When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back Read online

    is the accident’s

  is  disaster’s  is

  breath’s light wave

  stops there

    the child

  stops

  and we who know this end

  are familiar with the pain

  in a stranger’s look

  Loss is

  Communal

  And death

  Unwanted

  Random

  *

  Plato recounts in Phaedo the last day of Socrates’s life. Socrates has been sentenced to death and will be poisoned by hemlock that evening. Phaedo is a conversation between Socrates and a few of his friends and students, and the conversation is about the nature of death, the afterlife, and what philosophy is.

  Socrates says:

  So it appears that when death comes to a man, the mortal part of him dies, but the undying part retires at the approach of death and escapes unharmed and indestructible.

  And Socrates says:

  For [the soul] takes nothing with it to the next world except its education and training; and these, we are told, are of supreme importance in helping or harming those who have died at the very beginning of their journey to the other world.

  Socrates says this at the end, after spending a long time explaining how, philosophically, it’s possible that the soul retreats from death.

  *

  Your friend B saw in a dream that your soul was intact.

  Your soul had left your body when it could tell that the body could no longer live.

  Therefore your soul couldn’t understand what had happened.

  Therefore your soul was confused.

  That was your friend B’s dream.

  It was a shamanic dream.

  It was a dream journey.

  Your friend asked to see in a shamanic dream where you were.

  You walked in the green forest with a tiger. You had on your green jacket.

  It was your soul that walked in the green forest.

  That was your friend’s dream.

  A week before you died you went on your first shamanic journey, your first dream journey. Your grandfather guided you. Since I was a teenager, we have traveled in this way in my family, because my father was into it in the 1980s. Shamanism can be used for a lot of things. We used it especially for healing, both mental and physical. Once, when your older brother was still a boy, he had a huge cluster of warts on his hand. My father helped him find the animal that could remove the warts. It was a rat. During a dream journey, your older brother saw a rat biting off the warts. The next morning all the warts fell off in the sink as he washed his hands.

  Your friend B trained as a shaman a few years ago.

  When I was pregnant with you I saw that you were a baby tiger. A week before you died you went on your first shamanic journey. You saw that your totem animal was a tiger.

  Mallarmé writes:

  2)

  transfusion —

    change in the manner

     of being, that’s all

  I think about how

  rotten your body is

  now

  How destroyed

  How fragile

  How dead

  He lies down in

  the earth rotting

  But before that he was full of life and he blossomed

  I remember the

  vanished sun

  You didn’t think about death when you died. You didn’t think about dying when you died.

  But do I know that, do I know that?

  a perishable body

  I read Emily Dickinson. On the back of an envelope she has written:

  + that one has

   died –

  + consciousness

   of this

  + lone some

   place – secret

   place

  + look

   squarely

   in the Face

  A secret

  *

  I wrote in my journal:

  November 10, 2015

  Carl is very much alive, very close to me. He is like a wheat field. The stalks blowing in the wind. Golden, strong, and ripe.

  December 9, 2015

  In the weeks after November 9 this year, meaning, the first day I began to write again, although no more than a few words, I started to feel his presence strongly. I have not felt him during the last few weeks. Where is he? Nowhere. The question asserts itself all the time, but there is no answer. I’m afraid I’ll forget him. Forget the sensation of his body, his voice, his laughter. I’m afraid that he will disappear from me more and more each day. That he will disappear in step with my healing. It’s unbearable. And maybe the only way for me to heal.

  Can I feel Carl’s small arms, can I feel the sensation of him as I nursed him, slept next to him, held his hand? No. Yes. And the sensation of holding his hand as an adult. But then it turns into: the sensation of holding his hand as he lay in the hospital. I looked at his hand. I saw his child’s hand in the adult hand. It was bruised; he had hurt himself. I caressed his warm skin.

  I dreamed about you last night; you fell and

  hurt yourself and cried

  And I wrote:

  It’s his spirit I feel now. He is like a huge bird or no—his presence is heavy and strong. And also light and springy. Yes, springy. He is standing behind me, he puts his arms around me, his long hair and bare chest.

  Mallarmé writes:

  1)

  what do you want, sweet

  adored vision —

  who often come

  towards me and lean

  over — as if

  to listen to secret [of

  my tears] —

  to know that you are

  dead

  —what you do not know?

  —no I will not

  2)

  tell it

  to you — for then you

  would disappear —

  and I would be alone

  weeping, for you, me,

  mingled, you weeping for

      child

  in me

     the future

  man you will not

  be, and who remain

  without life or joy.

  I only felt you when I was out in the fresh air.

  I almost never feel you anymore.

  Perhaps my crying has told you that you are dead.

  Perhaps you have arrived.

