Death Becomes Her
Reader, beware. This is a total Debbie Downer post. Like, if you’re having even a semi good day, please stop reading. If you’re having a spit-on-your-neck fantastic day (Friends reference), then I’m just going to hang up on you. Boom. Consider yourself disconnected. If you’re having a crappy day and you’re feeling like the literal weight of the earth is on your head, go grab a glass of wine and come back. I’ll wait.
Welcome back. I’m going to guess that you actually didn’t grab that glass of wine because that’s a luxury not afforded to us mom-folk. You’re either reading this in the bathroom during a few minutes of “you” time, or on your phone at work during your allotted “space out” time. Even if you find that you have a few moments after the kids are asleep (wait, they’re supposed to sleep?!), by the time you get the wine and a glass out of the cabinet, the corkscrew is missing. Oh well. Maybe next year.
Okay, enough stalling. I gave you plenty of time to stop reading. You’re just a glutton for punishment now. Here goes.
My accountant died.
I know, that sounds a bit removed. But, she died last week and it’s completely f*d with my head.
She and I had always been friendly. For seventeen years, I’ve worked with her and several times per year, we would touch base for business purposes but always end up in a long conversation about our personal worlds. We would talk about our kids, our families and the various dysfunctions that existed in our universe. It was always refreshing- a woman, running her own business, being a mom and a caretaker and kicking ass.
Until I killed her.
I wasn’t close enough to her in those final weeks to say this with certainty, but I believe that the very thing that we do to ourselves every single day- and what we let others do to us- is what caused her death. In this case, I did this to her.
She died from Covid. I spoke to her on the day she got her test. Her rapid test came back negative, but she went for the more in-depth test and was going to have to wait a few days for results. I mentioned a method she could use to get the results faster, and I’m willing to bet money that she didn’t. I’m willing to bet that she waited too long to even take herself to a CVS drive thru for the rapid test. I’m willing to double down that the insurmountable demands placed on her always, always took precedence.
An email that comes in at 5:05 and causes another hour of work and headspace from the angry client that you HAVE to address because you’re suffocatingly anxious about what the backlash will be, all the while knowing there’s a different kind of backlash waiting from a disappointed family at home. You try to make up for the time you lost with your kids and come in late the next day, only to be hyper-aware of how un-dedicated, unfit, and unreliable your coworkers may or may not think you are. And so the cycle goes and goes. Until it doesn’t. Until you don’t wake up one day.
There is a tightness in my chest that I can’t unwind. I know I was part of that crushing strain that she had. I know that it was me who contributed to the reason she didn’t take the steps necessary to save her life. Because I did exactly what’s done to me. I am the reverse Golden Rule. And part of my chest pain is that I may not take those steps either. I may make the same decisions, because it seems like there’s no alternative. It seems like the only choice is to take care of the bloodsuckers instead of the people who breathe life into you.
We live in the margin between the rock and the hard place, bouncing back and forth, battered and bruised.
The penalty for not breaking free is our own mortality.
It’s a tough lesson to learn; one that comes with a hefty guilt.
I’m sorry, my friend. And thank you.