Nothing Ever Dies

November 17th, 2011

Nothing dies. Nothing ever dies.

– Ian McCulloch, “Start Again”

My Grandma Mary died 23 years ago. It was Election Day, 1988. I was a freshman in college and excited to be voting in my first Presidential election. Just before I left my dorm room to go vote, my dad called to tell me my grandmother had died. I was shocked and dazed. I felt numb inside.

I’d never felt close to Mary. She was a brilliant woman, but she didn’t really know how to relate to children, and I found a lot of her behavior embarrassing and annoying. But her death still hit me like a slap to the face. And as the years have gone by, I’ve realized just how much she doted on her grandchildren. She never knew how to show it well, but she absolutely adored us. I’ve been terribly sad that I never got to know her as one adult to another, and although I’m sure she would have loved to see my grow up to be a librarian and writer, I’m sad that she never got to see it happen.

I went to visit my father in the ICU this evening. He was sedated to the point that I’m pretty sure he didn’t know I was there. But I talked to him anyway. As I talked to him, I thought about how he’s having difficulty recovering from his surgery, in large part because of his COPD. His mother, my Grandma Mary, also had COPD. I took his hand and looked at my dad, intubated, breathing shallowly, sedated into unconsciousness, and I suddenly felt as if I were looking at my Grandma Mary. It occurred to me that Mary had seen me grow into an adult, becoming a librarian and a writer–not personally, but through my father. I don’t believe in an afterlife, but it was clear to me that in many ways, my grandmother lives on in my father, just as my father will live on in me. It was incredibly hard to see my father hooked up to so many machines, sedated into a deep sleep, but I also felt comforted that he was carrying on my grandma’s life while also living his own.

Life goes on forever. Life goes on.

–Guadalcanal Diary, “Litany (Life Goes On)”

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Day of the Dead

November 1st, 2011

It was 20 years ago today, but I can remember so much of it crisply, like it only just happened. It was the day after Hallowe’en, and it was snowing. It seemed way too early in the year for snow, even for Iowa. I was working at the checkout desk at the south entrance of the main University of Iowa library. As I sat at the counter, there was a huge window at my back. I could see the snow swirling down from the dismal, slate-grey sky. The day had a strange vibe to it.

And then things went from strange to terrifying.

People started coming into the library with nervous, confused faces, muttering all kinds of bizarre rumors. Library staff started rushing around the building, spouting the same weird rumors. There was a man walking around campus with a handgun, shooting random people. No, it was two men with guns. No, it was one man with a rifle. Or a shotgun.

I couldn’t believe it. It sounded so insane. Things like this didn’t happen in Iowa! I mean, I’d heard some racist, homophobic, misogynist bullshit from people, I’d seen some angry drunks wandering around Iowa City, but shooters? No way!

People in the library got more anxious and frantic. An announcement told everyone in the building, “There’s a crisis situation on campus. Please remain in the library.” But nothing more specific was said. Rumors continued to fly, but nobody seemed to know what was really going on.

It wasn’t until much later, after the “crisis situation” was all over, that we found out what happened. A graduate student in the Physics department, Gang Lu, had walked into a classroom in Van Allen Hall and shot four people, killing all of them. He then walked over to the administration offices in Jessup Hall and shot two more people. One of them died the next day. The other was paralyzed from the neck down for the rest of her life. Gang Lu then shot himself and died.

The days after that were hushed, smothered in fear and sadness. Nobody knew how to deal with this. It was unprecedented. It was confusing, horrible, frightening. It was a nightmare, but it had really happened.

The lone survivor of the shootings was a student named Miya Rodolfo-Sioson. I remembered seeing her around campus, usually at the front of some political protest. I thought she was really pretty and I admired her activism. After the shootings, she was still politically active, but now she was in a wheelchair, a quadriplegic. She started receiving recognition for her activism, which made me angry. I felt she should have received that before she’d been shot. Now it just seemed like she was getting a “pity vote,” when she deserved much more. Last year, I found out that she’d died in 2008 of breast cancer. When I read that, I cried.

Thanks to a friend from college, I read this newspaper article on the 20th anniversary of the shootings. The day, and the days that followed, came rushing back to me. My heart began racing. I started shaking. Tears welled up in my eyes. So I’m writing this now. Not to exorcise the ghosts of that day, but to acknowledge them and pay tribute to them.

And now I’m going to go outside and breathe some fresh air.

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