Driving

The long weekend, with the Juneteenth federal holiday, just ended up feeling empty and sad. We really didn’t have plans with anyone. Most people with kids were doing Fathers’ Day things and a lot of people took off on vacation after school ended. Yesterday, the actual holiday, I spent some time just driving around, again visiting a few of Sarah’s old schools as if seeing their campuses would bring me close to her.

It seems to me I’m at a sad and lonely stage of grieving, where I know that Sarah is dead and that she’s not going to come back. I don’t worry that much any more about where she is and if she’s cared for. I just think about the fact that she’s gone and I’ll never get to see her again. And I feel terribly sad and sometimes I have to sob really deep sobs and almost hyperventilate and choke a little bit. Usually this happens when I’m walking Polly or sitting on the bed with her and she just sits quietly with me or gives me a worried look when I start gasping. I stroke her and feel a little bit better.

Yesterday as I was driving around I had the urge to just drive somewhere far away, to go visit Cincinnati again, or drive all the way to Los Angeles or to Toronto, where I have old friends, and pop by, or just somehow hit the open road and have some sort of new life. A geographical cure for the way I was feeling. It was a pretty inchoate feeling but there was something desperately appealing about it. Like going back in time or trading my life in on a better model.

Last night I had a dream with Sarah in it, which is so rare. I was driving in the old neighborhood my family lived in near here when I was in high school and Sarah was in her car seat in the back of the car. Next to me in the car was one of my brother’s high school friends with whom I had a very brief romance in high school, and whom I’m in touch with these days on Facebook because he and his wife also have a child with a genetic disorder. It’s funny how life turns out.

Anyway in the dream the car kept getting faster and faster, out of control, on roads I had never seen in Bethesda before. I kept trying to deliver Mark back to Leland Street, where he lived at the time, as if he were still in high school. (I guess he and I would have been about Sarah’s age at the time of our fling.) Finally Sarah spoke from the back seat. No, Sarah said, Mark could not come to live in her room.

I’m not sure what this all means. Sarah doesn’t want me using her as an excuse to work out my old shit and get depressed? No other special needs kids (or parents) in her room, ever? Stop driving around town all the time and go home where you belong before you have some kind of accident?

Maybe the dream is a wish for a strong partner who can help right my course when I veer off into these really bad days of depression and lassitude. That’s putting a lot on Max, who is suffering too. He told me at his AA meeting yesterday that the main speaker talked about losing a child. Then four other members spoke up and talked about losing children. It was very hard for him to deal with. Sometimes it’s hard when we are both feeling down. It would be better if we could take turns but life doesn’t work that way.