It feels like this: You have been living in a wire cage for months. You have a bowl of food and a bottle of water, which seem to replenish themselves, and a decent bed. You can see through the bars, contemplating the things outside. Thinking of all the things you might do “out there”. You wonder about the choices existing in the freedom of time/space, as you complacently (or not) perform your daily routines, knowing that one day, late in June, the door will be open, and you will be free for TWO MONTHS plus a few days. You know that, most likely, this freedom will expire in September and you will return to the same place, same bowl, bottle, bed. But will you have changed? Will you be happier and better able to cope?

Summer for a teacher who is, to borrow a phrase from an adjunct professor I once knew, “untethered”, begins with trepidation. For me, just like one summer a couple of years ago, it is also beginning with vertigo. No sooner had I walked out the door on the last day of school when my head began spinning so to speak. I went to sleep early and sick. There are a few issues to consider here, but one is that the free time to come has scared me a bit.

Everyone has an inner life, and a past which is not completely dealt with. My inner world waits for me. Susanna, by the way, is there. She is there somewhere always but in the free summertime I can hear her more clearly.

I relaxed yesterday, hoping to heal my dizzy woes, and turned on a Netflix movie called “Brain on Fire”. The protagonist was named Susanna(h). With an H. I watched Chloe Grace Moretz portray her, a likeable young lady, and relished hearing everyone say this name. I became lost in the idea of an alternative story, as I sometimes do. A story about my Susanna living her life to become twenty one, to grow up and graduate from school and have a job and all, to have a woman’s body, and then be stricken with a brain illness. A tragedy, but with more years for me to be with her. If she had to die, at least could it happen later?

Other times, I imagine writing another story. Susanna has had her brain aneurysm and is cognitively and physically impaired, not able to speak again, living in a wheelchair. But she is happy and smiles when I tell her I love her, and she lives longer than me. This is something else that might have happened. Of course, I wonder too what would be if my daughter did not get sick at all. This, unfortunately, though what I want, is something I cannot see anymore. Frankly, imagining that hurts too much. I can see up to the horizon beyond my wire cage, but not the majestic mountains beyond there, where I am with her. That will have to wait.

So, I kept watching and saw Susannah with an H suffer, her parents not getting answers about what was wrong. Then, I saw the smiles as healing became possible, and Susannah with an H got better and used her memoir to help others (a true story, worth knowing about). I cried the tears I had been storing up and wanting to release as soon as this June approached its end. I cried because my Susanna did not get better, she died, after less than a day of anyone being aware that she was sick. When I have fewer obligations, I let these kinds of tears out and I think they will always grow back. There is no end to this, nothing makes it better.

I cried also for this young woman who healed and noted that she had become stronger. You know what? I have done that too. I have done it for me and for my Susanna, the one without an H, but the one who walks with me every day and survives in my heart. I made it through a school year and this year I did not feel too anxious to get out of bed in the morning, even once. I talked about a future and began to prepare for one. I did my job and earned my pay. I lived a little, played the flute, read and wrote some and took care of myself and my family. I am unequivocally still here. I cry for this too, because I did not know if I could make it this far, but here I am. No longer dizzy this morning. I miss you Susanna, but I know you are with me, and that you and I will continue until we are completely free. I will see you on the pinnacles, and every step along the way.

“When Tibor died, the world came to an end. And the world did not come to an end. That is something you learn.”    -Maira Kalman

The air does not feel the same at a cemetery as it does at a park or other green space. Whether you have a somber purpose to be there or happen to be walking by on a peripheral sidewalk, the atmosphere is quieter and your mind attentive to where you are. Even if the stones are hundreds of years old, there is no escaping mortality when you can see graves. You not only smell the purposed earth, but you are aware of the possibility of your own return to it.

Yesterday was the third time I visited historic Greenwood Cemetery. The first time was April 30, 2014, when I stood next to my mother and tried to shelter her from the driving rain as my five- year old daughter Susanna’s body was buried in a grave with her paternal grandmother. I do not remember when I swore that I would never again visit this place. It may have been on that day, but more likely was during the following months during which it dawned on me that this unthinkable nightmare had indeed happened. I built my resolve on my belief that Susanna was with me in spirit (which I do believe) but moreover, inwardly, I felt that acknowledging her grave would be like giving up. I refused for my daughter to become a headstone, erasing her and relegating her to the same past as, say, the revolutionary war heroes I studied in my New England elementary school. We visited their resting place to make gravestone rubbings with large black crayons on rice paper.

I remained firm on my avoidance until now, although I agreed on one occasion to join my significant other to visit on Susanna’s birthday in January of 2016. I spent only a moment outside of the car, doubled over in grief and got back in to weep, avoiding the heaviness in the cold air. This strengthened my vow to stay away.

Despite my resolution to never do so, I have come a long way in accepting Susanna’s death. There will never be a moment when I do not wish she could be here, erasing what happened. There will never be a day where I will not wonder what we would be doing together or wonder what kind of spectacular woman she would have become. But I do acknowledge that the person whose body Susanna’s spirit inhabited is gone, just as we all will be when the time comes. I made the decision to go to Greenwood Cemetery because I did not want fear and denial to keep me from any place. I also had begun to wonder if there might indeed be some peace there.

