Hi Sars,

My heart really goes out to Ben’s Shadow, as I’m sure many, many readers have said.What a beautiful person he must be to have written so touchingly from his pain.

I don’t have any words to help.But this book
called How to Survive the Loss of a Love helped me when I lost the woman who raised me several years ago.I recommend flipping through it for the “sentence or two that could dull the pain or speed up the time for five or ten minutes…”You’re right, that’s all the comfort to be hoped for at this point.But it will get slowly better.

I know I don’t know anyone involved here but still — I’m so sorry.

Hazy Jane

Dear Sars,

The letter from Ben’s Shadow broke my heart…I, too, recently lost someone very close and very special to me. He wasn’t in the WTC, but it was the result of a violent act, so I feel that I know, in some small way, how Ben’s Shadow feels.

Someone he loved was taken from him far too soon, and in a manner that robbed him of what some would laughingly call a “proper” goodbye. (What the hell constitutes a “proper” goodbye anyway? He’s still gone. I hate that.) I, too, had a wonderful support system; friends and family sent cards and called and visited and listened to me cry for hours about how it wasn’t (and isn’t) fair, offering me those meant-to-be-helpful assurances that “he wouldn’t have wanted to live like that” or “he’s in a better place.” I know that. I know that he wouldn’t have wanted to spend his life hooked up to machines or scarred or under constant care…but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s gone and I’ll never, ever get to talk to him again or be held by him or hear that loud donkey laugh of his. I may never see his killer brought to justice, and even if I do, will that really give me the closure I need? It won’t bring him back. I’m angry and upset and raw…I feel, as Ben’s shadow said, “hollow.” There’s a heavy emptiness in my chest, if that makes sense, as if someone is sitting on it and squeezing every bit of air out…

I said all of that to say this: I’ve been there in my own way, and it does get easier. The previous paragraph may not make it sound like it, but it does. A friend of mine gave me this analogy and it has stuck in my head ever since: if you break your arm, it hurts like a mother. You go to get a cast put on it, but it still hurts. If, on the day you get back from the doctor’s office with that cast, someone hits you on that arm, it’s gonna hurt so bad you’ll feel like you’re going to pass out. A week later, if that person hits you again, it’s still gonna hurt, but not as bad. Eventually, it just won’t hurt as bad, and while you’ll still have some pain in that arm, you’ll be able to turn around and smack the hell out of that person for hitting you every week while you had a broken arm.

It’s a stupid analogy, I know, but it kept creeping into my thoughts after the funeral…I found myself thinking, “How much longer until I’m in ass-kicking condition again?”

It’s been a little over two months for me, and while I’m not in full ass-kicking mode yet, I can feel parts of “me” coming back…there was a while when I didn’t know if that would happen or not.

I wish I had some profound wisdom to share…I wish I had that one thing to share that would give him something to grab onto and say, “That’s it; that’s what I needed to make it through this.” All I can offer is this letter, and I don’t know if this will help or not. I just know that reading HIS letter touched something in me and I had to respond.

Ben’s Shadow, my heart goes out to you…if you need to talk, feel free to contact me (Sars can give you my email address). I know I’m a perfect stranger, but sometimes that helps.

Ben was a lucky, lucky man to have had someone like you in his life.

Chaz’s Shadow

Dear Hazy and Chaz’s Shadow,

Thanks for sharing these resources, both literary and personal.I’ve met Chaz’s Shadow, and there’s a certain laughter-through-tears eloquence in the mental image of her braining someone with a plaster cast.

I’d also add, belatedly and somewhat lamely, that Ben’s Shadow should consider joining a support group.Nobody’s ever going to know exactly what you went through, and it’s going to seem like slapping a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound at first, I’d imagine, but at least you’ll have someplace to go with your feelings where you know that others understand, and you won’t have to shield them or put up a front.

Dear Sarah,

I recently attended a funeral for an uncle on my mother’s side of the family. My mother hasn’t spoken to her three brothers for a number of years, for a number of reasons. While I’ve heard questionable things about my uncles, I have tried to remain objective about them. I don’t feel it is right to let what someone else says affect your view of another person.

