After a Death

Last week, at this time, I was running toward the car in the very welcome rain. You could smell the grey-yellow smoke that had hung heavy on us for two weeks being rinsed downward.

Tom had the engine running. I flopped into the front seat and Mae was already talking to me from the back (she always seems to be talking to me at least a few seconds before I'm even in the room). Tom said SHHH! DID THEY JUST SAY GINSBERG?

We were all quiet. It was true. She had died. In that historical moment, when justice still felt (feels) constantly out of reach for those who most need and deserve it, our champion was gone.

The rain on the windshield went from refreshing to threatening. Floodworthy. My heart sunk like it'd been cut from its thin tethers in my chest and I didn't know what to say. There were no words. 

And for the next few hours, life was a checklist of motions. We drove home. We got dinner ready. We ate. We did dishes. We put laundry in. We took the dog out and Mae got in the bath. When she was in her jammies we read to her and put her to bed. Tom sorted camping gear. I called my mom and answered emails. Then we sat and stared at nothing and repeated how fucked we all are because in several ways, it's true.

After a death, it's hard to say when the motions begin blending in again with feeling and speaking. Maybe after the first whiskey. Maybe after enough rest. Or people, or the right words, or time. But the fight ahead does somehow twist into focus after a loss, after so many losses.

I remembered RBG's legacy is learning how we can fight for justice most effectively in a system not originally built to sustain it and offer it equally. 

The fight for justice doesn't end with one person's death, no matter how crucial they were to our action plans and in our daily lives, in our ability to work and serve and procreate and care and find resources as independent thinkers and souls and parents and citizens. Every champion is a teacher and no one lives forever. We learn. We move through waves of motion and living. We make sure everyone has enough to eat, to learn, to keep going.

I've written before about how my preferred anxiety response (to despair, depression, loss, war, uncertainty, sickness, etc) is moving, sorting, cleaning, baking, feeding, (writing, of course) and organizing. My mom taught us to move even faster after a trauma. Gather. Help. Make sure no one slips through the cracks. Make sure everyone has room. 

And to be honest, that's another short essay in itself, since this way of moving on its own isn't always healthy. But sometimes it's good. And when I wrote this time, I thought about how our whole lives have become a series of stress responses and opportunities to heal-- our whole lives are a series of kindnesses toward one another after loss after loss after loss.

Last Friday, I started working again, after a death. And I'm still going. We will keep going.