People Are Dying.

A few years ago, I happened upon a Kardashians episode.  Because I'm basic.  And because some days, after making one thousand decisions before lunch, I need to not think for awhile.  

The family is on vacation.  They are swimming in an ocean they probably own, when Kim loses a seventy-five thousand dollar earring.  Her then husband, Kris Humphries, attempts to help.  "We'll find it, baby," but Kim is inconsolable.  "We're not going to f---ing find it in the ocean!" she counters, sobbing hysterically.  And when her sister emerges to ask what's wrong , Kim wails,  "My earring's gone!"

Without hesitation, Kourtney responds calmly.   "Kim, there are people who are dying."

I thought of this exchange three years later, when my daughter died.  If that sentence reads strange, that's because it is.  I've learned you cannot control where your mind goes, even when you want to; even as you hold your lifeless child in your arms. 

You see when I'd first seen the episode, the poor souls referenced had been far away from my living room couch.   Another time zone.  A different country, perhaps. I didn't HAVE to think about them, somewhere else, someone else-and so I didn't.   But on this morning, on this day, that person was my daughter.   

For me the anger was almost immediate.  I tried to focus on her pretty eyelashes, her dark hair, her long fingers.  The way her lips lay as though she were mid-thought.  And I was stoic, so much that someone asked me to cry.  "Don't hold it in for us," they offered, lovingly, but I was empty.  And every time I looked at her, I felt red.  

I'd made every appointment.  Skipped the coffee.  I'd walked and stretched and sang songs to my abdomen in the elevator.  I held the cream cheese and the cold cuts and the crab legs, and against every version of myself there'd ever been, I was even learning to knit.  The day before my daughter died I'd perused the craft store, carefully selecting the perfect skein for the first hat she'd ever wear.  When we arrived home without her, there it was- all perfect and untouched and waiting.  And in that moment I understood how people who aren't bad, sometimes are.  

The "why me" is loud.  And comforting. And dangerous. Mine was given life the day she wasn't and it hasn't left me since.  It takes root in my daily thoughts and conversations and relationships and for a time, it could only offer a place to direct my incredibly valid anger, which was helpful.   Only recently, and after much time, I've learned that it can actually be healing.  

Last year I changed jobs. I left a building I'd known for a decade-full of colleagues and students who'd become like family-for something brand new.  It was a risky move, but I dove in and gave it my all.  I worked among some of the best educators I've had the pleasure to know, with some of the most amazing students there are.  I loved the building, the (much shorter) commute, the people.  And three months before the summer began, I was informed that the following year, my position would be gone. 

When lunchtime arrived, I walked to my car in the parking lot. I called my husband and as the words came I expected to feel angry, embarrassed, only I wasn't.  

When we hung up I sat alone for awhile.  I watched the birds on the chain link fence and I thought of them, somewhere far away.  Sleeping in the waiting rooms. Collapsing in the driveways.  She's wheeled through the hospital doors, surprised at the sun, holding nothing but a box and some slipper socks.  

I think how lucky I am, that this is what bad means.  Right now.  

I walk up the stairs to my classroom, noisily filling  with 28 students.  And I smile.  And I mean it.