Capturing Moods

What I never realized about death is that there is so much stuff that comes after it. I thought I would just have to bury her and that was it. But no: there is so much more.

First of all, there is her house. My house. The house I grew up in. I have to sell it. I mean, I can't afford the mortgage and I have a job in a completely different city, so I have to sell it, right? Even though it's the house that I made most of my memories in. Even though it's the house my mom spent most of her life paying for.

And then there is all the other stuff. Her clothes, her books. Do I keep them? I don't have any use for her clothes. I could sell them all in a garage sale. But her books, I will keep them. I use to love going into her library and running my fingers across the spines of all of those books, the hard covers and dust jackets, the paperbacks with broken spines. I will keep them. Even if I never read them, I have to keep them, right?

And then there's her savings. Here's where things get kind of weird: she already spent a big chunk before she died. She bought a coffin and a spot at a cemetary.

I know, right? She bought her own coffin. Did she know she was going to die? I mean, was the accident actually suicide?

...do I want to know if it was? I mean, I've had suicidal thoughts before. I told my therapist this and all he's concerned about now is if my mom's death is making me more suicidal. But having suicidal thoughts isn't the same as being suicidal, is it? Doesn't everyone have suicidal thoughts sometimes? Like, when you are walking across an overpass, don't you ever think about jumping off?

Anyway, I wouldn't kill myself. I stand by Dorothy Parker's advice:

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp;

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

See you later,

Lonny

Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You

My name is Lonny. My mom said that she named me after Lon Chaney Jr., the Man with a Thousand Faces. We used to watch his movies together -- she bought one of those big cheap DVD collections that had a bunch of horror movies in it and we would sit on the couch and watch The Wolfman and The Mummy and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

I hadn't seen her that much before she died. I had moved away for college and then I found a job in a different city and I just never got around to returning. I called her sometimes and she called me sometimes and we would talk, but it's not the same as actually being there.

The last time I saw her was Christmas. I stayed at home for a day and we had a nice time, though I think something was bothering her. She was distracted by something. I don't know what it was, but I'm sorry I never asked her about it. I never asked her if she was okay.

And then she died. The police called me at work. I don't usually answer my cell phone when I'm working, but this time I did for some reason. Maybe I just knew it was something bad.

It was a police officer. They told me that my mother had been in some sort of accident. I still don't know much about it. I don't know how she died. They never told me and I never asked.

Why didn't I ask? Why didn't I want to know?

Sometimes I remember those times we watched The Wolf Man and I remember that rhyme Lon Chaney is told about:

Even a man who is pure in heart

and says his prayers by night

may become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms

and the autumn moon is bright.

See you later,
Lonny

The Execution of All Things

I've been listening to a lot of Rilo Kiley, specifically the songs from their album The Execution of All Things. The whole album is about broken things: people, memories, lives, marriages, families.

There is one song. "A Better Son/Daughter." I can't stop listening to it. I told my therapist about it. He says that it's a symptom of my grief over my mother's death. She died a few months ago. He says I still haven't processed it. He recommended that I start a journal and put all my feelings and stuff in it.

But I am nothing if not a narcissist, so if I'm going to share my feelings and whatever, I want to show it to other people. Hence: a blog.

The title of this blog comes from one of my favorite poems, Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden. I'm sure my therapist would have something to say about that, too. Anyway, this is how it goes:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead

Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,

Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public

doves, 

Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,

My working week and my Sunday rest,

My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;

I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;

Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;

Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.

For nothing now can ever come to any good.

See you later,

Lonny.