escritora

My childhood bedroom overlooked the backyard, my mother’s garden, the rusted swing set, the garage with the green trim and the alley where I once secretly planted an apple seed. I desired to see it grow into something big and long-lasting, yet I dug its shallow grave and left it alone, assuming nature would take its course.  

The slant in the ceiling of my room matched that of the roof and mirrored my sister’s just across the narrow hall. Ours were the only two rooms on the top floor, reached by a slender flight of stairs that felt like climbing to the highest point of the playground. We would race up like puppies on our hands and feet. 

Before dawn, I would stare at the ceiling as a blue light enveloped me, watching the shadows from the yard glide across it. I would replay in my mind the nightmare that afflicted me repeatedly. A plane crashed in a dense tropical forest. One of the survivors, usually myself or my father, would climb to the very top of the tallest tree to search for a sign of civilization or rescue, and all we would see was a canopy of trees as far as the eye could go. The sinking hopelessness I felt would startle me and I would lie awake until morning. Isabelle, my only sibling, slept in her dark red room ten steps away.  

Her little head would lie on a wooden futon that would transform into a chair during the day, where she could sit and read. The image of perfection. Her face, soft, pale, and freckled, her wispy light brown hair, her big blue eyes. 

Everybody loved Izzy as a girl, they couldn’t resist. She had a special glimmer that certain children have. She was playful, goofy and carefree. Different from me, entirely. 

In the photos of her as a young girl she is always beaming and splayed in comical poses. In one she is pictured in only her underwear with mud lathered on all her limbs. In another she is showing off a hat and dress made of a black garbage bag. 

I remember how jealous I was at our sleepaway camp when her name would be called over and over again to come to the front of the cafeteria to retrieve all her warm-fuzzies,  notes of endearment submitted anonymously by the other campers. I was never proud that my little sister was the most adored kid at camp. I bitterly waited for my turn to come and when my name was called, she cheered for me earnestly. The perfect iteration of her and I. 

Isabelle and I would often visit a neighbor who lived three doors down from us. Her name was Janice. How to find the words to describe our friendship and her life without sounding debasing. 

For most of our childhood, Jan’s house was a respite. We loved sitting in the living room watching her satellite television, one of the only ones on the block. We would watch all sorts of cartoons, soap operas, sit-coms and talk shows for hours on end. She would often order pizza. My sister or I would go to the door and pay the delivery driver and bring Jan her liter of diet Pepsi. We would make ourselves comfortable in our respective spots and watch our favorite shows for hours. There were periods of time when  we went over so often, we could follow the sequence of a show’s daily progression. 

Sometimes Jan would ask us to run across the street to the corner store and pick up some chocolate bars. Despite the prospect of having free range of the gas station, I always dreaded when she made the request. I was terrified of crossing the five lanes of traffic to make it there. 

Isabelle was never bothered, despite being three years younger than me. She would cross and beckon me from the other side of the street, having grown tired of waiting for me. Crossing signals would come and go as I stood and hesitated on the corner. Sometimes, unable to summon the courage, I would return to the house empty-handed, sullen and ashamed. 

When successful, we would browse the shelves and make our selections. We would then dump the change Jan gave us on the counter for the attendant to count and return to the comfort of the living room feeling triumphant. 

The scene was always the same. Janice, wearing a long silk nightgown, sitting in front of the boxy television set, on the couch that was molded to the shape of her corpulent frame. Since she rarely moved from that spot, the cushion was completely flattened. The seat beside her was covered in crossword puzzles, receipts, phone books, cards, photographs, remotes and any other keepsake or practical item she needed within arms reach. At her feet were always soda bottles at various degrees of plenitude. The moss green carpet was usually flaked with crumbs and worn out in the spot where her feet lay. 

Her collectibles, glass figurines of cherub-like children praying or bears wearing various costumes, filled entire cabinets and covered the white stucco mantle. Every once in a while we would accompany her on trips to the mall, with the sole intent of going to the Hallmark store to select one of these ornaments with enlarged sulking eyes in different positions of innocence and irreproachability. 

On these trips, we were like her chaperones, having to go into the store unattended, fetch the electric cart and drive it to her vehicle. We would always argue over who got to navigate it as if it were a go-kart. Janice was around four hundred pounds at the time and could not walk long distances. 

We were often responsible for helping with household tasks, putting away groceries and fetching various items. Disney movies from the floor to ceiling VHS collection in the spare room, snacks from the kitchen, lightbulbs from the closet, tokens of memorabilia tucked in random chests. To my discontent, these would sometimes be hidden in the darkest corners of her basement. 

