That Sucks

Sometimes that’s all you need to say. And hear.

I went to a deer skull boil at my neighbor’s house — wait, you don’t know what that is?! It’s a party where kids watch a deer skull get boiled down to all its parts (and odors). They get to see the eyeball sockets, touch the jaw bone, and learn words like “severed brain stem.” Then they sample venison. And remember Rudolph. Hooray!

It was meant to be a party for the whole family, so I brought my 2-year-old and 4-year-old because, well, personal curiosity and potential education. The itinerary was summarized as: “We boil a deer skull and answer questions.” I found this to be enough information, so we went.

I thought my kids could learn something by witnessing the reality of life. And death. I wasn’t sure about the level of gore so I came prepared with a slew of exit excuses.

When we arrived, I was surprised to find the house locked and the entire party outside. While I didn’t think one boiled skulls indoors, I just thought one had an option to go inside for a boil break. It was late November in Colorado and a minor ice storm spat at us. The ice made little kitten hisses as it hit our warm faces and melted. Until our faces weren’t warm anymore and the ice just fused with the rest.

It was a small party, which I liked so we could fully engage the deer. Seven kids ran around and double the number of adults mingled poorly in the shock of the situation. My hands were stiff, my mouth having trouble with small talk; gloves and lips were no match for November.

“It’s cold,” I said, stating the obvious to no one in particular. “The steam from the boil isn’t cutting it.” I sounded like a pro. “Is that kid in soccer shorts?!”

It was true. He was in soccer shorts. And the deer boil steam was not cozy at all. I hadn’t approached the cauldron yet but the musky smell of decay permeated the ice. I wasn’t ready to look.

One of the guests brought her cousin who had moved to Denver the day before. She had no friends, no job, no place to live, and no plan.

“Why did you move?” I asked, always curious about the rational behind the adventure.

“You really want to know?” she asked. Her voice was gruff, consonants harsh. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know anymore.

She was in her mid-40s, hadn’t washed her dark brown hair in a few days, and her eyeliner looked like it was from yesterday. She had on a thin hoodie with no gloves or hat and seemed utterly unprepared for the outdoor nature of this party. She was the first to find the homemade apple cider and she whiskey spiked it before the rest of us. She was in survival mode.

“I moved because my dick of an ex told the cop pigs I was nuts. F%&$er.”

The moment she answered my question with that classy opener I was uncomfortable. Her energy. Erratic. Eager. Enraged. Eh. I could immediately tell there was mental instability and the more she told her story, the more uncomfortable I became.

Oh, her story.

It was tragic. She left West Virginia where her recent ex-husband had her committed to a mental institution and took her three children away. There was no warning — one morning she was taken away and she hadn’t seen her children since. Another woman moved into her home the day she was taken away. Somehow she was released and she fled to Colorado on a whim to get a handle on her life.

As she was telling her story, she became angry. The story went on and so did the dropping of various F-tards, S-bombs, and A-holes. It became clear she wasn’t innocent in the whole tragedy, which is when I awkwardly ended the conversation with a: “Was that my kid running with antlers? Gotta go!”

“What a train wreck,” I thought, “I’d rather probe the deer’s cerebral cortex.”

I ushered my kids — who were definitely running with antlers — to the cauldron. It was more like a fryer, but cauldron sounds more savage. Inside was the head of this exquisite creature with water stripping away all that resembled its former self.

“Whoa,” said my son. Whoa, indeed.

The host stood at the cauldron explaining the various exposed parts, pointing out what was missing and what was underneath. He shot the deer who had been as wild as could be. The respect he had for this being was clear. He described in depth where it lived and how it foraged on bark, berries, and mushrooms. His family never bought meat, but they would feed off this deer’s meat for a year.

There was no gore here, just life.

The party went on and as it did, it grew on me. It wasn’t the blood bath I feared it could be. It was an honoring. It was a look at the beauty of life, the full circle of it all. And my kids seeing a severed brain stem and asking questions about it? The scientist in me was pleased as spiked apple cider.

But I watched the woman. Even as I avoided her, I watched her. I watched the other guests avoid her too.

Everything about her was wild, broken, unstable. She stood unwelcome among the children as they waved deer hide like barbarians in boot camp. She texted furiously with someone while standing in the river of children, unaware she impacted them by her presence. She was like a boulder in their river, they had to avoid her too.

I wondered what that was like for her to be among so many children but so far from her own. Was she thinking about them now? Was she ignoring these kids on purpose? Was she hate texting her ex-husband? As a mother, my heart broke with the thought of being taken away from my children.

That’s when I started to see her.

I had a thought — yes, she most likely had a mental health issue, so what? Didn’t I have a tiny understanding with my own experience with panic attacks and severe anxiety, what that might be like? Didn’t I know that just because you break, it doesn’t mean you’re broken? Didn’t I know that sometimes it’s beyond your control?

All I want when I am struggling is someone to see my struggle and simply say: “That sucks. I see what is happening to you and I am so sorry.”

This woman desperately needed someone to see her. So, I walked over and said: “That sucks what is happening to you. It must be so hard and I am sorry.”

Tears welled up in her brown eyes, further smudging her stale eyeliner. She exhaled and for a moment was calm.

Granted the next moment she was telling the story again about the A-hole who was an F-tard, and did S-tastic things because that is anxiety or PTSD or mental illness. You repeat it to explain why you feel this way, to make sure it’s real, to make sure you’re real.

But, aaah, that one moment of calm in a simple act of acknowledgment. It felt so good to give her the gift of being seen as a human, as a person suffering, as someone who wasn’t alone while she broke.

At the end of the day, here was someone struggling with mental stability who just lost her kids, her husband, and everything that was home to her. And now she was at some barbarian party with strangers who found carcass boiling in a minor ice storm to be a celebratory time. That. Sucks.

I know that mental health is not as guaranteed as I once thought, and those suffering truly are suffering. Instead of pushing them away, they need to be acknowledged and not treated as pariahs. Because trust me, they already think they’re broken and it doesn’t help to be told through our recoiling and avoiding that we agree.

Sometimes the things that make us recoil are the things that need us to lean in. Sometimes they just need to know we see they are suffering and that it sucks what is happening to them. Sometimes all we need to hear is we are not alone.

My kids and I left the party after the deer skull boiled down to white bone. It didn’t smell anymore. No more brain stem, no more cerebral cortex. All that was left was the part that holds it all together. Just the pure and the raw. We walked home frozen-faced, little gloved hands in mine, so many beautiful questions about life. A deer skull boil is not about death, it’s about life because there is no death without life.

The white skull reminded me of my year of mental health. I was boiled down in 2019 and my cerebral cortex was most decidedly probed. I started 2020 with just the part that holds me all together and I rebuild from there. My mental health crisis stripped away all that resembled my former self and that’s a wonderful gift. Because there is no life without death.

The woman at the party was in the throes of her boil and I prayed for her to get to her point of purity because there is so much potential when you are raw, when you are left empty, when you are given the choice to rebuild. She just needs to be seen as human even as she falls apart.

We would all benefit from a figurative human empathy boil where we watch the human condition get boiled down to all its various parts (and odors). We would see what we’re made of and how we’re the same. We would see that it all boils down to the heart that pumps life into us all. It can also pump life into those around us if we let it, my deer dears.

You. Are. Not. Alone.

Shorter version originally posted on Things They Forgot to Mention