The definition of fleeting, as given to me by all-knowing omniscient overlord Google, is “lasting for a very short time” but I think that leaves something to be desired. There’s something about the “flee” in fleeting like something is trying to run away from you. That’s the sensation it gives me, chasing after something but the further you run, the more impossibly distant the thing which you’re pursuing becomes.
Sixteen years is not “a very short time” and yet my time with Suzy feels fleeting- though it’s in the past. In the eight years… Sorry. I just did the math and realized it’s been eight years without her. That feels impossible. Arguably my most important moments lie in the future and yet these past eight years without her have felt momentously empty. (pause) In the eight years since her passing, I’ve been chasing down memories that are retreating from me. This review is me attempting to catch snippets.
I received my second tattoo the day I received The Anthropocene Reviewed book. Tattoos mean different things to different people and I think that’s beautiful and also… how everything works? But tattoos have profound meanings for some while others tattoo themselves simply because they liked that art and they wanted to make art of themselves (which I might argue is profound in and of itself).
Getting my second tattoo was a big decision for me. There’s a part of me that wishes it wasn’t. I’d love it to just be art that I liked. But I made a commitment with my first tattoo. And it’s not one I plan on breaking.
My first tattoo is the initials S.C.S. for my aunt. Suzy had Down Syndrome. Suzy lived with me my whole life. Suzy was the closest family I had. I’ve always felt distant from those who love me. Especially growing up. I just knew I was different. I know now that that difference lies in my being queer but also a million other unquantifiable things. But I didn’t have that distance with Suzy. She was my playmate. She was my sister. She was the one person I had no walls with. And by now, you might guess that tragedy this way comes.
I was twelve. It was a Saturday morning just before Christmas break I got up earlier than my parents which was a rare occurrence. I put on cartoons. I could hear Suzy in the kitchen, talking to herself as she so often did.
Suzy always had a sweet tooth. It was something we shared. We’d mischievously sneak around anywhere we went together looking for sweets. She was my playmate, my sister, my partner in crime.
A plate crashes to the floor. Something smacks against the orange-ish tile of my kitchen. Something’s… vibrating? That’s not quite right. But it’s not a sound I have the words to describe. Perhaps chattering like teeth in the cold would be more apt. But that’s not quite like it either. I’m twelve and I know something is wrong. I feel something leave me. Some part of me inherent to the child side of twelve leaves. I float out to the kitchen. I’m not sure if I screamed. I think I must have. I can’t imagine not now that I see the image so clearly in my head. The first thing I see is the happy Santa cookie platter, cracked and splattered with blood. And then I see Suzy, seizing (though I did not understand what that was at the time having never seen one), her head split open by the green granite of the kitchen counter. The image is sharp with emotion and blurry with color in my mind to this day.
(pause)
That day was what they call "the beginning of the end" for Suzy. The seizures sped up her descent into Alzheimer's for a few years. I spent the first two years of high school barely sleeping, terrified, listening for the sign that Suzy was awake and trying to get out of bed even though she was no longer able to do so and that in an attempt she would surely lose her balance. I was so scared of her blood spilling in our home again.
“She is dead. The rare present tense sentence that once it becomes true stays true forever.” John says in the Auld Lang Syne episode of The Anthropocene Reviewed. Suzy is dead. I do know that. I will die. I do know that. Once I’m dead, my body will decay and my tattoo will be dust. I do know that. But maybe out of all the things we will discover one day, maybe we’ll find out that love is the sustaining life force. And that’s cheesy and that’s impractical and that’s mostly empty. But if it is true, I will know that my love for Suzy, and her love for me, burned glorious.
Of course, my love for Suzy is not as easy or as pure as that makes it out to be. I had complicated feelings growing up with Suzy. Having her always nearby othered me from the kids around me. People always had questions. I was always on my guard about whether she might do something embarrassing or distressing. Like this one time, we were at a buffet and Suzy licked the ice cream serving spoon. She just didn’t understand that was something you didn’t do and none of us had thought to tell her. I couldn’t have been more than eight but I remember the owner coming up to our table to tell us what she did and he was so angry and I was so mortified. And here’s where I admit the thing that keeps me up at night. For a long time I felt ashamed of Suzy. And now I carry that guilt. Because that story about the buffet and the ice cream spoons? Now I laugh about it, now I reminisce about a time when Suzy doing something inappropriate would be the most of my worries. All that worries me now is she’s gone and she left before her body did.
So not only am I guilty but I am also angry. I am angry because no one, no one deserves how Suzy went out- not with a bang but with an agonizing years-long whimper. I am angry for so many reasons and I’ll keep those between my therapist and I if only because they’re just not that interesting but when I get past the anger, I’m left with the question- is there any way I could have been okay? In the Auld Lang Syne episode, John talks about how when Amy Krouse Rosenthal found she was dying she asked him how she could make it so that her kids and husband would be okay. John says he should have said, “they won’t be okay but they will go on and the love you poured into them will go on.” And although he didn’t say it to Amy, I got to hear it. And I needed to. I’ve gone back to that episode many, many times. Each time I hear it I’m reminded that the love Suzy and I gave one another now lives with me- and every life she ever touched and there were many. Every single person she met, Suzy would ask for their address so she could send them an invite to her birthday party. Her birthday was in December but the invites went out in July. Every person she met was her friend. Well, nearly. There were a few people she just didn’t like and thank god because those stories now give me solace in their humor. But how lucky were the 99% of people? That address book, each letter so carefully written, is now a monument to the love Suzy poured into the world (wherever it may be now).
Sometimes the love that Suzy gave to me, the light that went out with her but maybe lives with me now feels like a lot. Because I know I’m not a constant beacon to those around me. To be fair, neither was Suzy. She was human and she was difficult and still yet so much better than anyone I’ve ever met. But I struggle with whether I’m doing right by her memory. But in the aforementioned episode, John refers to something he heard while working as a student Chaplin at a children’s hospital, “don’t just do something. Stand there.” So maybe it’s enough if I just stand here.
(pause)
I struggle with suicidal ideation. I have from a very young age. In 2019 when I listened to the Auld Lang Syne episode, it was a hard time for me. It had been a while since I had cried without feeling frantic or dare I say, manic. So when I listened to the Auld Lang Syne episode and was stricken with emotion, I couldn’t push it down like I always do. I cried. Finally. I cried for Suzy but I also cried for myself. I cried because of the story about WWI soldiers singing hopelessly “we’re here because we’re here because we’re here.” And then Amy Krouse Rosenthal turned it into something at her events where people would sing that same tune together. This time with hope.
So the day I got my copy of The Anthropocene Reviewed, I received my second tattoo. “We are here.” It will join Suzy’s initials because not only was she here, so am I. And one day that’ll turn into was and it will never turn into anything else. And yet the love I hold for Suzy will be passed and transformed throughout every reiteration of the infinite.
Permanence is thin. And the only thing that will survive it will be love.
The universe is both infinite and expanding and I do not have the mind to comprehend that. And nothing is permanent. I can comprehend that. And yet when you take away everything else, my love is for Suzy is both infinite and expanding and will outlast everything else. And I do not have the mind to comprehend that. She was my playmate, my sister, my “here” and not now.
I give permanence zero stars. And I give love all 5.
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