Within her euphoric derangement — Dr. Bravo came to the house and gave her something for sleep, we were just about to commit her but she was a little better the next day and he said another stay in the hospital might not be such a great idea, he didn’t like the idea of her getting acclimated to institutions and said we should try to put it off and I was actually glad we did, even though it was scary touch-and-go — in this fugue state Kelly thought that if she could only be stern, forceful, parental, if she could rewrite the indelible, just maybe there’d be a chance Ryder might be granted a stay, and allowed to be something other than dead. Even in diminished capacity — she’d take him anyway she could—
Please, Lord Buddha… I have failed the Fourth Noble Truth, for I suffer! I suffer so! I am attached… But Lord Buddha! Cessation of suffering is only attainable if my son should live!
She was moonstruck. A hair away from a 5150—that’s a 72-hour hold. She told us that if Ryder was unpersuaded then at least maybe he could tell her — or me, or the doctor — someone—anyone! — just what it was that he wanted, what maybe he knew but no one else did… whatever the thing is that would allow him to live. To be alive in some way. She was determined to get resolution if it killed her. Which it already had. Would. Will?
Had…
O Bruce, how sad! How sad and unjust! In the day and the night she looped back to the living room to resume her hopeless, abstract disinterment: back to the future and forward to the past — I am telling you, it broke my heart. It was like watching a wildlife documentary of an elephant trying to nudge its stillborn calf to life with her trunk. Before she finally collapsed, the whacked-out musings came in a torrent as she fumbled and burrowed and downshifted, tenderly redacting her teachable moment… Ryder, sometimes when people are in lots of pain, they — well, sometimes — if a person had cancer and was in a hospice — the Dalai Lama said that if the pain of a cancer or someone burned in a fire, then — then it’s the choice of that person. But this is something very extreme. And irreversible! If Mommy or Daddy ever got sick, or even if you got very sick, this is not a path we would choose, darling! Because we have each other, and our love would see us through. And I know we’ve talked a lot about impermanence and rebirth but what is meant by that, what the Buddhists mean is that even a rock is considered impermanent, though a rock can live for thousands of years! I want you to know that life is precious and the main teachings of the Buddha are that birth in a human body — not animal, preta, Hell — is a rarity and a great privilege, and each of us have the sacred responsibility to live our lives joyously, to the end! — suddenly stammering in recognition that she’d already been over this ground, feeling the weight of Ryder kicking at her stomach, not from inside, but from out, trying to climb back in so his rebirth could begin — again — wincing as she heard those imaginary words escape her doomed mouth—no! The contortions of her logic were already losing their power to distract and to numb, like heroin that’d been stepped on too many times. Everything was too much and too soon, death and life, wasn’t there something between the two? (A bardo?) Wasn’t there supposed to be? Because she wanted nothing to do with either of them. Only in deep sleep came the solace of pure, untrammeled consciousness… the house that gave shelter now sheltered no more, the food that gave sustenance no longer sustained, the glass of water once celebrated for its elegance and life-giving beauty was now a draught of poison. The crisp chimney-smoked air, redolent of winter, manna for breath meditation, had become sulphurous and mocking as the last gasp of her fanciful, phoney TMs—teachable moments—came crashing down around her without warning.
She was overwhelmed by nameless dread.
Words!
— the words of friends’ and neighbors’ condolences left her on the floor with multiple stab wounds, only made worse by words of my own, when I consoled with some random anodyne assholism, cool rag of banalities pressed against her mutilated forehead to help her through a rough patch. My poor, poor wife.
It was true. HRH 14—the Dalai Lama—had said that in certain instances self-murder was A-OK. So Kelly, engines failing, overthrew the notion of reckless playfulness ending in tragic accident and gave suicide a shot. Reluctantly embracing the monster rally factoid of it, she tried to accept sponsorship of the idea that the highest of Buddhist authorities had ultimately condoned the act. Only trouble being, Ryder hadn’t been sick. Hadn’t even been in any observable pain, psychic or physical. Nope. Ryder was boyish, seraphic, rambunctious, enthralled…
Gone Fishin’!
As I said, the shrink sedated her. She slept for 36 hours and seemed much better. A postmortem honeymoon period ensued. For a week or so, we couldn’t stop talking, but in a good way. Real chatterboxes. A freaky, hypomanic phase, like being back in college taking speed to cram for exams. O, we had mourning sickness (with a “u”) for sure! We vomited, metaphorically and not, and when that was done, like after peyote — ever eat peyote? — that’s when the magic began. Being in our bodies, being in the world, was some kind of insane kick. It was almost like we were discovering them for the first time, no, maybe more like interlopers, those old Hollywood movies where angels come to Earth and are amazed to have bodies again. Or with psilocybin, when you get that insight that the mushroom has taken you so it can see the world through human eyes… It was funny. Even taking shits had us in stitches! It was a way of being with Ryder too, as if the three of us were already in the bodiless regions and Kelly and I just came down temporarily, to revisit what a hoot and a comedy — what a divine travesty it was to have a body, we were on spring break but would return to our boy after a long carnal weekend. Good times! I think we had entered this weird labile stage of loss where everything was so surreal it felt antic: we had crossword puzzle showdowns, we painted little masterpieces, we polished silver crap we didn’t even know we had, cooked dinner at 4 a.m. in formal dress… told forgotten, complicated jokes and recited the first and last names of ancient homeroom geeks. We tried on distractions, competitive channel-surfed with dueling remotes, indulged in klieg-lit nighttime gardening, built ingenious Rube Goldberg devices. It felt zany and erotic—overheated teenagers in a seizure of shoplifting. In fact, it got erotic. We fucked again, just once. And that was… sad. For a while anyway and then it got funny again. Really funny. We were in a frenzy that we had no desire to name or explain. Couldn’t explain. Just we happy two. And we had these — we experienced these moments of supreme, supernatural, grief-free giddiness! It was so awesome. In those fucked-up days, without knowing, my wife and I probably got pretty close to getting it — the formless form/gateless gate scam, the whole bullshitless bullshit, “non-returning” Pure Abode — dwelling anagami rap—’cause something way outside of ourselves was forcing our hand. Talk about your unsolicited crash course in enlightenment! (And boy, did we crash. But that wasn’t till a week later.) We got out there, like those airplanes that almost make it to space. Where the pilot sees the stars and the blackness just beyond the atmosphere?