by Liz Levine
It’s 5:30 a.m., and my mother has just told me that Tamara died. I hang up the phone and send a couple of texts—just a select few. Less than 10 minutes later, my phone rings in my hand, and it’s France. She says she felt me. She says, “Get. Here. Now.”
She opens the door when I arrive, already in tears, arms open. My first instinct is relief. And then, at a loss for what comes next, she says, “At least my sister would have called me first.”
Before the words are out of her mouth, she regrets them. Her hands over her mouth. Horrified.
I am instantly wounded. But before I can even feel how badly the words sting, we are instantly in laughter and then in tears, and she is instantly forgiven.
I’m so sorry.
Our warmest condolences,
She’s in a better place.
At least she’s not in pain now.
She’s in our prayers.
Take comfort in knowing ______ (insert any of the above three statements here).
With heartfelt condolences,
I understand how you feel.
I’ve been there.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Deepest sympathies.
We are very saddened by this loss.
My heart goes out to you.
Our deepest condolences,
Words cannot begin to express our sadness.
Our love to you and your family at this time.
I am here for you.
Take comfort in your memories.
You are in my thoughts.
Our thoughts and prayers are with you.
We are thinking of you.
We are thinking of you during this difficult time.
With deepest sympathy,
My sincere sympathy,
Remember that we love and care about you.
With caring thoughts,
With loving memories,
Our hearts go out to you in your time of sorrow.
She will remain in our hearts forever.
We send you thoughts of comfort.
Please accept our most heartfelt sympathies for your loss… our thoughts are with you and your family during this difficult time.
With love and hugs,
We will miss her,
Remembering you and her in our minds and in our hearts.
We send you thoughts of peace and courage.
We are here to support you in your grieving process.
With sincere sympathy,
We will never forget her.
May your heart and soul find peace and comfort.
Peace, Prayers and Blessings,
Wishing you peace to bring comfort, courage to face the days ahead.
Wishing you loving memories to forever hold in your hearts.
I don’t have the words to express my sadness for you…
* * *
And in all this white noise of nothingness I realize that, as it turns out, France’s response was the most memorable and authentic condolence I received. Because I heard beneath it how horrified she was and how deeply she felt my pain. And her own.
“At least my sister would have called me first.” She is willing for this to be true.
D
DEATH-IVERSARY
I remember them better than anniversaries.
DAWN
Lex tells me I first met my sister-in-law, Dawn, in June 2009. Apparently, they were in Vancouver for a Liberal Party convention and they met me for lunch. I don’t remember that day: where we ate lunch, what I thought of her when I first saw her or heard her voice.
But I don’t remember life without Dawn. It’s like she has always been there.
Familiar. Familial. Family.
Another sister.
I didn’t know she’d be the only one. But she’s definitely the one I would choose.
DYNASTY
According to my father, everyone we are related to and, moreover, everyone we know, can be traced back to a shtetl in Poland. I’m not sure if this is truth, or urban myth, or something my father has willed into being, but some days it sure seems like he’s right. We are related to everyone.
It’s not a wonder, really: my paternal grandfather was the youngest of ten, and his wife the second youngest of five. On my mother’s side, each grandparent had six siblings. So when you factor in marriages, divorces, and children, there are a LOT of cousins.
My family, it seems, with my limited historical gaze, has always lived in extremes. Both my grandfathers were type A, ambitious, and wildly successful. But also, I’ve learned that approximately eight of my relatives have taken their own lives. I asked my father about this, and he said, “Really smart, and really fucking crazy, on both sides of the family.”
And it seems to have landed with my parents too. Both are at the top of their fields and still determined to accomplish more as they pass 70. And the boys and I are no exception. Nor was Tamara. She was brilliant.
It turns out that of the relatives who took their own lives, approximately six of them jumped (not including Tamara). One of them jumped just down the street from Tamara. Same street. Same action. Fifty years apart.
Maybe, like ambition, it just runs in the blood.
DISTRACTION
Judson came by my house every Christmas. He’d charm my mother with a basket of goodies from his parents and a brilliant smile. I would stand by awkwardly. Mom would lounge, her hip against the front hall table, her arms gently crossed, smiling easily. He matched her ease and made her laugh. Then he’d peck her on the cheek with an “I’ll have her back in no time,” and we’d be out the door before she could respond.
Christmas at my house was intense. We were constantly on alert for a Tamara outburst, and we had to work gently around Mom’s need to control every minute—to make it perfect. Christmas at everyone’s house is probably pretty intense. The living room was a hive of frenetic energy in the morning. We stepped nervously, skittish, trying to avoid family land mines, and as a result, I have never liked Christmas. I got to sleep the night before knowing that Judson would come ring my doorbell. He came to free me from the stifling family traditions that gave me the sense of being trapped in the house with Tamara. He came to plan for our annual friends Jewbouree on December 26th. And as a result we formed our own tradition around a much-needed smoke and a moment of sanity. We would walk in the cold winter air, he would bring me a gift, he would make me laugh, he would ease the pressure.
