In Search of Myself

Grief is a stranglehold

On Friday, July 25, I was sitting in a work meeting, thinking about the trip to Chicago I’d be taking the next morning. It had been a while since I had a reason to travel, and I was eagerly looking forward to the chance to visit a city I loved. I had worked extra-long hours during the previous week to get ahead in my work so I could take time away from the office. It would be worth it when, in less than twenty-four hours, I’d kick off a weeklong stay in a city considerably less hot than Houston. The meeting I was in was an important one - I was laying out all the information the rest of my team would need to know during my time out of town. Even still, my mind kept wandering to thoughts of the street hot dog stands and cramped used book stores I was looking forward to visiting over the weekend. And then my phone began to blow up.

My sisters were texting our sibling group chat, asking if anybody had spoken to my parents yet today. My sisters and I had all developed the habit of calling my parents daily, sometimes even a few times a day. My parents were both retired and didn’t leave the house much, so it was easy to get hold of them anytime we wanted to chat, share important news, or ask advice on something we were struggling with. I myself had tried to call my parents earlier in the afternoon, on my way back from eating lunch, to remind them that I’d be flying to Chicago the next morning, but they had not picked up. This wasn’t super unusual because if I tried to call and my parents were already on the phone with one of my sisters, I’d get a busy signal. I had learned to just call back in a few hours.

My sisters were concerned because it was nearing 5 PM and neither of them had been able to reach my parents all day. I texted them that, as soon as I was done with work, I’d drive by their house to check in on them. It was possible their phone line had gone out or my dad had left the phone off the hook. He had been doing that lately. In the back of my head, though, little fears began to creep up. Maybe my dad had a health problem and needed to go to the hospital. My dad had suffered serious health problems for the last few decades, and my mom did not always immediately tell us when he was being admitted into the hospital. She didn’t want to alarm us, she say, not knowing it was far more alarming to find out one of my parents had been in the hospital for a day, and I was just finding out about it.

My meeting ended, and I went up to my office to take care of the few last things I needed to work on before I could head out of town the next day. As I sat there, staring at the computer screen, my mind kept drifting again. It wasn’t thoughts of Chicago running through my head, though; it was a growing concern for my parents. When it got to the point where I couldn’t focus on anything else, I decided I needed to leave immediately to check on my parents. I left my backpack and laptop behind, hopped into my car, and phoned my wife to tell her what was happening. It had been raining, and the roads were slick. My wife could hear the growing panic in my voice and, worried for my safety, asked if I would pick her up on my way to my parents. I tried to talk her out of this, not really wanting to take the extra time needed to swing by our house, but there was a little voice in the back of my head, telling me I would need my wife’s support when I reached my parents’ house.

The 45-minute drive from Houston to Missouri City was a tense one. We tried to make light talk about our days, but I was growing more and more concerned with the fact that I could not reach my parents on the phone. I had tried calling the hospital to see if either my mom or dad had been admitted as patients, but the hospital had no records of them as current guests. As we entered their neighborhood, I asked my wife the question that had been on my mind the whole drive: “What’s worse? If we find their van in their driveway or we don’t?” Five minutes later, I’d get my answer when we drove up and saw the blue Chrysler Pacifica my mom had retrofitted with a wheelchair ramp for my dad sitting in the driveway of their house.

My pulse was racing as I pulled into the driveway, alongside their van, and ran to the front door. The first thing I noticed was that the lights were off in the house. It looked completely dark through the front door’s window panes as I fumbled with my keys. Lola, my parents’ dog, did not bark out as she normally does when she hears me coming up the wheelchair ramp in front of their house, my weight causing the metal slide to clang on the sidewalk every time I would approach the front door. In fact, everything felt too silent. There was no noise coming from inside the house as I walked through the front door and entered the house. My mom usually had at least one TV running in the house, but I could not hear anything. My eyes darted back and forth, taking in any clues possible as to what might have occurred. The front door was locked, so there hadn’t been a break-in. The lights were off, so there didn’t seem to be anybody home. Suddenly, I heard Lola cry out, a small roar of frustration, as she walked into the living room, stretching as if she had just woken up from a nap. She had been coming from the direction of my parents’ bedroom.

My wife, who was following on my heels, stopped to check on Lola as I raced into my parents’ bedroom. I saw my dad, still in bed with his CPAP machine on. I could hear the machine working, a shrill whistle emanating every few seconds as my dad breathed. He was breathing. He was still asleep. It was 6 PM and my dad was still in bed, asleep. With terror racing through my veins, I slowly turned my head to the left, towards my parents’ bathroom. This room was lit up, the only illuminated light in the entire house, and there was my mom, sitting slumped back in a chair, fully dressed for the day, seemingly also asleep.

“Mom!” I cried out as I raced to her. “Mom! Wake up!” I tried to shake her, but she did not move. I didn’t think to check her pulse or watch for her chest to rise. From watching movies and shows, I always assumed you’d immediately be able to tell when you were looking at a dead body. It took me at least 60 seconds to realize that my mom was dead.

In August, I buried my mother. Later that month, I also had to bury my dad, who passed away nearly a month to the day that my mom did. It feels like I have spent the last few months sleepwalking through life. My grief has been both profound and all-consuming. There were days when I did not want to get out of bed and, if not for responsibilities at work, I would have chosen not to. Now, even three months later, I still have a hard time getting the image of my mom, slumped back in a chair, sleeping but not sleeping, out of my head. This grief, which I would have honestly not thought myself capable of feeling six months ago, stripped me of the desire for pleasure. For months, I didn’t want to write, or read, or watch movies, or spend time alone. I had a hard time listening to music or walking the dogs, or doing anything that had previously given me a sense of normalcy. I so desperately wanted my life to go back to the way it had been, to fall back into my routine. I felt like I have been weighed down by sadness, though, and any attempt to grab onto a life raft of routine has been blocked.

In the last few weeks, I have tried desperately to pull myself onto one of those rafts. I have started grief counseling. I have pushed myself to do things that once brought me joy, like going to shows or spending time with friends. I have done everything I can to get back to my life, because I know it’s what my parents would have wanted. The one thing I have still not been able to do, though, is write.

Writing has brought me so much happiness in the past. It’s given me a chance to escape, to introspect, to exorcise my personal demons. Now, staring at a blank page feels like, for the first time in my life, an impossible hurdle. I can’t find the words that came so easily to me.

I think I know what the issue is. I think I am having a hard time writing because there’s one important thing I have to write about first - my parents. I need to put into words what these last three months have been like in order for me to have any hope of using those words for anything else. This isn’t an easy task, but it’s an important one. Writing this essay has been harder than I ever would have expected. As I wrote down my memories of July 25, I felt all the emotions, fears, and anxieties bubble back up. But, as I approach the end of this essay, I feel something else: a sense of calm. Just like writing WHERE WOLF was a way for me to lay to rest the anxieties and fears of my thirties, writing this has, in a small way, helped me come to a peace with some of my grief.

I’m not done yet. There’s a lot more that I need to say about these last few months, and I’ll slowly get there. I don’t expect all of you to want to read this, and I promise I’ll get back to snarky pop culture observations soon. But, in the meantime, thank you for taking the time to read this essay.

It wasn’t easy to write, but I needed to write it.