Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful

by Stephanie Wittels Wachs

  Once she got him checked in, she headed back to Houston feeling relieved and a little more at ease. Third time’s a charm. Or three strikes, you’re out. No one was sure which it would be, but we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best. It was hard to stay hopeful after two relapses, but we wanted him to get better and hope was really our only option. If we were godly people, I guess we would have prayed. But we weren’t. So, we hoped. We mostly hoped he could start to love himself because that was the only way any of this would stick.

  When my mom checked him in, they put him in the detox facility instead of the sober living facility, which didn’t make any sense. He’d already gone through detox when he was home in Houston. I saw it. He was sick, and he detoxed. He’d been sober for two weeks now. Why another detox?

  • • •

  It’s so clear in hindsight. He relapsed while my mom was staying at his house. Going through his texts, months and months after he died, in the middle of the night while lying next to my sleeping husband, I found a text he sent to a friend at one in the morning the night before he checked in: I had two clean weeks and just relapsed because I wanted a last hurrah and now I’m like why the fuck did I do that.

  He put in all that hard work for nothing. We had all those conversations for nothing. My mom flew all the way out there to make sure he was safe, and he used anyway. What a shitty, fucked-up, selfish thing to do.

  His friend replied: Don’t beat yourself up, pal, relapse is part of it, but you’re playing with fire. Harris asked her not to tell his ex-girlfriend, the one who contacted me in November over Facebook to tell me about the relapse at the Phish show: She will tell my family and then they will no longer speak to me. Then she told him to get out of LA. We said the same thing. That’s all we wanted.

  Would it have made a difference?

  33

  Ten Months, One Week

  Back in July, Mom and I anticipated that our first Christmas without you would destroy us—again—so we booked an Expedia trip to some gigantic resort in Playa del Carmen with a pirate themed-water park for kids and all-inclusive alcohol for parents. The idea was to put distance between us and your absence, but you only come into greater focus on our first family vacation without you.

  We all fly to Mexico the day after Christmas. The most magical part of the trip is the moment Iris sees the ocean for the first time. It will forever be cemented into my memory as one of those glorious life moments that makes you feel lucky to be alive. I haven’t felt much of those lately, so I treasure this one. First, she feels the sand between her toes and giggles. She keeps digging them deeper and deeper into the earth. When she looks up from her feet and spots the ocean, her eyes light up and her jaw drops open and she looks at me as if to say, “Mama, can you believe this!?” She runs right toward it without hesitation. As soon as her toes touch the water, she rips off her shirt and pants and stands there in a diaper, in the ocean. She laughs and laughs and laughs. An expression of sheer joy.

  I think, God, why are you not here to see this?

  Iris is about the same age as you were in that home movie from 1986, where you, me, Mom, and Dad are all standing together on an overcast beach in Galveston, Texas. You’re wearing a bright yellow shirt and blue-and-white-striped overalls with a red fire truck on the front. The wind is fierce, so Mom and Dad have to keep shouting back and forth at each other, narrating the scene for the camera.

  “Are you filming us?” Mom asks.

  “Who are you?” Dad jokes.

  “Oh, we are your wife and two children. We’re in Galveston.”

  He focuses the camera on me. “What’s your name, little girl?”

  “Stephanie!” I shout.

  He focuses the camera on you. “What’s your name, little boy?”

  “Tell him, Harris,” Mom urges.

  But you keep wandering away from the camera, so distracted by the water. You jump up and down and make splashes that are taller than you are. I follow you as you zig-zag and dance in and out of the water. Mom shouts, “Hey, guys, stay over here!” She reaches both her hands out to pull us closer to her, to keep us safe. This is a mother’s instinct.

  “Harris, come here,” she demands. “Stephanie, out of the water, please!”

  Dad says, “Show me the ocean, Harris. Where’s the ocean?”

  You point to the vast, brown body of water stretched out before you with wonder in your eyes then pick up dead crabs off the wet sand.

