Your Call Cannot Be Completed As Dialed
One phenomenon that I have experienced after several of the major losses in my life is the frequent and automatic desire to call or text the person who has died. This need wears off eventually, of course, but there is an unsettling time period in which I physically grab my phone to reach out to someone who will surely not answer. This urge was particularly prominent after my younger brother died. The effect of recognizing that he was no longer available to answer my calls or texts was like crashing, full speed, into a brick wall. Every time. It took months and months for this effect to subside.
I have the feeling less often and less drastically since my dad died six weeks ago, but there are still plenty of times I wish I could ask him a question or tell him about what is happening in my life. I wish I again had his advice on all things financial, technical, and workplace related. I wish I could even talk about topics as mundane as the weather (it’s been quite nice here lately, thanks for asking). I want to tell him about the Cooper’s hawk in my backyard that’s been terrorizing all the songbirds. I want to still be able to share all the little details that make up the texture of my life.
I love the idea of a wind phone, though I don’t know what I would say if I picked one up. What would I tell my dad? My brother? My grandparents, my friends who are no longer here? I’d want to tell them I’m doing ok, that my family is doing ok. I’d want to give updates about my daughter (her latest shenanigan: telling us she couldn’t listen to her preschool teacher because she was so tired she was sleepwalking). I would tell them I miss them, of course, and that I hope they would be proud of what I’m making of my life.
Maybe they do hear us, somehow. I couldn’t say, and I’m not about to speculate too much on that point. For now though, it remains a one way conversation, fundamentally different than if we were all on the same side of the great divide. I can’t simply pick up my phone and send a message, and even if I did, there would be no reply. Imagine if there were a reply, though! As much as I’d like to hear from any of my people, I would likely also start questioning my sanity. I’m not much for mystical beliefs, though sometimes I wish I were. I completely understand how Spiritualism became such a big movement, and how there are so many people that still seek out ways to contact the dead. It leaves so much room for fraudsters and grifters, but the instinct to connect with someone who isn’t here anymore is incredibly powerful.
One of the fundamental questions grief leaves is “Where are they?” Intellectually, we know that our person is dead, that they are no longer breathing, animated, thinking, feeling. But a deeper part asks, “Where did you go? Why are you no longer here?” There is the rational answer: I once witnessed an exchange between a woo-woo classmate and someone who had experienced the death of their young child. “Where do you think your daughter is now?” asked the classmate, in a self-serious way. And the reply, with a matter-of-factness that lacked an edge but was still devastating: “In the ground.”
If my phone call would go through, I would like to continue sharing my experience of life on the earth. Simple things. The way the sunlight looks in the autumn. The ever-growing list of new aches and pains I experience as I traverse middle age. Breathing. Of course we take these things for granted, but I often wonder what my dad or my brother would do with one more day to participate in this life. When asked what his “goals” were toward the end of his illness, my dad told his doctor, “I want to see my grandchildren grow up.” It was obvious at the time that this would be out of the question, and the doctor had certainly been probing for an answer more along the lines of “pain management.”
We never do find out the rest of the story, as we always have to leave before the end. If I could talk to the people I’m missing, I would describe the things that add up to a human life. Wonderful things and awful things. I would want to share as many funny things as I could think of. I’d let them know that we still miss them but we’re getting by. And I’d hope they’d share with me how things are going over there, too.