CN: Discussion of death, suicidal ideation, and cancer.
Dear ones,
This past week, the Washington Post published an essay by Emma Pattee titled, “Coronavirus is making us think about our mortality. Our brains aren’t designed for that.” Pattee explains that the lack of distraction of usual life, coupled with daily pandemic death tolls, is putting us in a unique position. “The solitude that comes from being stuck at home may cause more than just a nagging, uneasy feeling,” she writes, “it may actually cause the acute realization of our own deaths.” Understandably, a lot of people on Twitter guffawed at the way the article seems to ignore large swaths of the population for whom mortality has always been inescapably present: people who struggle with suicidal ideation, Black people in America, people with chronic or terminal illness. That critique is valid, but I think the article is too. Even those who have confronted mortality head-on have, if nothing else, more time to think about it.
I’ve been proximite to a lot of death and other reminders of the fragile nature of our bodies and being. I’ve lost all but one grandparent, I lost a version of my father in a car accident, I’ve lost friends my age, and pets who were like family, and I’m close to a number of people who are immunocompromised. But to be entirely honest, none of those experiences got me to really sit with my own mortality. I have had the luck of a strong immune system, decent genes, and mild and manageable mental illness. I am white, and the economic precarity I’ve experienced was never immediately life-threatening. Despite having sometimes obsessive thoughts about losing people close to me, and acknowledging broadly that someday I will die, I have had the luxury of avoiding an embodied confrontation with the notion of dying anytime soon.
That changed last week after a mole biopsy came back with a report of “severe atypia,” which some pathologists would classify as stage 0 melanoma. In other words, I was told that I have a very, very early version of cancer. Before I go any further, it’s important to say to you (and to myself, again), that I am currently safe and okay and in all likelihood, all the bad cells in my body have already been scooped out. If they didn’t get them all in the biopsy, they will probably get them all after a followup surgery I’ll have on November 5th. All signs point to me getting through this just fine. But something shifted in me with that phone call (particularly since it came just a week after a former classmate of mine tragically died from melanoma). It was a sobering thing to think about having cancer; possessing it inside me, a thing that takes life.
It’s not my place to wax poetic on this disease; I will likely be through this a month from now, and there is plenty of important writing from cancer survivors that already exists. But I am interested in what it’s meant to, for the first time, really, truly face my mortality. And although the threat of Covid didn’t hit me as intensely as this did, I think Pattee is right - that the intensity of my impermanence is amplified in quarantine. For days “working remotely” meant reading scientific journals on melanoma and dysplastic nevi, with a to-do list I knew I could put off, and no other necessary distractions. All I had was time and space and isolation to confront the truth of this fleeting life. For many, many days I was stuck in the grief of it.
“The fear of death is why we build cathedrals, have children, declare war, and watch cat videos online at three a.m.,” writes mortician and death activist Caitlin Doughty, “Death might appear to destroy the meaning in our lives, but in fact it is the very source of our creativity.”
It’s not as if any of us think we will live forever, but I think it probably requires a real, embodied scare for some of us to really acknowledge that not living means dying, and possibly sooner than later. And this realization, as Doughty describes above, is both immobilizing and generative. But rarely is our action or inaction engaging with death in a particularly healthy way. Our colonial culture isn’t set up for us to think about death with much other than fear or avoidance. This is why “death doulas” are now a profession.
“The reason the role is showing up in a formalized way now is that we don’t have those community ties any more,” explains end-of-life doula, Christy Marek, “not in the same way, and certainly not the same level of responsibility to each other as used to be woven into our communities.”
We have scripts for when our elders pass, but we rarely know how to talk to our elders about death before they’re gone. Marginalized groups and social movements have developed powerful ways to mourn our comrades lost to AIDS, police violence, capitalism, ableist health care systems, and war, but our preparation for that loss is less developed. And for the rest of this late-stage capitalist postcolonial culture that I’m writing from, I think we have next to nothing that helps us really embrace the precarity of our lives while we’re living them.
