Uncertainty about the moments before his death pervaded the story we told about Jorge in his absence. Copious drinking on top of sedating prescriptions had to be common behavior this was an underreported danger – doctors, public health people, everyone should know about it. It seemed important to believe it was probably an accidental overdose, not suicide. People took turns talking, although it was hard to hear without being able to make eye contact with anyone. No one mentioned the cause of death the coroner’s report would not come until May. Hundreds of people attended two Zoom memorials. Dammit, my last chance to see him.Ī surreal three weeks followed. We had played phone tag but didn’t meet up. I checked my recent phone exchanges with Jorge: had he said goodbye? There is a voicemail from December 6, the day before Georgia declared Biden president after its third and final recount. “But,” she clarified, “they are not stops on some linear timeline.” They might approach all at once, competing with nothingness, clamoring for attention. Pioneering Swiss psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross sought to frame the baffling experience of confronting death – as well as living through the loss of a loved one – by dividing up the tangle of emotions that comprise what we call grief into five common reactions: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. I had a strange thought: Nothing matters now. A clatter of half-formed thoughts competed for the front of my brain. I folded to the floor in the quiet, sunny kitchen. I felt a forceful current in my brain, a rush of appeals to reverse the course of time. I don’t know exactly what happened, but” – she paused - “Jorge died.” “Do you know what’s going on with Jorge?” I answered, my stomach quickening, “Jessie?” On Friday, December 11, our mutual friend Jessica, a busy attorney who never gets in touch during the workday, called me at 3pm. But, like many mothers of young children in 2020, I was battling the emotional toll of private parenting during a pandemic, and let friendships fall away in favor of TV shows and sleep. I remember thinking it was uncharacteristic of Jorge to speak of his own heart – the wine and texting disinhibited him. The Minneapolis thing is such a reminder of ugliness behind the face masks. Too hard getting plastered when Miguel is around. I asked whether he was alone or if his teetotaling partner was there. I responded grimly that my evenings were exhausted - my toddler was sleeping in my bed. “Do u have time to talk or are things crazy?” The week of George Floyd’s murder, he texted at 7:30pm: Anyway, he had a million friends and a partner of 14 years.īut the pandemic, along with painful social realities, would water old weeds of depression and anxiety, and allow new ones to sprout. I remembered an intimate email conversation seven years prior, when, without warning, he had left town for Florida (rehab or resort, he wouldn’t say), then his native Columbia, vaguely citing his dependence on “little pink pills.” Benzodiazepines, not a weakness of mine, seemed harmless enough – as long as he wasn’t buying them on the street. I didn’t worry about happy-go-lucky Jorge. With the exception of my liver taking a hit from Zoom happy hours. So uplifting to get a message from you, confirmation of my actual existence! You? Still in denial about the trauma that was transpiring in real time, we both confessed to drinking more than before. In May, we exchanged texts about pandemic isolation. We said good night and promised to reconvene.īut then we were in lockdown. He lyricized about my husband’s Manhattan-making skills. COVID-19 was sidling up to California, but as Jorge put it to me later, there was “a little foreshadowing but not enough to scare one.” He danced up to me and squeezed my shoulders, covering my face with kisses. The Friday preceding California’s first shelter-in-place order, Jorge and a mutual friend visited the rental house where my husband and I lived with our two toddlers. When I moved to Oakland from New York City 10 years later, he seemed just the same, inviting me to everything, even hosting a small gathering in his apartment to welcome me to town.įast forward to the pandemic. At 28, Jorge’s black hair was already receding from his forehead, but that Jorge, spry and light, would greet me by jumping into my arms so I’d have to catch him or let him drop. But pretty soon I realized everyone felt that way about him.Įven as the college-student sister of a friend, I was showered with familial affection. Within hours of meeting him, I felt he was my soulmate. His smiling eyes sparkled with secrets he wanted to share. Jorge Sanchez was giddy about meeting new people.
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