26. pity final final
i'm proud of you
First of all, I told y’all about Willie Nelson’s voice being spectacular in its old age. (Listen here and here. Also Sister Rosetta Tharpe forever.) Noah and I would talk about how country and hip-hop and R&B are all converging anyways because pop music!
The last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about pity. (Thus the final final in the title, I’ve thought about it probably too much.)The feeling of being pitied is something I’ve always resented since I was a little kid, but it feels more acute since Noah died. It’s quite easy to be pitied as a widow. People feel bad about your favorite person dying, your dream life being squashed, having to explain to customer service people that your partner but not technically your husband died and them telling you no you can’t have the thing because you weren’t his wife, the indignities of being unwantedly single in your mid-30s. Ashley Reece, a young widow on the internet (with a new Substack!), one time tweeted how she’s an incel because her husband died. On paper, being a widow seems like a straight up pity party.
When I first started writing about pity, it was from a place of pure anger and spite. Pity feels like something I described before, when people don’t want to catch the conversation about death and brush it away before it can get stuck on them. It’s almost the polar opposite reaction from jumping out of the way so they don’t get the grief I have; it’s people smothering me with their “I’m so sorry”s and “I can’t imagine what you’re going through”s and crying while hoping it’ll never happen to them. If they emote big enough about how sorry they are, they can ward off grief for themselves, like holding up a bunch of garlic towards a vampire. Pity helps you feel like you’re doing something but in fact you’re avoiding accepting someone else’s pain as what is. It’s harder to sit with someone when they’re going through a really hard time and just listen. You can acknowledge the black hole of grief despair and 1. not try to make it better and 2. not assume what the other person is feeling is exactly what you’d imagine they’re feeling. I bristle at people saying, “I can’t imagine what you’re going through right now,” because actually, imagination is the best human feature. You can definitely imagine what it would be like. But I’m asking for one more step; you can imagine how other people might feel, and you also gotta be okay when they tell you that is not how they’re feeling. Assuming how it sucks for me is pity, imagining how it would suck if it happened to you is empathy, listening to me talk about how it sucks, in reality, is kindness.
I want people to know that I’m missing Noah very badly. I want people to know that having your person that you wanted to be with the rest of your life die in a labyrinthian medical hell is a gigantic bummer. I also don’t want people to assume that I can’t handle it. Obviously there are different levels of “handling it,” but I’m taking time to try to sit with my grief. I wouldn’t be doing it if I thought I couldn’t handle it. But what if I can’t handle it? I think pitiers are really scared that I’m going to fall off the cliff and never return. They don’t trust me. When you are a widow, I hope no one assumes anything of you. I hope no one makes you feel bad for having all the feelings you have. I hope no one thinks that you’ve gotten over your person. I hope no one thinks you’re incapable of joy and sadness at the same time. I hope no one mistrusts you because of your grief. Every person I know who grieves does it differently, and someone pitying me is not on my list of things that people do that makes me feel seen and loved. Maybe it is on others, so read the room.
The other day, I just had a total meltdown in the middle of the night. I was feeling bad for myself having experienced Noah’s near death experiences, then it hit me again that Noah also felt the emotional pang of being told he might die AND having to physically experience the utter discomfort and pain of being near death. An outburst of rage towards all the bad things that ever happened to Noah. I don’t usually think about him dying as unfair or fair (it just was), but I just felt like, some people get to die peacefully in their sleep, or quickly with a stroke or heart attack, or get hit by a car, or or or, not suffer for months and months all the while trying to get better and live a little longer. I was reading a book where a character in the story who’s in hospice says, “I feel like you should either be dying and feel good…or you should be in pain but getting better. It’s not fair to feel shitty and die.” Another thing I hate doing is making Noah participate in the Suffering Olympics, where I think Noah’s death was worse than others. And suffering, so subjective, don’t even get started trying to make sure everyone’s suffering the right amount. It’s the same kind of assumption that because Noah suffered more, that his life was worse, or something like that. It was different, and it brings up different feelings, but no gold medals. But if there was a Suffering Olympics, obviously he would have gotten a gold medal, it’s Noah!
