Everything Is Horrible and Wonderful

by Stephanie Wittels Wachs

  Now, we’re all stuck watching Sofia the (Fucking) First on repeat, surrounded by mountains of dirty tissues and coughs that shake the walls of the house. It’s hard to be stuck in some sort of emotional feedback loop when four loads of your child’s vomit-soaked laundry and pajamas need attention in the middle of the night. In this way, toddlers are an ideal distraction from grief. Everything revolves around them, and everything must be done right now. Trying to get the fever to break, running around the park on a gorgeous day, navigating the world’s most irrational tantrum—there’s no time to stop and think. It’s all go-go-go, now-now-now-now.

  I think we’re all just doing our best to survive the inevitable pain and suffering that walks alongside us through life. Long ago, it was wild animals and deadly poxes and harsh terrain. I learned about it playing The Oregon Trail on an old IBM in my computer class in the fourth grade. The nature of the trail has changed, but we keep trekking along. We trek through the death of a sibling, a child, a parent, a partner, a spouse; the failed marriage, the crippling debt, the necessary abortion, the paralyzing infertility, the permanent disability, the job you can’t seem to land; the assault, the robbery, the break-in, the accident, the flood, the fire; the sickness, the anxiety, the depression, the loneliness; the betrayal, the disappointment, and the heartbreak.

  There are these moments in life where you change instantly.

  In one moment, you’re the way you were, and in the next, you’re someone else. Like becoming a parent: you’re adding, of course, instead of subtracting, as it is when someone dies, and the tone of the occasion is obviously different, but the principle is the same. Birth is an inciting incident, a point of no return, that changes one’s circumstances forever. The second that beautiful baby onto whom you have projected all your hopes and dreams comes out of your body, you will never again do anything for yourself. It changes you suddenly and entirely.

  Birth and death are the same in that way.

  In 2014, there was birth. In 2015, there was death.

  And in two years’ time, we’ve experienced both.

  I’m no longer the person I was before The Tragedy. I’m becoming someone else. I’m becoming a person I don’t yet know.

  36

  A Month Before

  January 2015

  We threw Iris her first birthday party the day before her actual birthday. My in-laws flew in and lots of friends attended. It was a celebration-worthy occasion. Iris had made it nearly 365 days in the world, and we had made it nearly 365 days as her parents. Like any significant occasion of late, there was a part of me that was sad that Harris was absent.

  The party was at this huge, indoor playland. I knew Iris wouldn’t remember any of it, but it was still a success, despite the fact that she refused to take one bite of her cake, much less smush any part of her body in it like babies are supposed to do. She was a notably neat baby and always had been. She never colored on the walls or poured a bag of flour all over the living room. She would find the tiniest pebble of dog food in a corner and bust out her tiny broom and dustpan to rectify the situation. She would wipe up drops of spilled milk with tissues. She loved throwing things in the trash. I worried she might have OCD. Add it to the list.

  Harris had sent me an email the day before:

  Subject: my phone dont work here

  i was trying to tell you happy birthday to iris and that i’m sorry i couldn’t be there for it, but i will be next year.

  • • •

  There’s priceless footage of Harris’s first birthday in my mom’s DVD collection. He’s sitting in his high chair with shaggy brown hair, wearing a tiny, maroon Oklahoma Sooners shirt—my dad went to University of Oklahoma and is still a die-hard fan.

  In the video, my mom puts the whole cake on his tray, and I scream in agony in the background. I want it. Harris pushes his hand into the middle of the cake like he’s pulling out a beating heart in that scene from Indiana Jones: Temple of Doom. He shoves cake into his mouth by the fistful like a barbarian, coating his entire person in icing.

  After a few bites, my mom takes the cake away from Harris and puts it in front of me on the kitchen table. Harris screams and cries. Then she takes the cake away from me and gives it back to Harris. I lose my mind. Mom, Dad, Grandma, Aunt Carol, and Uncle Herb laugh loudly in the background. This goes on for several more rounds. They think it’s hilarious.

  Watching it, I think: Grandma, Uncle Herbie, and Harris are all dead now.

  37

  Eleven Months, Two Weeks, Five Days

  In Judaism, an unveiling is the ceremony that happens within a year of a loved one’s death to formally dedicate the headstone. Prior to today, your grave was marked with a sad little sign that stuck out of the ground with your name typed in Arial font. Today we will go the cemetery for the unveiling. It’s a beautiful day: clear blue skies, sixty-one degrees.

  I was living in Manhattan when the Twin Towers fell: that was a beautiful day.

  I got the call that you died last February: that was a beautiful day.

  We go to the cemetery to unveil your headstone: another beautiful day.

  Beautiful days scare the shit out of me now.

  • • •

  We plan to meet at the cemetery at 1:00 p.m. I haven’t showered for a couple of days and decide it would be an appropriate time, but I’m dragging my feet. It usually takes me twenty minutes to get showered, dressed, and out the door. Today, it takes close to an hour. I stand in the shower so long the hot water turns cold.

  After brushing my wet hair, I sit down for a while on the foot of the bed in my towel, blank. I get up, stare at all the clothes in my closet, and sit down a while longer. I’m having trouble breathing like I did sitting in the waiting room right before your funeral.

