When You Gotta Go
As I was driving down to LAX this morning I was mindful of holiday statistics, thinking, "Okay, how many barbecue drunks could there be on the road at 7:30 a.m. on a Friday?"
When we got in the car Jackson immediately plugged himself into his own iPod using the little green frog ear buds I gave him for his birthday. I wasn't feeling quite sharp enough for NPR and I thought it would be rude to plug in my iPod and get into some sort of weird hearing-loss battle, so I just drove. Ninety miles of an unselfconscious little boy singing in that half-tuneless, badly-enunciated way people do when they can't hear themselves was probably the better choice anyway because honestly, running all that Kanye West and Katy Perry through the Jackson Filter was far more entertaining than listening to it first-hand.
The commute down the 1 through Malibu was a surprisingly noncompetitive, and while I was swerving back and forth, thinking not just about all the half-naked surfers changing out of their wetsuits by their cars on the side of the road -- I totally do that thing where if I'm looking to the right I'll also pull the wheel to the right, whoops! My bad! -- but also about unattractive people who die in unexpected, disease-free ways, how everyone always mocks them afterward. "Sure, he lived on broccoli juice and hemp crackers, his cholesterol was zero, he had the unblemished heart of a lumberjack, and the strength of his erections could have pushed the leaning tower of Pisa back to plumb -- and he got hit by a bus! Haw haw haw." As though you should never do another sit-up again and live on bacon cheeseburgers on the off chance the downtown express will run a light and paste you and your last lard smoothie all over Cliff Drive.
But what if being hit by a bus was God's reward for showing respect and goodwill to that corpse-to-be you're currently calling home? What if God reserved only the most instantaneous, never-saw-it-coming deaths for the people who took care of their gifts? Took your vitamins, wore comfortable shoes, and strove to develop an enlightened and giving political voice? BOOM, you get hit by lightening before you ever had a chance to decline physically or mentally, see ya. Kissed your wife with all your heart, every single time? Here, have a fatal heart attack in your favorite chair when your team wins the championship.
I'm back in Denver for my mom's funeral, so I'm afraid it's just a deathy kind of thought-weekend. Now that she's gone we can really get into the meat of this house, all the chipped trinkets and unfinished thoughts and unlabeled photographs of people we vaguely resemble but will never be able to name. I'm going to take pictures of everything that means anything and then it can all go to Goodwill. My brothers very kindly gave me my mother's wedding band and now that's the only souvenir I really care to walk away with. Well, and maybe that kimono. And I'll see if that sundress fits.
When we got in the car Jackson immediately plugged himself into his own iPod using the little green frog ear buds I gave him for his birthday. I wasn't feeling quite sharp enough for NPR and I thought it would be rude to plug in my iPod and get into some sort of weird hearing-loss battle, so I just drove. Ninety miles of an unselfconscious little boy singing in that half-tuneless, badly-enunciated way people do when they can't hear themselves was probably the better choice anyway because honestly, running all that Kanye West and Katy Perry through the Jackson Filter was far more entertaining than listening to it first-hand.
The commute down the 1 through Malibu was a surprisingly noncompetitive, and while I was swerving back and forth, thinking not just about all the half-naked surfers changing out of their wetsuits by their cars on the side of the road -- I totally do that thing where if I'm looking to the right I'll also pull the wheel to the right, whoops! My bad! -- but also about unattractive people who die in unexpected, disease-free ways, how everyone always mocks them afterward. "Sure, he lived on broccoli juice and hemp crackers, his cholesterol was zero, he had the unblemished heart of a lumberjack, and the strength of his erections could have pushed the leaning tower of Pisa back to plumb -- and he got hit by a bus! Haw haw haw." As though you should never do another sit-up again and live on bacon cheeseburgers on the off chance the downtown express will run a light and paste you and your last lard smoothie all over Cliff Drive.
But what if being hit by a bus was God's reward for showing respect and goodwill to that corpse-to-be you're currently calling home? What if God reserved only the most instantaneous, never-saw-it-coming deaths for the people who took care of their gifts? Took your vitamins, wore comfortable shoes, and strove to develop an enlightened and giving political voice? BOOM, you get hit by lightening before you ever had a chance to decline physically or mentally, see ya. Kissed your wife with all your heart, every single time? Here, have a fatal heart attack in your favorite chair when your team wins the championship.
I'm back in Denver for my mom's funeral, so I'm afraid it's just a deathy kind of thought-weekend. Now that she's gone we can really get into the meat of this house, all the chipped trinkets and unfinished thoughts and unlabeled photographs of people we vaguely resemble but will never be able to name. I'm going to take pictures of everything that means anything and then it can all go to Goodwill. My brothers very kindly gave me my mother's wedding band and now that's the only souvenir I really care to walk away with. Well, and maybe that kimono. And I'll see if that sundress fits.
30 Comments:
Oh, you are putting a fairly serious twist on Independence Day, aren't you? Good luck with all the work in Denver.
Going through a house filled with treasures from your Mother's lifetime could be quite the emotional roller coaster. I appreciate your "take only pictures" (well, and the sundress if it fits) approach. I'll just be cheeky enough to remind you that your son might want a treasure to take away as well.
Now I am going to go kiss my husband with all my heart. Just in case.
It's been a hard week full of mortality reminders. Be sure to take care of yourself as you are having to do another hard thing.
