How many years after the death of a child can you really dance? I'm not talking about a stillborn child or a miscarriage. I mean a full grown human, one who is a part of your being, your identity.
Dancing is one of those activities that can mean full release, joy, fun, and non-self conscious abandon to the music. Many people never really dance. They think and focus on their movements, they think about the people around them and what they look like while they are dancing. We live in a world of people self-conscious about themselves, their bodies, and their movements.
As the wife of a musician in a rock band, and a former hippie, I had learned to just dance and enjoy the music, regardless of how I looked. My philosophy was that if I get up and dance first, and dance poorly, it will inspire others to do the same.
The year after Lev died, Tony kept playing with his band. I went back to work, we tried to just complete our life as it had been, to keep going, as stopping was not an option. But I wouldn't dance. Maybe sway a bit to the music, as required. Dance if necessary, in a stilted, subdued way.
Now, five years later, I still can't dance, unless it's with our three year old, as a crazy, funny, mother/child activity. That's one thing that's great about having other children, or grandchildren (I assume). It gives the excuse, the freedom, to let yourself be happy again for moments. String together enough moments and you have a day, a week, a month. And, so pass the years.
So, five years later I find myself at a friend's birthday party. A dance party. When Tony and I saw the invite we both had the same response, "Ugh, that sounds like too much fun." We said this to another friend and she laughed, not really getting it. Sometimes Tony and I are on exactly the same page, other times not. Definitely too much fun. We aren't those people anymore.
But, we went with Liana, with the plan to leave before the dancing really got going. Then, of course, we ended up having a good time. Tony took Liana home for bedtime and I decided to stay. After a few drinks, the dancing got going, and I had fun. Dancing, lights on the ceiling, music loud. Beer, gin and tonic, good food, friends and dancing. Opening myself up to just enjoying the moment. Opening the heart a bit, and then what enters when a broken heart opens? A wave of emotion, an awareness that Lev will never dance again. An awareness that Lev is gone forever. Wondering how I can have fun when he cannot. I look around the room, and take in the people that knew Lev and Jaal, that know our situation, and there are only a few that really know. So, I take a break, go to the bathroom and have a good cry. I cry for the broken heart, for the body that does not feel whole. For not letting myself be happy, for not being ready. Then I pull myself together and figure I should probably just walk home.
Gathering my stuff an acquaintance I don't know very well asks about my leaving, and asks me how I'm doing. I begin to cry and we have a real conversation. I tell her about Lev. (I thought she had known.) I pull myself together, hang out for a bit more before heading home. I can socialize, maybe move to the music a bit, but that moment of purely dancing and having fun passed. I'm not really ready, and that's okay. Maybe I never will be again. And that's okay too. I dance self-consciously, the dance of someone who has lost a child. With the thought that others are thinking, "Isn't it nice that she lets herself dance." Or, "I'm glad they're doing so well." Or, "What an ass to be dancing when her child is gone. I couldn't do that." Who knows what people really think, but I feel judged whether it's true or not. I am not the person I used to be. I am the grieving mom. As I remember saying to Tony just a few weeks after Lev died. "I don't want to be that person." "I don't want to be that mother." I saw my future clearly at that moment. That no matter what I did, I would always be the person to pity, the person who you wonder how they are doing so well, how they go on, that person who you think must be much stronger than you are. A moment of clarity and now five years later, I am still that person. And the nice thing about it is that Tony totally understood. When I told him about it he didn't say, "You should feel free to dance. You deserve to dance," as other people do. He said, "Yes, it sucks. you hit the happiness wall. It's real." That's one thing I appreciate about being close to Liana and Jaal. They give an excuse to surmount the wall, and just be and appreciate them.
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Next
Another entry: I thought about writing after that night but didn't have it in me, and wasn't sure I wanted to share or document it. But now something worse happened and have another difficult experience to share. Zay, one of Lev's best friends, his soul mate, the person he planned to go to college in Switzerland with, the person he talked to on the phone for hours every week, just lost another friend. A close friend of his from his home town, a friend he knew since he was three, committed suicide a few days ago. On Zay's twentieth birthday. I am awash with sympathy for Zay, and for the friend's family. How crushing.
We made sure to not talk about it around Liana, but she chose this week to ask me what happened to Lev after he died. Where is he now? I explained burial and cremation. I didn't tell her we have some of his ashes here with us, because I don't think she's ready for that. But I did try to explain about how the body can't recover after the person dies. How, it's just a body that will rot, like the dead armadillo we saw on the street, so you need to do something with it. I find myself explaining things to her, trying to get it down to her level, to a level that I never would have done with Jaal and Lev at this age. But she seems ready to understand it. And, she takes in the information and is happy as can be. She seems to get death in a way that most of us don't. It's a part of her reality, her life story, and she accepts it.
