![]() ![]() Mom’s corresponding pages were the usual stream of consciousness, dotted with an adopted discipline of recording the miles she’d walked that morning. ![]() Yet, he had managed to collect two names and numbers to contact when back at the office, and recorded his par score, along with notes of “slight headwind, indifferent help, tip 7%”. Daaaaddd, a little sensitivity here look around- you’re surrounded by casinos. Mother!? We cringed another adopted familial tick, along with ignoring the growing social faux pas of proudly mentioning that it was his direct relatives who arrived on the Mayflower. The last pages of Dad’s entries were about that trip: a confirmation number with his condo checking accounts and respective amount of cash in withdrawals caddy tip calculation date and time of restaurant reservation noted cash allowance for “mother’s expenses”. Middle-aged adults with long standing therapy appointments and fortified by a few sips, we cracked the black bindings. In a fleeting cloud of self-consciousness atop cataracs, one pitied, “but left you orphans, poor things!” The caterer’s crumbs were nearly as insentient, just as nauseating. At least they went together! Can’t imagine one without the other. These, more curious than grieving, pounced on the romance of it. This, a cheap reward for shepherding to the door the few straggling visitors. Among the plattered remains of puckering hand sandwiches and curling celery sticks, we were grateful enough to find enough for a Walker neat and a room temp Coors. What he meant was that we’d fuck up his drink, otherwise. Late afternoon in the living room, if our parents had been there we would’ve had a round of various high shelf gin drinks, Dad briefly raising his eyes from his screen, volunteering to shake. I played it over and over again.Īt one point my wife had to hit pause on my phone.Īnother time, in the car, my son said, “this song is scary.We sat down with the death certificates, our phones, the stack of mail, and their last notebooks. And while it wouldn’t let me out of whatever fog I was in, it told me with each listen that the fog is an acceptable place, that I can accept the fact that I am pissed-off, angst-ridden, and devastated-that what isn’t comfortable is perfectly acceptable. I listened to it eighty-seven times, according to my Spotify history. The violin plucks, the base runs to searing imagist poetry. It’s off Marty O’Reilly and the Old Soulful Orchestra ’s debut album. Here’s a link to the Humboldt Live Youtube video of the song. The song broke me, cracked me, right where the healing needed to happen. In that relative sense, this song was and is perfect. Art can know us better than we know ourselves. But I believe art can fit us perfectly, pin us exactly to a moment of sorrow or joy. I was chippy with my wife and short with the kids.Ī piece of art has no objective perfection. Instead of creating, I wanted to destroy, to tear everything apart. It was like a thick fog settled over my brain and I couldn’t find my way back home. I got up early Sunday like I always do, but I had nothing to write. Why couldn’t I just keep up with routines and move forward, knowing that these things happen all the time? Why couldn’t I sit in church on Sunday and know that God’s got all this, that I don’t need to worry? Why couldn’t I think to the good times we shared instead of the reunions we couldn’t? It’s not news you process like the news you see scrolling through the morning’s feed. It’s not that I’ve been incapacitated with grief he was not a friend I was in regular contact with, but he was a friend I’ve shared many a drink and drug with, and he died, a sufferer of addiction. This post is the first thing I’ve been able to write since hearing the news. The train came to a screeching halt without reaching the station. ![]() And then I learn that my friend died from an opioid overdose. I’m hoping to raise awareness concerning how our system mishandles those who suffer from addiction I’m making plans with different prison outreaches. In fact, I received that email just after sharing a new article I wrote for The Fix. I had been writing my ass off, working hard to, you know, march through March like I intended. Friday’s email came via paperless post from the family of a friend-an invitation to his memorial. We get bad news in funny ways in today’s hyper-connected world.
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