So, a few days after my last entry, the memorial service was held. Here is the recap of that:
- It was huge; she had tons and tons of friends from her church and from around town. I'm pretty sure it's the biggest memorial service I've ever been to.
- It was a very nice service of course (makes me feel like I'm talking about the old lady down the street or something), but mentally torturous for me. Because I was still in denial and it forced me to start believing that shit was real. And my mind had to be dragged there kicking and screaming.
- There was a pic/music montage video which was very nice but also torturous for me to watch. I'm not sure if I'll ever be ready for the typical "bittersweet" feeling you get from watching those videos, in this case. It's not the same situation as when several of my grandparents died of natural causes a couple years ago. In those situations you're reflecting back on a long happy life. In this case it's a life cut short under bad circumstances, so looking at these pictures only feels like salt in the wound to me right now because the situation still feels so wrong.
- Tons of people got up and spoke with very nice stories of her. Hearing stories that you never knew of a person is always interesting, fun and even helps you understand the person better. In a sense it made me wish that, at least for that day, I could have been one of those people who knew her in the capacity that doesn't involve all the relationship complexities that exist when you're tied by blood to someone for your entire 34 years of life. I dunno if that's a weird statement but it's not something that is easy to explain without writing an entire essay on that subject alone.
- After the service was over, we went back to the house we were staying in (a vacation rental loaned by some very generous members of Amy's church) and attempted to numb ourselves with alcohol and fatty foods.
So that was that and I think that's the last family gathering or Amy-related gathering that happened.
So ... let's jump ahead to a few weeks after the memorial now. Well first I should preface this by saying that up through the memorial weekend, I had had this really heavy pit in my stomach that would never totally leave, and it would flare up every time my mind would turn to Amy. It was a pit of devastation, shock, sadness, anger, and denial. Then a couple/few weeks after the memorial service, one day, I realized it was gone. Or at least mostly gone, or much lighter than it had been. Why is that? I'm not entirely sure, but my theory is that I can attribute it to a few things: new pieces of info and clues that we slowly gather in the aftermath of these things, the passing of time, getting wrapped up in work crap that turns my attention back to daily life again, slowly accepting that the whole thing really happened, etc. etc. But for whatever reason, all these reasons, and maybe others I don't know about, the pit had been mostly lifted away. I certainly never had any kind of mental or emotional epiphany that I can trace it back to, that's for sure.
But, I then had to think ... well if the big pit is mostly gone, what's left now? There's gotta be something. I pretty quickly realized there was mostly just one major thing left. And that was - a very broad and general sense of disappointment. I mean the type you get when you examine a situation from the 50,000 foot level, and over the span of decades and generations. When you compare where something started off a very long time ago with where it is now. What happened to the Meredith family? It's ironic, because it was this family in particular that always made me feel the MOST safe and secure when I was a kid. I always felt like I could count on them as much as I could count on the ground under my feet. Where did that go? The Meredith Family of 1976, 1980, '85, '90 ... long long gone. I don't know if the family changed or if it's all just my perception as I've become an adult and started to see things for what they truly are ... but I believe it's a bit of both. I think even the folks who were adults when I was a kid (and therefore have much broader perspective than I) are quite shocked that we've ended up where we are now.
There is a family pic that we had professionally done in 1992 with my grandparents and aunts/uncles/cousins, and looking at that pic today is a pretty fucked up experience. I counted and figured out that 42% of the people in the pic are gone now ... most of them dead, just two of them still alive but no longer part of the family due to divorce. 42%. That is getting dangerously close to half.
How the hell did we end up here? There is no obvious explanation. By all accounts, Nancy and Bob certainly raised their kids well, as a very normal all-American family. There was no abuse of any kind, no neglect. No drug use, no alcoholism, no divorce, nothing like that. So then what is it? Is it a curse? Is it bad luck? Or is it something worse ... self destruction? If there is any "Meredith Family Legacy" ... is that what it is? Self destruction? I mean, we didn't ALL go down this road, Michael certainly didn't. What happened to him was just pure shit luck. But to be fair, he married into this family rather than being a product of it.
If we had a family motto, what would it be? Would it be, "I can't take it anymore, tap out"?? Is it, "Life is too much to handle" ? I don't know, but I'm almost starting to feel like that's what it would be. I may or may not be an asshole for thinking along these lines. Someone who is an expert on Bipolar Disorder ... if they read this, probably thinks I'm an asshole. I just know that this is where my asshole brain has taken me, and I'm writing it down, for probably no one to read (hopefully). I've got my own mental problems anyway, like the ones that make me start thinking I've cursed myself for even making these statements.
I mean I do sit and look at the other side of this and say, "What would be the situations that would bring me to suicide, if any?" I can think of precisely one type of situation: I get some sort of terminal/debilitating illness or I get paralyzed from the neck down or something, i.e. any situation that would cause me to just be a burden on my family and also live a really shitty quality of life. That's when I'd consider it. Too bad Jack Kevorkian died a couple weeks ago. But yeah that's pretty much all I can think of. And then I think, well it's entirely possible that Amy saw her situation exactly like this. Even though to the outside world she seemed relatively fine, without any physical ailments or anything of that sort. But it's likely that she saw her mental ailment to be dire enough to put her in that situation.
So one could argue that the "self destruction" theme is not entirely right, or maybe it's just not properly descriptive enough. But then regardless ... it still doesn't change my feeling of disappointment at the overall family situation, does it? It's still completely screwed no matter which way you slice it. But I mean ... yeah. Fuck it, what can I do? Just keep on moving.
And don't look back. Heh, yeah right. Easier said than done.
Oh btw I happened to watch this video shortly after I posted this blog post and the song seemed strangely appropriate to the Amy situation in more ways than one, so I'm adding it here.
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