All the Things We Never Knew

by Sheila Hamilton

  “Sophie,” I said, “your dad loved you so much. It’s the one thing that kept him going for so many years. He wanted to see you happy.”

  Sophie looked at me with a clarity that made her seem much older. “I know that, Mom, and we’ve got to have a funeral.”

  “Yes, of course we’ll have a funeral—I’ll make arrangements today.”

  The lists of musts swirled in my mind like the yellow sticky notes on my computer: go to the funeral home and have his body cremated, open my home to more strangers and relatives (again), and eat layered lasagnas and casseroles, because all of this is what you do in the week after people die. But what and who is it all for?

  “Don’t worry, honey,” I lied, “I’ve got everything under control. Where do you think we should have Daddy’s funeral?”

  We pulled into her school parking lot, and she opened the door. “He hated churches,” she said. “Maybe we should have it outside, in the park. You know how Dad loved the cold.”

  She leaned across the seat and kissed me. When she pulled back to steady her eyes with mine, I felt the goose bumps on my arm grow.

  “Don’t worry about me, Mommy,” she said. “I’m okay.”

  “Do you want me to walk you in?” I asked, my voice breaking.

  “Nah.” She gathered her lunchbox and backpack. “I’m not eight, you know.”

  She was referring to last year, when she’d broken the news to me that she was a big girl and no longer wanted me to hold her hand and walk her into the classroom. Like all moms, I’d loved the daily stroll inside the school, the clusters of tired moms and working dads hurriedly dropping their kids off. I loved seeing the bulletin boards and worksheets and rows of library books, the mismatched socks and round, soft faces, racing to see who could get to class first.

  Now I wanted to go back, to reclaim those years, to hold her hand as long as I could. I opened the car door. She waved at me tentatively from the entrance and then blew two kisses goodbye. She lingered at the door for as long as she could, opening it for the toddlers who came crashing through with their parents.

  When the final bell rang, she was gone.

  I went home, turned up the heat, and forced myself to sit down at the computer.

  David Krol passed away October 25, 2006.

  I couldn’t bring myself to write a headline, or a typical obituary full of dates and facts. That wasn’t David at all. I typed without editing myself:

  He was forever tied to the beauty and forgiveness of the forest and returned there to find peace. He grew up in the old growth of British Columbia, tagging along behind his father, a forester who taught his only son the spirituality that comes from a deep connection to the earth. David would later work as a logger, a builder, and finally a general contractor employing fourteen of his closest friends.

  His happiest moments were in the dirt of his Portland garden, where he spent hours of uninterrupted bliss.

  As I wrote, the smell of spring dirt came to me, of garden snakes and Sophie on all fours, crouching low to the ground to pick up a spider or snail, her dad smiling broadly above her. Tears squeezed out the corners of my eyes, and I could no longer resist. I lay on the carpet, weeping. Huge convulsions of sadness came over me, pummeling my body. I wailed so loud my Labrador wandered upstairs to see what was wrong. The wet carpet smelled sour. Star sniffed at my head. I cried for David. For Sophie. I cried because I felt I’d done all I could, and it wasn’t enough. Then I closed my eyes to escape myself, my guilt.

  The cell phone woke me.

  “Hey, you,” Colin said warmly. “Have you eaten anything?”

  I looked at my watch. It was already one o’clock.

  “No,” I said. “Not yet.”

  “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

  Colin pulled up in his Range Rover thirty minutes later. He spent a moment looking at the lock on the outdoor gate before he walked in. His cheeks glowed with the cold. His energy bounced against the deadness of my home.

  “I’ll bring a wrench over and fix that lock,” he said. “It’s loose.” He put his arms around me and brought me in close to his chest.

  “Oh, sweetheart,” he said, as he squeezed me. “You are so cold.”

  My memory of Colin during this time is that he seemed to call or appear during my darkest moments, like an angel flying too close to the ground. I can’t underestimate what his love contributed to my health—a lifeline at a time when most of my strength was gone, and I felt as if I was running on the last drops of adrenalin my body had to offer. He put on a kettle for a cup of tea and rubbed my shoulders as we waited for the water to boil. I was completely aware of the catatonic look of grief I wore during those weeks after David’s death, and yet, Colin still came by, often without calling first, offering to help.

  Given the trauma and complexity of my life at the time, I certainly could have chosen to shut off my heart, but instinctively, protectively, I knew I needed him. Since childhood, I’d only relied on myself for my care. The unsteady marriage to David had only solidified my belief that we can only depend on ourselves. And yet, with Colin, I was allowing the deepest defenses to fall. I let him take care of me.

  He went to the coat closet and gathered my things—a scarf, a hat, my long black cashmere coat. As he tied the scarf around my neck, I felt weird. I can tie my own scarf! Why would I have such mixed emotions about finally, truly being cared for? I tried to let my shoulders drop and soften to Colin’s kindness. He sensed my apprehension. “You okay?” he asked, holding onto my arm as he locked the door behind us.

  CHILDREN AND GRIEF

  The American Academy of Pediatrics describes the differences between children’s grief and adult’s grief. Preschoolers may believe that death is reversible or that their loved one really isn’t gone for good. Children between five and nine may understand death’s finality, yet they may not accept that it can happen to them or their family.

