Looking to spend a few minutes not sad, I traveled to South Florida with my husband Steve, my sister Colleen, and her husband John. One morning, early in the trip, I stood at the counter in the world-renowned “Robert Is Here” produce market. The founder, the original Robert, who was six years old the first time he sold cucumbers from this spot by advertising with a handmade, cardboard sign that read, “Robert is here,” is now gray-haired and bearded. He owns the place.
From the heaped displays of tropical fruit, local vegetables, and unusual items, like enormous ostrich eggs, I selected some exotic fruits to purchase. At the counter, Robert penciled the prices of the colorful fruits in a column on a brown paper bag and began to calculate the total in his head. While browsing the displays, I’d overheard one of Robert’s adult sons tell a customer that everyone Robert hires—all sixty employees—must pass a test that demonstrates they can add, subtract, multiply, and divide in their heads. No calculators.
I asked living legend Robert how long to let the yellow canistel I was buying ripen. Robert stopped adding. He stashed his pencil behind his ear, and with his working-man's hands he cradled the teardrop-shaped fruit near his heart. He looked into my eyes.
“You keep this fruit for three, or four, days—until you can honestly say ‘this fruit is the texture of soft butter.’ When you can honestly say this fruit is the texture of soft butter—wait one full day. Then, and only then, this fruit is ripe.”
As I reached for my change and produce, Robert bagged the canistel and repeated his instructions. It seemed that my waiting was significant. Like it held the potential to enhance or diminish his life experience.
He doubted I would wait for the fruit to fully ripen. In his experience, most people don’t hold off long enough to slice open the fruit.
Robert is not most people. Along with his rapt attentiveness to customers’ fruit-eating habits, he is the survivor of a loved one’s tragic death. While I was browsing the market, I noticed a yellowed newspaper clipping tacked to a bulletin board. The clipping told the thirty-year-old story: After a long day at work, on his way home, Robert stopped by his mother’s and found she’d been brutally murdered. Shortly after, a massive storm swept through, destroying buildings and erasing leads. The culprit has never been tracked down. Yet, living in the aftermath of his beloved mother’s death and cold case, Robert exuded warmth, not cynicism or edgy wariness.
*
I didn’t tell Robert, but I am not most people. I am the mother of a son who, four months before my canistel purchase, died by suicide. Usually, that news stilts conversation.
*
It’s been four years now, and in that time I’ve found that immense sadness, talk of tragic death, disconcerts most people. It prompts fear, creates distance, evokes platitudes. Or maybe it’s me—when I mention how dismal life can be, I tune in to all the awkward.
A few weeks after my son Matt’s death, a friend greeted me in the grocery store with an awkward half-hug and said, “When I see you, I think about how much worse my life could be.” The comment stung more than it comforted. But I agreed with the perspective. All that made life good—love, hope, joy—had swirled down the drain with my son’s death.
Another time, a friend who’d lost a child declared, “You’ll be sad all the time and then one day, you’ll forget and not be sad for a minute or two and when you remember, you’ll feel guilty for forgetting.” I waited on pins and needles guarding against the forgetting. It hasn’t come for me. Yet.
Shortly after Matt died, I attended a support group for people whose loved ones died by suicide. A mother who’d lost her son seven years prior spoke mournfully about aching with unbearable sadness. Every. Single. Day. She said that her gloom lifted when she walked by the ocean but as soon as she left the beach, she felt mired in overwhelming despair.
I’d like to say that as she spoke, I felt sympathy. Matt’s death left me hollow yet full of vicious sadness and anger and bafflement. I’d like to say that I felt on her side. Instead, I compared our reactions. I wondered: in seven years, will I be her, still living in gloom? A wave of pushback swelled inside me. I would not be her. I cannot be only sad for the rest of my life. For heaven’s sake, I live in Central Pennsylvania. I get to the ocean maybe once a year. If a walk on the beach is my only reprieve, my life is over.
The next day, I sobbed through a therapy session. I sobbed because this loss did not fit the life I wanted or expected. I sobbed because my love wasn’t enough to enable my son to escape the rip tide of depression and live. I miss my son. I want him back. I sobbed because I worried I’d never smile again.
On our Florida trip, I was intent on finding a way to live in a way that didn’t diminish my sadness. My love for my son demands the sadness never be less, but I needed a space to live that allowed some relief from grief. A modicum of joy.
Three days after I purchased the canistel, our group traveled on Route One through the Florida Keys on our way to Key West. I had checked the canistel every morning. I could honestly say that the fruit was not yet the texture of soft butter and I could honestly say that while I was all in when we planned our skydiving day, I was considering backing out. I awoke in the night afraid.
I felt sheepish about my fear. After all, I was the one who suggested the adventure in the first place. My thrill-seeking sister said to count her in. Her husband said he’d watch from the safety of solid ground. Steve, a former paratrooper, said the activity cost too much. I talked him into it by stressing that we only live once and if we can’t spend money to enjoy some fun now and then, say at one of the world’s top skydiving venues, what good is money?
But the day of, I second guessed. I worried I might die. Even though dying would mean joining Matt, I didn’t want to die that day.
On the drive to the venue, I sat in the back seat and googled skydiving. It’s classified as an extreme sport. I do not consider myself an extreme sport enthusiast. I like to read books. I like to play pickleball. I like to hug my granddaughter and dance with her in the kitchen while “My Girl” by the Temptations plays loudly. Cheek to cheek, my granddaughter and I shout, “What can make me feel this way?” We belt out the answer, “My girl!” I like to point out the window at the quarter moon appearing in the darkening sky and say, “Uncle Matt was your age when he wondered if the ends of a quarter moon are as sharp as a knife.”
