We Were Meant To Live

To be lost is to find the way.

Angela is twenty-three but she looks seventeen. People always tell me I look way younger than I am and I always wonder if it’s because I’m immature and naive. “I don’t interpret the Bible right,” she was telling me. “Who is telling you that?” I said, a bit aggressively. But her eyes brightened a little, like she was angry about it too. “My parents and family,” she said and then looked down at her hands. We were both wearing green hospital gowns that we kept nervously pulling around our waist afraid it would open in the back and expose us. We sat down in a room that would be where we would eat meals, go to group therapy, read or watch TV in. It terrified both of us.

“I don’t think there is a right way to interpret the Bible,” I told her. She sighed, “No, there is. There are…rules, there is a right way to live and a wrong way.” “What is the wrong way?” I asked. She was fidgeting with her hospital band on her arm. “I keep thinking about this specific passage about the sun. How it only shines down on those who follow God’s will.” I was studying some artwork that was taped to the wall behind her. Easter had just passed and it was a collection of colorful rabbits or spring flowers. It looked familiar. Reminded me of the walls in my son Noah’s classroom. I looked at Angela, her big brown eyes, long messy brown hair, wide rimmed glasses and crooked teeth. She was looking at me almost desperately.

“I grew up in a Catholic Church, my grandfather was a Deacon actually,” I told her. “I was an alter server if you can believe that. I’d wear a robe kind of like this one actually,” I said looking down at my gown. “Just longer…. and held a different meaning,” I shrugged at her and she smiled, hiding her teeth with her lips. “I was really close with my grandfather,” I told her, feeling like I should stop talking about myself and get back to her. But I was suddenly remembering those times serving with my grandfather. Dunking little babies into holy water, mainly for their parent’s relief. I guess it was reassuring to know that you would raise your child in the word of God, that meant that they would be good, or maybe protected. One of the lines in the ceremony was “do you reject the glamor of evil, and refuse to be mastered by sin.” That always stuck out to me, the glamour of evil.

When he passed away and I was asked if there was anything of his I wanted, I only wanted his Rite of Baptism book. In it he had written down, in his impossible to read handwriting, all the children he baptized. It was the book he would use when he performed the ceremony, reading from it while slathering different holy oils on the little babies heads. The book’s pages are stained with oil and everytime I open it I run my hands over his handwriting, wondering what happened to all those babies, what lives they are living now and remembering the smell of the oil. Asking him if the oil could also be used as salad dressing. Remembering my grandfather and missing him so much it physically hurt.

There was a time I went to his church, it will forever be his church. He helped design and build it, and in those walls was where he would give homilies, marry hopeful couples, baptize new little souls, and he was everywhere in it to me and to all of us I’m sure. It was in the late afternoon, after services and when all the pews were empty. I sat in the back pew, underneath an absolutely horrific floor to ceiling oversized cross with Jesus nailed to it (I would ask him now- was this thing really necessary to have? How much did this gruesome thing cost? Did you get out voted? That money could have gone to the choir for violins or maybe some ethereal wind instruments) and I wrote him a letter. I slipped it into the homily book that is always by the chair the Deacons sit in. I wonder who found that letter. What did they do with it?

“Do you want me to tell you what NuNu would say?” I asked her, then understanding I should explain, “Oh! NuNu is what we called my grandfather.” “That’s a cute name,” she replied with a true smile this time, and I loved her beautiful crooked teeth. She had a beautiful smile. “I do,” she told me. I realized that the reason she looked so young was because she carried this spirit of hopeful innocence, vulnerability and wonder- a pure heart. “I think NuNu would say that the sun shines down on us all, no one is perfect. No matter what religion, or belief system or race or gender, or mistake we made, we all wake up everyday and when the sun shines, we all get that warmth. It’s impossible for only some to feel the sun.” “That’s what I think too,” she said both happy and sad. And I understood in that moment what had just happened. She had found someone, a stranger, who within minutes of encountering, somehow understood something she has been desperately trying to explain to the important people in her life, those people we don’t want to disappoint or let down.

“I would ask NuNu all the time why there was evil in the world-how can that be part of Gods plan for us? He told me that God gave us this world, gave us each other, but he also gave us free will to live. So even though we all get the warmth of the sun, some people don’t see God in others, or notice the kindness in the world. They may not look at a flower and pause to admire its beauty, or wonder how on earth it came to be here, or feel so thankful that somehow here they are getting to experience it. They choose to see the bad and maybe that’s how they become bad I’m not sure. Some people can never break a cycle maybe, or they never get up after being knocked down. But the choice is always ours. If you look, you’ll see the signs he’s sending you.” I realized just then that Angela and I meeting, here in the psychiatric ward at a hospital, was the work of God, maybe even NuNu up there. “I also think…. I also think that NuNu would tell you that we are all imperfect, but also all deserving of love. And if you are one of those people who accept the bad and good in people, who choose to love them anyway, and you see the signs, you’re one of the lucky ones.”

Her beautiful crooked smile appeared again. “I hope I can get better,” she said. “I hope I can too,” I told her.

Depression is a very hard thing to describe. Especially if you are someone who has a lot of blessings. I have always been keenly aware and thankful for the cards I have been delt. And so to feel sad felt attention seeking or ridiculous. And the guilt knowing that others have less and I’m just this pathetic, entitled, sad girl, whose efforts to help were never enough. Not knowing how to fix anything, where to even begin. Whose mistakes- the unforgivable being anytime I hurt or caused anyone suffering, just ruminate within me. Sink me. Paralyze and anchor me in a sea of self hatred. No matter how many blessings you have been given, if you move through the world tuned into everything and everyone around you, you become overwhelmed with the ugly and the beautiful. And it can break your heart. And it can drive you crazy.

