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Christopher

Noxon

Available Art

How does this story go?

A friend texted the other day: the show must go on.

Must it?

I keep hearing his voice, seeing his smile or the arch of his eyebrow. It’s not that I think he’s still alive - it’s just that I keep feeling how it was when he walked in a room or picked up the phone: the warmth, the kindness, the formality, that brilliant Charlie essence.

The point is: he was just here.

In stories, people die at key moments - they’re sacrificed or struck down or lost as part of a larger struggle or narrative.

So how does this story go? Is there really no lesson, no reason, no sense, no story, no sacrifice, no purpose? How does a complex, brilliant, soulful 20-year-old boy-man just cease to be?
There are no answers, obviously. No sense to be made. There is only the loss and the living with it.

Meanwhile my stepmom Pam is seriously ill, hooked up to a breathing apparatus at Kaiser with advanced COPD. She’s 82 and fierce; she and my mom (her wife of 40 years) are coping as best they can, but it’s not looking great.  Sitting with her over days and weeks, watching her make her final departure, it felt like the absolute reverse of what happened with Charlie: this was drawn-out, painful, medically complicated. Between the two, we got the full range of death.

All of which is only underscoring an unavoidable truth: life is precious and fragile and the end is coming for us all.

Hurray!

I will say I’ve gotten a lot of relief from a mysterious but super effective therapy called EMDR, and I feel better writing and drawing and walking - getting up and moving connects me to Charlie in a real embodied way. It has also been great to read Charlie’s writing - short stories have been trickling in from friends at Columbia, and they’re amazing and also spooky (one includes a ski accident, another involves organ donation). Also, crucially, I’ve been helped by friends near and far who’ve reached out with well wishes and prayers and love - the only real consolation in any of this is a feeling I can only describe as “with-ness.” Thank you for being with.

About that: I worried about posting this message, and others like it, to social media. I don’t for a moment want to be seen to be performing or seeking sympathy with periodic #griefupdates. Honestly, I shared these because #1) writing and drawing are just what I do, and I’m not stopping now, #2) it’s draining and difficult re-processing with everyone I care about, so I share in part to let my close and extended circles know how it’s going, and, most importantly, #3) writing these feels like putting more Charlie in the world and keeping his memory alive - and that makes this feel less horrible.