on Facebook

Christopher

Noxon

Available Art

Shloshim. He’s Still Gone.

It’s 31 AC/ one month after Charlie. Or as the Jews have it, it’s Shloshim—which means I can now get a haircut and sit on an actual chair but I still shouldn’t go to a concert or redecorate my house.

Update: he’s still gone.

I’m against it.

Things that help: hot and sour soup, saying the kaddish, walking.

Today I listened to a recording Charlie’s girlfriend Izzy made of friends from Columbia sharing memories. One girl remembered how she once mentioned she didn’t know what yuzu was; he showed up at her door that night offering a package of yuzu gummies. A number of friends talked about how he liked to wander the city, how he made a big show of drawing the perfect espresso from the inappropriately fancy machine in his dorm, how he got into heated debates at parties over his preference for Camus over Sartre and his belief that Toni Morrison was derivative of William Faulkner. Also his love of dogs, “wholesome memes,” and super complicated puzzle games.

“There were so many moments that felt like secret worlds for him,” one friend said. “You could see him doing his own thing and he entered a secret world that you suddenly got to be a part of.”

For me, this is all happening in present tense: Present. And tense. Charlie is walking those streets, pouring that perfect coffee, exploring those secret worlds.

And after a month of full-time processing, I’m trying to get back into some regular routine. Eliza and Oscar are back at school and doing pretty well (Oscar is just starting the new baseball season and doing the lighting on a school play; Eliza has a full schedule and is excited about her new classes). Hoping grief can be a part time job - albeit a really intense one. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to the friends and loved ones who’ve rallied around - one of the strangest things about this experience is how it brings you into such close, intimate and vulnerable contact with the best people in the world—at your absolute worst. There is no consolation, God doesn’t have a plan and there is no sense to be made. But I feel surrounded by love and so very grateful to our family and community.