Now that it’s the first week of July, we are almost practically about to be on the cusp of the first anniversary of Sarah’s death on August 18th of last year. It seems like things are getting more depressing in some ways the closer we get to the anniversary, which makes me think of the way everyone in the Grief Industrial Complex always warns you “The second year is harder than the first.” I didn’t really understand this message six months ago, it just seemed like the way other parents would tell me that Sarah was happy and compliant now — but wait until she turns 3! She’ll be a three-nager! It will be awful!
I guess maybe the second year is harder than the first because of the distance you start to feel from the event, the fact that your child’s death isn’t so shocking anymore, just a wound you carry forever. But it’s a fact of life and you have to live with it like any other. What shall we do this weekend, and Sarah is dead. The Supreme Court overturned affirmative action, and Sarah is dead. The car needs gas, and Sarah is dead.
Yesterday Max and I want to a small gathering in our neighborhood in the wake of a distressing event. A few days ago our neighborhood awoke to find that multiple Pride Flags and Ukraine support flags and other liberal lawn signs had been pulled down, destroyed, or burned, and someone scribbled “USSR” on some of them. This was weird and shocking and the news flashed across our multiple neighborhood listservs. There was a police investigation and many other neighbors, including us, put up Pride Flags and more lawn signs in response. So yesterday, a neighbor had an open house for the neighborhood just so we could bond and discuss our communal experience, which was a nice idea. Max and I went and met a lot of people we only know by sight or by dog.
Max and I spent time talking to an ex-nun, Marge, who was there with her partner, Carol. She was very easy to talk to. She asked a few questions about our lives which inevitably led to Sarah and we told her our daughter had died. We managed to get through a brief rendition of the story without crying. I didn’t run out of the room or collapse in tears. It was a social conversation. I felt proud of us but also a little strange. Marge hugged us both, which felt good.
I hope I can continue to have low-key, social conversations about Sarah’s death. I think it’s good for me to be able to discuss her death calmly, in just a few pre-packaged sentences. Yes, we had a daughter, she died at the age of 16. She had a rare genetic disorder. It happened last year. Her name was Sarah.
The First Year Without Sarah 