The Echos of Sirens and the Weight of Answers
I have so many questions about my parents, and their deaths. Is it better to ask or not to ask? Are the answers worth knowing?
The sound of sirens used to take my breath away when I was in the car. Way back when my mom was the main one in the drivers seat, to the time when I took over for myself, stopping for an ambulance or hearing one in the distance would cause me to stop. I’d whisper a wish - that everything be okay and no one be dead. I couldn’t deal with any more death.
A routine phone call from my grandmother while I was on vacation in 2019 rudely shoved me down the hole of grief again. Just nine months after my dad passed, my bonus mom passed, too. At home. At my childhood home. My bonus mom died in my childhood home. Who would have thought that my life would turn out this way? Who would have thought that this would be my story? It still doesn’t feel real.
I was states away when she died. Still states away when I got the call. States that took forever, yet no time at all, to rush home through. Rush home to what? She’s dead. No matter how fast my mom drove, it wouldn’t change the fact that a year ago, I had three living parents, I had left my state with two living parents, and I came home with one.
I remember when I was in middle school, my dad and bonus mom would take my little sister and me on a fun back to school shopping trip every year. My dad traveled a lot for work, and he would accumulate hotel points that were used for a free stay in a fun hotel in a city near us - a little mini vacation for the four of us. One of the last times we all went together, we checked out of the hotel and went straight to a store that one of my parents wanted to go to. (The name of the store and what we went to get is right on the tip of my tongue. It’s in my memory somewhere, but not quite accessible. It’s funny how many of my memories are like that now.) I looked down at my wrist and made the horrifying realization that I had left my watch at the hotel. I told my dad, and he was upset, but we ran back to the hotel - leaving my sister and bonus mom shopping. Once we made it into our room, past a kind housekeeper and his annoyance, I found my watch under the pullout couch I had slept on and my dad grabbed a few things that he had forgotten as well (and conveniently not mentioned when he was upset at me earlier… or maybe he hadn’t realized). He hadn’t forgotten anything as big as a watch - just a charger and something else I can’t quite remember - but we probably laughed about it. I miss laughing with him. In that moment, almost losing my watch while I was on vacation was devastating. At least, I thought it was. Then I lost my bonus mom, just a few years, on vacation. She has lost in a different way than the watch. No amount of turning around and looking under the couch will lead to me finding her. Now that was devastating1
The story of how my bonus mom passed away is full of blanks in my mind. No one will ever know the full story, because the one person who was the closest to knowing it passed, after all. But the story that lives on in the people who were there or in the people who heard bits and pieces is bigger than the story that lives in my head. I know about a sleepover for my sister, a house signed over, and a night presumably spent alone watching television. I know about texts unanswered, my dad’s coworkers/friends who were called, a back door left unlocked, and my bonus mom being gone before anyone knew to look for her. What I don’t know is a lot more. I don’t know why my dad’s coworkers were the ones that were called. They were people I had known my whole life, but I thought - or well, I assumed - that my parents had closer friends than them. Maybe not. Or, maybe my parents didn’t have other friends who could come during the workday (I always wondered why those two, acquaintances with each other but not the closest, were the ones to come, but as I write this, I realize that it was during work hours, and they were probably in the office, my dad’s old office, and the only people my family knew who could rush over right away). I don’t know who else was called or how long they tried to get into my house. I don’t know why they didn’t use our door code to get in, and instead found a way in through the back. I don’t know what they expected to find or how they reacted when they realized she had died. I don’t know who was called first, the police or my family? Who called my family? How did these two people, people I knew my whole life, break the news to my grandparents? Or did someone else? How did my grandparents tell my sister? How do you do that?
In the blank spaces in this narrative, I have filled in my own story. I imagine that they called the police, and then ambulances filled the half-circle driveway of our house. (I loved that driveway growing up, but hate that it has become a metaphor of what is left of our family. We’re a semicircle now, whichever way you look at it - 1/2 of us are here, 1/2 of us are gone.) I imagine the tens of sirens calling out our pain.2 Rationally, I realize that probably only one or two ambulances came - she was one person and she was gone - but I still imagine a big scene for some reason. Maybe because it was so big to us. I imagine the neighbors looking outside and learning of the devastation before we, her two kids, did. The realization that we lost not one, but two of our parents. The realization that our worlds were about to shatter again, for the second time within a year. The realization that my sister just ran out of parents. The realization that what had been broken by my dad, and was starting to heal with time, was shattered again, maybe beyond repair. I imagine my grandparents learning what happened, or, rather, what we know of what happened, and rushing over. I imagine that long drive between our house and theirs. What did they say? Did they speak at all? They must have been crushed under the weight of the world that was settling on their shoulders more and more each minute. Or maybe they didn’t feel it yet. When did they start feeling it? I imagine them realizing that someone would have to tell my sister, tell me, and that it was their job to do at least one of those talks. How do you plan that? How do you tell a kid that?
