This story begins, as all great stories do, on TikTok.
You see, try as I may, I can no longer deny that TikTok is good. Less stressful than Twitter, less polished than Instagram, its algorithm confuses me so much I don’t even try to get views on my videos and thus am free to be mostly a mere consumer. And it already (creepily) knows me, my feed flush with video tours of specialty grocery stores (Including Titan Foods in Astoria which my mom and I went to this week and is A-MA-ZING), women trying on various pairs of jeans I want to buy and manifestation how-tos.
I’ve heard enough good things about manifestation from friends and family to pique my interest but have never quite been able to buy into the practice. It’s not for lack of belief, I believe a bunch of other crazier shit than the concept of gently nudging along things I want to come to fruition. But for whatever reason, I’d never gotten around to trying it in a meaningful way.
So I can’t really explain what prompted me to do it on a Saturday evening in January. My mom turned 60 during this cursed COVID year and we’d hired a private chef to cook a meal for her and her friends as a mini celebration -- dreams of a larger, unmasked gathering put on temporary hold. Though I was technically not invited to this fête (it was friends only and I have no choice but to respect that) I was on hand to supervise -- er -- provide cake (this specific cake from Veneiro’s in the East Village to be exact. It’s the best. Trust.)
I had my dog Joni with me and we went for a long walk in between the main course and dessert. It was dusk and we basically had the neighborhood to ourselves. It was nice but I was feeling -- off. Thinking back on the year prior, I realized I had spent most of 2020 making weird videos on Instagram that were fueling me more than the job I’d loved and felt so lucky to have for the past seven years. I was feeling really confused about the path, my place, what I should be doing with myself (this was pre-layoff). What I know about manifesting from friends and TikTok is that the more specific you are — the better. And so I said, out loud, that I’d like to hear a message that whatever I was doing was the right thing — and I wanted to hear it from my dad. I feel he has visited me a few times in the 21 years (this week) since he died, but I’d never asked him outright for help. This time I did.
Then I went back to my mom’s house, ate delicious cake and forgot about the whole thing.
A few days later I was on the toilet looking back through my old Instagrams (if you say you don’t do this you’re lying) when I noticed the contact email in my bio. It’s not my personal email and it’s not one I have connected to my phone. I check it so infrequently that I sometimes miss writing and other opportunities that are sent to that mailbox. So I thought I’d log in and see if there was anything new and interesting inside.
And there it was. Dated Saturday, January 30. The day of my mom’s birthday party. The day I manifested a sign on the streets of Queens. The subject line:
“I just found an old photo while I was cleaning out a desk drawer,” the note read, a photo of my parents, Samantha and Robert Feldman, and I from 1991 attached. “I think you may recognize it. If you do, it means that I knew your father from ~1970/71 until I left Brooklyn in 1983.”
She went on to say that she’d spent some time trying to find me but wasn’t sure if she should reach out — worried it might cause trauma or opening of old wounds.
I fucking lost it. Right there on the toilet. Just keeled over, sobbing. Not sad, not traumatized. Just overwhelmed. Just three days after I asked for a message, and this one was crystal clear — sent to a place I don’t often look but felt compelled to in that moment. I took a photo of myself mid-sob that I didn’t intend to share with anyone. I don’t know why I took it even. Maybe to remember how I felt in that moment. But then, I’ve shared a lot here that I never planned to share with anyone, so what’s one more thing?
I wanted to call her the minute I saw the email. But I needed to process. So we made a date to talk a few days later.
We talked for a long time. She told me about my dad at camp, how he starred in the plays, his nicknames, what he was like back then. She told me she saw a lot of him in me from following me on Instagram and Twitter. She told me about one of the Grateful Dead concerts they attended together in 1973 -- I have his poster from that same concert hanging in my living room.
