Okay - first 2k words. Super rough, just let it flow. Editing will come next month. Let me know what you think :)
I love my son. I mean, I loved my son. No, I still do love my son. I don’t know how to say this. Shit. I am going to have to say this for the rest of my life and I don’t know what to say. Now that he’s gone, language would dictate that I use past tense, but it isn’t like the love went away with him. Is there a better word? Is there a better word in another language? Do I need to learn another language to be able to express how I feel?
He always used to reference German. Apparently German has a lot of words for odd moments and feelings in your life. Dear God, I am not going to hear that anymore, will I? I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to do this. I don’t want to do this. I want to wake up. I want him to walk in the door and annoy the hell out of me. I want to be angry that he isn’t getting his life together. I want to sit and watch YouTube videos about movies with him and debate the merits of the critiques. I want to make him watch trailers of new movies coming out so we can both be excited about them. I want him here.
I want him here.
I want to scream.
It fucking sucks.
I know I am supposed to understand. I know that I am supposed to know that he lost the battle against his own fucked up mind. But I am pissed. He was on meds. He went to therapy. Why the fuck didn’t they work? I want to go and scream and hit the therapist. She should have seen it coming. She should have stopped him. IT WAS HER JOB. But she failed.
Why didn’t the meds work? Are there better meds? Would he still be here if he was on them? Or was there something defective about the ones he was taking. Do I need to write the FDA? Do I need to write the company? Do I need to push to have my Senator do a Congressional hearing on the meds? Are there other mothers who this damn drug failed to keep their children alive?
He wasn’t perfect. He was spoiled. I wanted him to have a better childhood, an easier childhood than what I had. I wanted him to have a better life than mine.
To grow up poor, that seep into your bones. Being poor teaches you to not take risks. If you don’t do what the teacher tells you, you will get into trouble. But there are no parents who can put you into a private school or pay your way into a good college. No, it is all on you. So you do what you are told or you will end up homeless. And you see it. Everyday you see it. Kids wearing socks on their hands because their parents can’t afford gloves for them. Good kids who you can see the potential. But Jesus the way they are treated. Burdens by everyone. My mom never treated me that way, but I saw so many other parents treat their kids that way. They were tired, they were trying to keep a roof over everyone’s head. They didn’t have the time for their kids because they had to keep them alive. And the teachers? They don’t want to be in that school. They want the posh privileged ones with the good books, the good salaries, the better-quality kids. Oh they didn’t have to say it but boy did they show it. So you either shut the fuck up and do what you are told or you will be a failure. And that can be chosen for you way early.
The idea that somehow anyone can make it is bullshit. Not because it isn’t true that with hard work people can succeed. No, that is true. No the bullshit is that it has not been or ever was an even playing field. And they handicap the fuck out of poor kids. They are shown in every way that they are less than. That there are people better than them and deserve more because they are fundamentally better. That being poor is a personality defect. From the get-go they are taught to be cogs in a machine. A machine that will be run by those better-quality kids. That isn’t meant for us. And they drill that in your head from the get-go.
But yet when anyone pushes for an equal playing field for the kids somehow that is the parents’ responsibility. Really? Well if they were raised poor to be cogs in a wheel too, do you think maybe they never stood a chance either dumbasses?
I can’t say that out loud though. My life is so different now. I broke the mold. I had help. I learned to take risks. I learned to stop feeling like there are people who are superior to me. I’m surrounded by people who have never gone hungry or worried about food other than when is the break in the meeting or where to eat in their entire lives. I am happy for them. Everyone should have that. But that is such a different experience than mine. And that is something hard to imagine. But that leaves me alone.
And I worked so hard, fought so hard, to make sure my son never knew that feeling. That he never would. I wanted him to be like the people I am surrounded with every day. I never wanted him to feel like he was less than because of where he grew up or who his family was. I wanted better for him. I wanted to shield him from the things that hardened me.
Maybe that was a mistake.
Maybe I went too much the other direction.
Maybe I left him vulnerable to other demons that would haunt him.
I saw so much potential in him. He is brilliant. Was brilliant. Creative and kind, daring and energetic. He could solve things in his mind so quickly. It had it dark side too. When you can see things for what they are you see things for what they are. That is dangerous when you are young. I remember. I saw it young too. But that motivated me to fight harder. That overwhelmed him.