Whenever I hear an ambulance, it brings me back to those moments that I was not a part of, moments that I did not have to live through, and I feel the weight of them. It also brings me back to the pain that I do know existed, the moments that I did have to live through, and the weight I still carry with me - often starting with the second time my world stopped spinning. It was a rainy day, or maybe it just felt like one, and my mom, aunt, and I were on our way to Wendy’s. We were talking and planning our orders, when my grandma called. She asked where I was, then said a sentence with words that I don’t remember but pain that I do, and I screamed. I don’t know how long I screamed, how my mom and aunt reacted, how long it took for my aunt to grab the phone and ask what could have possibly happened, and I don’t know how I stopped screaming. I don’t remember ever stopping screaming - either time I lost a parent. But I must have, right? I’m not screaming now. How did I stop? How could I? How did I stop the screaming and start living with this? It still repeats in my head to this day: They both died. How could they both die?
There are millions of questions I have - about my parents lives and about their deaths. When I was younger, I sought out as many answers as I could. It felt like I was always just a question away from finding a cure to an incurable disease (could grief be that?), that the next answer could - would - heal everything. But at some point in high school, I stopped asking. Sometimes, answers open windows and bring the light in, but sometimes, answers pull the curtains shut and swallow you in darkness. When I wonder about my bonus mom’s death, I can put little flourishes of grace in the story I tell myself. Maybe she died in her sleep and didn’t know. Maybe she felt no pain. Maybe she was really happy beforehand, then she died, quickly and painlessly. Died with a smile. The minute I find out answers, maybe these hopeful stories will be confirmed - maybe it’s even better than I hope - but maybe, just maybe, I will find out something that breaks my heart. Something that I can’t erase from my memory. Something that takes away the flourishes. Something that takes away my hope. It already happened to me once. The story of my dad’s death was presented to me neatly, tied into a cute little bow. Later, I learned that what once looked like a bow was actually a knot of tangled threads, a knot that I still can’t manage to untangle, but that I seem to carry with me wherever I go. Am I glad I know? Yes. Do I wish that I didn’t know? Yes. The possibility of going through that again is enough to make me doubt the value of my questions. I struggle with wanting to know more, sometimes feeling like I need to know more, but also wanting to protect myself from the unknown.
Don’t get me wrong - of the answers I have gotten, plenty have brought peace or comfort. Some of stories I have learned or found help me understand my story more and help me sleep easier at night. Some answers, though, have stripped away that peace and comfort. Right now, I have hundreds of questions swirling in my head, but I don’t know if I am ready to know the answers. I worry about waiting too long to ask the questions though, like I did before. The evening my dad died, I texted him asking him to cancel my Minecraft Realm subscription. (A symbol, maybe. I was outgrowing the games we played together. I was growing up, growing past our games, and I was leaving him behind with them… tying that part of our story into a neat bow. Maybe it was a knot, though, because I still play today, and find pieces of him in the worlds he left behind.) In that text to my dad, sent just hours before he died, I didn’t say I love you. I remember re-reading it after I clicked “send” and thinking that I should have said it, but for some reason, I didn’t write back. The last time we had texted was just a few days before that, and the final thing we each said was that we loved each other. I wanted that to be our story. I hope he didn’t read the Minecraft text. I hope that the last things we said to each other were that we loved each other. I hope that is our story. I hope that on his side, we ended with love, but I don’t know. The only person who probably would have known, the only one would have remembered, was my bonus mom. After he died, I kept putting off asking her, out of my fear of the answer, until it was too late. Now, there is no one left to ask, and I don’t think I will ever know the answer. Would knowing have brought me peace, or pain? If he read it, what did he think? What did he say? Was he okay? Would I be okay? Will I be okay?
A few months ago, I was chatting with a new intern at work, and she asked me if we always had so many sirens going past our office. I was taken aback by her question, because I hadn’t noticed any and sirens were normally difficult for me, but as I started to pay attention over the next few weeks, I realized she was right. A handful of sirens - police cars, ambulances - passed by my window every day, and I had unknowingly tuned them out. So, when I hear an ambulance in the background now, I apparently tune it out. Who knew? I hadn’t realized that it no longer took the breath out of my lungs. A twinge of pain will still pass through me if I give the sound a second thought, especially if I am driving and need to pull over and wait for it to pass, but I am no longer consumed. That’s how a lot of grief is, I think - it consumes you at first, but gets smaller over time, and sometimes you don’t realize how small certain pieces have gotten until someone points it out.
With time, the space between me and the story of my bonus mom’s death that I made up in my head has increased. The questions I have still remain, and grow, but I still am unsure of many answers I want. Maybe some things are best left unknown. Maybe I will find my peace by hoping that the best - the best of a tragic situation - happened. Or, maybe, it’s better to know. Maybe stopping the speculation and listening to the stories that are still around will be what brings me peace. Maybe I need to face the pain, and maybe knowing will lead to healing. I don’t know. As I am trying to figure it out, I ask some of my questions and I don’t ask others. I listen when people volunteer their stories, pieces of my story, but I don’t always seek it out. Maybe “to know or not to know” will be a question I ask for the rest of my life. Maybe I’m okay with that. Maybe I’m not.
I still have the watch. Every time I’ve lost it, I’ve been able to find it. It’s funny how small such a big moment feels now… after my loss.