Judson did not come by last year, or the year before, when he was sick, and he would not be coming by this year. So when the doorbell rang this Christmas and I answered it…
…the world stopped.
It took a moment to understand that this was not him. He had to lean forward and put his hand on my arm. He bowed his head a little, just like Judson used to, in order to look me in the eye.
Mirage.
Looking at Judson’s brother, Josh, was like getting my heart ripped out. They look so much alike, the way they both tilt their heads to one side when they are really listening, the way they laugh with their broad smiles and perfect teeth, heads tossed back, invested in the moment.
People tiptoe around Josh now, but not my mother. She wants to know how he is doing, how the pain feels right now. Almost three years have passed. “The pain never lessens; it just happens less often,” she tells him as he stands in the doorway at Christmas. She is leaning her hip against the front hall table, smiling gently. Josh and I stand at the door, uncomfortable. Without Judson to charm for both of us, we feel lost.
It is an awkward extrication process… and as we move down the street, it is with a familiar, though not comfortable, silence. “Sorry, I just didn’t know what to say to your mom,” he admits.
“Yeah, neither did I. Me talk pretty one day.”
He smiles—a little.
“David Sedaris,” I tell him. And there are no other words, nothing left to say that has not already been said. I put my arm through his, and we turn towards his home, Judson’s home, the dup
lex just a few blocks away.
There are no empties stacked outside the door as Josh unlocks it and we step inside. After university and some world travel, Judson returned and claimed the basement suite as his own. It has its own door to the outside with a little sheltered area for joint smoking.
I throw my jacket down on the couch, still familiar but not comfortable. I roll a joint on the glass coffee table; it feels like the thousandth time. I cut us each a line of cocaine. Josh turns on the TV. I think we are watching Family Guy.
Less sober, I make my way down the narrow hallway to the bathroom. On the way back, I cannot help but look—Judson’s bedroom door is slightly ajar. I imagine that his mother, Kathy, feels the need to catch a glimpse each time she walks by, that the door is left open to give the semblance of life in the space behind it. As soon as I step through the door, I know that only Kathy comes in here. She sits on his bed and she cries. I check back out the door to make sure Josh is not watching. I’m not sure why it matters.
Inside is like a parallel universe where Judson is still here, still alive. Junk is piled on his desk: more unopened mail, a few cables, his cell phone… It is still the same as it was. And if his room is still the same, then he should still be here, no?
I open the closet to find his clothes still folded as they were left. I run my fingers over the orange sweater and bury my face in the stack of T-shirts. I stand like that, arms over my head, clutching whatever material my hands have landed on, fighting tears. Something I don’t do. But in this moment I do. And it’s a good thing too, because in an instant Josh is behind me.
“You should take it,” he tells me, gesturing to what I have clutched in my hands. I don’t even know what I’m holding on to.
“Time for another line?” one of us suggests. Probably me. We get a little higher. We watch some more Family Guy and then sports updates. Josh is obsessed with sports.
Once I am sure my family is in bed and we are down to a line or two each, I know it is time to go. A bump for the road, and Josh puts Judson’s scarf in my hands and says, “Don’t forget this.”
I take Judson’s scarf with me when I leave. It is the one he is wearing in the picture we all have of him. It was taken in Montreal when Judson was at McGill. He is standing on the hill with the whole city beneath his arms, which are stretched out like a raptor’s. Karina, Jud’s “fag hag,” sidekick, and childhood friend, printed and framed the pictures for his friend Tyler and me. Maybe she made them for the family. I know she kept one for herself. I keep mine in my home office in Vancouver, tucked behind some books, where only I can see it.
I wrap the scarf around my neck, and I can smell him, I think I can, just a hint of him, his cologne, the scent of something familiar. It is snowing as I walk home wrapped up in him.
DUMB
I found a video online in 2012 that I loved so much I sent it to everyone, Tamara included. A PSA that has racked up millions of views. It was originally made to promote safety for a train station in Melbourne. It’s an animated sing-along called “Dumb Ways to Die,” and in it a series of adorable animated characters die in ridiculous ways and then are all delightfully brought back to life in their mangled states to sing a rousing rendition of the very catchy chorus.
Don’t take my word for it. Look it up on YouTube. I guarantee you’ll be singing it all night.
On November 20, 2015, Tamara sends me a message through Facebook Messenger that says, This video has a whole new meaning now, and has a link to “Dumb Ways to Die.”
What do you mean? I ask.
I wish you peace, she says.
I wish you peace too but I still have no idea what the “whole new meaning” is behind the safety video…
LOL, she writes. Sending you love. Family is family.
I was the dumb one. I know the answer now. She was thinking about all the dumb ways she could die at that point. One year before her suicide.
E
EASTER BUNNY
I’m an evidence-based creature at this, the ripe old age of 6. I’m the first of my friends to stop believing in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, and the tooth fairy, and by the time I am 8, I’m already over the Loch Ness Monster and unicorns. I pride myself on this.