A few months after Noah died, I made a list of all the regrets I had at that moment. Seemed like a classic therapy technique, writing down all of your dark, sad thoughts that only swirl around if left alone in your brain. I decided to do this with pity the other day, and actually I don’t pity myself that much. I also think that pitying yourself is kind of like tickling yourself…you can’t do it unless you’re extremely skilled at distancing yourself from yourself? I know how much things suck, I feel bad about it, but I also have to live with it and work with what I got. I’m not a rando who can gasp, repeat how terrible it is, then go home safely to their own living partner. Sometimes it hits me a little harder that it’s terrible, and I have to come down off it and be ready for the next time it hits. As much as I want to be removed from my grief sometimes, it’s not possible.
I’ve found that the counterpoint to pity is pride. I think Noah also practiced this, and it kind of bit him in the ass when he was actually dying. Maybe he should have reached out for more pity, or at least for people to feel really, really bad for how ill he was. But I’m proud that I was there, helping him in the small tedious joyful ways that I could in his last months. I’m proud of his parents, who made it possible for him to stay at home despite the home care industry being mostly unable to support Noah’s severe medical needs. I’m proud of his friends and family who kept reaching out, visited, sent corn overnight from Vermont. I’m really proud of Noah, for all the things he did before and during his illness, and the person he is. He never became someone else. He stayed Noah. I say that in my life, I’m most proud of Noah, then in distant second is Bukayo Saka. Then I guess all of the rest of us behind him. This is another time when you can hear me out and accept my opinion; it might not fit your idea of what I should be proud of, but if you know Saka, then you’ll also feel a deep maternal love and pride for this young man. Noah felt it, too.
Feeling pride is not a consolation prize for having someone you love die. I think that’s part of life. Shit hits the fan, and you have to roll with it. Noah had to roll the hardest, he is the one that had to adjust to a new reality the most acutely. It makes me really angry that he had to do all of that, just to live a little longer. I’m still proud of him, and me. I’m proud of us, in a way people say when couples go through a rough patch or do something momentous in their lives. I’m proud of us. That’s something I can do; protect my pride for him and us from being taken over by the pity and the sadness and anger and spite. I think that’s why I react so strongly against other people’s pity, because I’m protecting myself and Noah from external expectations and fear. I also will have to work hard to protect us from my own pity and sadness and anger and spite. They coexist in my little brain, as best as they can, and they’re always oozing over each other and taking turns napping and glowing.
Recently I’ve felt quite lost, not really sure about what I’m doing, and traveling hasn’t really given me clear insight on what I want to do or where I want to be. I know I want to have a green room wherever I settle down. A room with the walls and the trim painted green, and lots and lots of houseplants. Jungle room 2.0. I know I want to use my dutch ovens and drink out of my Bizen mug. I’m gonna buy a medium-nice power drill. Have y’all tried to envision a new life? I’m thinking it’s going to be like moving to a new city but 100x more difficult because I won’t have my person to problem solve with. I’m going to argue with myself at IKEA and delay fixing things and be a baby who can’t open cans. But I did buy a manual can opener in Japan, because I’m going to be not a baby. And I also know it’s okay to ask for help opening cans or just buy only cans with pull tabs! See? It’s easy to pity me, but DON’T! I don’t like it.
I’m getting ready for the Solar Eclipse next week. Maybe there will be some supernatural stuff. Or maybe the birds will freak out and I will also. Thanks for reading my most convoluted thoughts!!
Love, Hitomi
I have never tried to tickle myself to laughter, but now finally have a good resolution for this year! Also, Hitomi, you are such a good writer. Also, also - this post reminded me of this poem by Yehuda Amichai - https://people.bu.edu/azs/favorites/time.html