Author: sheilahjfrench

29 September 2015

Vaughn–

I haven’t written to you for a long time. I don’t do it because it hurts. Not to write to you, but to bring the reality of your not being…what to say…’here’? ‘in this world’?

But I feel you are here. I feel you are part of the world –the world that is your home, my darling.

So I will say ‘not on this planet’, woo woo or not as it may sound.

This is the thing: even though I may see ‘you’ again, it will be your eternal soul. Which is cool, I guess, but I want Vaughn, the human boy who came through my body. The dear, lively little boy who grew up into a beautiful, kind, and sensitive young man.

I want to hear your voice. My human ears and human arms and human eyes long for you.

If what I’m learning about is true, my soul will vibrate with indescribable joy at reconnecting with your soul. And I find that comforting. But that doesn’t change these human years stretching out in front of me. All of them missing a piece. That will be my human life and I can’t change it.

I love you my darling. I hope you somehow hear me.

16 September 2015

Night time. In bed. The usual

I could think about Vaughn., and everything I did wrong. Or just the big things I did wrong–letting him go on Ritalin, not advocating harder for him to go to a better rehab, or at least advocating harder for him at that stupid place he did go to. Not taking him to his Kaiser doctor’s appointment that day. And of course, my last, spectacular mistake.

So basically I could sit here blaming myself for my son’s death. But since I’ve already done that quite a bit today, I could instead just feel so sad, so sad that I won’t see him again on this earth. My baby. How is any human supposed to cope with that.

Or I can distract myself–read, watch TV–no I’ve decided against that; it really makes me feel like shit.

But of course none of these things will cure me. None of them will make me feel better. Only seeing Vaughn–hearing him and touching him could do that. And I can’t have that. I can’t have what I want.

Can I stop wanting? Is that what acceptance would be?

My life feels very puny.

I guess I will read.

I guess what I can see is that all the gratifications of my ego are unstasfying. I can still enjoy those things, but they are just passing distractions–they don’t fill me or fulfill me.

My life is starting to feel like an empty hole.

11 July 2015

Vaughn—Here I am on a summer evening. I look at photos of mediterranian gardens. Harry is sitting beside me. I register the not-so-slow cooling of the air against my skin. It’s still light–but the day has lost its brightness; dusk is not far off. Music is playing in the house, and I hear the occasional shouts and calls of children passing by on the street.

This is all pleasant.

And you are not here.

I can work on being present. I can notice how my mind wanders and lead it back. I take some satisfaction from this.

And you are not here

You are not here, Vaughn. How will I ever know what to do with that?

I catch myself feeling a little bit happy–a little bit content, satisfied. But you are not here. You are not here. How can I ever be happy or satisfied if that is the circumstance? And that is the circumstance. For the rest of my life.

19 June 2015

Summer Solstice. Summer Soltice week. I’m hating the fucking sunshine. So bright. Peering into all my nooks and crannies. It shouldn’t be light. It shouldn’t be bright. The fucking birds shouldn’t be chirping. Little kids shouldn’t be riding their stupid bicycles and playing their stupid games out on the street.

It’s trying to draw me in. But I won’t go–I know it’s all a con. This sham of light and brightness–when life is not like that at all. In real life Vaughn dies.

In real life Vaughn discovers the sham for himself–a childhood seeming full of light and  brightness suddenly slammed shut into a dungeon. And all will be Fucking Black for ME FOREVER.

I will poke my head out on my own terms from time to time But my real life will be in the dark. Totally black. I scorn this childish hope of brightness and light.

I’m glad the days will begin to shorten on Monday. I crave the LONG starry nights.

13 May 2015

Well Vaughn, today I was there, unbidden, reliving those moments I decided to go down to Alameda instead of staying at the motel with you. I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me later to call 911, but that is a different story.  That was perhaps stupidity. The decision to go to Alameda feels a lot more like selfishness. Selfishness and stupidity mixed together in a lethal dose.

The coroner says it was a lethal combination of meth and methadone that killed you. I wonder if my combination of selfishness and stupidity prevented me from saving your life.

I was there. Your mother. You were still breathing. Maybe I could have saved your life. But I didn’t

Instead I decided to go and buy you some food for when you woke up so I could go to Alameda and go dancing.

