And In a Sense We're all Winning- We're Alive, or, Superbowl LIII

The last and only time I had paid attention to the Superbowl, or cared, was in 2017, when the Atlanta Falcons were playing the New England Patriots. Quickly, things shifted from looking like a surefire underdog triumph to a last minute victory for the MAGA-hat-wearing quarterback from the pastiest city in America. I was dating someone from Atlanta at the time, and I became emotionally invested in the outcome of the game, ignoring my longheld (and correct) beliefs that the NFL is a racist, misogynist organization that itself represents the depths of neo-capitalist hell. But, you know, anything for love.

This year, I found myself sitting in Gate C12 of Logan airport as the Patriots took on the Los Angeles Rams at the newly minted Mercedes Benz arena in Atlanta, less than thirty-six hours after my aunt Dee had died of cancer. I had gotten the news the day before, while lounging around with the friend I was visiting in Cambridge. It was expected, but surreal. I wasn’t numb, but my brain told me, “Save this for later.” Later was now, as the game I thought I didn’t care about, but also viscerally hated, blared on every television screen I walked past. Bostonians yelled at the TVs even when nothing was happening. It was a Sunday night, I was exhausted, my flight was delayed, and I felt far, far away from home. And I was heartbroken.

My aunt Dee was not old. She was around my own parents’ age. She was my dad’s older brother’s wife. They met over forty years ago, when she was still a student in Arizona, and he was starting out in the restaurant industry. Their wedding story went something like this: my grandparents came to visit them, when they were living in Florida at the time, and upon answering the door, my uncle said “We’ve decided to get married, while you’re here.” Dee was around far before my own mother came into the picture. Shortly after her death, my dad recalled walking on the beach with her and telling her about his new girlfriend- my mom. “I’ve known her for so long,” he lamented.

Throughout my life, I didn’t see my aunt Dee and uncle Harry as often as I saw my more local relatives. They lived in Florida, then in Tennessee, and then, for the majority of their daughter’s lives, in the suburbs of Atlanta, and my uncle frequently traveled abroad for his job. But still, there were Christmases and summer visits and family celebrations, and I regarded my aunt as remarkably kind, gentle, and with an interesting spirit and a calming presence. I remorsed not knowing her better in her healthy days.

Dee had been diagnosed with colon cancer a year earlier, already in its late stage. It was a cruel twist of fate on a woman who took every vitamin, every supplement, was convinced of Western medicine’s inadequacies and toxicity- sometimes rightfully so. Chemotherapy had seemed improbable to work at this stage, but they went through it.

The last time I saw my aunt was in September, for my cousin’s wedding in New York. Though looking thinner than I had ever seen her, she had a jauntiness to her mouth, her laugh lines accentuated by the slightness of her jawline. The hopeful hue of Dee's lavender dress made me believe for a second that she was never going to die.

She was wearing a wig made of both of her daughters’ hair.

I boarded the plane thinking of my last conversation with her, in the hallway in front of the ladies’ room of the hotel where the wedding reception was being held. I was glad to see her laughing, and smiling. She told me of how much my mother had helped her, had made her feel more lighthearted when she was getting angry, had helped her understand her charts, had talked to her on the phone whenever she needed. I should’ve been doing that, I reprimanded to myself as I moved into my window seat.

Aunt Dee told me during that last conversation that she was proud of me for graduating law school. As I buckled my seatbelt, recalled our conversations about photographing the Arizona desert, and the book she had recommended to me years ago, for people who loved art but had no artistic capabilities. It was called Drawing on the Left Side of the Brain. I never bought it.

The unfairness of it all is shattering. I thought of my cousins, ages twenty-two and twenty-four. My uncle is only sixty-two- a year older than my own dad. Uncle Harry and Aunt Dee were supposed to grow old together- spend afternoons jet-skiing on the lake, morning coffees overlooking the water. Instead they would be scattering her ashes there.

She was supposed to see Carrie graduate college in May, and see Katy become a doctor. There would be birthdays and weddings and first jobs and more graduations without her. Meanwhile, both of my parents were still alive, for no reason other than the pure entropy of the universe, the arranging of some cells to destroy a body. This isn’t how this story is supposed to go. The narrative is all wrong.

My seat-mate on the plane had the Superbowl on. I watched the half-time show unfold; though Atlanta boasts an impressive roster of some of the biggest hip-hop artists, most prominent Atlantan musicians had refused to play the Superbowl, in solidarity with Colin Kaepernick and in protest of the NFL’s longstanding devaluation of black lives. This is why Maroon 5 was the main act. Adam Levine ripped his shirt off and I felt nauseous. Big Boi seemed out of place. A waste of his talent and presence, this mediocre circus. Twenty miles away from this neon disarray, my uncle and cousins were reckoning with the rest of their lives without Dee.

I turned away and watched Massachusetts recede in the distance.

I tend to retreat inwards when I grieve. I need physical space, to allow my body to stretch or curl or be still or move within my grief the way it needs to. I felt a wave of relief wash over me as the plane landed. As I got into my cab home, I recognized that no grief I had ever felt up to this point, between all my grandparents and other loved ones who had passed away in recent years, would amount to the grief of my uncle and cousins in this singular loss.

The cab careened away from the Arrivals terminal. I laughed when I saw a RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2012 sticker on one of the siderails and instantly felt guilt for indulging my random sense of humor.

I rolled down the window to feel the dewiness of the 45 degree February air, allowed myself to cry as we merged onto the BQE, and my cab driver asked if I was upset about the Superbowl. By now, the LA Rams had lost, giving Tom Brady another victory.

I felt my aunt Dee’s permission this time, to fully crack up, at the raw absurdity of this tragic shitstorm, and replied, “I guess you could say that.”

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