Good Morning. Hello. How are you? #1454
Good morning afternoon. Sorry I am late. My mom passed away this morning, 4:06 AM Alaska time, 8:06 AM my time. I was standing in the trash bin and water jug aisle at Walmart, composing in my head a thrilling edition of GHHMAY ruminating on the crisis in the American meat stick industry where are the Turkey Chomps, the worst thing to happen to the industry was the domination of the mediocre Jack’s Links my god.
Also while I on on the frivolus, I am working today. I have this meeting with some outside bankers. I have blown them off twice — both accidentally, tangentially related to my mother’s illness. But I cannot blow them off again, obviously. Because I didn’t tell them why I was blowing them off, just said sorry and rescheduled. So now I have to do the meeting.
Which is part of the reason why I am sending this out so late. People to tell. My wife is still asleep. She reads GMHHAY in bed, usually, as she wakes up. Well, you know. When she reads it at all. Figure I should tell her in person. Just got off the phone with my sister, then my aunt and uncle in Arizona.
Goddammit it where is my Diet Coke. I bought a treat Diet Coke at Walmart after learning the news and I have lost it. No meat sticks, no Diet Coke, no mom. This is bullshit.
Also say a prayer for my sister and aunt, who have been dealing with this on the ground for the past week. Val starts a new job on Monday, and her kids have been on spring break all week while she was making daily trips to the hospital. It has been a lot. They both have been through so much.
Thank you for all of the concern you guys have expressed this last week or two. Really did hope she was on the mend, but in hindsight, all that newly comfortable sleeping should have been a warning sign, what with the not eating and all.
My mom has been struggling for a few years, really since my dad passed. And a thing I have learned from him passing five years ago is that, over time, we can choose how to remember our departed loved ones. We can choose which era of their lives. Loved ones dying will really change your perspective on the Special Edition of Episode IV and the replacement of Sebastian Shaw with Hayden Christianson.
(Emma is awake now, and down here with me, and points out none of the living souls on the forest moon of Endor even knew Anakin back then, and they probably shoulda gone with the pre-baby-killing Anakin in the form with Jake Loyd. There is wisdom in this.)
Where was I going with that? Oh right. Well, I have gotten really good with my father of remembering him as, well, my father. My years with him. I suppose that is selfish in some way, but also… height of his powers, those fatherhood years. Real prince among men. My mom’s passing is the beginning of that journey with her as well.
She was a great mom. I looked up to her, I loved her so much. She worked full time, she was a boss, while raising two young kids: just pulling that off seems insane to me now. She fought for the oppressed, she was an upstanding member of her church, she worked on political campaigns and was an activist. The amount of shit she did with two small kids, was stunning. She metoo’d predators in the schools in the seventies. She sang in the choir she worked in soup kitchens, she taught in-need kids both in school and outside of school.
I will also say that for all her struggles these past years, she never fell victim to Fox News or scammers. So, you know, she might not have always shown it, but that common sense was still in there somewhere.
Even those years where she was in charge of discipline at my high school, and all the hoodlums had in for me as a result, still pretty bad-ass.
I am going to remember worshipping her, thinking the world of her. I remember telling people my mom was the smartest person in the world.
I was so proud of her.
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Thanks for reading.
And hey! Maybe buy one of my books!
Good Morning, Hello, How Are You vol 1.
Sorry to hear about your mom. She was pretty amazing and badass... as was your dad.
Love to you and val.