Independence Day

Friday, July 1, has come and gone. It is a date I had been dreading for weeks. Friday was the 6-month mark since Chris’...sigh...for some reason I can’t say the “d” word today.

Calling it an “anniversary” is too upsetting, too. Anniversaries are supposed to be happy occasions, aren’t they? Maybe that was true when I was still naive, which was right up until New Years Day.

July 1 was not an easy day for me. Up until then, dates I thought I was going to dread had come and gone and I had been okay, but July 1 was very, very difficult. Had I not shared coffee and breakfast with Meira and then driven to Portland, Maine to be with my brother and then driven back to spend the night with Carol, I’m not sure I would have done as well. Basically, I ran away all day; away from the memories, away from my own brain, away from the constant vacancy of the other half of my life. I just ran and hid.

I just had a phone conversation with my father. I’m going to his house today, for a barbecue. Chris would have come with me. He loved going to my father’s house. He loved my father’s sense of humor and his overall character. My father is a character with very prominent and unique characteristics. Chris recognized them and they made him laugh.

When I asked my father if he wanted me to bring anything, he replied, “Just your bathing suit.” I said, “Oh, I can’t do that today.” and he said, “Why not?” I very sternly answered, “YOU KNOW WHY.” He chuckled and said, “Oh. Well, shove a towel up there. Do what ya gotta do, kid.” I laughed at the vile nature of his answer and instantly wanted to tell Chris what he had said. Chris would have laughed. He absolutely loved my fathers’ sense of humor. But there’s nobody to share it with now; nobody who would understand and appreciate the tactless, horrifically shocking beauty and humor of it.

So now I’m trying to stop crying. It isn’t fair. None of this is fair. Whoever else in this entire world would think that was a funny comment?

I waited so long for somebody like Creej. He wasn’t even one-in-a-million. He’s simply “one”. I’ll never find another man like him in my entire lifetime.

Chris could be vile, too; So, so vile. I loved that about him. One of his friends described him as being a dichotomy and he was right. To meet Chris and talk to him in the beginning was to meet and talk with a small, sweet, cute, polite, studious, considerate man. To know him was to know a small, sweet, cute, polite, studious, considerate man with a vile, shocking, filthy, twisted side built right in for everyone’s entertainment and enjoyment. Those of us who loved him loved all of him, ESPECIALLY that sick and twisted breath of filthy-fresh air.

Last Independence Day I sat in the tiny, cramped living room of our tiny, cramped one-bedroom apartment in Brighton with the blinds drawn and the lights out while Chris was in the midst of sleeping off a five-day chemo treatment, which usually took five more days to sleep off. It was a very painful and lonely holiday weekend watching him sleep and knowing he probably wasn’t drinking enough water, but not wanting to wake him up so he could look around and remember the horrible turn his quality of life had taken. Those were my choices; to let him sleep and dehydrate or to wake him up and remind him of his disease. There was no lesser of the two evils. I let him sleep and over the course of a long weekend, watched him wake up repeatedly for two minutes, shuffle to the bathroom and go back to bed. God, I missed him so much that weekend and I felt so sad for him and although I didn’t know it at the time, I was raging at his cancer and his hateful chemo side-effects and at the loss of our fun-loving, improvisational sit-com existence. I have been raging over that for two years.

Today I have unlocked that memory and set it free from my subconscious. It’s out there now, floating away, away, away.

What does this Independence Day mean for me personally? It means that I am now living independently of one more horrible memory which is no longer suppressed deeply within my psyche, gurgling and rumbling its way into my nightmares. Today the volcano has erupted again, and rivers of pain-polluted lava have flown from my core. I’m sure by the time I stop crying, I’ll feel a new lightness.

Happy Independence Day.