Suffocating

             Tayah looked out the train window, not really seeing the beautiful Pennsylvania landscape roll by. It was 4:00 in the afternoon and the 9:00 in the morning phone call that she received that morning did not feel like only seven hours ago. It felt like an eternity ago in another dimension. Everything changed in that moment. Her and her husband, Danny, were still laying in bed, awake but not ready to get up. They had stayed up late the night before watching movies. At 42, neither of them wanted to admit that it wasn’t as easy to recover from as it used to be. They had two kids, Elizabeth and Katy, both at college at Michigan State. They had met at 19, had Elizabeth at 21, married at 22 and had Elizabeth at 23. Danny had received a promotion seventeen years earlier, bringing them to Brooklyn from Grand Rapids, MI. They had both been born and raised in Grand Rapids.

             When Tayah’s phone rang it startled her. It was a Sunday morning, and nobody ever called on Sunday mornings. The caller ID read that it was her parents’ house. They lived in Grand Rapids still.

             “Hello?” she tried to sound cheerful, like she had been awake for hours. Her voice fooled no one.

             “Tayah? He’s dead! Curt is dead!” her mother was hysterical, making animal like sounds as she howled.

             “What? What?” she shook her head, trying to wake up more. She thought she was dreaming. Curt was her baby brother. He was eleven years younger than her. He had just turned 31 a few months ago. They had been inseparable since Curt was born. As adults they grew into best friends. Nobody knew Tayah like her baby brother did.

             The room started spinning as her mother explained in choppy sentences that her brother had been found dead by his roommate earlier that morning. They were thinking that he got ahold of some cocaine laced with fentanyl. Curt had been clean for four years, so this phone call completely blindsided her. She had just talked to him yesterday and he seemed down, but he had been there before. She dropped the phone and fell to the floor, the same animal like sounds coming from her that she had heard coming from her mother seconds before.

             “Tay? Tayah?” Danny put his hand on hers, trying to get her attention.

             She blinked, coming back to the present, “Yeah?”

             “Are you hungry? You haven’t eaten today.”

             “No. The thought of food makes me want to gag.” She said, turning her head back towards the window. All she wanted to do was go back in time, to change everything. She had spent the last couple of weeks stressed about stupid things. She didn’t pay enough attention to Curt’s texts, his words, etc. What if he was reaching out to her, what if she was supposed to see the signs? What if she was being so selfish that she didn’t give him the attention that he was possibly begging for?

             The next week was a blur to her. Her daughters met her and Danny at her parents’ house. They all cried together for days, they planned the funeral, they felt like zombies through the funeral, then it was time to go home. It all felt like a dream.

             Her parents drove them to the train station. The goodbyes were the hardest goodbyes of her life. As the train started to slowly pull away, she took in every building, every landmark. She didn’t want to leave suddenly. She just wanted to go back to her parents’ house and lay in bed and cry for the rest of her life. Her best friend was gone. The one person who knew her better than anyone. They had been through so much together. He was more like an older brother to her daughters than an uncle. How was she supposed to live the rest of her life without him? How were any of them supposed to live the rest of their lives without him?

             The train ride reminded her of a book that she used to read to Curt when he was little. Thomas the Tank Engine Chugged by a Farm. She smiled as she thought of how much Curt loved it when she read that book to him. She thought that it was ironic that they “chugged” by a farm shortly after she had thought of that memory. That sweet little boy who had fallen to drugs at a young age. He was barely 14 when he was addicted to pills. The harder drugs came a few years later. In a way Tayah knew that this day would come if Curt succumbed to a weak moment. She didn’t think that it would be while they were still this young, though.

             Her mind wandered to a few years ago when he had come out to Brooklyn to visit for two weeks. The girls were at school and Danny was at work. Tayah had been stressed about everything that she needed to get done that day. Curt put on some of their “hippie music”, as they called it, and he took her hands and pulled her up from the chair. 

             “Sometimes you just need to dance freely. Don’t think, just dance.” He said, swinging her around in circles and then letting her go so that she could dance freely.