  I start to sweat. My heart beats fast. I feel nauseous. I focus on my breathing to make sure it functions properly. I finally manage to put on a dress and two shoes and make my way downstairs and into the car. The drive over is relatively quiet. Iris eats peanut butter pretzels loudly in the back seat and eventually falls asleep a few minutes before we reach our destination.

  When we pull into the cemetery, I see Mom and Dad, Taal, Matt Marcus, and Matt’s girlfriend, Eby. Matt and Eby are wearing their purple “Harris” Phish T-shirts that they designed for the last Phish tour, the one you missed because you were here. They sold a ton of them.

  We open our car doors gingerly so as not to wake the baby and head toward the covered headstone that sits underneath a shady tree. We quietly stand in a semi-circle around it, and Mom passes out copies of the short service she’s created for her son who’s buried beneath her feet. Meanwhile, Eby sits in the backseat of the car with Iris while she naps, her little mouth agape, completely safe from the sad scene on the other side of the car door, not fifty feet away.

  Mom instructs us to read everything together. A few lines in, I blurt out, “Aah! I hate choral reading.” I really do hate it. At various points, I drop out to cry. Mom does the same. Mike cries, too, but continues to read through the service. Dad reads quietly, inaudibly:

  We thank God for the gift of Harris who enriched our lives while he walked beside us.

  We remember his memory in death even as we loved him in life.

  We are grateful for the opportunity afforded us by this unveiling service to reach back into time and to remember the moments, days, and years we shared with Harris this day.

  May his life indeed be bound up in the bond of everlasting life.

  The greatest tribute is to remember his life:

  In the rising of the sun and in its going down…We will remember him.

  In the blowing of the wind and in the chill of winter…We will remember him.

  In the opening of the buds and the rebirth of spring…We will remember him.

  In the blueness of the sky and in the warmth of summer…We will remembe
r.

  In the rustling of leaves and in the beauty of autumn…We will remember him.

  In the beginning of the year and when it ends…We will remember him.

  When we are weary and in need of strength…We will remember him.

  When we have joys we yearn to share…We will remember him.

  When we gaze into Iris’s eyes…We will remember him.

  So long as we live, so he too shall live,

  For he is part of us, part of our memory, part of our love.

  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

  God makes me lie down in green pastures.

  God leads me beside the still waters to revive my spirit.

  God guides me on the right path, for that is God’s nature.

  Though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, for You are with me.

  Your rod and your staff comfort me.

  You prepare a banquet for me in the presence of my enemies.

  You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

  Surely goodness and kindness shall be my portion all the days of my life.

  And I shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

  As I read this passage aloud, I finally understand the meaning of the line about the valley of the shadow of death. Death is always present, always lurking. Death walks beside the living. I think about Samuel L. Jackson’s monologue in Pulp Fiction and how he finally understood it, too, and in the midst of my trying to recall exactly what he said about it being some badass shit he used to say before he killed a motherfucker, it’s time to uncover the headstone.

  We kneel down and remove the heavy rocks weighing down the corners of the thin fabric that reads Property of Congregation Emanu El. There it is. A thick piece of engraved granite that will sit in this spot forever. We all take a moment to absorb it. A color photo of you is in the bottom left corner, the photo of you wearing the blue Maui cap that was taken at UCB, where you’re looking so happy. On the opposite corner is the word “Harris” in the shape of the Phish logo, designed by your dear friend Rob Schrab. It’s the same logo Matt and Eby wear on their shirts today:

  There is a menorah positioned top center, sandwiched in between two Hebrew letters that mean Here lies. Hebrew on the headstone was important to Dad. The text beneath it reads:

  HARRIS LEE WITTELS

  APRIL 20, 1984—FEBRUARY 19, 2015

  THANKS FOR THE LAUGHS

  After removing the veil, we say the Mourner’s Kaddish together. As much as I hate the awkwardness of choral reading, there is something so soothing about the ritual of a group of people saying Kaddish together.

  Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba.

  B’alma di v’ra chirutei

  v’yamlich malchutei,

  b’chayeichon uv’yomeichon

  uv’chayei d’chol beit Yisrael,

  baagala uviz’man kariv. V’im’ru: Amen.

  Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach

  l’alam ul’almei almaya.

  Yitbarach v’yishtabach v’yitpaar

  v’yitromam v’yitnasei,

  v’yit’hadar v’yitaleh v’yit’halal

  sh’mei d’kud’sha b’rich hu,

  l’eila min kol birchata v’shirata,

  tushb’chata v’nechemata,

  daamiran b’alma. V’imru: Amen.

  Y’hei sh’lama raba min sh’maya,

  v’chayim aleinu v’al kol Yisrael.

  V’imru: Amen.

  Oseh shalom bimromav,

  Hu yaaseh shalom aleinu,

  v’al kol Yisrael. V’imru: Amen.

  Exalted and hallowed be God’s great name in the world which God created, according to plan.

  May God’s majesty be revealed in the days of our lifetime and the life of all Israel—speedily, imminently, to which we say: Amen.

