Joan
On losing David
In the Space Between
by Joan Timmings
In the space between sleeping and waking, there was a peace. Where David wasn’t dead. But I couldn’t hold onto it. And I couldn’t ease into knowing. Knowing came crashing in. A massive wave of pain.
Was it a form of denial, this pre-waking peace? If so, I was in good company. The only thing more contagious than the virus that killed my brother was the denial that accompanied his death. There was so much silence. The opposite of an Irish wake. The doctor said the words. My mother collapsed to her knees and there she stayed, muffled by prayer. My father forbade mention of my brother’s name. We didn’t wail or scream or cry together. We retreated to separate, private corners where we mourned the loss of my 23-year-old brother -- alone.
Denial is a useful strategy. You can use it to pipet drops of loss into a life that needs to go on. With denial you can feed the baby while choosing a casket spray. Save crying for the car ride home. Events of the day emerge from a soft fog in hazy fragments. Nobody needs to be fully immersed in the icy cold depths of reality.
There were some transgressions over the years. One of us would lean in, secretly, and say “Do you remember when Dave hit his head in the crawlspace?” Or “Do you remember when he fell down the stairs and landed with his feet sticking way out right there?” But there was no real attention drawn to passing birthdays or death days. My mother always arranged to have his name added to the list of prayers at her church. I intruded on a few occasions, but I couldn’t find David there.
Immediately following his death, I caught glimpses of Dave -- jaywalking downtown, a face among fans at a Jay’s game. But eventually even the universe stopped popping up reminders.
When I look for David now, I find him in snapshots in my mind. Six years old, beaming face bent over his new table-top hockey game, hands in furious motion on the levers. Eleven, body stretched, some object held high, his yellow lab, Goldie, caught in a mid-air leap. Seventeen, face in half-profile, intently focused on the frets of his guitar. Curtis, David’s grown-up childhood friend, feet planted shoulder-width apart, eyes locked straight ahead, down the long aisle of the chapel.
Somewhere in the same mind that, reeling with the pain of his loss, created the half-awake space where David was not dead, a synaptic cluster holds on to these images. Now and then, I pull them out. I focus on the details and try to re-sharpen the edges. I discover images I had nearly forgotten.
Funny. There was a time when I found peace in the space where David was not dead. Now, I find peace in the space where David still lives. And, somehow, they feel entirely different.