  We gave you a coin for the ferryman

  Your young body in the coffin

  We say: He is part of nature now, as though it were a comfort

  *

  The Polish poet Jan Kochanowski wrote Laments in 1580. The nineteen elegies are about the loss of his youngest daughter, Urszulka, when she was two and a half years old. It was the first time in Polish literature, in fact, in all of Eastern European literature, that a poet focused on earthly life. Poetry was for kings, heroes, the gods, God. And he wrote about losing his own child, a daughter no less … Such things were frowned upon. Laments was met with contempt and coldness. Today, Kochanowski is acknowledged for practically inventing Polish poetry. He writes:

  Wherever you may be—if you exist—

  Take pity on my grief. O presence missed,

  Comfort me, haunt me; you whom I lost,

  Come back again, be shadow, dream, or ghost.

  Spirit, n. 1. a. The animating or vital principle in man (and animals); that which gives life to the physical organism, in contrast to its purely material elements; the breath of life. In some examples with implication of other senses. b. In phrases denoting or implying diminution or cessation of the vital power, or the recovery of this. Also transf., life-blood. c. In contexts relating to temporary separation of the immaterial from the material part of man’s being, or to perception of a purely intellectual character. Chiefly in phr. in spirit. d. Incorporeal or immaterial being, as opposed to body or matter; being or intelligence conceived as distinct
from, or independent of, anything physical or material. 2. A person considered in relation to his character or disposition; one who has a spirit of a specified nature: a. With preceding adjs. moving spirit (moving adj. 2b).

  Inger Christensen writes in Butterfly Valley:

  And who has conjured this encounter forth

  with peace of mind and fragments of sweet lies

  and summer visions of the vanished dead?

  My ear gives answer with its deafened ringing:

  This is a death that looks through its own eyes

  regarding you from wings of butterflies.

  The Greek word for butterfly is psyche, which also means soul. And so when Socrates speaks about the soul, the butterfly follows along. A beautiful shadow fluttering inside the word soul.

  Metamorphosis

  Transformation

  ……………………………………………………………………………

  I could not

  write

  not

     breathe

  I find a note you wrote shortly before your death. It says:

  Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors (2012)

  Life, loneliness, communion in death.

  We are alone in our bodies.

  I’m sitting on the floor with your papers and notebooks spread out around me. I’m surrounded by your handwriting. I find a list of 118 films you’ve seen, including your notes to every one of the 118 films. I find your notes from the film school in New York, I find the notes for the films you’ve edited. I find your poems. I find an account of your modest income and modest expenses. The combination to your bicycle lock. A plan for what you need to edit in November and December 2015. A stack of drawings. A stack of drafts for the application to the film school in Copenhagen. You write:

  Ever since I was a child I have loved to collect things (often physically). And I have always loved stories. Therefore it has felt very natural to begin to edit films. The process of taking the raw material through to refined edits is incredible because the work changes form many times as the puzzle pieces fall into place.

  Like writing poetry.

  Like approaching the impossible: to write about you.

  Small steps.

  The work changes form many times

  As the puzzle pieces fall into place

  Not during.

  I can say this about you: You were thorough.

  I can say this: You were methodical.

  I said at the funeral: He had a poetic spirit.

  *

  I wrote in my journal:

  Carl Emil in school:

  March 1997: First grade: Can almost read. Still incredibly good at drawing. Very extraverted and clearly his own person. Incredibly sweet and curious.

  August 1997: Reading better. Still really good at math. Is introverted, but much less so than before. A sensitive and strong boy with many talents—and with a photographic memory … Responsible, organized, well-mannered and active—both physically and mentally.

  December 1997: Reads almost fluently now. Much better. Thriving, getting so big!

  June 1998: Reading a lot. Taking fencing lessons and is exceptionally good at it. Elegant. Very bonded with his father.

  I can say this about you: You read a lot; you were a passionate reader.

  I can say: You had a fine collection of books.

  I can say: The last year of your life you primarily read religious texts. You read the Koran, you read the Bible, you read the Torah, you read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.

  I can say: You loved your father.

  I can say: You loved us.

  We still feel your love.

  Extraverted

  Introverted

  The movement between poles

  This which finds itself between

  two poles

  *

  I wrote in my journal:

  February 9, 2016

  Joan Didion writes about her daughter’s things in Blue Nights. Her dead daughter’s small blue dresses from childhood, drawings, photos. I have none of that. Everything was burned. Three days before Carl died we found out that all of our belongings that we were storing in Denmark had burned. The entire warehouse had burned down. Everything. My books, letters, handwritten manuscripts. I had taken only a few things with me when we moved to Brooklyn. I have nothing to attach my memories to, nothing to help me remember. No photos from Carl’s childhood. That’s why I am afraid to forget.

  The photo of Carl in the lingonberry and blueberry bushes also burned.

  Emily Dickinson writes:

   But are not

  all facts Dreams

   as soon as

  we put

   them behind

  us—

  Carl wrote to me: It’s just dead things, mom.

