A Different Kind of Gone

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

Were his parents both four-legged beings of some kind? Or were they humans? Then he’s human. People love to do that. Revoke other people’s humanity. Before we give people the death penalty, we do that. Get up in court and say he’s not even human. He’s a monster or an animal. Because if we admit he’s a human then it’s a lot harder to say ‘Yeah, go ahead and kill him now.’

Then she decided all her misgivings were of no use to her now, and it was time to put them away. Put them to bed once and for all. When you’re deciding, they serve a very important purpose. Once you’ve decided, they’re of no use to you. Even if what you’ve decided is a mistake.

You’re nicer than you let on. I can’t understand why you want people to think you’re so tough and mean.” “Because I am tough and mean. I’m not a nice person and I don’t even want to be. Don’t take that away from me. Don’t go insulting me like that again.

“We’re swimming in a sea of unintended consequences.”

Maybe everybody is a little scared when they have to deal with other people, Norma thought. Maybe the anger is just a thin layer plastered on top of that fear.

This is the problem with being an adult, Norma thought. You’re always having to make a decision that someone will like and someone else will hate. You’re always having to betray someone. Decide one thing, betray one party. Turn around and decide the other thing, and get ready to be told you just burned the people on the other side. Because people’s needs are always in conflict. There’s no such thing as everybody happy all at once.

“Yeah. Well. Sure. Your brain knows that. But your mad doesn’t care.”

“Feelings don’t really respond to facts.”

See? she thought. This is the problem with pushing everybody away all your life. Telling them to keep moving because you don’t need or want anybody. Sooner or later people are going to take you at your word and give you what you say you want.

But look. If you’re willing to hold still for a little unsolicited advice . . . your hate likely didn’t set him back much when he was alive. I guarantee you it’s not going to hurt his feelings now that he’s dead. But it’ll do plenty of damage to you.”

I’m not suggesting you can turn it off. But don’t hold on to it too tightly either. If there’s ever a time in the future when you feel like it’s moving farther away . . . just let it move. Don’t get too attached to it. Don’t make it a nice little bed in the corner and put down a bowl of water. The less we feed something, the more likely it is to move along.”

She’d say ‘Farley, in this life you can choose whatever you want. But take a look at the price tag first, because you’re going to have to pay for it.’

“You drop that guilt right now, then, Wanda. You didn’t tell him to do that.” “I guess that’s true.” “Seriously. I mean it, Wanda. Drop it. It’s not yours. Never pick up some guilt that’s not yours. Bad enough we’ve got to deal with our own our whole lives.”

But now I just look at everybody and figure they’re probably doing the best they can. Maybe not Jake and maybe not Farley, but most everybody. Well, maybe even Jake and Farley. Maybe people are doing the best they can at that moment even if their best is really terrible.

For me it was how I put away all these parts of myself that didn’t fit with him. Stupid stuff, like what kind of music I liked, or what I thought about a political situation.

just let it sink down to some spot where it wouldn’t get in the way. Not because I thought his way should win, even though now—looking back—it seems like it always did. But more because . . . it was like the difference between my day going smoothly or everything turning into a total mess.” “I get it,” Norma said. “I think we all do that in all relationships. But when we’re with someone who’s easily upset, we tend to do it to an abnormal degree.”

“But there’s an upside to it, though. It’s that time when you get to stop. And you discover all these parts of yourself you nearly forgot all about. It’s like a Wanda renaissance all up in here.

I keep hearing and reading people talking like it was our fault for being with a guy like that.” “People like to do that to the victim,” Norma said, “because it makes them feel safe. If they can wrap it up neatly as you doing something they would know better than to do, then they never have to feel like the world is a dangerous place where bad things can happen to them too.”

“Nobody’s just a monster,” Norma said. “The worst person has something good about them. The best person has something bad. People just won’t frame it that way in their own minds because they like their reality in nice clean blacks and whites.” “But it never is,” Jill said. “No. It never is. But people will turn their damn selves inside out trying to see it that way. And anything that doesn’t fit with that way of looking at the world doesn’t get into their heads. It just gets rejected or falls away unnoticed.”

On the other hand, most abusers were abused. When he was a little boy our hearts would go out to him because his mom locked him in a closet and scalded him. What person in their right mind wouldn’t feel sorry for that kid? But then that violence shapes the kid in a bad way. Then he’s an adult, and he’s in exactly the shape it pressed him into, and we hate him for being in that shape. Some people get help, but I don’t know why some do and some don’t. I mean, yeah, when he turns it outward and hurts somebody else he’s crossed a line. I don’t know. I had an old friend when I was married who used to say ‘Hurt people hurt people.’ That doesn’t offer much in the way of a solution, but I think it’s true.”

every time it comes up, maybe we can tell it how it’s not welcome here. Not a one of us woke up on any morning of our life meaning anyone harm. The only people who should feel guilty are Jake and Farley and my ex, but it never seems like they do. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to carry all that crap for them. From now on, I’m just letting it go.”

“You’re nice. You don’t seem to want people to know it. But you are.