On September 15th, my cousin drowned at Lake Almanor, California. This is day six of my experiences during the week that followed.
I wake up holding my daughter who’s crawled into bed with me in the middle of the night because of a bad dream. I don’t want to get up. I feel like someone’s given me five Ambien. I can’t ever remember feeling this tired inside my skull.
I yell at the kids to get moving about 10 times. They’re not late but it seems reasonable at the time. My son is so over me.
I go with my aunt and cousin to the Unitarian Universalist church to see if it’ll be a good place to have the memorial. I love the Unitarians. I explain how you can be “anything,” including someone who doesn’t subscribe to a certain religion or even believe in god. We all agree this fits Logan perfectly.
All’s well until we encounter Logan’s dad, who has neither heard of nor wants to hear about the Unitarians. He hates the place immediately.
After some diplomatic wrangling by my cousin, whose depth of maturity, grace, and patience continue to astound me during this entire ordeal, Logan’s dad simmers down, drives off in to the sunset, and leaves the planning to us.
My aunt and cousin head back up to the cabin. I stay in Reno to wait for my brother and his family, who are arriving tomorrow. My husband is still trying to move all his shifts around so he can be with us. I find myself wishing I were the dog so I could just lay on the linoleum and concentrate on eating weird stuff.
I start really skulking around Facebook and realize I can’t bring myself to hit “like” or comment on anything even if I like it or feel like commenting on it. I wonder how long it will take me to start writing about unimportant crap again.
Logan’s memorial Facebook page has exploded. I find myself feeling almost lost in the people who are leaving messages. I don’t know so many of them, and suddenly Logan is starting to take on the feeling of an idea or a memory to me. I’m visualizing him in pictures and words, and it seems like I’m already losing him. I lay on the floor and try to remember how he looks when he’s standing in my living room. And how it feels to hug him. And how it sounds when he laughs.
I find out my great aunt is coming for the memorial. This is like comfort and love packed in a snuggly suitcase and driving to our rescue. She asks about a hotel, and I tell her she can stay at my dad’s house. In true form, she resists because she wants to make sure no one “closer to the family” needs to stay there.
Tammy Soong is a writer, wife, and mom from Reno, Nevada. She takes an absurd amount of pain medication, but not enough to have actually named her children "Newt" and "Elfie." She spends most days stressing out over clutter, writing stuff for this place, and working on podcasts with her gal pals, the Blogging Betties.
I was a Unitarian before I turned Agnostic. Coincidentally, the death of a close friend is what turned me away from UU. Started reading these entries about Logan a while ago but haven’t finished yet. What a story…so sad 🙁
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