Resonant Dissonance

I was kind of kidding when I told Ellen I would do this blog with her.  I have a lot of things inside I want to say… I just don’t want anyone to hear them.  I don’t like people reading what I write or hearing how I feel.  When someone reads what I write in front of me or finds out my true thoughts, this is how it feels:  It feels like my skin has turned inside out and the person reading or hearing my words is pouring salt on me.  I hate it.  What I write comes from inside of me and I am an intensely private person and I do not want other people to see inside me.  Why?  I don’t know.  Maybe I am afraid they will see the real me and find me lacking.  Maybe I dislike conflict so much I am afraid to anger people or alienate people or make people feel even the slightest bit uncomfortable.  Maybe I don’t want people to think less of me for my opinions.  Maybe it’s all these things.  Regardless, I am a quiet observer.  I think many thoughts; I rarely speak them unless I know you quite well.

This is pretty much the opposite of my sister.  Growing up, I kind of felt like damage control for her unapologetic propensity to speak her mind.  She did not care if she made people angry.  In fact, that was probably often her goal.  She wanted to probe others into conflict in order to make them question their beliefs and truly examine their motives.  I hate conflict, so I always came behind her and tried to soothe it over and calm her down.  Conflict makes me feel endangered, like I’m not safe no matter which side I choose or where I go so I kind of shut down.  Conflict feeds her fire.  We aren’t very much alike.

Honestly, I always felt like the weaker of the two of us… the older sister somewhat overshadowed by the younger.  I was the “shy one” on the sidelines, quietly observing her fiery feats.

I feel differently now, about myself at least.  She is still the same force to be feared.  I know now that there is strength in silence too, and that there is profound power in making peace even when that peace comes with great compromise.  I know now that the world needs both kinds of strengths.  The world needs those who are not afraid to speak their minds, and the world needs those who quietly observe, process, and evaluate.  The world needs conflict starters and conflict enders.  The world needs tough love and soft love.  There is no right way to be.

I never thought of myself as strong, but now I know I’m differently strong. I’m differently, quietly strong.

So I said yes to this blog, because we both have voices to share.  We both have offerings we can make.  I am sure we will not always agree, and I am sure I will sometimes be uncomfortable by the things that are posted here.  Each person’s opinion is her own.  I was never good at controlling her then, but I’ve stopped trying to tame her now. I need her kind of strength, and now I see that she needs mine.

And so, the seasons of grief have come to pass, each new milestone of loss giving way to the next, each holiday and occasion becoming redefined without you.  I don’t think there will ever be a sadder Christmas than that of 2016.  To me, you were Christmas.  All that is Christmas was at your house with all the people and all the love and all the memories I have are there. So without you was just loss, and Christmas Eve was no longer magical, and sadness reigned.  And I tried, I really tried to carry it on for my girls, but in between the new memories there were tears for Christmas Eves past.

It’s devastating to me that now the house will celebrate with a new family, as if the years and years and years of love could be so easily replaced… But I know a house is just a house and the Christmas you gave me is inside me.  That’s what my mind tells my heart.  But my heart aches with the passing of days, with the memories I try to cling to as they quickly slip away.  This is the way, though.  My job now is to create new memories for my little people and to take all that you taught me and showed me and pass it on to the next generation, but it feels so difficult as I sit here in the loss of you.

My beautiful, brave, courageous, outspoken, dominating grandmother, it’s just that you left so suddenly…  You gave so much to the world, and you lived your life with such a purpose, and I wasn’t ready to say goodbye.  I’ll never be ready to say goodbye. And I won’t ever say goodbye to your example, to your belief in the goodness of all people, to your desire to help even the person at his lowest rise a little higher.  You believed in good.  You believed in mankind.  You believed in leading a servant life and in setting an example for us all to do the same.  You shaped me.  I’ve never felt better than or more important than anyone, but damn if I didn’t feel luckier than anyone for the love that surrounded me always.  You gave that love freely to all.  So many were family to you.  Your heart was open and you tirelessly gave of yourself for others.  Your example drives me in all that I hope to do. I carry you with me.

And each new day brings a new loss.  A new memory that you won’t know, that you won’t shape…A birthday passing with no song, a wedding with an empty seat, a yellow leaf falling in a yard that no longer belongs to us, a summer standing at the ocean shore and feeling your presence in each crashing wave…

The world changed on that day we lost you.  The whole world shifted and tilted inside of me and outside too, and I’m still struggling to regain my balance.  We are all still teetering in this new reality, seeking to keep alive the ideals you cultivated in us.  But I won’t lie; it’s hard Grandmother.  

