Today is International Women’s Day, and I’m feeling conflicted. On one hand, I’m super excited to go to my co-working space this morning wearing my
“Phenomenal Woman” t-shirt, a black Helmut Lang blazer I inherited from a relative I adored, skinny jeans and my new pair of black swede pumps. I’m trying to change up my look to feel more powerful on the daily, and this is my definition of a power outfit.
My Instagram feed is filled with inspiring posts about how
this is the time for women, conferences where women are standing up and finding their voices and magazine covers that feature women
(this month’s Marie Claire is badass) who’ve accomplished great things and are truly changing the world.
I don’t want to take away from any of those things. They are among the things that help me to feel empowered and powerful and proud to be a woman.
But on my mind this morning are the women who aren’t on those magazine covers. The women who are driving their kids to school and half-way to work remembering that they forgot to brush their teeth. The women who are meeting friends for coffee and staring at the sun and feeling grateful for all of life’s gifts.
The women who are struggling to get through another day. The women who are looking forward to retiring, or going on a vacation, or feeling anxious to ask for a raise, or taking care of parents with illnesses, or excited
to finally get a chance to sit down tonight to watch the Netflix show everyone’s been talking about. The women who don’t appear on magazine covers but are still the pillars of our communities—the generators that keep everything running.
I’m thinking that
every one of those women deserves to be honored.
Including the ones in the corners of our minds who we don’t normally talk about.
Who we aren’t sure if we should honor.
One of those people, a person who has occupied a significant portion of my mind and heart, is a woman named Margaret Morell. You can probably guess with the last name that she is related to me, and you’re right. Margaret was my Aunt. One of my Dad’s two sisters. She was born and raised in the tiny Northern Michigan town of Ishpeming—the second of four kids. Two years older than my Dad.
I don’t know a lot about Margaret. I’m slowly learning about her life. Who she was. What she liked to do.
She was a free spirit. She had a ton of friends. She was beautiful. She graduated from Northern Michigan University and became a math teacher. Moved to Wisconsin. Her students loved her. She had a fascination with Robert Redford. So much so, she wrote a script for a film and traveled to California to give it to him. I don’t know if she ever connected with him. She was a math genius. She didn’t get along with my Aunt Mary Ellen (my Dad's other sister, who is still alive) or my Grandfather. When she went to college, even though it was one town over, she only came home for holidays.
She loved to travel. She loved to have deep conversations. She was a deep thinker and cared about everyone. My Dad told me he never knew anyone who cared about people as much as she did. She developed bipolar disorder while teaching math and had an episode in class. She had to leave her job. She moved home to Michigan to live with my Grandparents. She spent five years in and out of psychiatric institutions.
That five-year period ended when she took her own life on the same block as her family home. It was March 1980 and she was 29 years old. It was 15 months before I was born.
I didn’t know any of this, didn’t know how she died except that “she was very sick and died young.” I finally asked my Dad when I was 16. He was dropping me off at my Mom’s house—they were in the process of divorcing—after taking me to a drum lesson in Ann Arbor. I sat there in the car stunned, not sure what to think.
It wasn’t talked about again until maybe four years ago. Margaret kept surfacing in my mind. I had the internal knowing that if she had lived, we would have been close. I talked to my parents about her, tried to get more information. Quite randomly (to me at least) I found out that my childhood dentist was her high school boyfriend.
In early January this year I called up my Aunt Mary Ellen and talked to her for an hour about Margaret. Who she was. What she liked to do. I wanted to know the essence of who she was because I don’t believe she should be defined by how her life ended.
In addition to being incredibly loving and generous with information, Mary Ellen affirmed my intuition. That we would have been close. That she was a free spirit, like me. I got off the phone with a deep sense of peace. Is it possible to have a relationship with someone who isn’t in her or his body on earth? Yes. That conversation confirmed it. I feel those relationships, too, with others who have gone—others who I was close to while they were in their bodies. My Grandma, in particular, who passed 18 months ago. I feel her presence at least weekly, and it gives me peace.
So now, this morning as I was thinking about what to write, I thought – am I allowed to honor Margaret? Is it OK to write about a woman who struggled and died the way she did?
The answer, even though for some reason I’m scared to write it, is
YES.
She loved. She was loved. Is loved. She had a life. Regardless of her choices or possibly her feeling that she didn’t have choices, she was and is someone to honor. I feel love for her even though I never met her.
I’m not sure where I am going with this story. Suicide is something that our society is shocked by, hides from. It is something that I’m terrified of. That makes me sad in my bones. It is also a reality for so many families. So many people. Public deaths like that of Anthony Bourdain and Kate Spade rock us all. I don’t know what to say about those deaths except I wish they didn’t happen. Including Margaret’s.
I wish I could talk to her.
In my mind, I wonder if you’re reading this thinking—
damn, Katie, this is such a fucking downer. Isn’t this newsletter supposed to be about joy?
Yes. It is.
I think there is joy in telling Margaret’s story to the world 39 years after she passed away.
In explaining that she is still relevant. I think storytelling saves lives. Vulnerability saves lives. I’m afraid to put this story out into the world, but I also know that if I don’t it will live inside me and not help others and make me feel alone. Community saves lives.
Life is so beautiful. Messy. Tragic. Inspiring. Joy-filled and sadness-filled. It is all these things. I feel so deeply fortunate to be living in this miracle of life, and I hope all of you do, too. My belief is that the more we share, the more we trust to share and the more safe spaces there are to share, the deeper we will feel joy and feel the permission to share our pain. The less shame there will be and the more people will live their lives in truth and health, whatever that looks like for them.
For those in need, or for those who know someone in need, the
Suicide Prevention Lifeline is always open: 800-273-8255. I hope this inspires you to share, and to feel less shame. All of us are beings of the world who have feelings, high feelings and low feelings.
As my dear friend Anna says, “It’s all part of the human experience.”
I'll end with a poem to honor this holiday that breaks my heart, but I still think is beautiful. I recently
signed up for a Poem A Day from the Poetry Foundation, and it is the highlight of my day when I get to read these. Doesn't always happen, but I sometimes will save them in my inbox for a slow moment.
