The morning drive was claustrophobic and oddly quiet; fog descended overnight and insulated the air. Visibility was poor, making this a slow, stuck-behind-three-buses, no-passing drive to work. It was a fog that made the strobing beacons atop school buses seem necessary. It was a long ride. Finally, as I slowed to turn from the highway, a car seemed to materialize from the fog. It wasn’t there, then it was.
Binary. On or off. All or nothing. Safe to turn, not safe to turn. (I didn’t turn)
Today’s drive was very much like my life right now. I am surviving in a fog. It’s maddening and terrifying, heartbreaking and horrifying, but mostly, it’s exhausting.
My world is close right now–circumstances squishing in from all sides–and I haven’t figured out how to find space or hope or room to breathe. I don’t know how to see past the fog or escape my truth. Eyes open or shut, the view is the same and the view is sad. Cooper is gone, and by his own hand. I can spin in circles through the fog, looking for an orienting ray of light, but all is diffuse. Only the truth is sharp.
Ambushes–those cars flying from the fog–appear without warning, and tears surge like adrenaline. So often, ambushes that burst from the fog are sad reminders of reality. If Shawn Mullins’ “Lullaby” comes on the radio or Spotify, I’m slammed back to the day I first looked at Cooper’s Spotify on his phone. I pushed play, and the words “Everything is gonna be alright” sang out; Spotify had been paused in the middle of that song. No, Shawn Mullins, everything is not gonna be alright. Things are not even close to alright. Had Cooper been listening to that song then? Had he been assuring himself? Did he leave it paused for us to find? I’ll never know. I do know I can’t hear that song without crying.
Most attacks from the hidden lairs of the fog are painfully, horribly sad.
Today was the first time an ambush brought happy tears. A student approached me before class with her phone in her hand, pictures of a newborn filling the screen. Her older brother, a friend, neighbor, and classmate of Cooper’s, has a brand new baby boy, and one of his middle names is Cooper. The happy sob was out before I could even try to stop it. The tears were immediate and copious. The connections to Cooper will continue.
Mercifully, ambushes are only occasional; the fog is constantly oppressive. I fight the fog, searching for a guiding light, all my waking hours.
My body feels slow and heavy–far more than usual. Even as I work to strengthen myself, the effort required to be upright and functional is just too much some days; I simply don’t have the capacity. Cooking and cleaning often require more focus and energy than I can muster. I’ve managed to get into the routine of going to the pool more days than not, attending several classes each week. I need to do that. I need to cook and clean, too, but it’s a different kind of need. Right now, pounding out my frustrations in the water, exhausting my body in the hopes of sleeping at night, clearing my mind with yoga, all seem more important than cooking and cleaning. In the water, I fight my way through the fog that threatens to suffocate me most days.
And my mind. Good lord, my mind. I’ve often thought my mind was about all I had going for me. It’s gone. I make stupid mistakes, like throwing away the jokers from a new deck of cards, even though we need the jokers for Hand and Foot, the game we were about to play. I know the rules; those jokers are worth LOTS of points, but I put them in the trash. We were at least two rounds into the game before I realized what I’d done. At work and around friends, I’m slow to get a joke that a year ago I would’ve made. My mind isn’t mine right now. Imagine that mind in charge of a classroom. Or a car. Or a grill. Maybe part of my perpetual exhaustion stems from the effort of making myself pay attention. Reminding myself to pay attention. It’s so much work.
My world is muffled by the fog. Not completely muted, but muffled. What I see, what I hear, what I feel–it’s all through the haze of fog. Terrors lurk just beyond the line of visibility, but they are surely there. Real or imagined or both, the terrors are there and they will attack. I go through my days not fully seeing, hearing, or feeling what’s nearest me, and dreading what’s just out of sight. It never stops.
But then like a miracle, “Cooper” is nestled in the middle of a baby boy’s name and for a moment, that coveted shaft of light penetrates the fog.
Woods Writes 