honk if u love dying & being dead
CW: death
My father has softened since his diagnoses of multiple deadly auto-immune conditions. A sentimental son of a gun that cries with the drop of a hat now, I tell ya. He still drinks all day. Haphazardly shoots guns while drunkenly off-roading in the northern Chihuahuan Desert. He also listens to songs that remind him of when he fell in love with my mother and breaks down. She left him 28 years ago and he still pines for her. I guess that part isn’t so new. It’s that he does it in front of me without shame that’s the development here. I recognize in him a tenderness that I think only the threat of imminent death offers. We’ve come to an understanding about his condition. He will not rot away for his final days. He’s going to have a damn good time until his time is up. So, we stuff our faces with hearty burritos from The Shed, drink shit beer, and get to shootin’ and playing pool and whatever else’ll feel good in the moment. When he calls drunk and high on pain pills, I tell him he can’t die on me yet and he says he won’t. We laugh.
• • •
When my mom left my dad right after I was born, my grandmother stepped in to help mom raise me. Grandma Peggy loved me deeply, and I her. She was a painter, sculptor, and pianist and encouraged my drawing as early as I can remember. I spent hours at her place watching Bob Ross and building expansive worlds with my little illustrations. Her home was a sanctuary filled with maternal warmth, Italian cooking, and various fuck-up relatives that had no where else to go. When we were without a place to live following a turbulent breakup between my mother and now ex-step father, she took us into her dilapidated one bedroom apartment off Menaul Boulevard until mom found her footing again.
My grandmother died in April of this year. It was well past time for her to move on, as her quality of life had been deteriorating rapidly since her first open heart surgery a little over a decade ago. I seldom speak about my grandmother’s death or her last few years of life, for this topic demands that I acknowledge that she spent her final moments in isolation, pain, and neglected in a nursing home. She suffered two heart attacks in silence since she had gone mute and staff were not checking on her regularly. She died soon after, raising her hands in the air, exclaiming, “Bella! Bella!” as she looked towards the heavens. Bella is what she called me growing up.
I could not attend her funeral for COVID reasons. I’ve yet to retrieve her ashes for COVID, financial, and familial reasons. My inability to participate in a proper death ritual in her honor has created a festering inside of me. I am forced to compartmentalize and let this loss mutate into something else, something more complicated. If I were the grim reaper, I would’ve simply… arranged for my grandmother’s death to happen years ago. Alas.
Even before the nursing home, my grandmother lived by herself and without proper support or connection. One of the last memories I have of my grandmother is of us visiting her apartment and her being uncertain about who we were exactly. I remember driving away and watching as she returned to her post in front of her living room window, staring out, waiting once again for someone, anyone to visit her. This is a nauseating memory.
It takes a village to raise a kid they say. I’ve learned it takes a village to ease someone into their death, and disjointed families with financial woes are not always equipped for the task. Now that I’m older, I no longer fault my family for our inability to properly care for one another. Financial crisis as the rule rather than the exception warps relationships and minds. It robs people of sleep, sanity, health, and opportunity. I’m clenching my jaw as I write this. I can’t afford the dental care that will ameliorate the damage done from my years of jaw clenching. Alas.
• • •
My chosen dad died on November 21, 2020. His death was shocking and the grief is overwhelming. I loved him deeply. He loved me, too. I think his death is stupid and unnecessary but there’s nothing I can do or say that will ever change this.
• • •
I am wading through the deep seas of grief at the same time that I feel incredibly held by the greatest people I’ve ever known, and continue to blossom into the person I’ve always wanted to be. Despite impending climate catastrophe and continuous loss, I am in love with being alive and plan to be here a long time.
Thank you for taking the time to read my newsletter, sweet friend.
Until next time.
CBR
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Recommendations:
Joe Pera Talks With You on Adult Swim
Our Planet on Netflix