Mission Accomplished -- Now What?

The 10^th year pilgrimage to visit our son Noah’s friends in Europe is over. I needed to make the trip to reassure myself that he is still loved and remembered and missed. Mission accomplished – and I’m so grateful to have reconnected with these wonderful people.

We toasted to Noah at almost every meal. Everyone seemed pleased to see us and to have the chance to talk about Noah, remarking how easy it was for him to talk with anyone from any walk of life. “You made a good man,” said Vasco, his best friend from home who now lives in Paris (in photo with my husband, Bryan).

I asked everyone what they thought Noah would be doing now. They imagined him working in film or photography, sailing in the Greek islands, finding a way to live in Europe, and, to my surprise, having a child or two because “he was always thinking of the next steps in life.” Notably, everyone pictured him healthy and full of life like he used to be. Bryan saw Noah arriving in Paris by boat and coming to join us at an outdoor café at the top of some stairs near Montmartre; I visualized his long legs jostling the tiny, teetering tables and his slipping into laughter, drinking, bravado. I kept wanting to text him news of what all his friends were doing.

“So much has happened in 10 years,” said Vasco. “At 21, we were all still trying to figure things out.” He teared up often as he threaded memories of Noah through our walks around the city. Losing Noah to suicide had made him and others more compassionate and ready to reach out when friends are struggling.

Our last visit was with Filippo, Noah’s best buddy during his year as an exchange student. Filippo cooked for us, as he often did for and with Noah. The two of them used their homemade pasta carbonara as a ticket into high school parties when they weren’t invited. We learned how mutual friendship with Noah, then grief over Noah’s death brought him and his lovely partner together. At one point, answering their questions about Noah’s last months and seeing their stricken faces, I wanted to leave the room and have a good cry. But their baby kept beaming her crooked smile at me and I couldn’t help smiling back. We all agreed that Noah would have delighted in their new family and would have wanted everyone he loved to enjoy life-- like Bryan and I had been doing a few days before, hiking with our son Ben and his girlfriend in the Dolomites.

After that last visit, my body felt suddenly heavy, like I could barely walk. I felt the long, leaden weight of the past 10 years, of everything I’d been carrying, of the nightmare months just before and after the suicide. There won’t be another pilgrimage like this. This is maybe where I stop living for Noah and making trips he would have made.

I arrived home in a daze of cumulative fatigue. I'd felt slightly queasy for weeks. I had enjoyed the visits and the beauty and the adventures but the gut doesn’t lie; I still couldn’t fully digest the loss I was marking. I promptly got sick and hibernated for a week. I needed to be still and process the journey.

And I needed to care for Miso, our little French bulldog, whose cancer had worsened while we were away. Miso: a funny little creature with a dozen nicknames and a determined trot who could stop adults in their tracks with her 15 pounds of muscle and stop traffic with her cuteness, who barked fearlessly at big dogs and skateboards and purred when you held her close to your heart. She’d been in the family for 10 years, the same years when we’d most needed comfort and joy after losing Noah. He never met Miso and would have scoffed that she wasn’t a real dog but he, too, would have had to laugh at her and love her. Bryan, Ben and I were together yesterday to cuddle Miso and say goodbye.

Ten years gone. The end of an era. What, I wonder, is the next chapter?

To my fellow survivors: Do you keep in touch with the people in your loved one’s life? If not, I urge you to reach out – they, too, may need to talk and reminisce and make sense of what happened. And if you don’t have a comfort animal, I hope you are finding comfort on your journey from other beloved beings, things and places.