My beloved daughter is turning eight years old tomorrow. Anytime she has a birthday, I can’t help but count the years back to the night/morning of her birth and when I first met my baby in person. Last night, I was reflecting on this (its only fair as she’s been talking about her birthday every day for two months, at least) and she reminded me that even though I’ve known her longer than anyone else in the world, she’s known me even longer. “I was inside you before you even knew about it,” she said.
I had to agree with her, she was right again.
We also counted back to her fourth birthday, which happened a mere ten days after Vernon’s accident. We just so happened to mark the four year anniversary of that fateful night with ice cream. It’s as if that time was the spine in the book of her life. The years before (that she hardly remembers her dad) and the years after (in which she remembers the drama of his altered-self, his death, grief, and family life without a dad.) 4+4=8.
Maki and I were discussing these numbers on the way to school this week. Since Maki is 16 now, we are kind of at a bookend with him too, her birth creating a spine in his own life. Not that the book is anywhere near ending: he’s just in the longer chapter now. We’re all in the longer chapter now. And long may it continue.
Justine is so funny. For her party, she requested a theme of her favorite animals: axolotl, red panda, sloth, lemur, hamster, and panda. I think there were a few others on her list, but that’s all I was able to print out to make cardboard cut-outs with. We’re so looking forward to the festivities that the living room has been decorated with streamers, tissue paper flowers, and those endangered species since Wednesday. For Justine (and therefore me, as her mother) its the most important day of the year.
This week, I found some old photos of her third birthday…the last year Vernon was still with us. I shared them with her because I doubted she could remember. “What do you think of these photos?” I asked. “Are they sad or is it kind of cool to see them.”
Tonight is the eve of our fourth acci-versary. I wonder what it would be like to only have one big day a year to remind us of who and what was lost. But we have several. May 23rd is probably the biggest one because when I look back, I know that fateful Friday in 2014 marked the event that turned our world upside down. It unhinged us, it damaged us, it transformed us. And yet…we still grow, we still transform. Every year, we are slightly different versions of ourselves, older, affected by moods and circumstance, by each other. So it’s no wonder we process grief a little differently each time these important dates roll back around the sun. This is the day we can look back at and recognize that we aren’t the three people we used to be.
Over time, I’m noticing, grief gets less less foggy. The fog can make a person feel really crazy for awhile, so I’m glad it is dissipating. Also, the shock of early trauma has generally worn off so a sad moment can feel more intense because of the normalcy/joy/forgetfulness that surrounds it. It’s all relative to what is around, I suppose. I find myself more sharp, and even more angry at the injustice of the story this year. That shocks me a little…but I let it roll over, pleased that at least it matches the gloomy May skies of my southern California home. I’m weirdly pleased that I’m even feeling anything painful.— it validates the love somehow, especially as the memory of that love and life together is already fading away. Perhaps the injustice is something I can sink my teeth into in a way I wasn’t able to when I was on the front lines. The other day, I found myself telling someone that Vernon had been “killed” in an accident. This is true, but of course I couldn’t call it that for a long time because he was still alive.Now it seems just the word to wrap things up, and I don’t have to tell the whole story to another stranger. For now, it feels like it conveys the unfairness of it all—for THAT is the part that stings most. I think right now I’m not just grieving the loss of Vernon anymore—but the life our family would have had if this had not happened. It’s okay, we will still try to live our lives well (there is a lot of it ahead of us, I hope!) its just that we didn’t have a choice in the matter. I grieve our loss of innocence that the world was supposed to work a certain way if we only loved each other.
Justine said an interesting thing the other day: she said she thought Vernon had held on longer so that he could spend more time wth her…otherwise she wouldn’t have remembered her time with her dad at all, because she was so young. Then she pointed out that both Maki and I had been allowed to know him longer than she had…and that that wasn’t fair. It’s always good to hear the workings of a young mind that can express itself…certainly gives a new perspective. And yes, its another sad angle, but I know this is temporary. We are all feeling the blues, but now its just for a couple of days…not a whole month at a time.And we’ve learned to expect something.We didn’t give her a name that means “justice” for nought. At least we can still feel and name things…that’s a twisted blessing, but still a blessing.
