Bring Out Your Dead
Their Favorite Niece
My uncle Jimmy used to be gruff in an angry way — at least that’s how I remember him in those early years after my mom married his brother. At some point, though, the gruffness stayed but the anger melted away. He became a gruff jokester, a happy and loving man who would put on a big grumpy show because it amused him. I’m not sure when or why exactly the change took place, but if I had to guess I would assume it probably coincided with his MS diagnosis. Mortality can do that to a person. Whatever it was, though, I adored the change. One of my favorite patterned interactions we had was me calling there and announcing myself as his favorite niece. See, I was his only niece. Without fail, he would shout, “I HAVE NO RELATIVES,” then dissolve into chuckles. We did this constantly. It was so stupid and so funny and I just loved it so much.
Jimmy was married to Carolyn, who was easily the sweetest woman to ever exist, with a girlish giggle and an open, loving, nurturing nature. The two had been high school sweethearts and when Jimmy passed away in 2010 after a sudden terminal diagnosis, she confided in me that he had been her first, and only, lover. She was devastated without him. Barely four years after years of Jimmy’s death, Carolyn contracted a rare form of pneumonia and quickly succumbed. I believe she had a broken heart. Neither made it to retirement age.
Carolyn believed ladybugs were indications of Jimmy’s spirit saying he was with her, especially after coming home one day to find her front porch swarming with them. After Carolyn died, the ladybugs passed to her daughters — in times of pain, inside parking garages, at the tops of skyscrapers, and other improbable moments, ladybugs were always present.
Carolyn didn’t forget her favorite niece, though. I didn’t get ladybugs, but rather the woman herself. Every single night for over a year after her death, Carolyn visited me in my dreams to have a chat. Unlike my usual cinematically surreal fare, these dreams were simple, straightforward conversations, and I knew she was looking out for me too. I miss their faces, their smiles, and their joy, and I hold them in my heart every day.
Mema’s Girl
Over the course of the 18 months that spanned the end of my first marriage, from the declaration of the end to the finalized divorce, I lost both of my grandmothers, and thanks to cruel twists of fate I missed the opportunity to attend both of their memorials.
My father’s mother died first, quite suddenly and unexpectedly. She was my Mema, as she had asked me to call her so as not to cause confusion between her and my grandmother — Mema had no interest in blending in with the crowd — and I was Mema’s girl. She was obsessed with foxes, she had her strawberry-blonde hair set and styled every week, she consumed a shocking amount of vitamins, and she once told me she was 29 years old — a claim I had no point of reference to contradict at the time. She was the only person in the world allowed to call me Jessie, and despite having three other grandchildren by way of my father’s brother, she so obviously favored me that my mother has told me in my adulthood that she felt Mema loved me exorbitantly and therefore my mother didn’t need to indulge me herself. (Paraphrasing, but sadly not exaggerating.)
My dad didn’t notify me when Mema died. Family was never really his “thing,” or so he’s told me once or twice. It wasn’t until three days after she passed when Mema’s husband (who I knew as my Papa) got in touch with my mom, who then called me. I drove to Georgia to see him, but Mema had already been cremated. I was invited to attend a memorial in New York at the end of October when her remains would be scattered at her parents’ graves. Unfortunately the rest of my life was in turmoil. My first husband and I were still living together, but we fought ferociously for hours into the night, every night. I was under pressure to move out and had recently started a new job so I could afford to do so. On top of that, I had surgery that October and was slow to recover. There was simply no way I could make the trip to Mema’s cremains ceremony. That guilt has eaten away at me for 20 years, alleviated only slightly when I made a pilgrimage to Ulster County to locate the graves of Mema’s parents — my great-grandparents — and say my regards.
Hot Rod Irene
My mom’s mom was called Grandma or Granny, depending on which generation you fell into, but most people just called her Miss Irene. It’s a Southern thing. Irene had a bit of a lead foot — something inherited by my mother and myself — and so Hot Rod Irene was also a common moniker. Irene had seven children and sixteen grandchildren, if my math is right, so there was less one-on-one attention from her, but when my mom and I would come visit for the summer, Irene always made a point of making fried chicken for dinner and giving me blueberries from her tree that she’d saved for me.