  Taking the raw material through

  *

  We don’t understand a thing. What? we say. What? What is it? My mother hands me the phone. Now a man is speaking. I thought it was my sister. It’s Carl, he says, Carl is dead, he says, Carl is dead, it’s Carl. I ask: What are you saying? What is it you’re saying? I become furious. I don’t recognize the voice. I ask: Who’s speaking? He says, It’s Martin, your ex-husband. His voice is cold, mechanical. My eldest son begins to cry, he gets up and the chair tips over. I scream: WHAT IS IT YOU’RE SAYING? WHAT ARE YOU SAYING? Martin says: You need to come over to the National Hospital now, we’re at the National Hospital, you need to take a taxi right now. I ask: Who’s at the National Hospital, why are you there, where is Carl, what are you saying? He says: You need to come now. You need to come over to the National Hospital right now, you need to take a taxi. What’s happening? screams my eldest son, what’s happened? I cry, I ask: But what has happened? Martin says: It’s Carl. He’s fallen out of the window.

  It’s Carl, I’m crying and shouting to my mother and my eldest son, he’s fallen out of the window, he’s dead, we need to take a taxi, he said, we need to take a taxi, we need to go to the National Hospital. The phone slips out of my hand, I throw myself screaming onto the floor, and so does my eldest son. We howl like animals. My father, who had gone to bed a long time ago, is standing in the doorway. My mother must have told him that we need to go to the National Hospital. Let’s go, he says. My mother says: Remember your phone. We go out to the car, my mother, staggering, grips my hand. My oldest son stays home with his wife and daughter. We drive off, It’s midnight. I’m screaming in the back seat. I smoke a cigarette. My mother says, there, there, my sweetheart, oh, my little friend. My body lashes around the back seat. My brain is on fire. There are no other cars on the highway. My father drives too fast. It takes us an hour to get to Copenhagen. What? I’m thinking. What is it? What is it? It’s as if I’m dreaming. I’m freezing, shaking. It’s as if all the life is draining out of me. Then I begin screaming again as though it’s coming from a deep primitive state, it’s not my voice, and the voice I hear scares the hell out of me. The sound nearly can’t come out, I can hardly breathe. I’ve become someone else.

  *

  C. S. Lewis writes in A Grief Observed:

  No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid.

  Panic like a geyser inside the body   shoots its poison-water

       up

          from underground  to

  the reptilian brain

  *

  I write sweet violet, I write lapwings’ eggs, I write your brown eyes. I write snowdrop, I write fern-green, I write you my beautiful child. I write enigmatic you, little sun, my child under the earth’s crust. I write the full moon rises in the night-blue sky, my heart is sick, my grief is white.

  *

  I’m sitting on the floor surrounded by your handwriting, and, in a bag containing all the letters you’ve received over your lifetime, I find fifteen photos. They’re the pictures you took at nine years old when we were in Norway together a
nd visited, among other things, that tiny island whose name I’ve forgotten. I’m sitting on the floor and it’s ten days after I wrote about our trip. The first fourteen photos have no people in them. There is the sea, cliffs, green grass, small red wooden houses, boats, and a harbor with shacks and a little ferry and white lamblike clouds in the light blue sky. I begin to cry. Why am I crying? I put the photos away. For several days I can’t figure out why those particular photos made me cry. Then I realize it’s the absence of people that made me cry. As if the people had disappeared, as if all human life had been sucked out of the scenes. One morning I take out the photos again. I find the fifteenth photo. It’s of you, nine years old, on the airplane. Full of life. On the way to Norway with me. Your front teeth are new and jagged. You’re looking straight into the camera.

  *

  I wrote in my journal:

  October 21, 2005

  Carl picked up Zakarias from daycare and brought him to the playground, where they made campfire bread and ate it with strawberry jam. Carl is an angel and Zakarias worships the angel Carl.

  I was lying awake all night, staring out into the dark, when suddenly it seemed like the dark was full of white shadows, white veils moving in and out and in between each other, almost like a dance, it was organic, it seemed like another dimension had materialized in the dark, I closed my eyes and opened them again, and the white shadows or veils were still there, dancing energetically, the movements had a strong peculiar energy, in and out and in between each other, in and out and in between each other, there was a faint whistling sound, it was like looking through a crack into another form of existence, I lay awake all night until it became light out and the white material was sucked away, vanishing into the light, I’ve never seen anything like it since that night

  the soul is such a round white thing

  *

  I don’t know if at any other point in my life I’ve been interested in seeing a healer. I’ve never met or sought one out since that time in the maternity ward with you. I sought one out again because I wanted someone to heal my sorrow. I wasn’t looking for someone who sees sorrow as a project to complete. I didn’t want to take it on as a project. I didn’t want to partake in treating sorrow as a project. The idea of sorrow as a project to complete disgusts me. The idea of sorrow as a project to complete in order to be well again makes me furious. I had no energy to work. I wanted someone to stroke my cheek and soothe me. I wanted care, not work. I wanted someone to lift the sorrow off my chest, if just for a moment. I asked the healer to lift the sorrow off my chest, just for a moment. She laid her hand on my chest. She said she would open my heart. Her hands sent a strong warmth there. Sorrow cannot be cured.