I can’t believe how utterly
exhausting it was to write about what happened the night that Robbie died. I
never would have thought that it would take me such a long time to actually
tell the story. But reliving it so I could write about it was extremely
difficult. I needed to take a break, let the painful and disturbing memories
kick around in my head a bit so I could get everything straight.
So many times I just wanted to get it all out at once, let it flow. Maybe I could have done that if I were speaking to someone, telling them the story. But I wasn’t. I was writing it down. The mere fact that I had to slow down made it more difficult to do in longer pieces.
In any case, sure, it almost took me an entire month to go through it, but at least I’ve been able to. And I’m tempted to say that I feel better, but I still feel like a walking sack of shit. But just typing the story out, getting it out of my head, that actually has helped.
So much has been going on lately that I don’t even know where to begin to get caught up. For the most part, since Robbie died, I’ve just been going through the motions, getting up, going to school, coming home, watching TV and going to bed. And that’s been enough. It’s been hard enough just doing that.
At school, our guidance counselor started up sessions again with groups of students, much like he had when Chad broke through the ice. It was different this time, though, at least for some of us.
Robbie was well loved by many of the students. Sure, both Monica and I had had a special personal relationship with him, so maybe we felt the loss differently than most. But we were in different group sessions, so I never heard how she spoke in the group, or if she even spoke in the group. I wonder if, like me, she just played along pretending to just be another student and not someone who shared a special link to this man.
Sarah was actually in the same group session as I was. And she did speak a lot. About feeling guilty over Robbie, but also feeling guilty about Miss Hamilton and the accident. It seemed like she had a lot to get off her chest, and I remember losing myself in Sarah’s words, as if it were just her and I and it was the way it had been before, the two of us together.
I remember listening to Sarah and then picking up on something that seemed to lie between and beneath her words. Sure, she was expressing grief and feelings of guilt about the loss of two much cherished teachers. But there was more grief, more guilt beneath the surface. The guidance counselor didn’t push with her, as if he knew not to go there. But I could tell. I’d heard enough psycho-babble lately to understand that Sarah was transferring the guilt and grief she felt about her father’s cancer death-sentence onto the loss of these teachers. It was almost as if she was trying to pre-grieve her father’s loss.
I openly cried while Sarah spoke, and I remember her noticing when she looked over at me once. I could tell she noticed because her eyes didn’t just pass over me but lingered a moment longer. I looked back at her, not wiping the tears, just looking at her. I wanted to get up, walk across the circle our chairs had been placed in and just hold her; tell her it would all be okay if she just let it out.
But she averted her eyes again quickly, and I knew that I was reaching beyond my grasp again.
So many times I just wanted to get it all out at once, let it flow. Maybe I could have done that if I were speaking to someone, telling them the story. But I wasn’t. I was writing it down. The mere fact that I had to slow down made it more difficult to do in longer pieces.
In any case, sure, it almost took me an entire month to go through it, but at least I’ve been able to. And I’m tempted to say that I feel better, but I still feel like a walking sack of shit. But just typing the story out, getting it out of my head, that actually has helped.
So much has been going on lately that I don’t even know where to begin to get caught up. For the most part, since Robbie died, I’ve just been going through the motions, getting up, going to school, coming home, watching TV and going to bed. And that’s been enough. It’s been hard enough just doing that.
At school, our guidance counselor started up sessions again with groups of students, much like he had when Chad broke through the ice. It was different this time, though, at least for some of us.
Robbie was well loved by many of the students. Sure, both Monica and I had had a special personal relationship with him, so maybe we felt the loss differently than most. But we were in different group sessions, so I never heard how she spoke in the group, or if she even spoke in the group. I wonder if, like me, she just played along pretending to just be another student and not someone who shared a special link to this man.
Sarah was actually in the same group session as I was. And she did speak a lot. About feeling guilty over Robbie, but also feeling guilty about Miss Hamilton and the accident. It seemed like she had a lot to get off her chest, and I remember losing myself in Sarah’s words, as if it were just her and I and it was the way it had been before, the two of us together.
I remember listening to Sarah and then picking up on something that seemed to lie between and beneath her words. Sure, she was expressing grief and feelings of guilt about the loss of two much cherished teachers. But there was more grief, more guilt beneath the surface. The guidance counselor didn’t push with her, as if he knew not to go there. But I could tell. I’d heard enough psycho-babble lately to understand that Sarah was transferring the guilt and grief she felt about her father’s cancer death-sentence onto the loss of these teachers. It was almost as if she was trying to pre-grieve her father’s loss.
I openly cried while Sarah spoke, and I remember her noticing when she looked over at me once. I could tell she noticed because her eyes didn’t just pass over me but lingered a moment longer. I looked back at her, not wiping the tears, just looking at her. I wanted to get up, walk across the circle our chairs had been placed in and just hold her; tell her it would all be okay if she just let it out.
But she averted her eyes again quickly, and I knew that I was reaching beyond my grasp again.