Now that I’ve cleared out my real-time (and temporary) thoughts in those paragraphs, I can move to the good stuff. At four years out from his accident, the three American Adams family members are still loving one another, still living in harmony, despite the unconventionality of our circumstances. Justine will be moving into third grade after this summer…she got glasses a month ago, so she can now SEE…and that makes her happy.Maki is learning to drive, and he is quite good at it. He’s a cautious and deliberate soul, so I feel at ease in the passenger seat on the way to school and back every day.He recently went to prom with his girlfriend Kiersten (from another school) and that felt like a lovely milestone. He also will be starting a new job this summer that we are very happy about…he’s heading in a great direction and growing up elegantly. We are looking forward to his Norwegian/New Zealander family coming to visit him in July. Sometimes the worlds collide in the best and most unexpected ways!
As for myself, I’m still balancing life as a mother an artist and all-around emotional human being. Its been empowering much of the time, just to discover how possible things actually are! I have a dream exhibit of my paintings in a San Diego Museum come February next year. Our dreams are being blessed so we continue to name them boldly. God does watch out for the widows and orphans, it seems. And so we continue to believe…its altogether interesting, the good and the bad, the difficult and the sublime. This is the life we embrace. Most of the time, its very good. These days are just really hard….and we embrace them too.
Here we are in the strange and unexpected and/all of Family Life. Love always wins. This is my experience and my belief.
I’ve always thought I’d do something more with our Sansoxyen story, but haven’t had the head/heart to go back to compile it into something new. I have a long flight in a few days though, so I thought I’d start cutting and pasting the early entries into files I can read/edit on the airplane. In the past couple of days, I’ve transferred 150 posts, which covers the first first four and a half months, the period from the accident to the ICU to the sub-ICU through Kindred subacute. The period before having to advocate for him in nursing homes. I am trying not to do much reading yet, saving that for the plane ride, but the pictures and titles bring up all sorts of conflicting memories. I’ll share some of the standouts here. There was so much hope…and so much waiting. One of the quotes I found again on these pages pulls it all back into perspective:
“And sure enough, even waiting will end…if you can just wait long enough.” ― William Faulkner
It’s a bitter relief to see those words and to remember the context and yet, here we are on the other side of that waiting. Incidentally, May marks the four year mark since his accident. The most painful is facing how much the children and I have changed since that night. It’s clearly documented…I wonder if in the re-processing of these posts I can find some breadcrumbs back.
But here’s a quick photo trip through those early days. This is going to be another journey in itself, but I’m glad the time has finally opened up enough for me to start….or rather, finish what was started with this journal.
I was listening to my favorite podcast the other day, and the comments of a guest neuroscientist struck me:
“It’s counter-intuitive that sad music makes you feel better when you distract yourself with it.When you are feeling unhappy and depressed, you feel misunderstood, and the last thing you want is to listen to some rousing, happy music because that is just another person who doesn’t understand how you are feeling. You put on the right sad music and you go: “Ah…yes, that musician understands me. I’m no longer sitting alone at the edge of the cliff, looking over the abyss, but there is somebody next to me—somebody that’s been through this and who has turned their experience into a beautiful work of art.”—Dr. Daniel Levitin
I really like that idea, and it makes sense, doesn’t it? I love happy music too, big time—but what is that thing about sad songs that draws us deeper? We all seem to know there is comfort there, but to have it described in such a way feels like a sort of revelation.Sometimes songs come up that remind me of times with Vernon and even the happy ones can make me feel more sad than glad. But music was always a big part of our story, so why shouldn’t it continue to be a part of mine?
