Grinning in Airports

Jill Golick’s unbidden smile hides the weight of losing her son. She finds solace in the "shakhul," a Torah concept that gives voice to her endless grief.

"He grabbed life with both hands. He brought passion to work, to play, to friendships and family.”

Editor’s Note: “Parents shape their children, but our children shape us right back,” writes Jill Golick in this powerful essay. As a parent of four children, ranging in age from nineteen to thirty-three, I know what she means. I learn from my children every day. I cannot imagine ever losing any of them, but the unthinkable happened to Jill when her son died. She finds solace in humor and in the Torah's acknowledgment of this particular kind of pain. — Howard Lovy

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I have a big, goofy smile, and it comes to my face unbidden. It is not an accurate reflection of what lies within. But I can see how you read it for happy; why you plop down next to me expecting a lighthearted conversation to pass the time. Maybe it’s an airport lounge and the flight’s delayed. Maybe it’s a dinner party, and now you’re stuck with me for three courses. Doesn’t take long for the conversation to get around to children, but that’s not the only conversational land mine you can step on. You might ask about my holiday plans. What could be more banal?

I’m sweating before we get here because I know this is where we’re going. Should I lie? Make something up? The truth feels aggressive. TMI. I start apologizing in advance. I can hear the metaphorical brakes screeching as our conversation derails.

I am the mother of a dead son. It is a significant part of who I am. It walks around with me, lives in my shoes and throat. It is both joy and sorrow, inhale and exhale. The top line on my life CV. Sorry to bring you down this way. I probably should avoid airports. And smiling.

I need a word to take the edge off in conversation. Are you married? I’m a widow. Your parents must be proud. I was orphaned at ten. What’s your son doing now? Decomposing.

A word provides distance. It’s a cushion to protect the listener.

Hebrew has a word. Of course, Hebrew does. The adjective, shakhul (שכול). It’s in the Torah. Jacob describes the bitterness and pain he’s felt since his son’s death and from which he will know no relief until his own death. Pain that knows no end, tears that never dry.

Then, miracle of miracles, his kid — Joseph — shows up alive, thriving, and wearing a dreamcoat. My kid — James — wouldn’t be caught dead in a dreamcoat, unless it was a Thom Browne. James could a rock a suit. He took pride in his appearance. He worked for it. He lost a lot of weight in his twenties — more than one hundred pounds. It was a long struggle, but my boy was determined. And then, he was turning heads and headstands. Handstands, too. Buying clothes and taking them in. After he died, I picked up a brand-new Burberry trench coat from his tailor. He never got to wear it.

James was a computer genius. Did I say that already? He made it through but a single year of university. He already understood the inner workings of the internet. He was self-taught. He knew about people, too. He could talk to anyone. He did. He talked to everyone. They loved him. He was in demand.

“James was a computer genius... He knew about people, too. He could talk to anyone. They loved him.”

Shakhul comes up again in Exodus. HaShem has been expounding on what is expected of the Israelites and finally gets around to his side of the deal; what he’s offering in exchange for their allegiance. Not all that much it turns out: bless bread and water, eliminate illness, make wombs and land fertile. One promise stands out for me: an end to shakhul. No more parents with dead kids.

The big guy doesn’t get into the specifics unfortunately. Whether it would work on a go-forward basis or whether those of us who’ve lost kids get them back. I’m not holding my breath — Jacob and Joseph notwithstanding. But I do appreciate the Torah calling out my plight, recognizing that mine’s a lifelong affliction of an unusually painful quality. One I carry with me into every airport, onto every bar stool, each time I slap on a name tag or utter the words “nice to meet you.”

Does everyone see the loss of a kid as some special terrifying category of grief? Is that why talking about having a dead child feels so dangerous? Because it’s everyone’s worst nightmare? Then I come along, like the scary music in horror movies, warning that bad things lie ahead. I am the harbinger of horrors, predictor of doom, foreboding forecaster. My existence is a reminder of the worst life has to offer.

I smiled. I held the door. I played peek-a-boo with your child in the grocery line. Now, it’s awkward. You feel like a jerk for asking a normal question. You have no idea what to say next. I’m tap dancing, trying to make up you feel better. “He was a great kid,” I say, “I love talking about him.”

I said something quite similar during the eulogy that I read aloud to a room packed with rustling coats. “Everyone who knows me knows that I never have a conversation in which I don’t mention my children.” I don’t say this to you in the airport even though I want to. The convoluted sentence structure delights me. My son’s eulogy is one of the best things I ever wrote. But no one wants to talk about the artistic merits of the eulogy a mother writes for a son.

Instead, I top up your wine and attempt to relieve your anxiety. “I have another kid. She’s great. And alive. She’s my favorite anyway.”

I loved both my kids an overwhelming amount. She wasn’t my favorite every minute of the seventeen years during which I was the mother of two, but a lot of it. It’s not a position she’ll ever hold again. Not when her sibling rival breathes no more. She’s forever stuck in the number two slot.

Once upon a time, “my children” were my two favorite words in the English language, and I still get a thrill thinking about them. My daughter was a latecomer, and she was a joy. She was light and love and laughter.

“My daughter was a latecomer, and she was a joy. She was light and love and laughter.”

Meanwhile, my son was a shit show. Worst. Teen. Ever. The opening line of the eulogy, btw. Lots of people were there — at the funeral. The day before, we’d given the funeral director a Thom Browne suit for James to wear for eternity. Sitting in the director’s office before the funeral, he had a secret whisper just for me, words spoken in a low, discreet voice directly into my ear the morning we buried my boy. He told me that the car accident had so badly mangled my child’s body that he couldn’t put the suit on him. He’d just laid it in the coffin next to James.