I saw what he could do and I pushed him. I wanted him to take chances. I wanted him to speak his mind. I wanted him to never feel like he couldn’t be what he wanted to be. That he was less than or didn’t deserve it. I remember those kids. I remember the teacher telling them to sit down and be quiet. Brilliant minds being silenced because it was inconvenient to address that they were other than what society said they should be.
But instead he was arrogant. He knew he was smart. He knew he was the smartest person in the room at most times, and he was most likely right. And intelligence is nothing if you can’t communicate effectively. I tried to get him to communicate appropriately. But he had other influences. Others who were condescending and arrogant as well. They thought they were better quality people than everyone else. And sometimes my son thought that too.
But I wasn’t prepared for those risks. I never lived that life. I was raised to be a cog. I didn’t see the trappings. And dear Lord there are trappings.
When you are poor, life has enough drama. Media likes to portray poor folks as all fights and cheating and frankly teen crap. But that isn’t really true. That shit is in the suburbs. Oh, there are some who lean into soap opera stuff but for the most part, people are just trying to survive. You want to see true spirit of community. Go to a poor church. Dude, they barely are scraping by but they will give in a heartbeat. There is no pause or question of whether the person deserves it. They just do it. Not because they are more noble or anything, but because they get it. They know what it’s like to have nothing. To be scared.
But in the suburbs, I see something completely different. No one has each other backs in a real way. If a neighbor’s house burned down they will put together a fundraiser at the local Chipotle were a portion goes to rebuild which, don’t get me wrong, is nice. But where will they sleep tonight? What clothes will they wear? What are they going to eat? How do they pay for any of it since the purse was in another room and couldn’t grab it. ID, credit cards, all of it, gone. But it doesn’t occur to anyone.
In some way that’s a good thing, means they never experienced it. But at the same time, it means that they focus on the petty stuff instead. Gossip will always happen. But there is a big difference between talking about how you are concerned your neighbor is going to be evicted and then what will happen to your kid’s friend who lives there and talking about who you think is sleeping with your spin instructor.
The expectations are so different too. If you are expected to be high quality, the expectations of what you will achieve are high quality. And the sense of entitlement is also there too. And that comes with some severe trappings too.
I wasn’t prepared for any of that for him.
And so I watched as a child filled with promised, given opportunities I would have chopped limbs off for, slide through life until he became a cliché. And what was sad was that it was a weird cliché. One normally used to explain why poor people are poor. No drive, excuses for everything and blaming others for everything else. Not taking responsibility for anything.
I got angry.
The hell I went through. I have been working for decades, since I was in elementary school. I wanted a better life for myself. I wanted a better life for him. And here he is, just pissing everything away because he can’t pull his head out of his own ass and grow up? I get it. I get that you have issues. But so did I. I still fucking do. But I didn’t get the luxury of sitting in them. If I did, we would have both starved. No, I had to fucking get up and push through. Even if I wanted to be in bed under the covers. Even when life was overwhelming, and I wanted to scream. Sometimes when I would drive home from work I would. Have the volume up in the car with the windows up and just scream. But I had to. I couldn’t stop. I wasn’t going to use my pain as an excuse to have him experience what I experienced. No, he had to have better. I had to be better quality.
But that wasn’t enough. I wasn’t prepared. I didn’t prepare him for the issues that come from the privilege of having stability. I never knew there was a downside to that. How would I have known? For those who have it they can’t even see what it’s like to not so they don’t know what the differences would be. No one could tell me what to prepare for. So I never saw the risk.
All I saw was the wasted opportunities.
I love my son. I loved my son as I took his body down. I loved my son as I held him and tried to speak intelligently to the 911 operator begging her to have them hurry. Even though he was already cold. I love my son as the fireman held me and told me to let his body go. I loved my son as they put the sheet over his body to wheel into the ambulance. I loved my son as my neighbor offered to get me a cup a fucking coffee as I talked to the police. I love my son as I call his father to tell him. I loved my son as I stare at his phone trying to figure out if I should unlock it and see what is there. I love my son as I see the pity glances from the neighbors as the whispers spread through. I loved my son as I listen to each family member cry as I tell them. I love my son as I fill out the paperwork at the hospital for his body’s release to the funeral home.
It wasn’t society’s fault. It wasn’t the meds fault. It wasn’t the therapist’s fault. It wasn’t his fault. I know whose fault it was.
It was mine.
Because I wasn’t enough.