Welcome

By the time you finish reading this you will be DEAD… kidding! You are definitely going to die though, only not right now… hopefully! When or how we are going to die is often unknown, but we know it’s going to happen, death is as intrinsic as life. One of the few things we know for certain in this world is that we are born, we live, we die, and that’s the plan. What a fuckin party. Even though death is one of those universal truths I think we sometimes forget about it, well at least I did. I had completely forgotten about death until my mother died. I had watched plenty of Disney movies and thought “that’s the sort of thing that can only happen to princesses, it could never happen to me”, but I was wrong. My mom super died and I wasn’t ready, guess that’s on me. Or is it? I’ll figure it out later. 

On that note, welcome to the Dead Mothers Club. 

If your mother is dead too, good. Well not good but what I mean to say is you have come to the right place. If you’re a mom-ghost, you’re in the wrong place and I’m sorry for the confusion. This is not a club for dead mothers, it is a club for those they left behind, as well as for those they are going to leave behind. Yes, even those of you who still have your mothers are welcome because she is going to die eventually. 

Even though the reason for this club’s existence sucks, it’s really great when you’re here. No one can laugh in the face of tragedy like the motherless can, and if you can’t laugh at that which is most fucked up about life then what is the point?  I was welcomed to the DMC by my colleague, Eric, upon first returning to work after mother died and it was the most comforting thing anyone has ever said to me, “welcome to the Dead Mothers Club”. Why?  Maybe because it’s the true language of grief, “welcome to the suck, I’m here too, not much to be done about it” as opposed to the “I’m so sorry”s, and “how are you holding up”s, and  “I can only imagine”s, and “ I can see you’re still hurting”s, and everybody SHUT UP. It’s weird that people stare at you and your grief from the outside, but don’t worry, now you’re here, be mad, sad, or happy about it, feel however you want and be whoever you want to be. Things may not be alright for awhile or ever again but at least we have each other. 

Which brings me to the main point, Dead Mothers Club Podcast. I’m hoping to use this podcast as a tool to get to know who all of you in the DMC are and personally welcome you to the club. I’m super curious, who are you? How is your grief process going? How did it all go down? Who is helping you through? What is helping you through? Were you suddenly gay after? Tell me all your stories! Sorry, PLEASE tell me all your stories, I know this is no small ask. These stories are incredibly precious and can be really scary to share. It’s taken me 5 years to even start the process of this podcast. It’s hard to tell a story when you’re still living it, because the grief you are experiencing is never ending. It’s hard to say that things get better, but I will say the depression has become less crippling. 

So, come join the fun, be a guest on the pod, send me an email, or leave a voicemail. Share your story, ask me questions, or both. Once this club grows a little bit, it would be great to speak with spiritual leaders about death, psychologists and counselors about grief, and with anyone who has intriguing notions on what happens after we die, how we can cope, and is there any way to prepare? I’m coming at this from a place of 0 religious affiliation, 0 experience with support groups, and a severe lack of therapy. My heart and mind are open, let’s get into it. 

My Dead Mother Story

In the May of 2011 it had been nearly a year since my dad, mom, younger sister, and I had begun squatting in the family home we had lost in the sublime, subprime, mortgage crisis that bankrupted my parents. June was fast approaching and the time had finally come for us to hit the bricks, we were down to our final month but still hadn’t found a place to go. My dad’s occupation as a police officer required us to remain within the city, so our options were extremely limited until the dog died and then they were just limited. Why did she wait so long to kick it, did she even love us?

To top it all off, my mother's aunt was losing her years long battle with cancer and had arrived at death’s door, so my mother drove north to neighbor state New Hampshire for goodbyes. One week passed, then two, and my mother still hadn’t come back. Her aunt had passed shortly after she got up there, mom was really taking her time with this grief thing but considering the state of our lives it felt reasonable to conclude she needed the space. When she did come home it wasn’t for long and I didn’t get to see her before she went back to New Hampshire. She did see my dad though and he was able to give me the 411; Mother had fallen in love with her uncle and would be moving in with him in New Hampshire. This solved the riddle of where we were going to put the contents of her art studio, but it presented us with an entirely new riddle, what ‘s up with mom? When she came home again to get some of her things I was able to confront her, but all she really had to say was that she was finally happy and I should support her. I didn’t fight her about it because there was nothing to fight about, her true happiness superseded my sadness the way paper covers rock, the rock is still there but what is out of sight is out of mind. So, she moved away and I put that physical distance to work in putting her out of my mind. We would go months without speaking, and I could go much of that time without even thinking of her. I’d visit on her birthday if she wasn’t away with her uncle-lover in Cancun, we were on okay enough terms but it was difficult finding the motivation to speak with her when she thrived as our family died. Well, she told us she was thriving, but she had developed a heavy Jameson habit, and then there was that time she jumped out the bathroom window to escape a fight and broke her hip in three places. She wasn’t well, this wasn’t the mother I had known but there wasn’t anything to do about it, she claimed to be just fine. Now when I reflect back I refer to their place in New Hampshire as the elephant graveyard, a location she had run away to so she could die. After a life battling trauma and depression she was ready to let go, unfortunately I wasn’t able to conclude this until after she died. 

The last time I spoke to her was on my 24th birthday, she called to wish me well and chat but I wasn’t in the mood. I blew her off to study for a physics exam that was ultimately blown off for a Louis CK show. I’d prefer to blame it all on Louis but the truth is that I told her I would call her back and didn’t, 5 months passed, then she died of an aneurysm. When your time comes, consider an aneurysm, it’s probably one of the best ways to die if the point of death is to escape human suffering, it was very, how should I say, quick. But, it doesn’t give you any time for goodbyes. 

The grieving process has been complicated. At the time she died I still held the paper-covered rock that was my sadness from before she died and after that rock grew to fit the cavity where my heart once lived and replace it. I was depressed.  Depression is a real bitch and everyone’s depression has a different flavor, mine was the flavor of disassociation. It was easier to feel nothing and smoke weed when I wanted to feel anything. My circuit board was fried, I broke up with my boyfriend, pulled away from friends, dropped out of school, quit my job as a waitress and supplemented my income by selling weed so I could smoke it for free, and honestly… it’s working out. 

Where Am I?

It’s been 5 years since my mom died and while not all days are depression-free I do feel that I’m finding my way to the edge of the woods. Depression really gave me the opportunity to strip my life down to its essential components and arrive at a place where I exist without pressure or expectation from myself, family, or society for what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I escaped the uphill battle of a debt ridden education as a means of acquiring a reliable albeit boring occupation. Depression opened up my schedule and allowed me to follow my intuition to the weed underground, a weird place where I met two very important people. One of them is my best friend and comedy partner, together we hosted an open-mic comedy night where I was finally able to take a crack at my long-time dream of stand-up, something I didn’t “have the time for” prior to the death. The weed underground is also where I met my now and first ever girlfriend, who has warmed the rock in my chest to something better resembling a heart. My girlfriend also introduced me to a 3-week gig as a personal assistant which led to me landing a full-time job in L.A. working for the coolest and queerest producer-writer-showrunner-disruptors in all of Hollywood. 

So, I’m sorry dad, I’m not going to be a physical therapist, I have no idea what I’m “going to be”, but the journey through discovery is fun.