When my aunt killed herself I was a few weeks away from having Noah. When my mom told me over the phone I immediately felt the need to deny it. No. I just talked to her, we were making plans, we were joking about getting my mom a hazemat suit so she could come meet her first grandchild and not worry about Covid. And I felt like I had to deny it because the sadness, the overwhelming unbearable feeling can’t be let in. It can’t be let in when Noah was inside of me. Just a little innocent life. I needed to protect him. I already was battling Covid and Trump turning the world upside down. I was battling the anxiety of bringing Noah into a world experiencing so much hatred, division and literal isolation, but this? The sadness would consume me and he would drown in the tidal wave of it. He wasn’t even in the world yet.

And a part of me understood. She’s free now. She thinks she has unburdened all of us by removing herself from our lives. It was the final knockdown she couldn’t get back up from. She felt it was the only way. And to an outsider or even someone who loved her endlessly, like my mom, it’s hard to imagine why she goes underground. Why does she keep visiting this dark evil place? It’s not serving her, it’s avoidable with the right medication or yoga or art therapy. Why does she keep going there? She was a nurse, and she had a great sense of humor, and she was beautiful. She didn’t belong underground.

It’s impossible to tell someone that you’re not of your own will opening the door and inviting yourself in, paying rent to live in an underworld. That when you look in the mirror you don’t see someone beautiful or smart or worthy of others love. That there are so many lives to live but you have to pick one you can’t possibly live them all, and what if you make the wrong choice? That you may want to live all of the lives and also not live at all.

I was studying the art pictures again and remembering how my Aunt would always be coloring in art books meant for children, when I noticed the woman next to me, her head was down buried in her tray of food. She was larger, a little huntchbacked with a wildly messy pony tail, like one little girls have when they are outside playing and return covered in dirt, wild hair and untied shoes. “Hi,” I said to her. “I’m Jennifer.” She slowly, slowly raised her head up from her spoon, her eyes WIDE and unblinking. Her face completely expressionless and locked into mine, which was growing fearful. She said nothing but stared at me until I looked down at my own tray and she returned to my applesauce.

I looked at Angela who returned my silent sentiment. How did we end up here?

I ended up here when I found myself trying to get out of the underground room, but the door was locked. I can’t get out, how do I get out? There’s no windows, no other doors, no vents, the walls are made of concrete. I was throwing my body against the door, bruised and aching. I’m never going to get out of here. I thought of Noah, his beautiful brown eyes, his beautiful heart, how I brought him into the world but leaving him in it without me might be better for him. I can’t hurt him or disappoint him or mess him up if I’m not here. He won’t have to realize his mother is a weak, selfish, complicated, chaotic, woman and someday feel unlucky or burdened by me. Forced to love me because I’m his mother, but not liking me very much, not wanting to be anything like me. I could save him from me- all I cause others is disappointment and confusion. He will have disciplined, rational, Silvio. Silvio who he can admire, and feel supported by, who he can be proud to call his Dad. And Silvio will meet someone simpler, easier, lighter, who he can understand and who understands him and they will be happy, they will have a chance to be a normal happy family. As the walls started to close in I screamed Aunt Donna what to do I do! What do I do!

You can’t get out of the room alone. You have to ask for help. Ask for it this time.

I drove myself to the ER. The ER where I had gone to give birth to Noah. I couldn’t speak the words out loud still, never had I spoken the words out loud to someone and for some reason I still couldn’t, but this time I knew I needed to. I feel suicidal, I want to die were the words scribbled on a wrinkled piece of scratch paper that I slid under the window to the nurse on the other side. I wonder how quickly she threw that note away, which makes me laugh for some reason. The scariest, truest expression of how I think about myself finally exposed to someone and it probably got tossed in a trash can with a quickness. But equally why would you want to keep that? When I get discharged, here dear, in case you want to keep it for the memories.

I have spent the past six days in a psych ward. And in those six days I met real life angels. I met people who will forever be in my soul army. And I found the key to unlock that door.

They gave me a notebook while I was there and I filled it up. And on the very last page before I got discharged I wrote something I have always remembered NuNu saying.

I had been going through the steps of getting confirmed in the Catholic Church- kind of like a baptism, but this time your parents aren’t rejecting Satan on your behalf. You are. Leading up to the actual ceremony you have to have a sponsor, very similar to AA, a spiritual guide who helps you through your journey to the Lord. Obviously I chose NuNu.

In one of the classes, the instructor prompted all of us to tell the group what the greatest gift we had ever been given. As everyone went around sharing things- a baseball bat from Dad that sparked their passion for baseball, a pretty ring from someone’s mom, their children, their parents, their friends, their pets, we ended on NuNu. NuNu had been sitting there just loving on everyone’s answers, completely engaged. And with his legs crossed and holding his hands in his lap, he took a moment to think and he said, “I think the greatest gift I’ve ever been given is life.” I was sitting next to him beaming from ear to ear. “Shoot, why didn’t he go first?” I heard a mother whisper to her daughter.

On the last page of my journal I wrote:

“The greatest gift I’ve ever been given is life.”