The Last Story I Will Ever Read My Daughter
I tell stories. I’m telling one now. I’m reading you The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, savoring every single moment because this, little girl, will be our very last story. Yesterday, having achieved perfect sadness, I’m finally ready to die; I’m going to kill myself. “Nellie wiped at her tears with the back of her hands. She smiled at Edward.” I read, enunciating every last syllable, feeling them spread across the room like so much audible buckshot, bouncing off the walls, vibrating, falling damp in the carpet, gone, except for the mysterious way they also land in your tiny ears, the syllables, burrowing into you, where their arbitrariness smash into the sparkle of your mind. I see thoughts erupt behind your eyes. You are the place where sound becomes meaning, where sensory chaos is channeled into form, a story always ever telling itself to itself. Practice your craft, little girl. Tell it well.
You press tighter into me so you can see the pictures and I revel in your breath on my neck. Somewhere, the wind blows through the trees and someone, mistakenly, feels lonely. But not me. I can hear your heart beating through your little ribs. I swim through the winding red rivers in your veins. I drag my fingers through your long gold hair and imagine your impossible brain, the constant explosion of all that infinite neurotransmission burning in a fire of images or a choir that sings the endless song of phenomena. I have never been so aware of you. I memorize a sentence and recite it to you slowly, carefully, while drowning in your eyes’ blue seas, watching what you see, imagining together. You think, ask questions, laugh, make predictions—you cast your net far and wide, fishing for all the possibilities in fiction.
And I watch you. And listen, with my whole body, absorbed by each moment coming without effort and flying away. They slow down, the moments, and drip like maple syrup, sometimes blurring one into another, maybe one previous, a memory or not, you a baby now, again, a helpless little speck with a funny toothless grin, then back here with me listening to a story or maybe even telling it. Blurry—maybe I’m you, listening—or perhaps we are both somehow the story itself and the father and daughter are merely figments of its telling. Who can tell?
But the night wins as it always does and you fall asleep. I listen to you breathe, missing you, and I begin to wonder about all the people on all the sidewalks, waiting for taxis, waiting to get where they’re going and to be where they’re not.
*
I’m not really going to kill myself. At least not soon. I’ve just for awhile now admired the way Stephen Elliott slipped the sentence “I feel ready to kill myself.” onto page 14 of The Adderall Diaries with no context for it and without referring to it again for the rest of the memoir. I knew when I read it that I was going to cop that move. And I will again.
Because what death does to presence is so damn beautiful. Sure, the notion of my suicide made me more present to my daughter. But what about you? How did the casual mention of my suicide alter the way you read this post? Did it draw you in? Did it make you focus more intensely? Why or why not? It’s worth wondering about.
People will tell you a bunch of shit about living every single day like you might die tomorrow. But nobody does. And, anyway, the advice misses the mark. Don’t worry about being dead tomorrow. Live your life like you’re dead right now. And the life that pounds like a fist through your own certain death will glow like those steady orange embers that stay stoked all night and keep the fire burning in spite of the dark that never sleeps.
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
Reader Comments (22)
honnestly? It kinda annoyed me. I was emotionally sucked punched...then drawn in to look at a kaleidoscope of emotions....only to figure out...as I got the edges of the image, that the sentence....as direct and impactful as it is (and continues to be) was a ruse.
I kinda hate that in that it makes me feel condescended to.
The writing is amazing as always. The device didn't alter my perception of the piece, perhaps because death (and fact that we over here are alive) is so integral in my day to day interation with the word.
You know what's worse than killing yourself? *Wanting* to kill yourself. Day in, day out. A terrible ache, that. Especially when you work through it and you're all cool, seizing the day and shit. Until it comes back. Of course, you don't do it. You'd miss the ending.
I have a feeling you will read her many more stories.
I appreciate you mentioning the Adderall Diaries. It's one of the most beautiful, important books I've ever read.
I liked your piece. Although, I don't really think your statement was the same as Steven Elliott saying, "I feel ready to kill myself." I feel like he was just telling the truth, because that's what he does in his writing.
I agree with you about the notion of death, though. Talking about death is like talking about love and birth and life, only we're so strangled about it, as a society. We act like it's indecent to even bring it up, when really, it's a part of all of us and should be a part of the way we consider ourselves as human beings.
You describe parenthood like no one else. Thank you for a moving read.
Sometimes I can hardly bear to read what your heart puts out there.
Your first sentence assuaged the punch of the fourth, but yes, I think it did make me listen in a different way.