In light of the situation (the fact that their brother had died), my mother and her two remaining brothers were cordial to one another at the funeral and reception. I, having not seen my uncles for nine-plus years, was in an awkward situation — I didn’t know how to treat them.

At one point, I found myself in the back yard at the reception with my brother and my two uncles. My two uncles were joking about my mother’s weight right in front of my brother and me. They were being childish and rude. I did not laugh, but I did not stand up for my mother either. I felt that if I had said something, it would have started an argument with my uncles and wouldn’t have been worth it. My brother, on the other hand (who didn’t say anything to my uncles either), felt that what they were saying was completely uncalled for and has decided to stop speaking to them.

While I recognize what was said about my mother was inappropriate and rude, I don’t want to start any more arguments, nor do I want to cut off any family members. I guess I feel that what they say is between them and my mother and not between them and me.

My mother found out about what happened from my brother and was very, very hurt. I think she wishes we had stood up for her at the time. I think she feels that my brother is standing up for her by cutting off her brothers.

Is what I did wrong? I love my mother so much and in no way mean to disrespect her by not standing up for her. I’m just tired of all the fighting in our family.

Am I My Uncle’s Keeper?

Dear Keeper,

Life isn’t a movie.We don’t get to stand up and speechify in the face of injustice all the time; most of the time, we just have to bite our tongues.Under the circumstances, no, I don’t think you did anything wrong.

Tell your mother what you just told me — you love her, you respect her, and you certainly didn’t mean to hurt her, but the bad blood between her and your uncles is between her and your uncles and you didn’t want to get involved, particularly at a funeral and particularly with people whom you hadn’t seen in years and whom, really, you barely know.

It’s not my impression that you have much occasion to speak to your uncles (or not) in the course of everyday life, so your brother’s gesture seems overly dramatic to me.On the other hand, your uncles sound like assholes.Still, that’s a conclusion you can draw on your own, and your mother should recognize that.

Could you stop writing Vines that make me write to you to say how much I agree with you?I’m starting to feel like a groupie.

Anyway, your answer to SJJD?Word.

Now I have a question for you.I work as an editor and do a lot of freelance copywriting.I also occasionally write pitches for television for a small production company.This is all great and it pays the bills blah blah blah, but it’s also kind of boring.How have you been able to get involved with so many great things?I would love to do an MBTV or a Hissyfit or a Chicklit, but it turns out that someone else has already thought of that.Sigh.

Do you have any thoughts for a wayward young lass like me?

Thanks!
Annie

Dear Annie,

Here’s what you do.You knock on every print-publishing door in New York, get rejected, give up in despair, and take a job as an editor of CD-ROMs.Go to Vegas on business, write a diary of your surreal experience, and get hired on as a columnist at a music site; then get “right-sized” out of that job and start a crappy DIY website named after one of your tattoos in defiance, and publish an essay every week even though the site looks like ass and nobody’s reading it except your dad and you should get a “real” job because you work in a bookstore, for crazy people, making seven bucks an hour with no commission.Tell a friend about your crappy DIY site now and then.Wait for the friend to tell a friend.Become friends with a woman who has her own way-less-crappy website; when her coattail flutters past, grab it and hang on for dear life.Fast forward a few years to find your joint venture written up in Variety.

Okay, you don’t have to do it that way; in fact, you probably shouldn’t.But you have to do something.Do it.Commit to it.Understand that it could take years to “go anywhere,” if it goes anywhere at all, but trust that the project is worth working on for its own sake.Start a ‘zine.Reserve a domain name.Take a class.Fill out the applications.Take the first step.Get started.

I mean, I wanted to drive down US 1 and write a book about it.Dumb idea.Done already, and done better, by other people.But I did it anyway, and I wrote the book, and I didn’t have that much fun on the trip, really, and the book is very very bad and belongs in an unmarked grave in a literary potter’s field somewhere, but I couldn’t know that without doing it.It’s easy to talk yourself out of the things you want to do — “I don’t have time,” “it’s stupid,” “why bother.”It’s a lot harder to shrug, “Fuck it, it’s a long life,” and do those things anyway, but you have to try.

[10/2/01]

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