August 2019 – Jodythinks.com

I haven’t written in a while, and it’s not because I miss you less. I think, the unfortunate effect of me fully understanding that we won’t have you at anything moving forward has me feeling better but also less excited about life’s milestones.

And it shouldn’t. The family is getting bigger. Dinna got a new dog, that I know you would’ve been concerned about because it’s small and might collide with you in excitement.

Chinga is getting bigger. She can run around now, and apparently can bully older kids because of her size. This cracks me up but is also unsurprising, as you know, we are Ruedas.

I’m happy she got to meet you, but honestly I’m also a little jealous that if I were to have kids in the future, they won’t. They’ll only hear stories of how amazing you were, and how we all felt a little better when you were there. Even if you weren’t the most wordy, you expressed your love differently, and I never wanted for more. I didn’t need to hear that you loved me, I just knew it.And if I only said it when you were sick, I am so sorry. I loved you so much. So often when I wanted to escape my life, I wanted to go home to Bataan and just be with the family, and it was your influence that made it what it is now.

I’m happy where I am now Nay, and the work isn’t killing me on the inside. It was worth the wait.

There’s love in my life in so many ways and sometimes I forget that when it’s difficult but I’m trying to change. Be more grateful. I actually miss the years when we were all still in the old house, and had less gifts but more time together. We actually had time to all be together in Manila or Bataan to just share meals then, but now, as we’re all mostly adults, it takes months of planning to do that. That’s the reality of life I guess, one that takes time getting used to as we all grow our personal networks, and change our individual meanings of family.

I miss you and I’m hoping that this thing is all mostly worry and not a real hurdle that the family needs to get through. Good things happen to all kinds of people I know that and something had already happened to you, but I’m still processing the possibilities for us. Watch over all of us as we take this on step by step.

I wish you were here, and I wish we had been able to cook that lengua. I still haven’t been able to get myself up to make it. I didn’t write down our conversation on your way of making it, but I can still remember most of your tips. Mom knows the rest. I want to make it and have a piece of you in my repertoire.

I know you’re in a better place, but look out for us here and there okay? For now, we’ll try to make you proud.

This isn’t my secret, but I’ve thought about the poem a lot. When times were hard, and things didn’t seem like it would get better, there’s doubt sometimes. And why wouldn’t it be now on everyone’s mind?

Writers, television, movies romanticize suicide. 13 Reasons Why was a horrible way to depict the aftermath of it. Like justice was being done because the girl died and left tapes, and there was justification for the act done. It’s dangerous, showing the past with the present because it doesn’t feel like Hannah, the girl who killed herself, is really gone. The flashbacks, the glimpses of her like she would be back, are tired, triggering images that can send people the wrong message about what the aftermath is for people that have taken their own life.

It’s not pretty. It ruins the lives of the people that love you. It will make them blame themselves. It will make them hate you for not reaching out. You won’t be there to feel validation for the pain you’ve caused the people who you think deserve to feel the pain of you being gone by your own hand.

THERE’S NO GOING BACK.

There’s only a corpse to bury and the cleanup after. I’m not trying to guilt trip you, as I know sometimes existing is just hard. But we can forget about the realization of all that comes after. You can’t haunt the people that have made you feel the way you do into submission or feeling bad about it. It’s even harder to explain why you think it needed to happen in a way that will make it okay to the people you love that have been left behind.

I’ve been thinking more about the aftermath of suicide after Anthony Bourdain died. What drove him to do it, how his family and friends must be feeling, how the world is still reeling from his loss. I’m still reeling for his loss. It’s devastating, and I never even met him.

So think about if even one person will feel hurt about your loss. And how you will most likely shit your pants when you go, because we lose control of our bowels when we die. How your stuff needs to get packed. How the family will have to talk to the people that will visit your wake about how they didn’t know it was that bad.

And I’ll keep myself to this poem when the bad days roll around too.

“Fuck the poets of the past, my friends. There are no beautiful suicides

Just cold corpses with shit in their pants

And the end of the gifts.”

Month: August 2019

Dear Nanay

The End of the Gifts