  • • •

  With the exception of the lack of free Wi-Fi (which is total bullshit), you would love this place in Mexico. Dining options boil down to several all-you-can-eat buffets—your favorite. There’s always an ample amount of boiled shrimp you would have “tore up,” as you liked to say. You used to pile your plate high into a food mountain at any buffet, take a few bites, leave the rest, and go back for seconds, thirds, fourths, and fifths. You wanted to try it all. I think you liked the process of getting the food more than you liked eating it. Steamed king crab legs were your top pick, and they had them at all Las Vegas buffets, so Las Vegas buffets were your favorite. You also always went for the mac and cheese, lo mein, egg rolls, crab rangoon, sushi, chicken fingers, fried chicken, mashed potatoes, potatoes au gratin, prime rib, nachos, quesadillas, fried mozzarella sticks, pizza, lasagna, oysters, and any variety of seafood. Never any vegetables or fresh things.

  There’s this ice cream parlor at the resort that opens every day at 9:00 a.m. and closes at 11:00 p.m. It has a dance floor in the middle that lights up in neon colors wherever you step on it, like that piano at FAO Schwartz. Iris bounces all over the neon floor in only a diaper and a hot pink T-shirt, holding a giant waffle cone in one hand and a spoon in the other. She is a vision. Looking at her dancing in this ice cream parlor, I keep thinking about that podcast you did a while back, where you pretended to call in from heaven:

  “Hey, it’s Harris, calling from heaven. Uh, it’s pretty great up here! It’s beautiful, for starters. Uh, Hitler’s up here, however, for the vegetarianism thing, so…callin’ bullshit on that. But other than that, it’s pretty great. It is very cloudy, and you, uh, you sit on ’em. That’s cool. Ooh, gotta go—ice cream buffet!”

  I wonder if there really is a heaven. And I wonder if you’re up there, right now, sitting on a cloud, eating ice cream. If so, I hope Phish is playing in the background.

  34

  Ten Months, One Week, Six Days

  Phish was as critical to you as air, water, leftovers, and maybe even heroin. I remember when you got hired on The Sarah Silverman Program, and you told her Phish was your religion and that you’d have to continue going to shows even if it conflicted with your work schedule. Every New Year’s Eve, you’d take what can only be described as a religious pilgrimage to New York City to see them play at Madison Square Garden. So, at midnight on the last day of the year, I think about how you’d be there now, texting me: Happy New Year, Sister. Love you.

  I can’t believe we’re about to be in the year after you died.

  On New Year’s Day, we visit friends who have twin boys Iris’s age. We drink champagne and play Cards Against Humanity while Thomas the Tank Engine babysits the kids. George Carlin is in it—did you know that? So random.

  On our way home, I sit next to Iris in the back seat. She takes my phone, which she now calls Iris. (She thinks the phone is named Iris since the phone contains thousands of photos and videos of her.) She immediately locates the photo app, as any modern baby can do, and scrolls through all the videos. She lands on one of her favorites: you playing guitar.

  In it, you’re wearing your uniform white T-shirt and jeans and sitting in a spinning office chair. Behind you is a corkboard with lots of thumbtacked, pink index cards. It looks like a writers’ room. I assume Parks. A woman holding the phone says, “Action.” Maybe Aisha? I’m not sure. You smile sheepishly and look down at your fingers as you strum a few intro c
hords. You sing, “Jumped in the cab, said Jay-Z, yeah I like to play. Feelin kinda homesick, I need a—” and the video cuts off. It was some adorable, acoustic version of Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA.” This is one of Iris’s favorite videos. She plays it several times on repeat then looks up at me, smiles, and shouts, “Harris!”

  She knows who you are.

  I was so worried she wouldn’t, but she does. Because you are everywhere. A gigantic painted portrait of you on a wood canvas hangs in our home office. A guy from Instagram painted it and sent us the original portrait out of the kindness of his heart. You’re on bookshelves, on walls, and in hallways. You are all over this house.

  And she knows who you are.

