"Don't Worry, No One Died"

this beautiful piece is A Vivid Imagination (2021) by artist Billie Zangewa. seen at the Hirshhorn Museum in 2023.

My siblings and I have this ongoing joke that’s really more trauma bonding than it is coping with what we’re actually dealing with. 

Anytime we see we have multiple missed calls from each other, it’s never, “what’s up?” It’s always “did someone die?” 

In other circumstances, if I called one of them over and over again and left several missed calls, once they finally picked up, I'd automatically answer with, "don't worry, no one died" instead of a typical "hey!"

The day my mom died, my aunt called me. She never called me, and I was just walking into my apartment, getting home from work. At first, I thought about ignoring it. I looked around the street—thought maybe she was in my city and wanted to see me. I ultimately decided to pick it up, and sometimes I wish I never had. I wish I had just never talked to my family again and never known—just to end up having this false narrative that my mom was still alive and living her life while I lived mine. Each of us, in silence.

What followed was a series of phone calls from multiple people, filled with tears and screaming. It’s the most unbearable pain, indescribable, really. 

The day a parent dies—one you're close with, especially—is the worst day. And I just hope that when the day comes for people, they have the support system I did. That they're able to get through it because, my God.

The energy in our family dynamics changed drastically. My siblings and I suddenly felt closer to each other in ways we hadn't been previously.

So now, we jokingly and sheepishly ask, “did someone die?”

As if it couldn’t get any worse than this, and mostly that’s because it honestly can't.

Our worst fear came true. We've lived it. 

How

can

it

get

any

worse?

I know that's why we've come to discuss death so openly with each other. Now some of our favorite people are getting older around us every day and it feels like a ticking time bomb—which probably sounds incredibly morbid.

But again, when you lose a parent, you never know how you'll react. You won't know how you'll feel. You can't imagine all of the thoughts you'll end up having.

The worst of all is the guilt. The things you knew you should've done and didn't.

Yet it's strange how we all managed to go back to these behaviors with each other. I realized I should've been showering my love onto my Mom. I should've done more.

And then I find myself arguing with my aunt or forgetting to send an uncle a Happy Birthday text. I don't talk enough with my older brother—there are so many things I don't know about him.

"Did someone die?"

It almost comes out as a whisper. It sounds like a struggle, an attempt to intake air. One of us might giggle as we say it. Another time one of us will ask with a stern voice of concern.

We brace for this impact that trauma dropped on to us—the one we know will inevitably hurt us again.

And then turn around and continue the arguing, the forgetting, the not knowing.

"Did someone die?"

We ask as if we are having a slight realization that we might've made a mistake with these behaviors, that now we might not be able to fix them or take them back if someone had died.

It's this reminder that—fuck—we need to do these things while these people are still here.

Not so we won't feel these things when they're not here, but to know we did as much as we could while they were.

I guess that's the part I'm still trying to figure out. Maybe the question isn't how we stop asking, "did someone die?"

I think it could be how we start living in a way that makes the answer, whenever that day eventually comes, feel a little less like, I wish I had the chance to go back and love this person differently.

How do we let grief teach us how to love people while they're still here—without spending our lives terrified of the day they won't be?