Chapter 7 - I do not find / The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
In which I continue to post from "Part 1 - Burial of the Dead" from my memoir, "My Own Private Waste Land"
Chapter 7 – I do not find / The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
When I first learned about my brother’s illness, I was enrolled in a Ph.D. program in the middle of the country. My father kept me up on family gossip, writing letters and calling occasionally. Excited by teaching and classes, my fledgling marriage, and how well everything was going, I made a routine call home. Dad was unusually quiet.
“What’s wrong, Dad? Everything okay?”
“Your brother . . . is sick.” He paused a beat too long. “He tried to kill himself.”
I felt a lump in my throat. After a sleepless night, I rushed to see a counselor in the morning. After all, the similarities between me and my brother were legendary. And known only to me and my parents, I, too, had had my own brush with suicide.
Years before, I had heard the eternal Footman snicker. Now I tasted fear in a handful of dust.
My brother and I both had difficult first relationship breakups. Mine occurred a decade after his, and two decades before he first tried to commit suicide.
In 1972, Lynn followed his high school sweetheart to school in Olympia, Washington.
He camped out in the rain like a lost puppy on his beloved’s doorstep. Girlfriend’s kindly father made the trip north to help him, explained that she had moved on and that he must as well.
At seven years old, I didn’t know about my brother’s troubles. Much of what I’ve learned since is innuendo and rumor, shimmery, fading memories.
I also had a difficult first relationship. One night, in 1984, on a quick trip home from college for a visit, I dropped in to see my “on again off again” girlfriend, a relationship that never emerged from the “are we or are we not” stage. That night, my Gatsby-like delusions dissolved for good. I noticed the engagement ring on her finger. She couldn’t say the words and let me do the math. After I left, my sight cleared for an instant.
I called to wish her well and drove back to San Diego, the drive blurred by tears and which delivered me to an unexpected house party. Freshly twenty-one, an inexperienced drinker, I hid in my room with several rum and cokes.
A noose tied in the rafters. The spinning room. An empty glass needing refilling. Sleep and alcohol dragged me to my room, wrapping me in the watery grave of the waterbed.
I awoke terrified, crying until I couldn’t breathe. The untouched drink sat on my desk. I called home. “Go see a school counselor today, miss class if you have to.” I don’t remember if mom said, “I love you.”
Counseling services saw me immediately, asked routinely if I was feeling suicidal. I am not, I say. The room was generic, pale cream, with diplomas on the wall and a clean desk. I squinted against the sun coming through the blinds. I remember these words only:
“There are other fish in the sea.”
A face slap that finally got through. Three years of heartache cured with the most hackneyed cliché ever. Spell broken, I was instantly freed. Someone untied the noose from the rafters and tossed it on the garage workbench. I brushed it off the counter into the trash can.
That was eight years before my brother first cut himself.
I asked the counselor about my brother and retold my own story of the noose.
“When is my time?”
“It doesn’t work that way,” he said.
The counselor’s gaze was calm, reassuring. I breathed a little easier. Only a little.
I am my brother / I am not my brother.
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I write about:
writing, literature, and the writing life
writing process
memoir craft
mental illness - major depressive disorder, suicide, borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder
sailing
alternative lifestyles - polyamory and kink
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Just keep writing!
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