  Many therapists confided in me that it is best to let the child’s grief be your guide. Sophie’s emotions swung wildly during the first few months of David’s absence, but she refused to talk about David’s death with a third-party professional. Most therapists agree that it is not beneficial to have a child in counseling if he or she is resistant. Some children won’t want to cope with the loss of their loved ones for years, or even decades. It is normal during the weeks following the death for some children to feel immediate grief or persist in the belief that the family member is still alive. However, long-term denial of the death or avoidance of grief can be emotionally unhealthy and can later lead to more severe problems.

  Anger can be a natural reaction to a parent’s death. It is not uncommon for the child to show anger toward surviving family members. The child may temporarily become more infantile, demanding food, attention, cuddling, and baby talk.

  An extended period of depression may require assistance from a qualified mental health professional.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The crematorium called again, asking when I would be ready to make a decision regarding David’s remains. I called Margaret, a friend and attorney whom I knew could help me navigate this world without collapsing into emotion. When she answered, she didn’t run down the laundry list of things she had to do. Instead she said, “I’ll be right there.”

  Margaret had been the first to offer help in planning the reception after David’s funeral. Her timing and generosity were not out of character. Margaret was a modern-day Mother Teresa: she spent her vacations building homes in poverty-stricken areas of Mexico, she volunteered her time for several nonprofits in town, and she still found time for her friends and family. We were both hard workers and had saved wisely. We’d invested in apartment buildings together after a few years of friendship. Margaret did the painstaking work of accounting for every dollar we made. She arrived at my doorstep in a St. John suit and sensible black pumps. She carried two newspapers she’d picked up from the snowdrift and held them away from her clothes.

  �
�Hello, darling,” she said, stepping inside. “Here are your papers. I’ve called the Bensons for the reception, I’ve coordinated with the girlfriends so that each person will bring a dish, and I’ve sent out the announcements.”

  “Margaret,” I said, hugging her hard, “would you please quit your job and go run the war? We need someone like you.”

  She laughed, and on our way to the funeral home, we caught up on news of Sophie and her son Gavin. When we finally rounded the corner to the acres of graves, she said, “Weird, I’ve only ever come through here bicycling with the kids.” She shook her head. “It takes on a brand-new meaning now.”

  We walked through the door of the funeral home, a massive place with too much marble and gold clashing with the somber tones of death. The carpeting, the couches, and the drapes all were in the same palette of tan. On the long granite countertop, four small candles burned with names in front of them. One said “David Krol.” David Krol, I thought, what’s he doing here?

  I had to physically jerk my body to remind myself that David was dead. It was something I experienced over and over again, a stray confused thought that maybe he wasn’t dead after all. Margaret looked at me, worried. She smiled, put her arm around me, and introduced us to the woman in the tan pantsuit behind the counter who spoke in low, measured tones. It occurred to me how tiresome it must be to show empathy all day long, every day.

  She showed us into a small room adorned with plaques and memorial engravings full of samples of granite and marble. These are the decisions you face when someone dies. It is the ultimate Hallmark experience, summing up a person’s life by choosing the right kind of casket or the best vase to hold their remains. David would have hated this place. He would have walked out the minute he saw the money-making room. “Something simple would be fine,” I said.

  “Most people prefer to have something longer lasting, something significant and tasteful,” she said.

  “Something simple will do.” I noticed a beautiful, plain piece of unfinished pinewood pushed to the side of the choices. It was the type of wood David loved to shape and mold into projects. I’d seen him turn pine like that into a tree house, a chest, a fence at our first home.

  “I’ll take that,” I said to the tan pantsuit woman.

  “Are you quite sure?”

  “Quite.”

  She pushed a folder of ten pages in front of Margaret. We sat at the long cherry wood desk. “We will need to read through each of these,” she said. “Let me know if you need any help understanding any part of this.”

  Margaret gave me a sideways glance, pulled down her glasses, and began reading. To my surprise, the funeral director read the words out loud. “I, the widow of the deceased, David Krol,” she said.

  Margaret looked up at me to see how I reacted. I shrugged my shoulders. I didn’t know how I felt. The terms felt so new and foreign. Widow. Deceased. I rolled the words around and around on my tongue, wondering why I was still in denial when I knew I was in denial. Deceased. That was it. I still did not believe David was dead. I hadn’t seen his body. The medical examiner had transferred it straight here after determining he’d died from suicide. I hadn’t seen a shred of evidence that he was dead. “I’d like to see my husband before you cremate him,” I blurted out.

  The woman looked up, concerned. “I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” she said in sorrowful tones. “He’s badly decomposed. He’s been here a few days. I don’t know how to say it, but there’s an awful odor from the body.”

  “I don’t care,” I said, now convinced it was the right thing to do, to see evidence that might help me move from unbelieving and shock to believing and recovering.

  The woman phoned someone and whispered, “Would you please come in here?” Soon, the morgue operator, or cremator, came in, still wearing green gloves. He explained to me something I already knew—if I were to go into that room, I would smell of death for days. I’d heard cops say it before after entering rooms where bodies had decomposed. The stink permeates your skin, your hair, your cells, and you can’t wash it out.