On election night 2016, I got this text from my dad:

“Around midnight, Ruthie said she did not feel that this is a small world after all. We agreed that the world seems larger & scarier now.”

The next day, you were gone. It hurts so much that you left a world you worked so hard to make smaller and more beautiful feeling like that progress had been reversed or was never truly there at all.

But I know what you meant– our country feels less beautiful, it feels scarier, it feels hostile… This has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with human dignity, with the worth of all the beautiful people whose differences weave a fabric I still believe in but see that many others do not.

It’s a hard world, but you knew that already.  You fought your battles bravely and you shielded us from the pain of it, but now it’s ours to carry. I wasn’t ready to shoulder the burden, but it was time for you to lay it down.  On that Tuesday, the world shifted.  On that Wednesday, you said goodbye.  And after a year of Tuesdays and Wednesdays later, I’m still finding my balance in this new reality.

I miss you.  I am blessed beyond measure for the gifts you gave me.  I will always cling to the future you fought for. You would be so proud of us Downses, Grandmother.  We are closer than ever.  We are holding strong.  We are less than without you, and I don’t imagine that that will change. But we will change.  We will fill the void in ways that would make you happy.  We will live your example. I love you.  One day, I will see you again.  

Dad keeps telling us she had a good day.

November 9, 2016 was a day that will live in infamy for people of a certain disposition. Many members of our family are of that disposition. She was of that disposition. November 9th was when it became real because the final nail wasn’t in the coffin until late in the evening of the 8th PST. I know because I watched.

I was teaching chemistry at a community college. I was a relatively new teacher who didn’t even think to include election day in my calculation of when to schedule my semester’s exams when I finalized my syllabus in early August. That morning, as deflated as I felt, I rushed to the campus bakery where the culinary arts students practice their craft and cleaned them out of pastries to soften the blow of taking an exam the day after many of my students had voted in their first presidential election.

I had never received so many emails the night before an exam, students begging me to postpone as they felt devastated by the seemingly inevitable result. I carted out my patented line that I set the exam dates at the beginning of the semester, can’t deviate as it is a contract with my students blah blah blah. Through my grief, it felt anemic. I stayed up until midnight drafting the exam acknowledging my heart was hardly in it as the camera spanned glass room full of tearful devastated women waiting  for a concession speech that would not come.

My students couldn’t understand why I was doing this to them. I looked at them, and I said, “You have been preparing for this exam longer than one night. And I am still giving this to you because we will need you. We will need people who value and can analyze data  to help our country build a sustainable future.” And I meant every word. And now in retrospect, I may have never been so prescient.

I don’t really remember what happened between proctoring that exam and the call. I just know about an hour before I was to drive to pick up my daughter, mom called and asked if I was sitting down. I sat. A day I thought was already pretty miserable immediately came crashing in around me. I sobbed uncontrollably in what I think you would describe it as a panic attack. I can’t say for sure. I can only with certainty say I temporarily lost the ability to control the sadness that overwhelmed me. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only 30 minutes or so, I pulled it together to go pick up my daughter from daycare.

I clutched her, smelling her hair, holding the one thing I knew to be true, blameless, pure, and hopeful on that day in the world. I held her with the weight of knowing she will be my legacy, our legacy, a standard bearer for liberated, powerful women. She was 1.5. Someone so small shouldn’t have had to be the primary hope for someone as adult as me. I try consciously every day to raise her to care, to love, to wonder, to think, to smile, to question, to encourage, to listen, to love. I try every day in every way to help her be the change I want to see in this country. It feels like an approachable scale.

The issues the country faces as it struggles to reconcile the hard fought progress for racial equality with the white resentment those gains fomented now unleashed and legitimized by his administration are incontrovertible. But the public evil might just be necessary as a means of healing. It is like a bandaid has been swiftly removed from a festering wound. Only with contact with air will the wound truly seal and begin to heal.

But while the national healing begins, I hurt. My neighbors hurt. My country hurts. I yearn for her embrace, her guidance, her wisdom. But she is gone. And I clutch the lessons she delivered, the memories we shared. My family is her legacy. The perspectives we share are echoes of her, exploration into self awareness, family identity, and national promise.

Please join our journey through this new uncomfortable reality in which my sister and I search for meaning, direction, and opportunity following what we both view as a seismic shift in the fabric of our family, our country, and our world. We don’t always agree, and you won’t always agree with us, but we hope we model her faith in humanity, her love for her fellow man, and her progressive vision and that our message resonates with those who my have dissonant opinions.