I am not from Brooklyn originally but have made various parts of it my home for nearly twenty years. This is why the one bus and two subway trips were a snap. I needed to make this pilgrimage alone, on foot. My first two hazy visits to Greenwood did not entail me going to Susanna’s spot alone, nor remembering at all how to find it. I had read the map on the internet and knew the section and numbers, but these are not marked. I walked up the sometimes steep, picturesque foothills, feeling some sadness and a hollow drop in my stomach. There are peaceful names like “Lake Road” and “Magnolia Trail”. Remarkably, though, I felt no resistance to being there. Above all, I marveled at the miracle of healing that has happened within me. Grief has changed me permanently, but I believe always in life and purpose and the universe’s ability to heal, especially when you ask for it. Things are not perfect and never will be, but somehow, I have survived.

I followed the map on my phone and found the right section. I could not remember where to look for the grave. For some reason, I remembered standing on a hill at the burial, but this did not make sense. I called S.O. to ask for help, but we sometimes struggle with our language barrier over the phone. I wondered if I would have to go home without having reached Susanna. I wanted some supernatural assistance, which would have seemed fitting. An inner voice, a fluttering red breasted robin. I asked my mother-in law and Susanna for help from beyond. Help arrived in the form of a groundskeeper driving by, who absolutely could help me. I do live in the physical world among the living, after all.

I scouted out some trees that I will inquire about adopting in Susanna’s memory, which was part of this mission. As I left, I thought about the reality of choosing a pink flowering tree, which I am leaning toward. In the years to come, I would need to visit during this season when Susanna left, or I would miss the beautiful but transient blooms. I think I am okay with this. This cemetery is peaceful. Quiet, uncrowded and an acceptable place to grieve and cry and exist in more than one world. I think the first time I was there, in the rain with my mother, I remember standing on top of a hill (there is no hill) because I needed to picture myself detached from the exact spot, elevated and removed. From there, I watched my partner weep right into the rainy grave, but I was not ready to be there. Not yet.

S.O. has returned, at times, to visit Susanna and his mom, on holidays when it feels right to him. We have figured out how to grieve both together and in our own universes. Each time he has brought home loaves of bread baked the way he likes it, airy inside with hard crust, and told us they were from Susanna. I stopped at the bakery and bought some bread. I headed home to my loved ones, including the amazing son who has been able to stay here with me. I continue to be the mother of two children, who has been broken but is still here, here to tell this tale. There is more to life than life. Thank you, Susanna, for coming here for as long as you could. I love you forever.

I feel surprised lately. Surprised about how I feel about things, and about how I have changed my mind about things. Somewhere within the vast trail of self-help books in my past, there was discussion of how “changing your mind” is more literal and important than how it sounds. We all come here to change and heal and grow, and I believe this even on days which I do not. Brain and soul and body, we are all beings in search of healing, and healing happens.

I did not realize until a couple of weeks ago that there were so many videos and recordings of rain sounds available on all my devices. There is soft rain, heavy rain, rain on the ocean, rain while trains are approaching. Rain in the city with an open window. There is rain on a tent or rain on a car, which has always been my favorite. What surprises me is how real my responses and feelings are when I hear the sounds. They cannot be expressed in words. This is true for both the real experience and the electronic version. The only difference between the two is that with one I do not have to wait for a rainy day.

Perhaps I have arrived somewhere now where I can tolerate being here, on this earth. Perhaps I am becoming unfrozen during this cold January as the light begins to come back. I do not think there is much pain to be unfrozen because pain has enveloped me, followed me and defined most of my moments for the past few years. There are tears falling inside and outside along with all the droplets and drizzles which I stream, but there always are and the difference is that I can hear music in them. I can feel a cool and swirly breeze. If I dare say, the tears are coming with some peace and joy. Despite everything, this earth experience brings me joy. This will always surprise me, but this is real.

I think I am on the cusp of something. I feel cuspy. I do not know where I will go. I do know that I intend to reach out and take more things which I like, and which make me feel good, because I will need this to offset the sadness which I will never erase. A mediocre life will not be tolerable if I must live it without Susanna. I want a bigger life with more spaces to find her, like the spaces between raindrops when they ripple in a pond, or the spaces between the curves of waves on a stormy ocean. I intend to find her. I do not want to pass time in a bubble of numbness. Our dead, and our guiding angels and forces, speak to us always, but we can hear them better when we get out of drudgery and oppressive nonsense.

I will even say that for the time being I am obsessed with my rain sounds. I plug my ear buds in and play them at any old time. I look forward to hearing them when I go to sleep at night. They will stream on YouTube with lovely imagery for ten hours or until someone turns them off. This habit is supported by my family. My S.O. and son seem to understand. I have always said that love is mysterious. I used to mean romantic love but love between any people is mysterious and much bigger than we know.

My son is a wonderful, kind soul (this is not a surprise to me, because he always has been). Recently I have said this to him, because I see him trying to save me and protect me when I am sad: “You do not have to worry about me. I will be okay. It is not your job to save me. There are plenty of adults to help me, you just need to be a kid. I will be okay.” I mean these words.  I have never wanted anything more than to change his life to one that does not include the loss of his sister. I know it is wrong for a child to feel responsible for my pain, and I will continue to say this to him and mean it.

And as I have said these words, he has interjected and repeated over and over, “No. No.” He will not agree that protecting me is not his job. I can neither change his loss or control his desire to save me. This I cannot change. This is mysterious. This is his way to love.

This is my daughter on a rainy day. I continue to be her mother. I think about her as often as any mother thinks about her child, nearly constantly. She is on the other side and I am here, and there is more to life than life.