A place to land
As a child I never knew where to land. It is a strange thing to say but it was the one constant in my life. As life charged me or I charged life I never knew how to land.
My brother fainted in Sunday school and died the next day. Its funny that when a tragedy happens it really beefs up the small seconds and speeds up the large ones. Like I remember staying home from school that Monday and having my mom and dad tell me he died on the phone. We had a neighbor who was watching me. I remember this big brown leather rocking chair. I was sitting and rocking and rocking and sitting. And for literally 40 years I believed my parents told me my brother died on the phone. I was by myself rocking and spinning on the brown leather rocking chair.
About 6 years ago I finally went to therapy. I suffered from ptsd and all related lettered sd syndromes there are. When he died my family could not talk about him. I thought it was against the rules to say his name. Once probably two years after his death, I was at a friend's house when her mother asked me something about David. I looked at this woman as the room began to swirl and walked straight over to the door. Got out of there and ran all the way home as I thought she broke the rule.
So it took until therapy to really begin to understand that it was not only not against the rules, but it was healing and created a place for me to land. I was telling my therapist on the phone as sessions were still not in person since covid. Something upset me, and my mind kept wanting to jump from one island thought to another in a spinning motion, and finally I realized how to land.
I could see my bare feet in the grass on the side of a creek.
With some blades of grass between my toes. It felt so pleasant to land. to stand. To feel the earth. The grass. Hear the stream. I love having a place to land, it is so fucking wonderful. So getting back to my sister, since now I could talk and ask questions around his death. We got into a heated debate about where my parents told me he died. She said she was at the hospital when he died. That she kinda pushed my parents out of the room as they looked like they were dying in that moment.
She said "When they left the hospital they picked up my other older sister and then came to Mclean Elementary school to get me and Sue. And told us when we got home. I vehemently disagreed with this interpretation, because I remember being alone, talking to my parents on the phone and rocking and spinning. Spinning and rocking in that brown leather rocking chair. We agued and agued as we both remembered it so clearly. We both brought out the complete list of details with smells and rocking. Spinning.
However after thinking about it, she was probably right. I think the rocking chair, spinning and rocking alone was when they told me he was at the hospital. As that Sunday morning I had a stomach ache so they let me stay home from Sunday school. When my brother said he also had a stomach ache and wanted to say home. I begged my parents to make him go as I wanted to watch uninterrupted cartoons and I knew he would bug me.
I now know that it was just a fucking freaky thing that he had an aneurism and died.
It was not my fault, I never got to see him again after begging my parents to make him go to Sunday school. Its not that I believed it was my fault, it is more that from that moment on I was constantly afraid to say what I want. I was constantly never having a place to land.
I have been rocking and spinning. Spinning and rocking by myself in the brown leather rocking chair for most of my life. Thank the goddess, I can now feel the blades of grass between my toes. Feel the earth under my feet, look down and my bare feet in the grass and listen to the creek next to me. While having a place to land is phenomenal, it makes life difficult in other inexplainable ways. Another story for another time.