Guest Author - Susan Hubenthal
Part 8
Perhaps I need to get angrier about Aram, and my daughter needs to get
less angry with him. She feels that he took me away from her in life and
continues to do so in death. But he will always be such a large part of me.
Always! This fact just will not go away. I can be busily engrossed at work
and then, Wham! It hits me. I will see someone who resembles Aram or
something will remind me of him and then I try to visualize his face and his
smile.
The answers I seek are unanswerable and I know it. I keep asking the
same questions, “Why? Why did my son have this terrible affliction? Why
didn’t he listen to me?” This life is so hard. I knew Aram couldn’t function
on this planet. I used to look at him and think that he was a poet, not a
warrior, and that he was not meant for this harsh world. I want an easier life
next time around. I have a box of material dating from 1997. Here, in black
and white, is the history of the madness of that time before Aram’s death,
the receipts from prescriptions, calls to hospitals, notes on police reports. I
remember going to a police station, once, when Aram had been missing for
three days. Since I could not in, my panic, locate a photo of Aram alone I
handed them one of him with his sister. I remember thinking how crazy it
was. There I was in the police station with a photo of my precious children
whom I adored. And I was giving it to the police. I cried all the way home.
This was the first time that Aram had disappeared. He had drawn all of his
money out of the bank and used it on drugs. Oh God! These memories are
so painful. I need some sunshine in my life.
I hate to be at home alone. I start to remember and obsess. I received a
letter from one of Aram’s friends extending condolences and, at the same
time, telling me about the birth of his new son. He said that he had tried to
write the letter many times before but couldn’t. He told me that he was a
better man for having known Aram. He will always remember him as warm,
kind and fun loving. Aram had so many friends. Aram lit up the room and
our house was full of life when he was around. This was before the drugs
took over. He had more friends than I will ever have. Everyone was touched
by this gentle giant. I sit on the stairs and look at my photo albums. I look at the face of my beautiful child and cry.
One day, shortly after Aram died, I was crying in the lunchroom when a
lady I work with came over and took my hand. She said that I had been
blessed to have had a son, to have watched him grow. She, with tears in her
own eyes, said that it was her life’s anguish to have never been able to bear
children. I had had a son. I wish that this thought could make me feel better.
Maybe some day it will.
Aram wrote the following poem on March 30, 1984 when he was 15
years old. I read it at his funeral.
Locked Up
By Aram Karakashian
This morning I woke up in the refrigerator as a two year old onion.
I have been sitting in here for a long time,
but all the other fruits and vegetables will not talk to me
because they say I smell.
I was put in this prison two years ago when my owner bought me six for a
dollar at Safeway.
Many a time I have waited for the opening of the door and a removal from
my burden of chains.
It is so stuffy in here.
It is starting to make me smell good.
But one day I will be lifted from my prison and thrown in the dark depths of
a trash can
or in a boy’s warm stomach.
Dear Family in Grief,
We have not only lost our children, we suffered through the agonies of watching them die to the most insidious of all addictions. I tried it all. I went to therapy, I went to Al Anon, I talked on help lines, I prayed on the prayer lines, I had a Priest say a Mass of Absolution for my family tree, I
got on my knees and begged Aram to stop. I searched many a night for him when he didn’t come home. Always worrying that that was going to be the night when it finally happened.
I was powerless over this thing. It beat him and it beat me. I was losing my family and my mind. They were telling me at Al Anon that it was a two for one disease. I was going down for the count with him. A few weeks before he died, he was here with me in the house. He had made a drug deal and needed my car. He told me that he was going to therapy, I knew better because I had overheard him on the phone. I looked at him and screamed, “You are not my son
any more. You look like him, but he is gone.” He was gone.
There was just the shell of this charming, lovable man who rescued stray animals and wrote beautiful poetry. I know that he is at peace. My readings have confirmed that and I believe it. It is the pain of living without him that
I must come to terms with. It is the hardest thing that I have ever had to do in my life. We are all in the same boat. When we pass over and we are on the other side, we will understand why this happened.
In the meantime, we all walk our own path of grief. We grieve as individually as we live. I go to the chapel almost every day and pray, but I can’t go to the grave. I think about him every time my mind is allowed to wander.
I am busy at work and that helps. But, when I am driving, or when I sit
here, I think. I miss him, love him and sometimes can’t fathom that this has happened to me. But, it has.
Keep writing, and keep reading. I know some people read, but don’t write. Do whatever you need to do.Peace to you.
Your sister in grief,
Pat, Aram’s Mom