             As she lost herself in the music, she danced. There was no thought in the next move, she just danced with the music and displayed how it made her feel. She felt happy and free. He was right. There were times when she felt like she was the little sister, and he was the older brother. He always made sure that she was safe and happy. He didn’t want her to be unhappy like he was. Unhappiness was something that he had struggled with his entire life. It was the thorn in his side, but music was where he found his freedom from that thorn. Tayah understood in that moment why.

             Tayah felt chills run up and down her spine when Janis Joplin started playing from her playlist, jolting her back to the present once again. She looked over at Danny, who was softly snoring. She loved him dearly but was grateful for these moments alone. She was exhausted beyond any exhaustion that she had ever felt before. Ever since Curt had died, she felt like he was letting her know through music that he was there. Whether it was a song on the radio, her playlist, a TV show, etc. Those moments helped take the edge off the exhaustion, but it was still there. There were times when the grieve and exhaustion felt like it was suffocating her, weighing down on her with no relief.

             She pulled her book out of her bag, hoping that reading would get her mind off everything. She just needed a few minutes where she didn’t think about it. If she didn’t keep her mind busy, then she would feel the pain and she was afraid that the pain would be so bad that it would kill her. It was suffocating. Suffocating was a word that she had found herself saying and thinking a lot in the past week. That’s exactly how it felt, though.

             Twenty minutes later she realized that she was reading the same line over and over, unable to concentrate. She laid her head back against the seat and closed her eyes, praying for sleep.

             “Tay? Tay-Tay!” Curt was pulling on her sleeve, laughing at how hard it was to wake her up.

             She opened her eyes, blinking several times. She swore that she had just heard Curt.

             She looked over and sure enough, there he was. Curt was real. He was here, sitting right next to her, smiling at her.

             “Curt? Are you--? But I thought—” she was so confused as she looked around for Danny. He wasn’t there. He must have gone to the restroom or to get something to eat.

             “I’m here, Sis. I’m always here.” He put his arm around her, giving her a soft squeeze.

             It was in that moment that she realized that she was dreaming. Something about Curt felt so real, though. She knew he was there, even if it was a dream.

             “Could any of us have stopped you from making the decision to go back to drugs that one last time?” She was crying, tears falling onto his shirt.

             “No, Sis. I was not giving you hints. I just needed to feel better from the pain for a moment. I didn’t know that it was laced with fentanyl. I am so sorry to all of you. Don’t ever think that I am not with you, though, Sis. I’ll never leave you. I just can’t have any of you thinking that this could have been prevented. It was meant to happen. I love you.” His eyes were happy and sincere. A look that she had not seen in his eyes since he was a child.

             She nodded through the tears, telling him she loved him. She laid her head on his shoulder and let the sound of the train put her sleep. She wanted to stay right here, never letting him go.

             She slept peacefully for hours. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw that Danny was fast asleep with his phone laying face down on his chest. A sure sign that he fell asleep while messing around on his phone. She wondered how he was really doing with everything. Him and Curt were close, but Tayah knew that Danny was holding in his feelings to stay strong for her and everybody else.

             As they stepped off the train, she felt a knot develop in her throat. She was thinking of all the times that Curt had stepped off the train with Tayah smiling and waving as soon as she saw him. She had never been late to pick him up. She would always make sure that she was there waiting for him as he stepped off the train. She couldn’t believe that would never happen again. Every time that she would think of Curt or every time that she would see something that reminded her of him, the grief would hit her all over again. A fresh punch every time was the only way that she could describe it. She sighed as they put their luggage in the car.

             As they pulled away from the train station, Tayah couldn’t control the tears. Nothing felt real anymore. She had been in auto pilot mode since hearing the news. She knew that she had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. She would have to remind herself every time that a “what if” ran through her mind that those thoughts took her back two steps. She would keep her mind busy and eventually, piece by piece, step by step, she would be able to work through the emotions, the pain, the suffocating grief.

             She looked back to see the train station before it was out of sight. She smiled when she thought she saw her brother waving and smiling at her. She knew he was with her and always would be. She knew that each day would be an adjustment but that she had to make each day count in honor of him.

Dedicated to my brother, Cody, who left this world in September 2022.