  35

  Ten Months, Two Weeks, Two Days

  Last January was full of hope and promise. You called me on January 4 to check in. You’d only been at rehab number three a few days, but the humanity was already seeping back into your voice. You said this place felt different than the others, and you planned to stay for a good, long while. “There are cool, funny people here who play music. These are my people,” you said. All of us were optimistic that this would be the time the sober would stick.

  Last January was a much-needed fresh start. Things were finally looking up. Iris would turn one that month. We had lived through what we thought was the most turbulent year of our lives—becoming parents of a baby with a disability, spending the first three months of her life in hospitals and doctor’s offices, running all sorts of terrifying tests, being told when she was two weeks old that she would grow to struggle academically, socially, and emotionally. But each new sound, new word, new milestone proved this shitty doomsday hypothesis totally wrong.

  Our daughter was a force.

  My brother was safe and sober and finally in the right place. I knew 2015 would be a good year. The trauma was behind us. And we had survived.

  There was so much hope and promise last January.

  • • •

  This January, I wake up feeling like shit. I am neither refreshed nor hopeful. I don’t want to go back to work today. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t want to do anything anymore under these circumstances.

  Most days, I wake up to a screaming two-year-old who doesn’t understand the distinction between morning and the middle of the goddamn night. Mike and I alternate wake-up days. On my days, I pick her up, smother her in love, rock her back and forth, put in her hearing aids, pour some milk, watch an episode of Sofia or Elmo or Mickey Mouse. I make hash browns, cut grapes, toast mini whole-grain pancakes. She cups her hands over her mouth and says, “Oh my god,” or calls her father Mike instead of Daddy, or attempts to floss her teeth. I think of you whenever she does something funny, which is often.

  I mindlessly scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. I see your friends. I think of you.

  I kiss and hug and say love you and have a good day to Mike and Iris as they head out the door for school, leaving me alone to get myself together. The house is quiet. I think of you.

  Sometimes I get back in bed for a few minutes. I think about how I should go to the gym. In some sort of delusional state back in November, I paid for a yearlong membership and have only gone twice. I don’t want to go to the gym. I scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter again or answer some emails or pay some bills or do some writing. I make breakfast, usually two eggs and Ezekiel toast. Sometimes, I make a Greek yogurt–fruit-nut bowl thing and think about how you once proclaimed that “all white girls like Greek yogurt.”

  I shower, stand in my closet, and hate that most of my pants no longer fit. I put something on. I spray some stuff in my hair and scrunch it. I pour my coffee, start the car, turn on a podcast, and drive the eight minutes to work. I turn off the car, linger for a moment, take a deep breath, think of you, and try to prepare myself for the students and the parents and the emails and the lesson plans and the ungraded papers and the letters of recommendation that all wait for me on the other side of the car door. I don’t know how to do it anymore. Or maybe I don’t want to do it anymore. Or maybe I don’t want to do anything anymore. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s grief.

  The day happens. It takes energy. I mostly want chocolate.

  I get back in the car at four o’clock, turn the podcast back on, drive the ten minutes to Iris’s school. I think of you.

  When I walk through her classroom door, Iris smiles with all of her teeth, which have little spaces in between them like her daddy had when he was her age. She runs hard into my arms. It’s a legitimate, daily high. It’s a thing I need to keep doing all of these days. We drive home listening to Toddler Tunes on Pandora and calling out all the red lights and green lights along the way. I think this is impressive. I think everything she does is impressive. I think of you.

  We pull into the driveway. Iris insists on climbing into the driver’s seat. “I drive the car!” She orders me to sit in the back seat. “Seat belt on, Mommy!” This is both adorable and maddening. I watch her press every single button in my car ten times in a row and wait for something to break. I think about how I’ll have to drive out to the fucking dealership in the suburbs. Or Mike will do it. Of course, Mike will do it. He does it all. I think of Mike. I think of what a raw deal he’s gotten. I need to be more present in our marriage, I think. I must be the world’s worst wife. Unpleasant. Detached. Disconnected—emotionally and physically. I try to remember the last time we had sex. It’s been so fucking long; I can’t. Please God let him still love me if I ever crawl out of this hole.

