, MAID is a pale green color like the start of spring. It is shaped like being so cold your toes have gone numb and then stepping into a hot bath. It is a net, webbing its way beneath us. A promise: your mama does not need to get skinnier, sleep longer, shout louder with more frequent shots of pain. She can choose peace. She has chosen peace. She is so brave. Be brave now too, like your mama. 

History lesson as surrealist stylistic tool: In 2006, Senator Raymond J. Lesniak, a Democrat from Union County co-sponsored New Jersey’s same sex marriage bill. On December 7, 2009, the New Jersey Senate Judiciary Committee heard seven hours of testimony for and against the legislation. You testified. Your voice was one of hundreds that echoed across those seven hours. You were 13 years old, wearing a child-sized blazer. You stood in front of a semi-circle of senators seated at their mahogany desks and pleaded for the right for your moms to be married. Your mama held one hand. Your mommy the other. The bill did not pass, but you were very very brave. 

In 2012, Senator Raymond J Lesniak co-sponsored The New Jersey Medical Aid in Dying for the Terminally Ill Act. When his wife died of a terminal illness at just 43 years old, it was July of 2019. The bill had passed in April but had not yet gone into effect in August. His wife died in liminality, in the space between your mama’s birthday and your own. She died one month before she could “do MAID.” 

Maybe you’ll write him a letter one day, the senator who fought so hard for so many of your mama’s freedoms. “Dear Senator Raymond J. Lesniak,” it will begin. “I’m so sorry,” it will say. And then “thank you.” Over and over. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

Yesterday was the weirdest day of my life. Let me take you back there. To the living room. Let me write you a blueprint of the weirdest day. Maybe one day, in the future, sometime before or sometime after you’ve written our favorite state senator a letter, you’ll be able to decode the day. Maybe not. That would be ok too. At least you’ll remember. The Persistence of Memory. 

Your mama in her blue terrycloth bathrobe, stretched out across the length of the couch. Your mommy on the floor. Your sister on the brown leather chair that isn’t as comfortable as it looks. Your mommy is on the floor with her back against your mama’s couch and their faces are as close as they can be given the arrangement of furniture in the room and the fact that your mama has to be lying down and you know that this is why your mommy has chosen to sit on the floor. You’re on the other couch. You’re all trying so hard to be brave. 

This Friday. June 30^th. June 30^th is your moms’ wedding anniversary. Well, one of their wedding anniversaries. They’ve been married in Canada, New York, New Jersey. Domestic partnershipped, civil unioned, anniversaries that trace a trail across the map like a fight for freedom. June 30^th is the wedding anniversary of their federal marriage in the United Stated. “I like that,” says your mama. She wants the date to hold meaning. And it will. 

For the rest of your life, June 30^th will be the day your mama died. It will be a day of grief so great it swallows you. It will also be a day of freedom. 

Your mama and your mommy and your sister’s eyes are wide and unblinking. Yours probably are too because you keep rubbing them, a physical attempt to lubricate yourself into the present. No one cries but the room pulses with something bigger and louder and realer than tears. You’ve all risen up and out of your bodies. You hover several layers outside of your skin. You plan. 

You make a to-do list in a Google Doc titled “Pre-MAID To Dos.” You write your mama’s obituary. The memorial announcement email. You finalize the invite list. You tick items off box by box and each item complete feels like drawing yourself one step closer to your mama’s death. Do not forget this: you did your best in the face of impossibility. Your mama, your mommy, your sister, and you. You were all so brave.

The living room swallows you. From 9:30AM to 4:30PM no one rises, leaves, shifts positions. You remain on your couches and chairs and floors. Time has evaporated because the clock has melted and for seven hours, the same number of hours that the senators heard testimonies for and against same sex marriage, you plan. 

Impossibly, in the middle of the weirdest day of your life, your mama manages to make you laugh. Impossibly, she is her vibrational, vital, voracious self. You thank MAID for her ability to die without kissing these parts of herself goodbye. You thank your mama for being so brave. “Thank you.” Over and over. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

You do cry once. “How will I say goodbye to you?” Your mama asks. “How do I know you’ll be ok?” 

Her voice reaches up through your chest and into the thickest artery of your heart. You cry. You will not be ok. You will not be ok without your mama’s voice, without her vibrational, vital, voraciousness. You will not be ok. And you will be. 

You tell her this. “I will not be ok, mama, and I will be. I will be ok.” 

I am writing to you to remind you of this fact. You who knows grief that I can only imagine. You who held your mama’s hand as she swallowed a series of drugs that allowed her to die peacefully. You who has said goodbye. Heartbroken, grief-stricken, resilient you. I do not know how you survived but if you are reading this, you did. You are not ok but one day, you will be. 

I am writing to you from a surrealist landscape between decision and action. I am writing this letter from the me who has my mama to the me who doesn’t as proof: memory persists. 

“Dear me who has transcended liminality” 

“Dear me of the future.” 

“Dear me whose mama has died.” 

Breathe. You are brave. You are loved. You are the farthest thing from alone. Your mama persists. She is inside of you. She taught you to fight for freedom and for love. Keep fighting. 

You are me and I am you. We will be ok. I will be ok. 

____

A note: I wrote this before my mama died with the knowledge that the version of myself this letter is addressed to would likely not be able to write. I share it with all of you because writing, and sharing my writing, has continuously rescued me throughout my mama’s illness. I share it in hopes that writing will continue to rescue me now that she is gone. 

The version of me who wrote this also did not know that it would in fact get weirder (and braver). When I am ready, perhaps I will write about that too.