Who am I kidding — despite my numerous attempts, our book club has discontinued. You are still the only exceptional best friend to have embarked on doing extra work for fun. To think back to our nerdy days of “essay-racing” because we both i) had too many essay assignments ii) needed the motivation and iii) had fun writing counter-arguments to each other. I tried to do a few on my own, but I realized that it really wasn’t about the book or recording whatever profound thoughts. The reason our 2-person book club was awesome is because we’d live message on a shared google doc, comment over each other, be expressively indignant or shocked or otherwise too emotionally reactive to passages in the book and share real-time exchanges as we read. And that was what made it the best book club.
I continued attempts to embody what we started, and sometimes I do happen upon books that would have made the cut into our book club. Such as, The Goldfinch. There’s a long-winded backstory to this, which I’m sure I shared with you when I originally attempted to read it. Anyways, five years later, I am pleased to tell you I finally read it! There’s some irony with having read it now instead of years before. Expecting to read just another book, I was taken by surprise at how this book conveyed passages of grief in such accurate ways for how I had felt. So rather than following our usual format, I just wanted to reflect on these specific ones, which I think you would empathize with.
“I hadn’t been at school since the day before my mother died and as long as I stayed away her death seemed unofficial somehow…But once I went back it would be a public fact. Worse: the thought of returning to any kind of normal routine seemed disloyal, wrong… Every new event — everything I did for the rest of my life — would only separate us more and more: days she was no longer a part of, an ever-growing distance between us. Every single day for the rest of my life, she would only be further away.” (89)
I held on as long as I could and in many ways I still do. The first time I reverted back to “doing something normal” such as meet a friend, go out to dinner, anything that was beyond the robotic movements of going to and from work, I dreaded it. Each activity was one you will never have or one I will never share. The months of this cycle was like a long blackout. Anything more felt surreal. And I couldn’t accept this to be the reality of moving forward.
“Better wasn’t even the word for how I felt. There wasn’t a word for it. It was more that things too small to mention — laughter in the hall at school, a live gecko scurrying in a tank in the science lab — made me feel happy one moment and the next like crying.” (148)
Here, I can thank you for providing all the teardrops that kept my skin clear.
“In New York, everything reminded me of my mother — every taxi, every street corner, every cloud that passed over the sun — but out in this hot mineral emptiness, it was as if she had never existed.” (221)
Everywhere. Everywhere we have ever been together, anything we had ever eaten together, every song we ever listened to together. Everything we should have done together or gone to see, it wasn’t just a reminder of your past presence, but also all reminders of your absence. I hang out with 2 college friends for a day, and it just felt so insane that you weren’t with us. How could that be? It’s a trigger that will never go away, no matter where I go or who I hide from. And now, when the reminders come, I try to grasp them and create a record to I never forget.
“…until the moment before, it had seemed so solid, so immutable, the whole social system of the building, a nexus where I could always stop in and see people, say hello, find out what was going on. People who had known my mother.” (427)
Why do I have to meet people who don’t know you? To your dismay, but probably not surprise, I’m not sure I’ve met a new close friend even now who doesn’t know you. Maybe this is part of it; how can I swallow being friends with someone who will never meet my best friend? There are acquaintances who I don’t mention you because naturally, I’m socially awkward enough that adding in how they’re now meeting someone trying to redefine herself without a best friend would not help my cause. But stories of various adventures together still get told “that time I went to Cambodia… oh I used to visit St A&J too…” yet they have no real frame of reference for who you were. The first stranger I told about you actually felt cathartic because he just listened (he’s a doctor [but no, not a psychiatrist ha] and dealt with death firsthand often, so it felt less morbid to tell him about the experience). But it was also difficult, trying to convey to someone who’s never met you, what our friendship was like, how funny you were, how silly our inside jokes could be. They will never know. And, as time goes on, that ratio will inevitably tip as more who didn’t know you outnumber those who did. This is a terrible reality I’m still not ready to accept either.
“long, obsessive, homesick letters which have the tone of being written to a mother alive and anxiously waiting for news of me” (763)
Not quite like this, but I do carry on a one-sided messenger conversation with you so you stay updated on my life because despite all the exciting and fun stuff you’re doing up in the fluffy clouds or where ever, surely you must still care about those you left behind on Earth. I imagine your retorts and reactions. And every time, I still hope that the double check-marks will appear to indicate that you’ve read it. Today, today is the day you will respond. Like you’ve just been on a long trip without internet access.
“That life — whatever else it is — is short. That fate is cruel but maybe not random.” (771)
I wasn’t a fan of this ending, but I can only believe it’s a true statement sometimes. Because if I’d read the book five years ago as I was supposed to, none of its grief would have resonated with me. If I’d read it five years ago, we didn’t even have a book club yet. I miss you every day.