I determined that the consequences of opting out of skydiving would be minimal. Colleen and Steve could skydive and afterwards, over a tasty lunch—we were looking for grouper sandwiches—I could listen rather than talk when they described the experience.
I mentioned that I was thinking of opting out. Jumping out of a plane at 10,000 feet above the earth didn’t seem safe. Steve’s response was one notch below ridicule. “It’s safe,” he said. “You think these people would be in business if they’d ever had an accident?”
“I’m too old to try this.” I was 65. Surely that is too old to try an extreme sport for the first time.
My sister scoffed. “George Bush skydived to celebrate his ninetieth birthday.”
I continued my frantic online research. One in one hundred thousand people die skydiving each year. That seemed like a lot. I googled biking fatalities. Last year, in the United States, five thousand people died biking. I bike all the time. I never worried that I’d die biking. I googled car crash fatalities. I discovered that I was more likely to die in a car crash than I was to die skydiving.
We turned off Florida’s Route One onto a gravel road. We pulled into the parking lot of Skydive Key West. I expected a NASA vibe. The place evoked a Gilligan’s Island feel. The skydiving company was housed in a wooden hut surrounded by palm trees. There were three small airplanes parked on the runway.
I got out of the car. My knees wobbled like they had turned to soft butter.
I could honestly say that part of me wanted to face the challenge. I wanted to skydive to put an exclamation mark on the idea that I can face difficulties and live.
I don’t willingly face the memories of the day Matt died.
Steve and I had stopped at Ulta Beauty on the way home from the Saturday Penn State men’s basketball game. Steve waited in the car while I ran in to pick up an order, and it wasn’t ready. I stood by the door and shifted from foot to foot. I couldn’t wait to get home to tell Matt about the team’s almost-win. Also, I wanted to get home to see how Matt’s day at work went. The evening before, Matt had lingered empty and sad. I waited in the store and felt annoyed. If I hadn’t paid when I ordered, I’d have left. Why order ahead if it leads to a prolonged wait while the associate searches the store for items. What if I’d gotten home sooner?
Where we turn onto our road, a bridge looms above the intersection. That day, under the bridge, there was a cluster of parked emergency vehicles—two police cars, an ambulance, and a rescue squad vehicle. Their lights were flashing. “Must be an accident,” I said. Steve said, “It looks like someone jumped from the bridge.” I said, “Why do you say things like that when you know I worry about Matt every minute?”
Matt wasn’t home. He usually stopped in after work. I pulled my phone from my pocket and considered calling him. He’s 35. Maybe I checked on him too often.
A few minutes later, two state cops and the coroner stood on our porch stamping the snow off their boots as if they presumed they’d be invited in.
They wanted us to sit and we tried. I kept getting up to pace to the kitchen. The coroner asked again and again, “What funeral home do you choose?” I went to the kitchen and filled a glass with water. How do I choose a funeral home for a son I’d hugged the evening before?
Steve punched numbers into his phone. When people picked up, he blurted that Matt was dead. “You can’t tell people that by telephone,” I insisted—as if there was a way to soften the news.
*
In the parking lot of Skydive Key West, I felt a flicker of resolve. I wouldn’t opt out yet. I’d approach the activity a step at a time. I entered the hut. I signed the waiver that says I could die or be hurt but wouldn’t sue.
Until we boarded the airplane, I could change my mind and get my money back. The jump would be tandem. I’d be harnessed to an experienced skydiver. I stepped into a harness. I told my instructor: “I’m nervous.”
“Of course you’re nervous! You’re skydiving for the first time.” His Australian accent was as intriguing as the canistel.
I listened to his instructions and anticipated completing each step. I’d get into the plane; we’d ascend ten thousand feet and fly for fifteen minutes of sightseeing. The instructor would clip my harness to his. The plane door would open. I’d set my feet on the metal plate attached to the side of the plane. Even then, I could change my mind. I’d lose money, but I didn’t have to jump.
The instructor showed me the button that activates the parachute. Did I trust him to press it at the right time? I wanted to grill him. I wanted to ask how many jumps he’s successfully completed.
“Whatever happens to you, happens to me. I’ll take care of you,” the instructor said. His attitude reminded me of Robert’s care regarding when I’d eat the canistel.
The jump included forty seconds of freefall. I anticipated that I’d be holding my breath and desperately counting the seconds until the parachute opened.
But that’s where I was wrong. As we hurtled through the air, our arms held wide, joy flooded my entire being. I felt vibrant. What could make me feel this way? I saw the earth’s surface spread out before me and my very soul answered: the blues and greens of the ocean, the white wakes that trail the small boats, the islands that dot the water, the air rushing past, the weightlessness. “How do you like it?” the instructor yelled in my ear.
Like it? I loved it. I loved everyone and everything. But I was too focused on joy to say anything.
As you may or may not have concluded—people don’t like to ask—Matt jumped from a very high bridge to his death.
It eats at me to imagine the torrent of overwhelming darkness, despair, and loneliness that swirled in his brain during the last moments of his life. As I experienced the joy of hurtling through the sky, I felt a small hope that he felt a flutter of joy when his life, as they say, passed before his eyes.
I know the exact spot where he jumped. Steve knows the spot where he landed. A friend shared a vision. She said that angels caught Matt. She felt her vision was confirmed when we were able to have an open casket. It’s a nice thought. But why does she get a vision and I am left bereft?
Later that day, after skydiving, I noticed it was time to cut the canistel. I pulled a knife through the soft buttery texture, and I thought, my sadness is like a canistel. The consistency has changed. The sadness doesn’t take up less space, but the edges have softened to allow some give, some space for a flutter of joy. ◆
Homepage Image: from Fruitique! Carrie Yury, Harvesting (Everyday Balaclava series), 2013. Pencil and watercolor on paper. Gulf Coast 26.2, 2013.