Irene was sassy and quick, which probably explains all her wiseass children. She loved babies, she loved to fish, and she was scared of dogs. She’d had a twin sister who’d died when they were babies, and her mother passed when Irene was still quite young. Between whole and half-siblings, she was one of 13 or more (I lose track), and every July the descendants of that whole clan still meet on the old family farmland for a giant reunion with nothing less than a towering feast of the best food the American South has to offer.
One morning in March 2006, my mom called to tell me Irene was in the hospital and, due to some escalating complications, would not recover. They were sending her home to hospice care and I would need to come down right away. No problem, my final divorce hearing wasn’t until the following week, and there was no indication Irene would hold on that long. No indication, that is, except for the extreme stubbornness of that whole family.
My mom booked me on a flight there in the morning that returned me home the evening before my divorce. Meanwhile Irene held out for days as we all congregated in her home, moving among the rooms that had always been the center of family gatherings, game nights, summers, and Christmases. We laughed and cried through our collective memories, moving back and forth between spending time next to Irene’s bedside and consuming some of the endless food being brought by. After four days, we found ourselves sitting up all night with Irene as she transitioned through the very end. We each stood there by her side — her children at the head and her grandchildren at the foot of her bed —and bore witness to her very last breath, to her soul leaving her body. It was beautiful and cathartic, tearing open my chest and leaving my heart feeling raw and exposed, but the closure of Irene’s funeral would be denied me.
While preparations had already been made for the inevitable, there was the necessary delay of a couple days for the posting of the obituary and everything. I couldn’t stay for that. I had a flight to get to, and a court hearing the following day. Shaken and unsteady in the courthouse, a procedural error in our paperwork led to a postponement and a new hearing in the more informal setting of my attorney’s office the next day. Another miscommunication with the judge meant he didn’t show, and we ended up getting divorced over teleconference. I could’ve done that from anywhere, and the insult of it long embittered me. Would either of my grandmothers ever forgive my absence?
Found Family
Last year my second husband’s grandfather — known as Poppy — was nearing the end of his long, well-lived life. I was lucky enough to spend a lot of time with him in those final months. Poppy was an amazing man, always willing to listen, always supportive, always generous with his time and his hugs. He told me I was and would always be his granddaughter, and that meant more to me than I can say. When his hospice nurse indicated time was short, everyone was encouraged to come by his home and say their goodbyes.
Poppy was unconscious, but I sat by his side, held his hand, and said my goodbyes. Before I left, I told him that I knew he had a lot of other people to look out for, but if he could check in on me once or twice, that would be greatly appreciated. His memorial service was an emotional time for everyone, of course, but I found myself particularly hit with all the guilt of not being there for my two grandmothers, of failing them and reliving those difficult years.
As I tearfully returned to my car following the funeral, I looked out across the church lawn to the forest treeline at the back. There was a fox looking back at me — Mema’s chosen spirit animal if ever there was one — and I felt that whether I deserved it or not, Poppy had remembered me, and had brought my lost grandmother along to say hi.
Insult to Injury
My stepfather John was very gregarious in public, but at home he was condescending and hostile. He berated and belittled me the whole time he was in my life, and when I was finally old enough to escape, his focus slowly but surely transferred onto my mother.
There was rarely anything you could pinpoint as “bad behavior” unless you were closely familiar with him, but his “jokes” were always lowkey sincere insults, and when he got really angry he would shout until the walls shook, his face red and bulbous as he threw swear words at you, implied you were worthless, and accused you of sabotaging him in some way. I hated him growing up, and it took lots of time and hard work for me to get to a point where I didn’t hate myself. I still cower at explosive tirades, though.
I’m quite certain that living with this angry, bitter man for so many years impacted my mother’s own attitude — because how could it not? — and contributed at least in part to her own increased anger. If you surround yourself in negativity, it seeps into your bones and your skin and your blood. It infects you.
In the summer of 2019 John suffered a series of mini strokes and his health rapidly deteriorated over the next few months. I spent as much time down there as I could, helping my mom with the long drives into the city where he was hospitalized and selling some of his specialty outdoorsman and woodworking gear, but I couldn’t be there all the time. At one point he insisted on being released from his nursing facility because he was convinced his clothes were being stolen, and his paranoia only got worse.