The rooms felt like haunted mazes, full of bewildering shadows, items carelessly stacked in all corners. All these furnishings, lamps, toys, photos and boxes were from a time period my mind could not fathom. They felt ancient and therefore riddled with mystery and phantom. I would whimper as we descended into the darkness of the vacant suite to fetch her desired item. 

I was repelled by the scents in the house like the musty basement, old food in the fridge and the dirty bathroom. 

But despite everything, Janice was our best friend for a long time. She referred to us as her kids, having had none of her own. She lost both her parents in her twenties, broke off an engagement and she never quite recovered. The pain never subsided and it eventually engulfed her.  

Years passed and we seem to outgrow Janice. We visited out of obligation, mostly going over to do chores and help out around her house, rather than camaraderie. At around eight years old we moved out of the neighborhood. We were no longer a few houses down, which made going over became more tedious. My sister and I would be picked up in her little gray car and driven to get groceries and household goods, diligently following her around the store in her motorized buggy, grabbing items from high shelves and ordering from the deli counter. We would put everything away for her, throwing out all the uneaten rotten food we picked up on our previous grocery run. We would sit and stay a while, then be skirted  off to piano lessons or soccer practice, leaving her alone once again. Around the same time, her family and her friend came by less often having moved to other cities or grown tired of the lopsided expectations placed upon the relationship. She became more and more limited in her mobility, reducing her already minimal social interactions.

As a teenager, I went over to her house out of a sense of moral duty to spend an hour every week or so, doing what we always did, watch TV. She started to open up about her depression and anxiety. I felt overwhelmed by the burden of being one of her only visitors at the time. I could visit every other day and it wouldn't have been enough. She was chronically and perpetually lonely. The kind of loneliness and isolation that eats at you and makes your life lose all sense of meaning. She had so little to look forward to, almost completely confined to the space between her couch and bed. 

It was almost a relief when she broke her femur on her back porch while taking the garbage out, because she was finally being tended to all day and night by caring hands in the hospital. She felt purposeful in her unrelenting need. Finally, somebody cared enough. She was joyful in a way we hadn't seen since my sister and I were young. She innocently flirted with the nurses and they played the part, as was there wont. I am sure they enjoyed her good humor, she really did have the sweetest laugh. Her eyes squinted to a close and her body quaked silently moving up and down like a baby bouncing on their mothers knee.

After her surgery, she was meant to be up and moving around on her leg to build strength and prevent atrophy. Part of me believes she didn't try to walk, because she wasn't ready to leave the safe purgatory of the hospital. Jan was not ready to face the fact that she wouldn't be able to live alone in her house anymore. The house she grew up in, where she experienced a loss of her parents, a failed marriage, the downward spiral of her life. Her house symbolized family, happier times, history and ultimately her identity. She couldn't part with the things that made her human. 

A year passed and she still couldn't walk on her own. She was moved to a more full-time wing of the hospital where the nurses weren't so nice and patient with her interminable want. She missed her home, her old unit, her independence, but at that point it was too late. She was bed bound and completely reliant. We suspect she had a minor stroke in her sleep because there came a point when she became ill-mannered and disagreeable. My family would visit every so often, my mother more than any of us because she worked at the hospital where Janice stayed. When we did, Jan would demand things like that my dad empty her eavestroughs immediately. She would criticize him for not tending to them fast enough or grumble that we had forgotten something when going by her house to pick up items, like slippers or books, which we have done countless times since her hospitalization. 

I was at my job as a waitress when my mother called me at the end of my shift sharing the news of her death. I howled in my manager's office, in a way that surprised me. In the coming days, I felt regret over my lack of compassion, lack of patience and overall selfishness. I always put my needs above hers, I didn't visit enough, I didn't save her. I just let her diminish into nothing. I also felt relief, of course.I  was no longer not doing enough. I didn't have to feel guilty for not having visited in a month. All the people in her life could finally say that, at least she was no longer suffering, as a way to ease a sense of culpability. Her family was not going to plan a funeral, which enraged me. How could we fail her in life and not even care about her enough to pay our respects? It was the last time we could fulfill our duty to her, as people she loved. We could have so easily not done enough, as we were so accustomed, but I pushed adamantly for a service. 

Nobody wanted to write a eulogy, so I wrote one myself. I wrote about how we failed her. She was lonely and depressed. She never recovered from her mothers death. She became reclusive, unable to work and live a normal life, but we, as her close friends and family, didn't do enough. I also acknowledge that it was hard to be there for somebody who had so much as given up.My mother advised me not to be too bleak and so I softened in my words so they were easier to receive. I tried in my final homage to infuse her life with essence, making her human again. Not just a burden to bear. Many people in attendance approached me after the service thanking me, expressing that my eulogy eased their guilt and brought them closure. I was spiteful and skeptical of these people, questioning their right to be soothed. I wondered why they hadn't visited her in years, why they hadn't picked up her groceries and didn't always call her back. I was polite and hugged these people I had never met in 20 years of knowing Janice. 