  “I can,” he said, “take a picture for you, so that you can see your husband one last time.”

  I sat back down. Margaret told him, “I think that’s a good idea.”

  A few minutes later, the morgue operator came back with three Polaroid pictures and put them in front of me. They were close-ups of David’s face. One from the front, another from the side, and a third of his left hand. His eyes were closed, his mouth slack-jawed, as if he had fallen asleep in front of the television. There were blue and purple marks on his face from frostbite, and deep dark purple bruising under his eyes and into his cheeks from the force of the bullet. Dried blood ran down from his head past his ear to his neck. There was a small hole an inch or so above his ear. He was painfully thin, like a cancer victim, no fat left on his face at all, just skin and bone, and his hair was as wild as it must have been that morning, when he left us all behind. Animals hadn’t gnawed him. The force of the blast hadn’t ripped his brains apart. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief looking at the photos. The officer who called me the night of his death was right: David did not look haunted at all. He was at peace, finally. I picked up the third photo and tears filled my eyes. On his finger was the gold ring I’d given him ten years earlier, on our wedding day.

  THE ESCAPE THEORY OF SUICIDE

  Men account for four out of five suicides in the United States. Male suicide often follows job loss, business failure, relationship loss, or an embarrassing public disclosure.

  Florida State University psychology professor Roy Baumeister analyzed suicide in terms of motivation to escape from aversive self-awareness. “The causal chain begins with events that fall severely short of standards and expectations. These failures are attributed internally, which makes self-awareness painful.”

  Baumeister points out that most people who kill themselves actually lived better-than-average lives. He argues that idealistic conditions actually heighten suicide risk because they often create unreasonable standards for happiness, “whether produced by past achievements, chronically favorable circumstances, or external demands.” Baumeister notes that a “large body of evidence” supports this theory.

  Baumeister emphasizes that the biggest risk factor for suicide isn’t chronically low self-esteem per se, but rather a relatively recent demonization of the self in response to a negative turn of events. Feelings of worthlessness, shame, guilt, or inadequacy, or feeling exposed, humiliated, and rejected lead suicidal people to dislike themselves and to see themselves as unlikable and unacceptable.

  Baumeister’s escape theory applies well to male suicide. It depicts the individual struggling with some injury to self-esteem and shifting into a crisis mode in which the cognitive awareness of options narrows.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  As soon as David went missing, I played his favorite music in my home: Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Prine. David understood and felt the power of words more than most, and somehow, listening to the anthems of these men helped me feel again. It hit me hard one day when I was preparing for an onslaught of David’s family to arrive. I’d put my iPod on shuffle, and the song “Forever Young” by Dylan came on. I stopped in my tracks, remembering the nights we played and replayed that album in the Utah desert. We’d hike all day, drink tequila, and eat from the garden at night, with Dylan in the background. Hearing it again, the sobbing took hold of me so violently I had to lie down on the bed. It lasted long enough to swell my eyes, clog my nose, and puff up my face again. David had always loved what I considered to be the highest musical form, artists who didn’t pander to sentimentality or bow to commercialism. He’d chosen the music that moved him, and now, it moved me to a softer, more forgiving place.

  The house filled up. David’s sister Adele returned from Montreal with her estranged husband in tow and her two beautiful daughters, willowy and fresh-faced, reminding me of what Sophie would look like in another five to se
ven years. They brought wine and bags of Trader Joe’s snacks: Cheetos, potato chips, crackers, pretzels—none of it appropriate for a meal. I laughed to myself, remembering how David had told me, “I am living proof a person can survive two years on junk food alone. I did it when I lived with Adele.”

  His mother arrived again from British Columbia, sullen and hardened, barely acknowledging me when she walked through the door. “We won’t be staying long,” she said, referring to her children and grandchildren. “We’ll be getting a hotel tonight.”

  Of course. Of course she needed someone to blame for her son’s death. I reached for her hands. “Alice, I loved David. I hope you know I tried.”

  She pulled away and immediately went to the hardwood cabinets where we displayed David’s travel treasures. “If you don’t mind,” she said, “I’d like to take this with me.” Alice held up an antique miniature bookcase David had said was a family heirloom.

  “Of course,” I said. “Take whatever you like.” She gathered a few more of his things and left for the hotel.

  David’s nephew arrived with a friend and a trailer. I’d told him he could have the tools David used for carpentry and woodworking. There was tens of thousands of dollars worth of equipment in the garage—it would be of no use to me. Luke thanked me and then loaded the trailer until it overflowed with enough equipment to start his own woodworking business. David’s family would need something to remember him by.

  His sister Jill arrived with empty boxes and asked for David’s books. I swallowed, hard. This was my fondest memory of David, his love of literature. We’d built the bookcases downstairs together because we’d filled up the library upstairs. We had loved some of the same authors: Bukowski, Carver, Gilbert, Hemingway, Kerouac. I wanted those books we’d both dog-eared, the ones we both loved. She was already filling the boxes when I resigned myself. He was gone. The books would not bring him back.