The self-release from the facility delayed him getting placed in a new one when he immediately had another incident, so he was provided a hospital bed at home and my mother was his primary (only regular) caretaker. His mind was fracturing, and he verbally abused her relentlessly. At one point, he called 911 and accused her of trying to kill him. It was recommended his phone be confiscated after that. The stress was unbearable for her; she broke down in tears every day and was in a perpetually frazzled yet exhausted state. She couldn’t drive anywhere without nearly falling asleep at the wheel.
When his kidneys failed and he passed that autumn, I returned to the area for his funeral. John was from a big Italian family, so the movie Moonstruck was always a fave because he said it was just like everyone he knew. In it, Cher, as Loretta, shouts at Danny Aiello’s Johnny Cammareri when he breaks off their engagement by telling her in time she’ll see this was the best thing. “In time, you’ll drop dead and I’ll come to your funeral in a red dress!” I’d held onto that quote for 30 years, and even packed a black dress covered in red roses to wear the day of the service. I chickened out, out of respect for my mom and my brother (John’s natural son), but as the funeral progressed I wished I hadn’t.
First one of my uncles and then another — two of my mom’s three brothers — stood up and talked about John’s love of Christ and his peace with God, about how he had no regrets about his life. They talked about how much he loved my mom and how devoted he was, how he took care of her for so many years and would’ve done anything for her. I couldn’t contain my fury.
I did not mourn for John, but I did have complicated feelings regarding his death as he was such a source of trauma throughout my life, and yet I found myself sobbing uncontrollably throughout his funeral service. Upon hearing all the praise — all the lies — eulogizing him, I was overcome with angry crying. Loud and uncontrollable, I shook and sobbed and went through tissue after tissue, livid at the way these men didn’t even see their own sister’s pain, or mine, or anyone’s. I wanted to scream, to throw things, to burn the whole place down.
Afterward I sat alone in a corner, rebuffing comfort from my mom’s youngest sister and fuming when her oldest brother — one of the funeral speakers — walked over and obliviously told me how he, too, still missed his Daddy. It wasn’t until my mom’s youngest brother, who did not stand up for John, pulled me outside by my arm that I calmed. He told me John was a sonofabitch, and it was obvious to anyone who paid attention. He talked me down, got me to breathe, and got me to laugh. But I still carried that anger — that injustice — for untold months. He’d hurt us so completely, tore us down and forced us to find our own ways out of the depths of despair. To deny, to deflect, to lose ourselves, to struggle, to succumb, and to seek acceptance. He’s been dead for five years, but does time really heal all wounds? Or does it just leave behind the scars?
Commiserating with your Halloween hangover
On Dropout TV’s Dirty Laundry this season, show bartender Grant O’Brien complained that Halloween is all homework. This is 100% true, and yet sometimes I really liked homework. Not if I was forced to do it, or it was dull and useless, but if it was something I initiated on my own and I was fully engaged in it, I could be really good at homework.
Halloween is sometimes a huge, expensive hassle, but other times it’s really fun homework. I am not the best at this, actually, but I’ve been known to put in some effort. We always used to make costumes ourselves when I was a kid, which I of course resented because the ‘80s were all about the plastic atrocities consisting of a non-breathable mask and a tie-on smock. When I was a really little girl, I was Red Riding Hood every year, my mom was the grandmother, and my dad was the Big Bad Wolf. When he left the picture, it was just me and mom, and then I started going out on my own costume-wise.
I mostly lost interest in my 20s, but it became engaging again when I had kids of my own. I like to celebrate with them, and get into the spirit of things, but there are others who do so much more than I do. To those of you in this category, the end of “spooky season” must feel like such a letdown. Thanksgiving is never not a stressful endeavor, no matter how much you actually like your family or how much you think they’re not dysfunctional. And the year-end holiday season is a whirlwind of shopping, events, parties, and other obligations that can greatly deplete the magic in the air. Some people feel their hangovers then, but yours is post-Halloween because you are a monster, not a human being!1 You’ve got the skin of a killer, Bella!2 You are truly, truly, truly outrageous!3 You’re a sexy mouse, duh.4 To you I say be strong. Only 333 days until October and counting.
If you are stressed out about a countdown that’s either going too fast or to too slow, I am here to say I have very few recommendations to alleviate the strain, but you can message me anyway. Or maybe take a nap?