No Time to Cry

I've got no time to look back, I've got no time to see

The pieces of my heart that have been ripped away from me

And if the feeling starts to coming, I’ve learned to stop ‘em fast

Cause I don’t know, if I let them go, they might not want to pass

And there’s just so many people trying to get me on the phone

And there’s bills to pay, and songs to play, and a house to make a home

I guess I’m older now, and I’ve got no time to cry

(Iris DeMent, 1994)

Nana died

There’s no period to mark that sentence because it’s a sentence I can’t finish. I’ve sat here staring at it countless times. But nothing comes after. Sometimes I can manage “Nana died and” before the shutdown comes, but that’s as far as I get, as I’ve gotten.

It’s been nearly 2 years, and le plupart de that demon I’ve been able to exorcise is “Nana died and”

[Guilt is a hell of a drug…]

I didn’t believe she would die.  I didn’t believe she could die. I wouldn’t believe she could die. Because I wasn’t ready to go there. I’m still not ready to go there, and yet here we are, and she’s already gone. 

I’ve spent the past 20 years running from the fact that they would one day be gone.

Since 2017, I’ve doubled down, refusing to even entertain the fact that one day, the three women I’ve modeled myself on would all leave me. First my cousin left me, and one by one my grandmothers would follow. 

Never mind that I’d all but erased myself from their lives long before they left. 

That’s a layer of guilt best left untouched for now. 

If we’re digging up bones, well, there are others closer to the surface available to excavate. 

[It’s far easier to focus on them than look in your own mirror at the pointing finger.]

It’s far easier to navigate figuring out just who the fuck I am without them in the world than it is to ride the tide of guilt and shame for bailing. 

On all of them. 

For just walking away.

Because I never meant to be gone so long. Not really. 

Okay, maybe that’s not 100% accurate either. 

But I thought I’d figure it out:

how to keep one foot in the door and one foot on the life raft of distance from all the *gestures everywhere* that that went on in the family. 

[The cost of my peace of mind ended up being my peace of mind.] 

A piece of mind forever dedicated to the guilt. The loneliness. The avalanche of grief that can never be assuaged because a kernel of truth lies in the fact that it’s all your fault you never got to say goodbye. They died alone.

There it is. The end of the sentence. 

Nana died, and she died alone.

Your cousin died, and she died alone.

You will die. And you will die alone. 

Because there’s no one left. 

[It’s just you now…]

But now I’m walkin’ and I’m talking’ doin just what I’m supposed to do

Working overtime to make sure that I don’t come unglued

I guess I’m older now and I’ve got no time to cry

(DeMent, 1994)

I didn’t have time.

 I didn’t make time. 

I was so caught up in proving something to myself. 

You can’t ask for more. You can’t get more exceptions. It’s finals time, it’s crunch time. People are counting on you. If you fail, they fail. You’re really gonna drop the ball like that; really gonna let them down like that? Put on your game face. Get through it and then you can go. What makes you think you’re different. You just had time off, an exception was already made for medical time off, you can’t ask for something else the same week you came back. Who do you think you are? 

The car was packed. All I had to do was go home quick enough to make that call that I was on the way the second the last final was done. 

I never even told her I was back in school. 

I was going to tell her. I was going to sit and read to her. Tell her about everything I was doing. Why it had taken me so long to make it up to see her. I hadn’t wanted to tell her until I had proved, at least partially, that I could do it. 

That I hadn’t failed. 

That I was good enough. 

Nana died.

There’s that sentence finisher. It didn’t need anything to come after it after all. That period says enough.

But there was more…

Alone.

Nana died, alone.

 Waiting on me. 

Thinking I didn’t want to come.  Not realizing I was hours away from coming. 

Nana died.

Just hours before I could make it. 

Hours before I made the time to make it.

Nana died. Alone. 

Before I bothered to put her first for once…