This prompt has a story that goes along with it, and my writing about it won’t make sense without that story, so…
The number thirteen gets a bad rap in our culture. Friday the 13th is seen as unlucky. Some buildings skip the 13th floor, jumping right from 12 to 14 (as though you can avoid something crappy by skipping a number). Fear of the number thirteen even has its own multi-syllabic psychiatric label.
The number thirteen also shows up in fairy tales, often spanning that bridge between unlucky and sacred. Very often, it's the uncomfortable old witch that doesn't get invited to the party. It's convenient that she's left out at this point - I mean, everyone knows you can't have 13 people. There are 12 people on the guest list, and clearly, you can't add someone else lest you tempt the fates.
The truth is, she's never going to get moved up that guest list. That old wise witch is the one everyone wants to avoid. She knows too much about death and loss. She's scary. Who knows what might rub off if you let her come inside. And really, who wants to think about death or disease when you're trying to have a party?
But the old witch shows up, doesn't she? She arrives, with a short, respectful bow, eyeing her wary hosts. She knows better than to wait for an invitation that will never come.
She arrives- the 13th guest, bringing an uncomfortable blessing. She brings an unsettling gift. As the old wise woman, she brings the awareness of death to the baptism: she whispers in the young child's ears messages full of power and uncomfortable grace.
She doesn't cause death, she is simply comfortable with it. Because she is no longer afraid of death - or life, she delivers a clear message of destiny.
Cheery, yes?
The prompt: For today's writing, can you imagine yourself in the fairytale? Are you the old wise person who brings an uncomfortable gift? How do the people around you see you: are they afraid, superstitious, uncomfortable?
Oh, I can definitely imagine myself in the fairy tale. For most of my life, I’ve felt unwelcome and unlovable, so that’s not really new. But now? I feel as though people see me either as a pitiful, pathetic, weak woman who can’t get the hell on with her life (I mean, they aren’t wrong about that), or as a reminder of the capriciousness of Death.
We like to say that we should live every day as though it’s our last, and treat every interaction with our loved ones as though we’ll never see or talk to them again. But that’s impossible: if we allow ourselves to be fully cognizant of that reality every time we see or talk to family or friends, we would be blubbering idiots all the time. We’d never want to let anyone out of our sight. We’d cry every time we text someone and don’t get a response quickly.
Fully feeling the truth that death can happen at any moment - feeling that truth all the time - is not feasible. Can you imagine if my every visit with my son ended with me telling him the litany of things I would probably say on my deathbed? Who the hell wants to be around that? So I don't do it - I keep it in, or I write about it, but I sure don't act on it, even though it's my reality.
Because the truth is this: for me, that IS how I feel, all the time. Every person, every relationship, is precious and could be stolen from me at any second, just like Doug was. And how am I supposed to function when I’m scared that EVERYONE I love could be taken from me before I can ever even hug them again?
I don’t think I’m the wise old woman bringing an uncomfortable gift so much as I think I’m the broken old woman whose “gift” is the sure knowledge that death will come for those you love, and it will destroy you like it's destroyed me.
I’ve become a harbinger of death. I’ve become an example of the destruction that death wreaks. I’ve become something both less than human (harkening back to my earlier writings about the word “widow” and its connotations, not to mention the treatment of widows through history) and superhuman (“you’re so strong” - which, by the way, I’m really not). I’ve become someone who lives not in the world, but sort of adjacent to it: I have to interact with the living, and carry on with the mundane tasks required in the world of the living, and yet I’m somehow outside that world.
I am the old woman with one foot in the world of the living, and one foot in the world of Death: I don’t belong in either, and yet I belong in both.
True to the story, I no longer fear death (in fact, I long for it). But unlike the 13th guest in the story, I most DEFINITELY fear life. And, fairy tales notwithstanding, I think my experience is probably the rule rather than the exception: I have yet to speak to a single widow or widower who doesn’t share my fear of life without our partners.
I know that the people who genuinely love me will continue to love me despite my metamorphosis from a happy, vibrant woman into the Crone Who Brings Death to Mind. I know they will continue to love me despite my well-established desire to follow my husband to wherever he is. I also know that this transformation has made it very clear who genuinely loves me, and who has been nothing more than an acquaintance in friend’s clothing.
I can’t even protest by suggesting that I’m still me, because I’m NOT me anymore: I know too much; I know things that everyone knows deep down, but the non-grieving are able to repress that knowledge. I cannot; I cannot escape that knowledge. And I cannot pretend to do so in the interests of other people’s comfort.
I may not BE Death, but I sure am a reminder that Death is coming for all of us - maybe for the one YOU love most - and maybe soon.
I don’t blame people for wanting to keep their distance from that knowledge; it’s too painful.
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