  Blessed be God’s great name to all eternity.

  Blessed, praised, honored, exalted, extolled, glorified, adored, and lauded be the name of the Holy Blessed One, beyond all earthly words and songs of blessing, praise, and comfort. To which we say: Amen.

  May there be abundant peace from heaven, and life, for us and all Israel.

  To which we say: Amen.

  May the One who creates harmony on high, bring peace to us and to all Israel.

  To which we say: Amen.

  When it’s over, we line the headstone with stones we’ve brought. In Judaism, it’s customary to bring stones in lieu of flowers. Flowers eventually die; a stone does not. Earlier today, Iris decorated the stone I brought in this gold paint pen that wasn’t washable and is now essentially hennaed all over her body. The stone is smooth and gray. It’s the one she took from outside your house in Los Feliz when we went last year to clean it out. So now a piece of Los Feliz is resting on top of you.

  Mom lays down an evil eye and a rock with an engraved frog on it. She collects frogs. She has hundreds of them. Neither of us ever understood why. (Please note: I still don’t.)

  Taal bends down and kisses your headstone with his lips. Very Taal.

  Dad walks away and sits on a bench, alone. Very Dad.

  I quote a couple of lines from the graveyard scene in Steel Magnolias in a thick Southern accent: “He will always be young, he will always be beautiful.” Very me.

  And then this odd thing happens: we just start having a totally normal conversation, standing over your grave. Matt throws out some ideas for the name of a new pizza restaurant he’s opening. We all vote for Twittels Pizza after your Twitter handle, @twittels, a clever mash-up of Twitter and Wittels. You really were top-notch at the internet.

  Mom tells us there’s a whole new body of research that AA doesn’t work and medical intervention is the way to go with heroin addiction. I ask her why she keeps reading about this stuff. She says she can’t stop. I ask if it makes her feel better. She says it makes her feel much worse.

  “If he just could have held out for a couple more years,” she says for the hundredth time.

  “Mom, he was who he was. He was always gonna do what he was gonna do.”

  Taal tells us that the main character in Louis C.K.’s new internet series is named Horace Wittel. In the series, the character died a year ago. They apparently take great pains in the show to enunciate the word Wittel like we Wittels have to do.

  We talk about Friday Night Lights, the box set of which the boys have brought and laid next to your headstone along with a Phish CD, a children’s book called God Gave Us You, dozens of fresh flowers, and some tiny, plastic toy soldiers, red and blue and yellow.

  We kiss our fingertips and touch them to the headstone.

  We walk back to the car to lovingly stare at the sleeping baby.

  Then we all drive to Kenny & Ziggy’s Delicatessen, where we drown our sorrows in piles of corned beef and heaps of chopped liver.

  38

  A Week Before

  February 2015

  My brother and I had our last phone conversation eight days before he died. It was the last time I would ever hear his voice in real time. Had I known, I would have stayed on the phone with him forever. Or at least for much longer than I did. The conversation was so brief and insignificant.

  He called to hash out an angsty Facebook status I’d just posted about the unsolicited feedback I often get in public about Iris’s hearing aids.

  Some answers to some common questions posed by strangers upon noticing Iris’s hearing aids:

  “What’s wrong with her ears?” Nothing is wrong with her ears. Her ears are perfect—unlike you. You are a rude asshole.

  “Can she hear?” Yes, you fool. She’s wearing hearing aids. That is the point. Do you think this is a fashion statement I am making?

  “Does she have to wear those forever?” Yep. Every single waking hour of every sing
le day for the rest of her life. There is no cure for hearing loss. It is a permanent condition. And it has taken me lots of time, tears, and hard work to finally come to a place of acceptance about all that. But thanks for kicking that dust up for me. It’s really something I wanted to dig into—again—with you.

  A few minutes later, the phone rang and Harris Wittels showed up on the caller ID. No matter what I was doing, I always picked up the phone when I saw his name.

  “Man, you went HAM on Facebook,” he said when I answered.

  “What is a ham?”

  “Hard as a motherfucker?” He said it judgmentally, like I should know this.

  “Well, people are fucking idiots.”

  “Yeah, but they mean well. They’re just trying to connect with you and understand it—they just don’t know what to say. No one ever knows what to say about anything.”

  And just like that, I was disarmed. He really was the only one who could tell me to calm the fuck down in a way that felt loving and nonthreatening. He was the one who could talk me off a ledge because he’d seen me stand on so many ledges so many times before. Siblings know you from the beginning. They know how you react to pain, setbacks, disappointment, hurt, and sadness. They know how to say the thing that will cut right through all the bullshit and diffuse the situation. Or, conversely, the thing that will exacerbate the situation, if that’s the goal. Like the thing Harris always used to do in the car where he would put his finger a millimeter away from my arm and say, “I’m not touching you, I’m not touching you,” and I would want to rip the finger right off of his hand.

  Who will be able to fill that space now?

  On February 13, Harris texted: More vids please [of Iris]. I’ve watched the new ones a thousand times. I sensed a sort of desperation. It was as if he was saying, I need this. I need a reason. I need a thing to make me keep going or I’m not going to make it.