  Iris continues to play with the hazard lights. I’m impatient and want a snack and eventually peel her out of the car by bribing her with television.

  I cobble together some semblance of dinner—pasta, so much pasta—while she pulls at my shirt and gets out her little metal stepladder to “help” and narrates the TV show and sporadically cries about something the dog did.

  We sit down around six. I complain to Mike that I can’t eat like this anymore. I long for vegetables but it takes so much work. Iris starts melting down. Depending on the degree of the day’s highs and lows, I can sometimes talk her through her feelings calmly and lovingly, assuring her it’s okay to be mad and sad. I can offer her hugs and give her pots and pans to bang on as an alternative. Other times, my head falls into my hands or onto the table, I grumble and wait for Mike to intervene. On darker days, I lose my patience and walk away from her completely, leaving her alone and screaming for mommy. I hate myself in these moments. I hate myself in lots of moments.

  After dinner, we bathe her, make some jokes, play some hide and seek, put on some pajamas, read many books. I think of you. I tell her goodnight, she tells me to go drink apple juice, and Mike puts her to bed.

  At this point, I usually collapse into my own bed. Occasionally, I fall asleep. Mostly, Mike and I binge-watch something and tune out the world. I think of you.

  I scroll through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter again. I post yet another picture of Iris. I think of you.

  Around 11:30, I take 5 mg of Ambien. (Or, lately, 7.5 mg, sometimes 10.) I stole the bottle from your medicine cabinet when we were cleaning out your house. I figured I would need it. I think of you.

  The house is quiet. I do some writing. I think of you. I kiss Mike good night and lie there in the dark and eventually fall asleep and wake up too early to the sound of a screaming child. I think of Iris, then I think of you.

  It starts all over again. Every day, wading around in the toxic waste of longing for a person who will never return.

  I certainly feel moments of intense pride and delight. There are also acute moments of exhaustion and the blood-boiling frustration of constantly negotiating with an individual who has not yet developed the mechanics of rational thought. This is how it is for any parent of a small child. It’s all very normal in this way. There are highs and lows. It’s just that, in the midst of my highs and lows, I’
m always thinking of my dead brother. It adds another layer of low.

  Thinking of you is as reflexive as blinking, although the thought is no longer a drone strike. I’m no longer standing in a field, bracing myself, looking up at the sky in terror. This isn’t a war zone. This is just how it works now: I feel my feelings of despair, get out of bed, and participate in the world anyway.

  I finally understand the meaning of acceptance on the grief chart. It’s not that the bereaved ever accepts the death of the loved one—I will never accept your death—it’s that you come to accept that these really are your shitty, irreversible circumstances. One day, it just becomes clear: this is the way it is now. The delusions, denial, hysterics, depression, torment—it eventually starts to melt into this pit of mush that lives in your stomach and just sort of weighs you down. It’s not even necessarily fueled by emotion any more. It’s just the way your body works now. Like the day you accept that your stomach will never again look the way it did before you grew a child in it. You’re never gonna like it, but you’ll eventually get to a point where you go to the fucking store and buy pants that are the next size up because you have to wear pants. Acceptance.

  • • •

  January marches on. The mushy-stomach feeling is compounded by the fact that my family has literally been sick since early December. I know you hate overuse of the word literally, but this is an instance of justified and appropriate usage. On December 21, Iris had to get ear tubes for chronic ear infections, which is a minor surgery with anesthesia and the whole nine. Then, she got another cold and cough a couple days after going back to school. Then Mike got her cold and cough, which developed into bronchitis. I got some horrific cold or flu that forced me into a sleep state for three full days. Two days on the mend and then a sinus infection. Meanwhile, Iris developed pink eye and vomited four times in one night. We literally ran out of clean sheets. The next day, she was running a high fever and had to stay home from school the rest of the week.