What I never say (Liz)

I was thinking recently about my Edith Bruck translation and all of the public readings I’d completed when suddenly I realized I'd only once said aloud something I'm constantly thinking, albeit in such a subtle, subliminal kind of way that it almost transforms thinking into unthinking:

I wish Liz were alive to hear about the translation and the readings.

It’s obvious and with people we know well, we never have to say the obvious. Everyone I know is aware she died two years ago on Sept. 6, 2023, at the age of 54, after a lifetime of illness.

But as wonderful as all of the readings have been and as meaningful as it’s been to meet friends and family throughout this mini book-tour, there’s still no denying that my librarian sister who lived for words and loved books even more than I do would have enjoyed the publication of my first book-length translation and the attendant promotional activities. And I would have enjoyed any pleasure she might have felt over the book (Where ‘enjoyed’ sounds so trite compared to how truly kaleidoscopically awesome it would have been for me to share this moment with her).

She would have asked me 1,000 questions by phone and text and in person -- the deadlines, the reviews, the details about the readings I'd scheduled, the questions posed by the audience. She would have fangirled it up when I told her Elena Ferrante’s translator (Ann Goldstein) attended the reading in New York.

She would have read the translation closely -- far closer than it would seem humanly possible (a reflection of HER dedication to literature, her intense curiosity about the written word -- not the merit of the translation). I like to think she would have appreciated, somewhat grimly, the title that I chose for the translation, which deviates from the original Italian: This Darkness Will Never End.

But wait, there’s more!

And I don’t just mean the profound sadness I feel over her death. I don’t even mean the gaping hole she left – my partner-in-crime for all things literary (and also wicked thoughts you shouldn't say aloud and anything that reflects the ongoing conversation siblings, if they're lucky, share over the course of their lives).

What I mean when I say there's more: if I, who write often and blog regularly and admit that I more or less still openly grieve the loss of my personal Holy Trinity (Mommy, Daddy, Liz) – if I do not say how much I miss my sister in this instance, how many other people are going around this world with a similar ache that's rarely revealed?

It’s like I'm taking a walk or having a conversation with a bee buzzing about my face. 

This bee’s persistent buzzing could be translated as, ‘I wish Liz were here,’ or, ‘I wish I could talk to Liz.' 

OR, ‘I wish Liz could have heard the question the man at Newtonville Books asked.’

Surely everyone is like this!

If love is the thing with feathers, grief is the one with talons.

And it's no one's fault. We stay silent often because it's more convenient -- for us. There was a lot to say when I gave the readings in the Spring -- why say more?

Yet it’s like a song that gets lodged in your head after you hear it on the radio one day.

Visually it would be quite obvious: in a movie, they would show the character’s face, maybe close up, then there would be a closeup of the thought visualized. Maybe in my case, an image of Liz as she was attached to all the beeping buzzing bleating monitors in the hospital on Long Island before she died. Then my face again, outwardly impassive. Then another shot of Liz, pale, jaundiced, with a temperature of 93, days before the end. Then a shot, maybe, of my sisters and me surrounding Liz on her deathbed after the doctor said, “There’s no hope.” (This was after he’d let us hope in vain, but I digress).

As I write this, I am perfectly calm.

So’s everyone you know who carries around an ache of this kind (or another kind).

The guy I call a jerk during a traffic jam. The annoying father on the sidelines at a soccer game. The local official who makes a decision I disagree with (I don’t mean anyone specifically).

The inner landscape of each of these people could be exactly like my own.

Now I stand at the podium of the conference room at my public library.

Now I begin to say how wonderful it is to read at a library.

Now I say my sister was a librarian.

Now I say how much she would have enjoyed this talk with a smile on my face.

Now I continue with my remarks about the translation and appear perfectly happy to read from it because I am, despite being stuck on a channel of grief (because really and truly, how is it possible this translation was published only after its biggest supporter had died?)

Now I walk out of the library and talk with friends.

Now I go home and eat dinner.

And unless I am an aberration, everyone we know older than, say, 30 years of age, is the same way.

(The percentage of those older than 50 who might feel this way? 500 percent.)

The United States of Grief. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization of the Bereaved. The United Nations of Sorrow.

Or simply what I never say.

And maybe also what YOU never say. All of our dead, all of our regrets, all that's gone. Weighing on us like a millstone and all you can hear is silence.

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