First point of order: it must be addressed how long I have been thinking about and trying to write this post. It has been a long time, too long. I said in my first post that I knew it would be hard, but I thought this would manifest as pouring my heart out over the keyboard, not as banal procrastination. Anyway, here we are.
Simone Weil has this idea about the ‘madness of love.’ For Weil, justice is all about seeking consent when you don’t necessarily need to, and this, is crazy. Yet, this madness of love is also about the lengths we will go to for those we care about. When Antigone defies Creon and buries her brother Polynices, she acts with a madness. Antigone acts against reason because she is aware that such a lamentation will surely result in her own death. Whilst we may not have been quite literally sacrificing ourselves for Spencer, there were a lot of things that we would do for him that certainly verged on madness.
I would regularly pretend to die from Spencer’s cheesy feet, or fain a wretch after trying Mum’s spinach and kale smoothy as Spence pointed and howled with laughter. These things keep you young and remind you never to take yourself too seriously.
However, there are other things that we would all have to do that stemmed from a more fundamental (dis)equilibrium of needs. I thought as a young teenager that the world revolved around me, but when Spencer was at home, all our worlds did actually revolve around him. A seemingly trivial example, but one that I think is quite indicative, is that on any of our given birthdays’, you would be lucky if you unwrapped one or more of your own presents. Spencer simply loved unwrapping gifts! He would tear open the paper and then hand them to you all excited as if he had been out shopping all day.
Something that I guess is quite mad is that in later years we ended up having two Christmases. Christmas (like lots of other days: birthdays, travel days et cetera) could be a difficult day for Spencer; all the emotion and stimulation were often tough for him to handle. I’m sure most of us can testify to a few tense Christmases with the extended family. For the last two Christmases we had with Spence, after a few years of shall we say not the easiest Christmases, my mum made the not-easy decision to have Spence spend Christmas day at school. It was a choice that we didn’t all initially feel that great about.
Nonetheless it turned out to be a fantastic move. Around the 22/23rd of December we would have ‘Christmas’ at home with all of us, just as usual. Carrots and mince pies would be left out the night before and would be gone by the morning, presents around the tree. Spencer would have a great time and I think he also benefitted from it not being Christmas for us. He could sense our more relaxed vibes and consequently would enjoy his day more.
Then, on the 25th we would have Christmas where the rest of us could open all our own presents and my mum in particular could really unwind. Spencer would facetime us and brag about how he was getting a second Christmas, quickly show us his second round of presents and then say “Bye, love you” before we could get a word in. One of the great insights I think I got from Spencer and this community more widely, is to do away with norms and conventions and just do what works.
Weil wrote about unequal balances, how one can balance a car against a feather if you only get the proportions correct. I see this as a nice way to think about those in our society who may require more care, time, or love than the rest of us. Just because they require more from us than we do from them is not to say that we are not in balance.
Since Spencer died all our lives have certainly been (practically) easier, but also less full of joy, less full of love and maybe less full of meaning.
In the pictures below Carter is pretending to break his nose, making a *snapping-noise* as he jerks his hands to the side. Spencer honestly found it hilarious, I’m sure in these photos Carter did it several times to an equally mad response. Though this was pretence, as with the stinky feet, yucky smoothies, and Christmas, I’m sure you can see that his joy was unequivocally real.
Simone Weil wrote that the madness of love “radiates irresistibly though accent tone and manner, across all thoughts, all words and all actions, in all circumstances and without any exceptions.”
mountains of my life 