The fact of our own death is, at first, one of the most lonely truths. And yet in my own journey with it this week, I was brought to the same conclusion that always drives my politics and my spirituality, which is that we are always already interdependent; even in death, and especially in our fears of it, we are actually richly and inevitably connected. I went from the darkest despair in keeping the diagnosis to myself to comforting hope after sharing with friends (and even on social media). It was an incredible weight lifted to say out loud, “this thing is happening and I am scared - perhaps you have felt scared like this too, and maybe we can connect in that together?” As is often the case, naming the taboo takes away some of its power, largely because we are reminded that we are not so unique in our pain. In Precarious Life, a book-length reflection on mourning and violence, Judith Butler writes:
“When we lose certain people, or when we are dispossessed from a place, or a community, we may simply feel that we are undergoing something temporary, that mourning will be over and some restoration of prior order will be achieved. But maybe when we undergo what we do, something about who we are is revealed, something that delineates the ties we have to others, that shows us that these ties constitute what we are, ties or bonds that compose us. It is not as if an “I” exists independently over here and then simply loses a “you” over there, especially if the attachment to “you” is part of what composes who “I” am. If I lose you, under these conditions, then I not only mourn the loss, but I become inscrutable to myself. Who “am” I, without you?”
I don’t want to die anytime soon, but I’m humbled and grateful to have considered it. Because it revealed to me not just a greater appreciation for life (I didn’t need Covid or a cancer scare to get me to appreciate this life - I am a Pisces moon who is moved by every bug and leaf and sunset), but also a reminder of how death - and if we’re lucky, the preparation for it - is something every single human on this earth will experience. It is rare to have something so universally shared. And that makes me feel the opposite of alone...
What good company I’m in with all of you.
love & solidarity,
raechel
Read, Watch, Listen.
The case for ending the supreme court. When anti-racism gets co-opted for profit. On farmwork essential labor as a distinct kind of racialized labor. On sex work, academia, and Covid. Surprising to only some, Trump has failed the working class. Season of the Bitch’s episode on Gothic Marxism and the horror of being alive under capitalism. Lessons from rural communities in the crusade to save the USPS. Incredible reporting on the Minneapolis Upper Harbor Terminal, gentrification, and policing.
Mutual Aid.
The ask this week is to listen to Margaret Killjoy’s interview with two anarchic indigenous land stewards. They talk about having a mutual aid relationship to the Earth and I want everyone to expand our net of thinking about this concept with nature and animals in mind. Give it a listen, you won’t regret it. <3
Joy & Attention.
Visits with my mom and her sweet kitten. Seeing my (honorary) nieces and nephews (and their mom/my BFF, of course). A really beautiful day celebrating Logan’s bday: coffee on Lake Erie, drinks with J & M, & takeout. The essay writing class I’m taking. Beautiful flowers from K & B. DIY-ing a mirror! Warm autumn coffee bevs. Safer Heights, a Cleveland Heights youth-led org committed to defunding police and investing in community and education. Doctors and nurses who are providing me with very good care. Aesthetics. The neighborhood deer. Forest Hills Park. The sounds of the forest. Changing leaves, these gorgeous changing leaves. Bird watching. Porch hangs with K & A. Diesel & Loretta, my perfect cats. AdrienneLenker. Rewatching Friday Night Lights. Impromptu date night on the Mojo patio. Guest lecturing about being a witch and practicing anti-colonial ritual with the land. My Belt Mag job. My HECUA job. Financial stability. Autumn everything. Connecting with former students about the incredible world-changing work they are doing. Kindness from strangers. Pumpkin oatmeal. A magical October sunset.
I’m trying something new for the collective shares. I’ve been getting a ton, and I love reading them and knowing maybe the newsletter inspired you to write them. But it’s a lot of work to keep track of all the emails. SO! I’m making a public google doc (linked above) that you can update every week; the ones you’ve already sent have been added. You’ll be totally anonymous. I plan to click it every week, and I bet others will too. Keep generating the joy and attention we want to see grow; I truly believe there is powerful magic happening in this giant list of small pockets of freedom. <3