Holidays always make me think of death. My own, mainly.
Try and say sane for the funeral, close or not close, it's the passing of an era. I'm chaneling Herodotus, who has died.
Hello Friend. I know you but you don't know me. Read all your posts. Prompted to comment for once as my nearest and dearest (already been through mother's and father's passing) has just died and I'm in charge of a do-it-yourself funeral on Tuesday using a white cardboard box and my Chrysler Cruiser with blackened windows which will almost be long enough for the box to fit all the way inside. You're almost through it now. After the funeral the bad thing in the gut will disappear.
Maybe if the sundress fits, you can wear it to the funeral and have someone take a picture of you in it. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.
Heed Suzy's advice and try to stay sane.
Much love and safe travel my friend.
xo
Be sure to take some lunch and dinner breaks with family,friends and neighbors of your mom while cleaning out the house. The stuff will still be there but the memories will sometimes come through conversation.
I'm sorry you had to spend a Holiday weekend dealing with that. I'm glad you're thinking of GoodWill; at least someone in need will be able to fit into that kimono. ; )
Best of luck to you as you dig through those memories. I hope they're all good ones.
"all the chipped trinkets and unfinished thoughts and unlabeled photographs of people we vaguely resemble but will never be able to name."--Whoa. What a beautiful evocation of what it is to wander through the belongings of some you love, who's left. Just gorgeous, Eden.
We've decided to just burn the place down when my parents go. It would be so much easier then sorting through all the crap. They are both borderline hoarders.
Sorry your fourth of July weekend had to be spent this way. And I totally agree with your theory on death. I feel like I should be so lucky to be taken out quickly. Sending good thoughts to you and your family.
It's awesome you have that ring. I have my Grandma's watch and I adore it.
And that ashtray... and that's all you need. Luck and love, Bossy.
My grandfather had a fatal heart attack turning on the TV to watch the Kansas Jayhawks in the final four. I often think of the way he died as a gift.
first time I have commented ever and it is to tell you that your writing is so good.
This was such a well~written post...I read it out loud enjoying how you put it all together...
*clapping* & smiling~~
Now you have me nervous that I'm going to have a long, drawn out death. I buy the supplements. I just don't take them every morning. I eat the bacon instead.
"Ninety miles of an unselfconscious little boy singing in that half-tuneless, badly-enunciated way people do when they can't hear themselves was probably the better choice anyway because honestly, running all that Kanye West and Katy Perry through the Jackson Filter was far more entertaining than listening to it first-hand."
That conveys so much to me! Fondness, guileless innocense, tolerance, snob appeal, annoyance, motherhood, bemusedness, unconditional love. So pure and so succinct.
Re death: Suzy, too funny.
Also re death: Just saw show where a group of (probably pretty wealthy) people are having their ashes mixed into cement plaques which are then buried like headstones in a beautiful Atlantis-like seabed cemetary off coast of Florida. You have to dive to get to it. I think the sea is a good metaphor for slow change. I like a good slow transition away from pain. Perhaps a kimono. I think personal objects make a good slow transition too.
Glad you're taking pictures.
So sorry about the loss of your mom. It will be difficult going through her possessions.
Very interesting thoughts about death. Certainly the "never saw it coming" death is a good death. Of course anal people like me would be in a tizzy afterwards (if there is an afterwards) about all the stuff I didn't finish up, and what a mess I left my bedroom. Good Lord, I would be thinking, I should have picked up all those old kleenexes and put away those dirty clothes that were on the floor...and OMG, they're going to find my diaries from the college years...the humiliation of it! So for some of us a good death might be one where we have time to tie up our loose ends. But let's face it, we don't have much choice in the matter in the end...
Thinking of you.
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I hope I can adopt your photographing approach.
That works for me. I am one of those people who treats my body like crap so I can cheat death. Or not. The point is, I win either way. It's a whole other twist on that phenomena.
I like that idea that God saves the 'good deaths' for the people who do good. Of course, this means I will probably be done under by a serial killer or a rogue case of the plague, but that's my burden.
I continue to scan and catalogue drawers full of unlabeled photos from my mother's house. Her death last year reinforced what I learned a dozen years ago, when HER mother died--a life is a life and a walk is as good as a hit, but I *will* leave future generations with more history than I was given...by labeling my goddamn photos.
Hope the sundress fit.
Oh ... I'll just say "thanks" for the thoughtful post. I think they're thoughts I'll be thinking in the fast approaching future. " ... chipped trinkets and unfinished thoughts and unlabeled photographs ... " indeed.
Count your blessings as the only sister!! To have something so cherished and simple as a wedding band, to have, to wear, to look down upon and smile, knowing how adored that simple piece of jewelry was to your mother, and your father.
Lame? Sure. But I'll take lame. I'm old enough to embrace it!
(also, if giving up simple horrid pleasures like Bacon means I have to die a long, slow, drawn out death, then BLTS till I collapse it is!!)
Wishing you well during this hard time. Your post comes days after the memorial service of my cousin's 44 year-old husband, an eternally boyish, grab-life-by-the-spheres kind of guy; died of a sudden heart attack after his beloved weekly basketball game. I find myself asking many of the same questions.
(Your redesign looks great.)
First time here. I'm sorry to hear about your mom.
Great post, though. What an interesting spin on the sudden death thing!
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