All this is why I don’t know how to talk about her life. Sharing her eulogy is the best way I know how. 

We gather here today to remember Janice and honor her life. 

Janice was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan. She was the beloved only child of Effie and John. 

She was a faithful Sears employee for over 20 years serving food in the cafeteria. She often talked to me about how much she loved interacting with the regular customers and building friendships with her coworkers. I'm sure that she thrived in this job by doing what she did best, caring for people and making them laugh.I'm sure we can all agree that one of the most pivotal days in Janice's life was the day her mother, Effie, passed away. I wasn't alive to experience it, but according to what she told me, they were inseparable. 

The bond between mother and daughter was accentuated due to the fact that she was an only child and that she had been an unforeseen gift, especially to her father who always wanted a daughter but didn't think he would have the opportunity before he had met Effy later in his life. She was definitely daddy's little girl. 

Janice spoke so highly about her mother and the connection they had. She loved her more than anything in the world. She was not only her mother, but also her dearest friend and her most fervent supporter. Janice was crippled with grief when she died and I don't think she was ever able to fully recover from that loss.

 I thought a lot about what I wanted to say about Jan today. All I knew is that I couldn't come up here and talk about how happy and fulfilling her life was, without acknowledging her battle with mental health in her later years. My family used to live a couple doors down from Janice. She had been in my life since I was born and my sister and I love Janice like family. We would go to her house as kids multiple times a week to watch Disney movies, play board games and eat dinner. Going to visit her was a routine growing up. Her house was a getaway for when we would get in fights with our parents or a place we could go to unwind and have a good laugh. 

As we got older, we started going over less and less, until we scarcely visited her at all. She was always on my mind and the guilt I felt for moving on without her was always heavy on my heart. When I went to university, I made it a priority to go see her and bring her groceries at least once a week. This is when she started to open up to me about her anxiety and depression. I saw a side of her that I had never known. She was scared and above all she was lonely. I realize this isn't glamorous but I think that it needs to be acknowledged for the sake of authenticity. 

Her battle with mental illness dictated the course of her life and it's a tragic reality.

Despite all this though, Jan loved. She loved each and everyone of us fiercely and faithfully she always cared about the happenings of our lives. She cared about where we were going to school, when we got new jobs, who we were dating and she always remembered to wish us happy birthday. We were always on her mind. I have never even met many of you before, but you'd be surprised how much I know about you solely because of how much she raved about you and all your success.  

She had hundreds and hundreds of our Facebook photos saved onto her iPad because seeing us happy brought her the sincerest joy. I hope we can all look back on her life and remember her as someone who loved and cared even when we might not have deserved it from her.

Another thing Jan had, even in the darkest times, was hope. She spoke in whens not ifs. She spoke about the day when her anxieties would be lifted and she'd be able to do the things she loved again like go to the mall or out to the restaurant. She talked about when she'd be able to drive up to Calgary and visit her family or see the mountains again. She talked about the day when her depression would be gone. When she was in the hospital, she talked about the day when she would be able to go back and live at home. She saw the light at the end of the tunnel, even when it might have seemed like the tunnel was closing in on her. She had hope in the most unlikely of circumstances. I hope we can be inspired by that kind of Hope and that when we face demons in our own lives we will think of Jan and the boys inside her saying everything would be okay in the end.

I think another thing she hoped for was to be able to see her mom again one day. Which brings me to another one of Janice’s fundamental qualities, her faith. In her recent years she found comfort and peace in building a relationship with God. She told my family that she knew she wasn't alone because God was listening to her through prayer. She found solace in faith. For those of you who are religious I hope you can find comfort in the fact that she believed Jesus heals the broken. If you don't know God, I hope you can find relief in the fact that Janice didn't feel alone. She prayed and felt heard. 

Hearing about Jan's death was a shock to me. For some reason I was always under the impression That she would just always be around. I always thought I'd have the opportunity to someday show her my gratitude and that I’d have the chance to make up for being a neglectful friend. I took her for granted, and for that I'll always be sorry. In the end though, I know she forgives me and I know that she loves me. And if you feel the same way as me I hope you know that too. I hope you all go home and hug your loved ones a little tighter to honor the love she had for all of us.

When you think of Jan, I hope you think of her love and devotion, her unfailing hope and her faith. I hope you also think of her amazing smile and how much she loved to laugh. I hope you think of how she appreciated the small things in life like a good song, the colors of fall or a stuffed bear.