Even as I write this, I can feel there’s something not quite honest, not quite fair about it. Maybe because I’m not ‘there’ like I was earlier today. Reliving the thoughts and feelings I had then.

But I think some part of me was willing to take a gamble. Not a gamble that you would die, but a gamble that it would be better not to stay with you.

I just don’t want to write it again, or even think about it right now–how tired I was, what a difficult, virtually impossible situation it was.

And then more of the same. I’ve gone over it so many times–even if the paramedics had been able to revive you, even if you suffered no brain damage–what would have happened: Would you have learned your lesson? Stopped using and gone on to live your life? Probably not the most likely scenario .

But I always said there was still hope as long as you were alive. Hope died that day. Hope died that day maybe because I decided to go dancing. Surely that is too cruel, too unfair to me. Too simplistic.

And yet I need to forgive myself if I’m to carry on, Vaughn. Goodness knows I forgive you (even though I’m angry at you sometimes), and I know you forgive me. But still I ask you again,

Please forgive me, my darling Vaughn

Please forgive me for every harsh tone, every selfish, unkind action. I’m so sorry darling.

I hope to hold you again, Vaughn.

I know even if you were still here I would not/could not be a perfect friend or mother.

I will try to forgive myself.

I love you Vaughn.

28 March 2015

Vaughn,

It’s the anniversary (second year) of the night before you left this world. I’m watching TV. Should I feel extra sad? Do I need to ‘go there’, feel the pain–that real real pain like a knife slitting my skin?

I don’t even believe in calendars. They are essentially meaningless. But I have lived on this annual cycle: 1 year, 2 years, 3 years. So I suppose my gut reacts. My brain says I ‘should’ feel a certain way.

But it’s really just one more day without you. One more day of knowing you’re not feeling the warm breath on your skin of this extra early summer.

Maybe it’s time to ‘get on’ with my life. Shed my old skin. Like you did, only not so extreme. You always were extreme–like your dad. I will try ‘getting on’ over the next year. I promise to myself. Otherwise what’s the point of fucking being here??

But tonight I’m stuck in my lethargy. Some kind of twilight zone where I’m not feeling that sharp pain, but I’m not really alive, either. It’s oddly comfortable.

Two years. How many more years before I see you? Vaughn I love you. I miss you.

March 2015

1. The pain of ‘healing’. Being human means all the pain from grief, but also the tendency to heal with time—which can feel so wrong.
2. Holding two thoughts, or pictures in my head at the same time: the beauty of the day–and the knowledge, and pictures–of Vaughn, gone.
3. The craving for his physicality. He came out of my body–how can I not??

February 2015

This terrible knowledge. That Vaughn died.

I carry it like a heavy locket around my neck. It’s there when I shower, when I dance, when I work out and when I eat. It’s there when I talk to friends, when I laugh and when I cry.

It’s a kind of secret–other people mostly don’t see it. But I can feel it always–softly touching my skin and swaying under my clothes.

I don’t take if off when I sleep–I wake up with it still there every morning.

In fact, I can never take it off. I will never lose it, and no one can steal it from me. I’ve actually grown somewhat accustomed to its weight–it’s like a part of me now.

Even if I could, I wouldn’t want to break the chain it hangs from. Because that chain connects me to Vaughn.–my memories of him and my hope of seeing him again.

February 2015

Often when I first wake up my mind announces: “Vaughn is gone.” My heart almost laughs at this impossibility. “Oh yes,” my mind insists, “it’s true, Vaughn died.” Again my heart rejects this crazy idea.

What is acceptance? Acceptance, they say, is freedom. My mind seems to understand that you are gone, Vaughn. But I don’t know if my heart will ever believe that. Perhaps it’s because my heart knows a different truth–that you will live, indestructible, in my heart for as long as I live and breathe.

3 January 2015

Dream:

Segments before I can’t remember…

I was in a room with a bed. The door moved and I could see someone on the other side. I was afraid, then I saw it was Don.

He opened the door and came into the room. He was young(ish) and strong. His hair was dark. He was smiling and so happy.

He hugged me and said, “We’re together.” He might have said something more–maybe about Vaughn, but I don’t remember.

I had that feeling of being surprised to see him, because I knew he had passed, but then I was so happy to see him and be with him.