This song came up today. It’s one of my favorites: we even have the record. Vernon and I went to see this guy when he played in our town in England, and I was listening to this album on my headphones (to relax my nerves) while waiting at the Tom Bradley terminal for Vernon to arrive for his first visit nearly 13 years ago. We also had it on constant rotation through Vernon’s ordeal. So yes, the song is sad, but it has meaning. I guess you could say this song has been an understanding and loyal friend for many years.
And THIS brings to mind the wonderful, healing voice of Isabelle Logie, her rendition, and some more memories…which are indeed quite sad. When the sadness like this comes, I embrace it, as it is a privilege to feel the past…especially as we go forward and the visits of the past are less consistent, yet still surprising. This kind of fleeting sadness is a gift, like seeing a rainbow in California or a deer in a wilderness. I try to stop and take in the moment while it’s there.
“The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.”
― Marie Kondō
Moving the bikes out of the garage was a start, but there is still more to do in order to create the space I need for a clear mind in the next season. This has taken a long time—years, actually—but I have to run with the organizing momentum of springtime when I have it, as it usually doesn’t last long. Maki had promised to help me move things around on Saturday, but I had no idea how much I would actually need him.
We decided to fill the van with anything we could get rid of and take it to the dump. I knew there were a few more boxes of Vernon’s on the higher shelves that hadn’t been looked at since we moved to the house over three years ago, and I knew there were some hazardous waste materials long-needing disposal. Just in dragging the first boxes out, I could see that I’d have to sift through layers of unknown contents. It first I was looking at the leftover bike gear in the corner: a couple of forks and handlebars, some perfectly new-looking cycling shoes for the thrift store, the helmets.
The helmets were the hardest to decide over. I wouldn’t say they “sparked joy,” but there were a couple of bike helmets that could be useful in the future. And then there were the motor helmets. I’ve paused over these elegant orbs often, but haven’t been able to get rid of them either. There is something romantic about them: instead of making me angry, they remind me of Vernon’s European dreams.
The biggest and highest box was opened last. It took both of us to get it down to the workbench. This, it turned out, was a box full of other boxes, each filled with layers of shop tools, bike chains, nuts, and bolts. All these things in one place brought back memories to both of us as we began to dig through them: how he’d loved to drive Maki up to the auto or bike shop to replace a missing tool (there were about 15 tiny screwdrivers in the mix) and how he’d spent hours in the garage (or at our first place, in the kitchen) tinkering over something, fixing something. The joy was in the time doing it. I suppose. Typically, it’s the job of the creative to create problems to solve.
Maki found some discarded parts of the Vespa…all we’ve seen of it since, so this was a surprise. Now we were on the hunt for treasure, understanding our limitations: we wouldn’t keep anything that wasn’t useful or memorable. Maki found a bag of thumb drives and small attachments. “I’ve been needing one of these for my amp!” he exclaimed. Then we uncovered another of Vernon’s font sketchbooks. That was the most special of treasures. I thought we’d found them all!
But the jackpot was hit in the very last corner, of course, once all the other boxes has been lifted. In a closed cardboard box deep within the big box was a stash of old wooden tools that he’d collected over the years in England. He’d worked for a time as a craftsman/wood-worker/furniture restorer. My dad remembers helping him pack it up before we moved here, another time that we were having to box and throw out tinkering bits from the shed. He’s asked about these tools a few times and we just shrug: “I I have no idea where they are…or if we even still have them.” So opening hat box brought back a different level of memories to us, going further back to England. I am grateful Maki was with me because it was too much to witness alone…and truthfully, we are the only ones that lived with him those years…that can remember and make sense of these things. It validates our shared past to remember together.
And then…when we got the car as full as we could, we went to the dump and let everything except a few special treasures go. I don’t know how many more rounds of this sort of thing we have left (not many.) But it was time because it happened.
A special cover of Vernon's fav song 'Waterloo Sunset' by friend and singer/song-writer Ian McGlynn. All proceeds support Vernon's recovery! Donate what you can and download a beautiful song in return.
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