Collective and Cumulative Loss: The Long and Short Of It.

Dear Pepsi,

I miss you so much. I wish I could lay my head on your curled up body and talk to you about everything that is happening in our lives and the world. I used to joke that if President Obama knew you he would hire you as an advisor. In the dead of night while struggling with hard decisions, he could look deeply into your eyes and find the wisdom needed to make tough calls. I always wondered what was going on in that brain of yours. It seemed you were figuring out the cure for cancer or mapping the road to world peace. Let me in Peps, I just want to be in your head.

Brilliant Peps

Lately I have begun to sink into despair. Pandy had a few trips to the ER, which exhausted me and sent me into a downward spiral of worry. We took her off raw food given her immune system is suppressed and we want to eliminate reoccurring stomach bugs. She didn't want to eat one day and I honestly thought I would loose her. Thankfully she rebounded and seems fine. I put on medical gloves everyday when I give her chemo pills and pick up poop. Cancer has become a way of life, which brings back memories of the six weeks between your diagnosis and death. In the midst of living my three quarters life I am still stumped that you were gone so soon. I go to work, the grocery store, watch Netflix, sit on the front steps with Pearl and Pandy, and the three of us walk the neighborhood streets. I look normal; however, each time I grab your sisters' harness and leash off the hook in the half bath I pause to kiss your pink harness, close my eyes and inhale your smell. Basically I am a broken car that still drives.

Pandy and Pearl

I walked into work yesterday and stopped to chat with three colleagues. They asked how I was and I didn't other to shroud my feelings - I care but I don't care, I am alone but don't want to see anyone, I am functioning but my capacity has dwindled. I am sick of being on high alert and worrying about death. I don't want anything to happen to Pandy and I miss Pepsi every day. It is too much loss, I barely had time to grieve over my mom and then Frank died and Pepsi was diagnosed with cancer and died and now Pandy is sick. Then I started crying. They understood having loved and lost a dog or person. Last weekend I saw the movie The Promise about the slaughter of Armenian by the Turks during WWI as the Ottoman Empire was collapsing. The Turks still officially deny it happened or take any responsibility. My friend and colleague Jeanette is Armenian (you remember her Peps? She has Luke, the Rottie who you barked at like you were so tough). She told us how her family had similar experiences as depicted in the movie. She said her grandparents never talked about it, though she heard stories from other family members. Her grandmother's story makes your jaw drop and heart break in one movement. When I walked out of the theater I was struck by the many ways we have advanced over time, and yet regressed as if we have no capacity to learn or develop. How is it possible? Continued genocide, mass killings, ethnic, religious and racial violence. Senseless conflict. Dead bodies bombed, shot and marched to death. Buildings burned or blown to smithereens. Untold stories of loss traveling through generations creating a deafening silence and perpetual pain. Just because you don't talk about it doesn't mean it isn't carving out pieces of your heart.

Portrait of my Grandmother Bessie who came to America at 16 years old fleeing Anti Semitism

Loss is collective and cumulative. It is strikes us individually as well as part of a targeted group. My children's ancestors crossed the Atlantic in slave ships and were marched to gas ovens. The legacy lives on as black bodies continue to be devalued and murdered, and swastikas are spray painted on synagogues and gravestones desecrated. They are haunted by these ghosts and navigate the world with a degree of fear of what may happen because of their skin color more than their religion; however, collective loss and pain belong to them as a lump sum. I think about my parents and how they managed to carry on after my sister died. They had two other children but still. We never talked about it, there were no grief groups then, though even later we rarely did. It hurt too much. We suffered in silence as many people do, drifting in our thoughts and feelings, wondering what it would have been like of she had lived. Would we have been so broken or perhaps just more of us to be broken?

Sissy age 3

I know my life has purpose and meaning Peps, and good days are still ahead. I couldn't keep you forever as I cannot Pandy. Cancer aside, nothing is forever as Aunt Diane said. Pearl will leave me, or perhaps I will leave her first. Permanence is not part of my psyche anymore and I measure high stakes differently. Part of aging is being strategic about how to allocate time and energy because there is less of it. My capacity has dwindled and I make no apologies. I cannot fill this space on my own. I ache for you and your levity Peps, you riding shotgun, laying beside me with your head on the pillow. Pearl and Pandy love each other, I really see how much now that Pandy is sick; however, they don't play like you and Pearl did. They don't come over to me and bark with toys in their mouth, insisting I chase them in circles around the house. We are missing part of our life with you gone and while three quarters of a life is something, it is not and will never be the same. I keep writing to you because I can't let go of you Peps, you are my moral compass and keep me honest about my bottom line. It is my way of not suffering in silence like my parents did when Sissy died, or Jeanette's grandmother and those like her who somehow made a life from the ashes. Survival means many different things when life becomes unimaginable.

The sisters

I may never get my old bounce back, or perhaps I will. I take what is in front of me and try to be grateful for all of my abundance. I know you would be disappointed otherwise.  I love and miss you with each passing day darling girl.

Love,
Mom