I'm not sure I spoke for weeks. I remember the eyes of those I conversed with far beyond the words said. I knew I was in bad shape, I saw my reflection in their sincere concern.
"How are you?"
Rage.
"Well if you need anything, don't hesitate to call."
Despair.
People flocked around me like flies would circle a decrepit corpse......the corpse was my life. The familiar buzz of the people became a white noise I conducted myself by. It became a game to survive each encounter and convince them I was "doing ok." In spite of myself, and in hindsite I probably really was doing ok. Probably better than ok. If I had acted in a manner that my mind screamed at me to do, I would still be laying in the hay field behind the house, begging to trade Koley places. Or in the horse barn, throwing pallets against the wall, allowing myself to rage war on my circumstances in a vain attempt to change it.
It was right after I had finished getting cleaned up at my sister in law's house. We had decided to go to my Mother in Law's house (who was out of town on vacation, and unreachable at the time.) We went there to hide. I don't know who was with me, I don't remember who was there, I don't remember why I felt so inclined but I walked in the front door and saw people in the kitchen, breathless at the site of me. I walked in the front door, and right out the back. I jumped the fence, barefoot still, and walked to the barn. I screamed. I fell to my knees and the tears flowed again. I screamed and felt rage boil in me like lava in a volcano. I spewed venom and hate at the walls of the barn. Both fists plunged into the soil throwing it at the silver walls while the horses stood alert and concerned. I threw pallets that once leaned harmlessly against the walls. They didn't break. Why didn't they shatter like me? I remember throwing them again, trying to make them shatter. I screamed profanities with enough violence to silence the neighbor dogs who had chimed into my bellowing. I collapsed into the dirt and lay there breathing. It was the only sound. Silence closed it. It was deafening. I wrapped my hair into my fingers and knotted it around my hands, pulling it, ripping it to drown out the sound of my rage. I could hear it pulling from my scalp.
Rewind, push play.
No one came. No one followed me. Part of me was thankful to not have to explain my behavior or be judged by it, the other half felt entirely and utterly alone. Like the last person alive, and not by choice. I whispered "let me go please let me go."
Silence.
I brushed off the dirt, straightened my tressels of what I believed to still be blood soaked hair and walked into the house, to face the flies.
Days later,
Someone had decided that a family therapy session was a good idea. Up until that point, I had not discussed my recurrent movie, and had not wanted to. I had cried, and cried, and cried....that routine was working for me in terms of survival. Just leave me alone.
We sat in a circle while a man sat in front of me. I had seen him before in couple's therapy that Kenneth and I had attempted earlier that year. I didn't like him. I didn't like his approach, and I didn't like his presence now. I coached myself into civility and admitted I was going to need help. Maybe this would open dialogue. Maybe this will drown out the silence.
I sat on the floor with my knees pressed into my chest. I wrapped my arms round my legs and found my fingers stroking the scabs that remained on my knees. They were healing, I traced my fingernail under the edge, and ripped it off. Fresh red blood surfaced.
Rewind, push play.
I closed my eyes tightly and took a breath, waiting.
It didn't feel like group therapy. It felt like an intervention. The room was silent and the therapist looked at me and said "so Carrie, I feel it would be helpful if you told us what happened." I stared blankly as I felt my first of many anxiety attacks building in my chest. "um....."
I realize now that curiosity drives people. More often than not the reality is far easier to deal with than the imagination, and the blanks it tends to fill with horror.
The truth.
The truth is, what I had seen is worse than anyone's imagination. I felt rage now.
The room was still. All eyes on me.
"What do you want me to say? I said, fighting the tears..........What do you want me to tell you Leon? That I picked my son's skull up off of the road, that I felt his brain on my finger tips?"
I heard my mother in law gasp. My eyes shot to her and I watched her collapse into her husband. I was succumb with shock. What had I done. What had I done.
The words "Oh my God." leaked from my lips like a canyon breeze in the evening. I stood up, and walked out....barefoot still. I climbed more fences, kept walking, oblivious to the abrasions my feet were enduring. I wanted to disappear. I had just inflicted more pain in a five second time frame than was necessary to endure in a lifetime. I lay in a hayfield and watched the purple flowers dance. I lay there and promised I wouldn't do what I'm doing now. I promised I'd never tell the story in full detail because the details were unimportant. Only I was there. Only I was 4 feet away. There was a reason God didn't subject these poor people to that scene. It's my movie. This is mine.
Rewind, push play.
Of all of the things I have done in my life, that moment changed me forever. There was no room for anger. There is never room for anger. Fill the space with love. Never inflict harm on anyone, avoid it at all costs. I am truly sorry for that moment.
The flies lasted until the funeral. A constant hover I had hated, and relied on all at the same time. It's not that I'm unappreciative of the love and outpouring of support we experienced, quite on the contrary. I am eternally grateful. But I didn't want to be grateful, I didn't want to have to be. Showing gracious gestures was admitting I needed them, admitting I needed them supported the idea that I really had lost my son. I didn't want to admit it. It was like a long slow dance that I didn't know the steps to, so I faked it. I faked it all, moving with the silence and doing my best to sidestep all interaction. I had no words, for anyone. Yet there I was, consoling the broken hearts who had met my son, or knew one of us who had. I held them in their suffering because I was the mother. I am the mother. It's my job. None of it seemed real.
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