We talked about his addiction, too. But it felt different. All these years, all the times I’ve talked (and not talked) about my dad have existed at least somewhat within the dark shadow of his drug addiction. And that makes sense. Addiction is fucked up. But up until this moment I had no one in my life who knew him at a time completely devoid of those demons — who remembered him for his pure childhood innocence alone. Her memory of him then was profoundly positive, and then connecting those positive attributes to me, repeating more than once how proud he would be of me — validating isn’t even the word.
But there was one thing in particular she said that has changed my viewpoint, my healing process and I would argue even my life.
There’s this episode of the show “How I Met Your Mother,” a show I’ve seen many episodes of yet not the one where you find out who the mother is (who is it?) where the group of friends reveal things about each other. They have what they call “glass shattering” moments, revelations that are impossible to unsee and un-know once you’re made aware of them. In the show they’re not what you would call positive attributes. But I’ve had a lot of glass shattering moments of my own doing the inward work I never did to grieve and process the trauma of my childhood and losing my dad while I work to connect my past to my present and understand the ways I am very much still impacted by things that happened more than two decades ago.
I used to tell the story of his death to people like it was a story that happened to someone else. I knew it was painful, but I couldn’t always feel the pain. I had dissociated so much that it became just like any other story.
But my whole life there has been a feeling like I wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough for him to stay alive for, and now I’m not enough just as myself to be loved. It’s why I often feel like I’m overstaying my welcome, like I’m not worth having around if I’m not contributing something like a joke or a funny story. It has given me so much anxiety about remaining wanted by anyone who wants me around that I’m willing to go to great lengths to agree with people, commit to things I don’t want to do, in fear that one wrong move could make them realize they don’t want me around after all. It’s partially why I stayed at a job for seven years — even when that job had stopped loving me back.
It’s not a logical or even conscious feeling -- I know drug addiction is a disease and I know that my dad loved me -- but there was a lingering, unwitting feeling in my heart that I didn’t do enough.
I’m paraphrasing here because I’m pretty sure I blacked out after this, but she said something along the lines of — “I would guess it’s the other way around —- that you’re the reason he stayed alive as long as he did.”
Glass. Shattered.
I’d never even once considered this possibility. Not. Once. There are myriad reasons being the child of an addict is hard. I remember feeling sometimes like he might not even realize I was there. And the feelings have followed me into adulthood regardless of the massive amounts of love and support I feel from my mom, my family, my community.
But hearing those words made feeling his love, his pride for me — feel really easy. That no matter where I was going, what I was doing, if I got laid off or changed paths or pursued something new — he’s proud of me. He was always proud of me. He loved me. I am not want for support: My mom has showered me with it every day of my life — but I needed this moment to feel connected to him, too.
I am overwhelmed with feelings this week, the 21 year anniversary of my dad’s death this Sunday April 18, a book about the Sackler family making the press rounds so I have to hear over and over again about their contributions to the opioid epidemic, the week Daunte Wright was murdered by police, thinking about him for so many reasons — but among them, that his baby now also doesn’t have a parent.
When we don’t have them around we don’t get to hear them say they are proud of us, they love us, they would have wanted to go to concerts with us or read our newsletters or help us learn guitar. But I walk around now with this revelation about what I meant to him by just being me — and that feels really beautiful. We all have these moments, some more significant than others, and sometimes we just need someone else to come into our lives and point them out to really believe them.
I will be making a donation this week to Daunte Wright Jr.’s mom (information below) — if you enjoy my newsletter and you enjoyed this newsletter in particular, I hope you’ll join me in donating if and what you can.
Love Always,
Jamie AF
My darling girl! It is with great pride and joy to read this!! I’m truly in awe of your spirit and energy each and every moment!! I think that what she said to you about HIM ... “I would guess it’s the other way around —- that you’re the reason he stayed alive as long as he did.” .... is brilliant and something you should hold on to forever. It’s true! You were the sunshine in his dark world.
Forever Y#1F
xoxo
Mom
Beautiful! Just like you!! ❤️❤️