I’m 10 when I stop believing in my sister for the first time. My parents have been divorced for 4 years and are continuously working with each other and all 4 kids to make this as good as possible. My sister, Tamara, aged 7 now, is working against the whole plan. Tamara tells my mother stories about my father’s dating life. She tells my father stories about my mother’s dating life. They all stem from a grain of truth, but to my already attentive ears, they sound like lies.
I’m 13 when the high school principal pulls me into her office to ask if my father is touching me, and where. He isn’t! And so this question is like being asked when the aliens had landed or when I last saw the Easter Bunny. I sit stunned in front of her, mortified. It turns out Tamara has told her this, not because it is true but, in her words, “Because I wanted to see what would happen.”
As the years go by, the illness gets worse and, to my eyes, increasingly obvious. Tamara makes plans with friends we never see, and in this era before Facebook, we can’t even confirm that they exist. There is always a boyfriend or three that we never meet and an event she’s going to that doesn’t seem to be actually happening.
I’m 22 and driving home to spend Christmas with the family. By this point, Tamara has become obsessed with gift giving. Our gifts are complex baskets filled with myriad things that reflect her understanding of us. This year, I got everything from movie tickets to cool pens and a small black-and-white ceramic cookie jar with the word shrooms tiled on the front of it. I guess this is my university undergrad reputation.
I’m 29 when I fly home to Toronto and learn that Tamara has shaved her head and is telling the whole family that she is dying of cancer. Evidence-based creature that I am, I instantly disbelieve it. Mere blocks away, Judson is actually dying of cancer, so I know what it looks like. And Tamara, she still has her eyebrows and eyelashes! I don’t know yet that Tamara’s disease gives her an irrational sense of responsibility for any tragedy that she’s heard about. I don’t connect her lie to my experience yet. So I lose any flicker of remaining belief I might have in unicorns, leprechauns, and magic, and my brother and I decide to take very practical action. We scream at my parents, we try a family intervention, we try and contact her “friends.” Nothing works.
I’m 31 when Lex, the lawyer and politico who counts every black mark as a failure and every success as a résumé builder, is given a foster child for Christmas. The small child’s name is Maluki, and he lives in a little village somewhere in Africa. My sister has covered his expenses for a year, and this promises to bring Maluki and his village a clean well for drinking water and some basic tools for education.
It’s almost three months past Christmas when my brother’s phone rings. It is a representative from Foster Parents Plan Canada. None of Maluki’s bills have been paid, there is no fresh water in his village, and he is still starving to death. Lex is officially a delinquent foster dad. Apologetic and mortified beyond belief, my brother hangs up and calls Tamara. Tamara is instantly apologetic. “There must be some confusion here, they have my credit card, I’ll call and sort it out, you don’t need to worry about it.”
It’s late summer when Lex’s phone rings again with a representative from Foster Parents Plan Canada on the other end of the line. Maluki is being taken away from my brother. He has failed as a parent, and he hasn’t even had his own children yet. Maluki will be given to a set of parents that can handle the responsibility and prioritize saving the lives of children. My brother is crushed.
Tamara’s conversations are getting stranger. Now, in the modern world of social networks, we can see her friends online and watch their exchanges. She still seems to have friends that don’t exist, and she makes plans that never happen. She talks obsessively about a man named Scott Willis. Willis is a world t
raveller, a well-educated, handsome man living somewhere in Denmark with a name like an American spy. And he loves her, and they are best friends, and he will fly across the world for her if she needs it. And Lex and I believe in him about as much as we do in the Easter Bunny.
In these last two years, Tamara’s disease gets so bad that it finally gets named: psychotic with paranoid delusions. Her conversations go from secret meetings with the president and her email being tracked, all the way to tinfoil hats and alien invasions. Life becomes a mess of psych wards and doctors and pills and medication. And then she jumps from her 29th-floor balcony to her death.
Lex and I manage the family through the funeral. He gives the eulogy. And as soon as the service is over, we sneak away out a side door for a cigarette. I’m just absorbing the quiet and trying to wrap my head around all this before I have to go hug a thousand strangers. We are standing quietly, hidden around the side of the funeral home, when a young man comes towards us. He’s well dressed, and as he extends his hand I hear the hint of an accent, like someone who has been living somewhere else for a while. “I flew in from Copenhagen,” he tells us. “My name is Scott Willis.”
And with that, Lex and I have met the Easter Bunny. And I start to believe in magic again.
EVOLUTION
I turned the group notifications off on the Remembering Judson Memorial Page on Facebook. It only took me a decade.
ESCAPE
I don’t mean escapism: going to see a movie on a rainy day or doing drugs to forget your pain. For me, with Tamara, it was about a physical escape: getting out of whatever space she was in. I went to other people’s houses after school. I joined clubs and sports teams. I stayed out late, until I knew she would be in bed. I crossed the street when I saw her in the neighborhood in her bright red coat. I slipped outside for a cigarette on Christmas with Judson. And, ultimately, I moved across the country.
