Listserv

Vincent Van Gogh said “I don’t know if I’m extremely sensitive or if life is unbearable.” Sometimes I feel the same way. We met with the Parks Department yesterday and chose a spot for Sarah’s Memorial Bench in our local park. It was a good experience. We settled on an area near the infant swings, which Sarah loved when she was a baby, but also with a nice view that looks out over the whole park, and is also within sight of the paved path that curves around the park where Sarah practiced driving her power chair. It was tricky finding a spot without tree roots from big established trees, but that still had a feeling of “setting.” Someplace you can sit and people-watch or just sit look out at the park. Someplace with a bit of shade, but also some sunshine. There’s a young tree nearby that reminded me of a teenager. We mentioned to the Parks Department people that Sarah used a wheelchair, and they offered to pour a concrete or cement slab beneath the bench so a wheelchair user can wheel up directly next to the bench. This makes it ADA compliant. We said of course that would be great. The whole thing will be ready by the end of August and then we can start benchsitting and bench-tending. It felt like a good morning, something real accomplished. So why do I always manage to spin gold into straw?  Maybe it’s my way of keeping my anxiety down, or is it my way of ramping my anxiety up? I’m not sure. Since yesterday morning, I keep having intrusive fantasies that people from our neighborhood listserv will complain once the bench is installed with its slab.  Complain about what?  The bench? The slab?  Who knows, people on the Listserv complain about anything and everything.  It’s really quite comic.  Max and I have long felt that there should be a screenplay or miniseries called “Listserv.” Maybe I’m just nervous about putting my loss, my grief, my failure out there in public.  Sarah’s name and her year of birth and death will be on the plaque. I just feel afraid of the thoughts people will have.  It reminds me of the statement that gets made at the beginning of every Compassionate Friends meeting, that we don’t judge any parent by the way their child died.  This is meant to make parents whose children died by suicide, drug overdose, eating disorders, etc. know they are just as welcome and their children are just as important. But I find it comforting too. Lately I’ve been changing the picture of Sarah I keep as the wallpaper on my phone.  For many months I kept the last picture I took of her, before I left for my fateful trip to New York State.  But I’ve been changing up the picture lately.  I can’t believe how beautiful she was.  I had such a beautiful child.