On your head rests your blue, Just Be Cool baseball cap. You’re wearing dark Ray-Bans, but I can see you staring into her eyes from the side of the glasses. And she’s staring right back into yours. You are both totally relaxed and at peace. Neither of you is aware that someone is permanently capturing this moment that will eventually sit on a screensaver. This makes it the best kind of photo.
Sometimes I clear all the windows from my desktop and trace the outline of your nose with my fingertip. You had the perfect profile—such a perfectly shaped nose. It took you a while to grow into it, but when you did, the ladies lined up. You used to say every girl had, at minimum, a 20 percent crush on you.
15 Five Months, One Week, Two Days
At the end of July, a popular media outlet is gracious enough to post the results of your autopsy all over the internet before our family is even notified that the report has been completed. And now hundreds of people are flocking to the Facebook comment thread to post things like “He deserved it,” “What an idiot,” “He’s just a junkie,” and my personal favorite: “Anyone who sticks a needle in their arm deserves to die and elicits no sympathy from me.”
My heart beat ramps up, my face gets hot, and I want to respond, “You are correct, person on Facebook: there is truly no sympathy from you. No bad things will ever happen to you. You will never experience pain and suffering. Your life will always be as it is: idyllic. Continue to sprawl out on your puffy, white cloud eating cotton candy and grapes from the vine as you look down on the rest of us.”
But I don’t. Because what’s the point? It won’t change anyone’s mind. No one’s come here to try to understand the complex nuances of addiction. Rather, I’ll post something heartfelt and sincere that I work really hard to craft, only to get bombarded with notification upon notification of even shittier, even more insensitive comments. It’s the fucking Wild West. There’s no place for empathy and understanding; it’s all jabs and tirades and vitriol with no consideration of who’s on the receiving end, being told her only brother was a junkie who deserved to die.
I mean, who are these people? Did they not go to elementary school? Did they never learn the Golden Rule? This variety of internet hatred lodges itself so deeply under my skin, like a parasite. How can fellow human beings hate-post so casually about things that seem unfuckwithable? Like you. And Iris.
Another thing you’ve missed is my newfound political activism. These last couple of months, in an attempt to find somewhere to displace my rage, I’ve been fighting for insurance coverage of children’s hearing aids in the state of Texas. Even though every single medical professional we’ve encountered since Day One of Iris’s diagnosis has continued to stress the importance of technology and early intervention for speech, language, and brain development in kids who are hard of hearing, hearing aids are considered “cosmetic” and cost up to $6,000 out of pocket every three to five years. You know this because I complained about it relentlessly when you were alive. It’s maddening.
Earlier this month, we lost the legislative battle for a number of reasons—chief among them: life isn’t fair—but I recently wrote a scathing op-ed for the Houston Chronicle about the inefficacy of the Texas Legislature. In it, I mentioned that hearing loss is often genetic, so many families have multiple children in need of the technology, which is a heavy financial burden. In the comments section, a true internet angel posted: “If it is genetic don’t have children!!!” Then, another commenter echoed her sentiments: “That is what I was thinking, adopt.”
Can you motherfucking believe that shit?
I mean, clearly they’re right! I never should have had my healthy, beautiful, sweet, hilarious, smart, loving, perfect two-year-old because she has hearing loss. Every other person in the history of the world is genetically perfect. What a bummer for us!
It’s just so carelessly brazen and devoid of empathy. Is it not in the realm of possibility that an internet troll could love someone who is born deaf or who chooses to stick needles in their arms? Isn’t that what empathy is? Putting myself in someone else’s shoes with the knowledge and awareness that I, too, am human and, therefore, susceptible to this tragedy or any number of tragedies along the way?
Maybe people are just shitty. Or maybe it’s the internet’s fault. Or maybe people are just shitty and it’s the internet’s fault.
Regardless, I wish you were still here and not the subject of an autopsy report that was recently posted online for internet trolls to feed on.
I email the detective who called me that beautiful day in February to tell me you were dead. I ask where I can obtain a copy of the report and why we weren’t notified. She responds quickly, informing me that it’s public record
