I really shouldn’t be awake right now. But here I am, talking to you.
I started making videos on Sundays. Something faster than a blog post. I thought maybe it would help me organize my thoughts and concrete them in a way that would be useful.
Instead, it’s managed to unmoor my perceptions. You see, I recorded one, and was going to put it on The Tubes, but then I realized it was very narcissistic. And I realized it wasn’t for the public. It was for you. It was to tell you what you might not have seen after you passed. But here’s the danger: I lied to myself to survive.
There were moments. Things I might have missed.
I should have taken you to the doctor’s when you bruised too easily in December.
I should have demanded more attention at the ER.
I knew that doctor wasn’t paying attention. I should have stopped her.
I think I could have prevented this. I think I could have saved you. But I didn’t. And you died. And it’s my fault. Through action or inaction on my part… you’re dead. What do I do now?
Edit 2023-12-04
Over the next couple of weeks, the death spiral got worse. The anxiety got completely out of control. I was back to near panic attacks, and 100% of my brain space was consumed by trying to keep myself alive. By the time I got to my therapist, I was practically liquid.
Me: Okay, so this is where I’m at and you’re not going to be able to talk me out of it. Let’s start with the assumption that directly or indirectly I caused the death of my child. Him: But… Me: Nope. I killed my kid. We have to start on that basis right now. So, given I killed my kid, how do I continue to live? How do I live when he can’t? Him: Ok…
He then proceeds to tell me a story in his family about a child who demanded some peculiar things (like a photo next to the hearth) just minutes before a terrible accident caused by the father which resulted in the child going home early. The picture in front of the hearth became a vital relic of the family.
Him: I am drenched in death. I specialize in terminal patients and grief. I nearly died as a child myself to a terrible disease. Death is the friend I greet in the morning and the debtor I hope I’ve paid well enough before I sleep at night. These stories of children having some type of precognition around their impending transition are extraordinarily common. Even if you caused his passing, which I don’t believe for a moment, it seems to me you were just participating in the event as a puppet, not an agent of doom. Me: … Me: … Me: I think I can work with that.
I’m okay at the moment. I still feel there might have been a sliver of a chance I could have brought him home. But… would that have been working against God’s plan? Can I challenge a God and win? This isn’t a videogame. I don’t know. But I know Asher knew something was up.