James died near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, just after midnight on December 27, 2014, at the age of twenty-nine. We prefer to mark his last day—December 26—to celebrate his remarkable life.

When James was young — maybe three — and he did not want to go outside, he’d go limp. He’d make his body heavy and unwieldy so that it was impossible for me to stuff his limbs into the sleeves and legs of his snowsuit. A toddler’s protest. That was not this. The memory did nothing to cleanse my mental palate.

I remember little else from the funeral home. Nothing at all from inside the chapel, who was there, where I sat or stood. A rabbi spoke, James’s friends, his sister, me. I can dredge up none of that.

The day was bitterly cold. I was in a limo, now going to a cemetery somewhere beyond the bleakest edges of the city. My phone was pinging with texts from my ex, telling me what a horrible person I am. That I’d made the whole funeral about me. That I had stolen my son’s last moments with my egomania.

Had I? Is that what my eulogy was? I had meant to tell James’s story, not mine, to weave him up in all my love, creativity, humor, and hope, to swaddle him in my motherhood for his journey into that long dark night. I thought it was his story that I told, but a mother and son are entwined in a million unpronounceable ways. Part of me was lowered into the ice-cold December ground as wind whipped across the bleak, treeless plain. I was handed the shovel first, scraped it into the pile of dirt, and watched as it disappeared into the darkness.

James and I were on our own for ten of the first eleven years of his life. Raising him was the most important thing in my universe.

“James and I were on our own for ten of the first eleven years of his life. Raising him was the most important thing in my universe.”

I was a good mother until I wasn’t. “James was a rotten teenager.” That’s the actual first line of the eulogy, a direct quote and not a paraphrase. “But like everything James did,” I continued, “he was spectacular at it. He was the most rotten rotten teenager that anyone could be. He took teenage rottenness to new heights. He crushed it.”

No matter how far he strayed, how rotten he was, how hard he pushed me away, I held on tight. I was determined to drag him back to the side of good. I would stop at nothing. “You little shit,” I thought, “You will not win this battle. I survived your croup; my strength knows no bounds.” Do not underestimate a single mother who has endured a night in a steamy bathroom, anxious hand feeling the outline of rib bones beneath velvet skin, willing tiny lungs to drag in one ragged breath and then another. I had nothing that night but the hot water left in the tank and my determination. Breath by breath from midnight till the first rays of light peeking over the horizon declared me the winner. Thus is the power of my motherhood.

No matter how far he went, and he strayed far past the edge, I did not let go. I knew I would win if only by the sheer power of my will.

He grew to be a good human. One of the best ever. He did it himself. So much credit to him, he was smart and determined, charming, original, brimming with love. And, oh man, did he live. He grabbed life with both hands. He brought passion to work, to play, to friendships and family. He was the son of a mother who loved him. He was a son who loved his mother.

Parents shape their children, but our children shape us right back. Mine endowed me with extraordinary powers: reassurance, warmth and comfort, love, empathy, compassion. Strength. To face that December day, to mourn with humor and hope, to let love flow as freely as tears. To reject the word tragedy and to declare James’s life cause for celebration. If I could no longer mother my son, I would mother all who remained. I led the festivities during the week of shiva; we laughed and loved in his honor. We adopted his friendships as our own and held each other close. We were inspired by his lust for life. We took his best traits into our hearts and let them lead us away from fear toward passion.

It’s good to talk about him. I forget how much there is to be grateful for. Just like everyone else, I hear the scary music that accompanies me into rooms. I worry that my emotions will overwhelm us all. I am afraid to conjure his memory lest it suck all the pleasure off the planet. But that’s what avoidance does, the fear of it. That’s what sucks away happiness, leaving only bleakness in its wake.

Talking about James? Invoking his memory? That’s the antidote. When I remember James, I remember how lucky I was to mother that child. What a wonder it was to have had a front row seat for the blaze of his humanity. So thank you for the chance to talk about him. When your kid is alive you get to pull out your photos and boast about accomplishments. I don’t have many opportunities to mention his name. Not that there is anything new to report since the eulogy.

And I do have the other one. So, yeah, what about you? What takes you to Winnipeg?

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Jill Golick is a Canadian screenwriter, showrunner, and digital storyteller. She has written for children’s, drama, soap and interactive. Her work has been rewarded with two Writers Guild of Canada Screenwriting Awards, a Canadian Screen Award, a Youth Media Award of Excellence, a Banff Rockie, and the grand prize from the LA-Marseilles WebFest, to name but a few. Jill is best known for the internationally acclaimed digital detective series Ruby Skye P.I., which she created, financed, wrote, produced, promoted, and distributed for three seasons. Jill served as the president of the Writers Guild of Canada for eight years and chaired the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds for two. Currently, Jill works one-on-one with writers, producers, and creators, helping them develop series for modern audiences. She is currently shopping two pilots and writing a book abour her brain.

Five tiny delights

• The sparkle of sunlight on fresh snow

• The click of knitting needles

• Lake swimming

• Viparita Karani (the yoga pose also known as legs up the wall)

• Having written

Five tiny Jewish delights

• Any joke that contains the word herring

• The hanukkiah I bought at a Warsaw flea market

• Passover

• Montreal bagels (white seed please)

• Discovering yet another thing Jews invented