JDK’s note: Below is the short story Cyra referenced in Episode 10 of my Building from the Bullet Hole podcast. This is its first time appearing in print, and it is with her kind permission. I hope any of you traveling through grief - or reflecting back on it - will connect with it.
Into the Sunset
By Cyra Sadowl
I snapped a quick selfie from the driver’s seat. Already my soul-expanding road trip was running behind. At the last minute I agreed to have breakfast with Amy, my moving-to-Chicago teaching partner. We were going to see each other in Las Vegas in less than thirty-six hours, but we’d become used to living on the verge of another transition and we both felt a sense of urgency to meet every chance we got.
In the first photo, I looked like I’d walked into a surprise party when I all I really wanted was to take my bra off, eat ice cream, and binge-watch old Barney Miller episodes.
Another quick glance around my Jeep assured me I was ready. My suitcase stowed in the back, packed and repacked the night before, followed none of the advice friends swore by. I figured if I had the bare minimum: two bras-one beige and one black, a few pair of mother-would-approve, what-if-you-get-in-an-accident undies, jeans, plain white and gray t-shirts, deodorant, toothpaste, and conditioner (I’m a curly girl—conditioner is like a rosary to a nun) I could survive indefinitely if unfashionably.
Doubt and my grandmother’s genetic contribution to my existence sent me back to my closet.
My father’s mother, delicate and demanding, suffered her last stroke when I was eight, but with trademark propriety. She died in her driveway, seated primly in the driver’s seat of the baby blue 1964 Oldsmobile (which later became my pride and joy), hands clutched the steering wheel at precisely 10:00 and 2:00. Her hair, dyed an impossible black once a month and aggressively styled into pin-curls every Thursday, was tidily tucked under her veiled hat, her brown sheath dress impeccably accessorized with creamy gloves, shoes, pearls, and a matching handbag which sat beside her on the car’s bench seat. Grandmother (I can’t imagine ever calling her Gran, Mimi, Nana, or any other affectionate adaptation of the name, she was Grandmother, maybe in all caps) believed in dressing slightly better than the occasion called for.
I remember seeing her Sunday mornings, her “tsk” of disapproval over my messy hair, scuffed shoes, traces of toothpaste or breakfast on my front. Still, she comes to mind whenever I think, “good enough” as I dress for a new experience, sending me back for a quick touch-up.
So I tossed a couple of dressier things into the bag just in case I was invited to interview for my dream job or attend a Hollywood premier. I had absolutely no idea how these might happen, but I didn’t want to look like a schmuck on the red carpet. I zipped the bag closed once more and lugged it to the car.
A box of books snuggled in the back of the Jeep with my suitcase: inspiring books about finding purpose in life or embracing change and a mess of YA novels about kickass girls with Chuck Taylors, katana swords, and titanium hearts.
A basket of essentials, along with my glorious turquoise Michael Kors tote, filled the front passenger seat. Roadmaps, an authentic Moleskine leather travel journal to prove this was a serious trip, healthy snack mix of nuts and berries were all strategically arranged to hold open Ziploc bags of Tootsie Rolls and Jolly Rancher Cinnamon Fire candies. A pouch held a tangle of cords and chargers. I’d carefully rolled each cord the night before, but that organization didn’t last any longer than it took to pull the zipper closed.
A liter bottle of water took up one cup holder. I was determined to break my travel tradition of Super Big Gulps of Dr. Pepper. I planned on strong coffee each morning, water all day, local wine or cider in the evening.
The other cup holder cradled my new Wonder Woman travel cup, left on my doorstep by an anonymous gifter, two days earlier. I imagined stepping up to baristas all over the west, sliding my Wonder Woman cup across the counter, ordering complex coffees, always with a smile so they wouldn’t think I was a bitch. They’d see the Wonder Woman cup, smile and nod. “On the house,” they’d say recognizing I was a badass on an epic road trip. They’d envy my freedom and confidence. Gifted coffee was their offering to a goddess. In the end, I only tried this once. I forgot to rinse it of old half and half, then knocked it over at the next stop, spilling rank dairy product all over the poor barista.
Anonymously given gifts, like the Wonder Woman cup, had been fairly common over the past year, especially at the school where I’d taught fourth grade. Although I never really got used to the idea of receiving gifts from unknown benefactors, I guess it’s a holdover from the days of bringing casseroles to a grieving family. Near the end of every month, I found a plastic grocery bag dangling from my classroom door handle: soy candles, pomegranate juice, kippers, dried seaweed strips, large pearl tapioca. Strangely foreign gifts of nutrition, comfort, and kindness. A gift card to iTunes generous enough to load 8G worth of songs for this trip was in my mailbox one Friday. One colleague even slipped a couple of medicinal grade joints into the glove box in my car after I’d admitted I still didn’t sleep well (in the spirit of research, I did smoke half a joint, bundled in a blanket on my patio late one cold January night, but beyond an extended appreciation of the stars above and a strange feeling my butt didn’t actually want to leave the chair, I didn’t see the appeal).