Love the description of your daughter's being present, because that's what it is, isn't it? They can be so present (especially when being read to) that you see the wheels turning...you see them seeing the story. I love that.
I knew it wasn't true because the oak tree is still too small. But as always I read wondering where you will take me today. I loved it. Especially the part about waiting to get where they're going and be where they're not.
That was a dick move. Awesome.
I thought 'how will we know?'
I was ready to ignore it; he didn't mean that, and move on. But I had to go back and read it 3 or 4 times. Is it part of the story he's reading? How could include such a sentence in a paragraph that even mentions his daughter?! Those 2 things should never meet!
And then I moved on. To have my heart broken by the rest of it. PLEASE tell me you save these for your children. Especially your daughter.
i always romanticized the notion. even ended up in a psych ward for 72 hours after romanticizing it a bit too much as a youth. but then: my best friend's father killed himself. and although i understood why he did it, i watched what it did to her. what it continues to do to her.
and just like that...
the romance vanished.
and it left a wound that doesn't heal.
it just feeds.
i think that once you have kids, you give up the right to take your own life.
it's your job to make yourself happy so they don't spend the rest of their lives thinking they were responsible for making you sad.
I skipped to the end to make sure you were lying, you bastard.
Oof. Punched with awesomewordfist.
Yup! Read every word dripping like maple syrup, like it was your last fucking word! And, lalalala loved every moment! rofl LOL
Whoa.
And weird -- I just downloaded The Adderall Diaries yesterday. I'm a member of that Rumpus book club and have been into his newsletters --
I'm glad you just sucker-punched us -- although I also wanted to smack you while saying Bless Your Heart which we learn to do in the south.
This was extremely moving. Actually, I had to stop reading it because it freaks me out and then I keep coming back to it. It's something I will have to digest in stages.
Your mention of suicide did not make me focus more intensely. In fact, it was quite the opposite on me. You made me angry. When I attempted to picture you holding your little girl in my arms, reading to her for the last time before taking your life, all I could see was red.
I approve of the device. I also approve of how exceptionally well you use words and punctuation to form sentences and narrative. Generally speaking, you have my approval. 'Whew', I imagine you whew-ing, wiping your sweaty brow, 'that was a close one.'
As usual, I'm there, hanging on every word. You have such a way, so beautifully wishy-washy.
I think I get it. Then not.
If not, I completely agree with Krista.
I have friends and family who lost loved ones to suicide and all they do is blame themselves.
Everyday.
"Because what death does to presence is so damn beautiful"
Yup. What the uncontrollable, unavoidable, specter of death does does to life can be beautiful, can't it?
Back in March of this year, this wife and mother of two young ones was suicidal. Not for the first time in her life.
"Not fit to live in this world" was the recurrent thought that refused to stop screaming at me, among many others.
I had enough presence of mind to seek help. That was good.
Then, in August of this year, I was diagnosed with an uncommon, aggressive type of breast cancer.
How's them beans?
Poof! Suicide is no longer in my vocabulary as it has been for most of my 45 years on this planet. Funny, huh?
Confusing, actually.
I saw a breast cancer survivor say in an interview recently "My life is not just my own".
It isn't. Mine isn't either. I just now am realizing that.
My husband and I joke about how I'm no longer depressed, how family and friends have been reaching out to us, how petty some things now seem to us, how much closer we've become again, how much more meaning we are finding in all sorts of things, how Life vibrates more, how priorities have shifted, how I now have an understandable excuse to give guests for how messy the house is, and how we really don't care about that anymore... "Yay, Cancer!".
I can't stand to hear that song "Live Like You Were Dying" though. I will slap anyone who plays that within earshot.
I've been on both sides of Suicide: Attemptor and witness to the aftermath of someone else's.
Cancer has finally driven that option into exile for good.
Because my life is also my children's. Now I see that in all clarity.
Yay, Cancer. "Suicide" used to conjure up comforting images of a way out of blinding misery, an option to make the pain stop, a way of making my disappearance seem logical.
Yay, Cancer, you've made me thoroughly detest and abhor the very word.
Terrific...and seemed strangely connected with your Steve Jobs musings. Not too long ago I heard someone recite his address at Stanford, where he mentions his constant awareness of death, of the temporari-ness of things, as being a source for his drive. As I put it, it borders on the cliche (on the cliche side of the border). Thanks for the writing. I've been here before and feel rewarded for coming back,
Another dad reading to his daughters.