I was stalling. I tried another selfie; I opened my eyes wide, smiled. Good enough. My first post to Facebook heralded my official start. I turned the key and shifted to reverse. I was committed to this trip.
Until that moment I hadn’t admitted, even to myself, that I didn’t see myself coming back from this trip. It’s not that I was suicidal. I had, for the most part, moved past that particular mindset months ago.
I realized, sitting in another driveway at the old house late one September afternoon, that I knew exactly how, where, and when I would kill myself. My husband was dead; it took a little more effort each day to move from house to car to school and back again. The drive home each evening was particularly brutal without Matt. Panic gripped me with each daily transition; I dreaded the assault of memories that bombarded me, the glass walls of emotion I crashed into with alarming regularity. I considered where I’d get the supplies I needed. Finally, I wrote up my suicide shopping list and went to bed. It was Thursday; I decided I’d do it Sunday night.
I didn’t sleep--I rarely did those days-- just stared at the ceiling fan’s blur, thinking. Not focused consideration of anything in particular, just vague ideas of family, friends, and school. My thoughts slammed to a stop when I caught myself putting together a long-term project for my students, anticipating timing and materials we needed. I realized if I can make plans which extend beyond the moment, it seemed reasonable to assume I really wasn’t quite ready to die.
Around three that morning I got dressed, tore up my suicide shopping list, and started a new list--a list of what’s next. The first step was to find a new place to live, one that was all mine without those glass walls everywhere. In the following months, I checked off nearly every item on that list. Two things remained:1) take a break from my life to clear my head, and 2) decide who I want to be. After such concrete tasks like taking Matt’s clothes to Goodwill and settling taxes, these two were exciting and terrifying.
I realize this makes it sound so simple: just decide you don’t want to die. It’s not that I just stopped feeling hopeless and lost; I’m still staggered by how powerful grief can be, as if no time has passed at all--as Matt called our time together a second’s eternity. It’s more that when it does hit, I’m more familiar with its disguises, and have a plan for addressing those chasms into which I tumble. I still fall--hard, but I focus on my goals, immediate and long-range. I figure if I’m working toward something, it’s easier to see a purpose, a reason to get going. Every. Damn. Morning.
This road trip gave me a goal to get through the rest of the school year, to survive leaving students and a school I’d come to love.
I didn’t intend a solo Thelma and Louise drive into the Grand Canyon or overdose in a hotel room somewhere like an aging rock star. But when I tried to envision reaching Seattle, or heading back home, my mind went blank. I kind of imagined the static on the radio after Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific, or when the cowboy rode off into the sunset in the movies. I’ve never been satisfied with those images. Eventually the plane ran out of gas and the sun went down, leaving Amelia stranded or dead and our cowboy wandering out there in the dark.
I often made up alternate endings for movies when disaster or betrayal seemed inevitable. I walked away from the movie and announced they all went out for pizza and beer and became best friends--infuriating Matt, who loved a good disaster. But the lone cowboy frustrated me. I liked the idea of the ride into the sunset, but invariably the thought, “But then what?’ squirmed into my thoughts. Did he duck behind a rocky outcropping to wait until the film crew left? Was he still wandering out there, bumping into cactus or stumbling down ravines in the dark? Did he go home or just find a new place to live? Did he have someone ship his stuff or restock household supplies at Ikea? How anticlimactic.
That’s kind of how I felt about this trip. This was my riding off into the sunset. Eventually though, Interstate 10 ended, I’d take a new highway, or get left out in the dark, stumbling among the cacti and lizards, looking for a rest stop. None of which is half as romantic as the soft fade-out of the movies; besides, I didn’t pack toilet paper.
There’s a quote from Reynolds Price I’ve returned to time and again. “Strength just comes in one brand--you stand up at sunrise and meet what they send you and keep your hair combed.” I don’t actually comb my hair...my curls are completely free-range, but like that cowboy who’s wandered off into the sunset, there is a sunrise the next day, I might as well face it.
So much of the year had been unimaginable. But that’s life, isn’t it? We can’t see beyond our own selfishly clutched pain and sadness to the wonders ahead of us. We have a choice: sit where we are, engulfed in a reality we can’t bear, or once we walk off into the sunset, we stand up again at sunrise and hit the road towards the unimaginable and see what’s there.
