What's Harder? Losing the Dead or Losing the Living?

A hat, a couple of bloody t-shirts, and a plastic hospital pan.

Mum's life in a hospital pan. A plastic freaking hospital pan. 

This is it. All I have in my possession from my 36 years of life living on this earth with my mother. My creative, driven, beautiful, yet tortured soul of a mother died in January 2012 from complications related to a rare stomach cancer brought on by her years of alcohol overindulgence. 


It's been three years since Mum's death. It is strange indeed, but life has moved on, as it does. All of her things, her furniture, her clothes, her shoes, her knic knacs, her photos, her jewelry, her keepsakes, have all been moved into a storage unit at my step-father's job--I was told recently it's all being kept there without the owner's consent and could be found and dumped at any time. So, naturally, I'm panicked. 

When I was young, before my step-father and sister entered the picture, Mum was an artist. She painted, sketched, played music, and for years worked as a David Bowie impersonator (which I despised at the time, but now of course realize how badass she truly was). She painted an incredible abstract depiction of Elton John that hung above our orange '70s sofa for years, and as a little girl I'd stare up at it and counted the shapes and colors. She created ceramic pieces that she placed throughout the home. I cannot imagine my childhood without picturing these pieces--pots, psychedelic cats, busts--giving texture and color to life's background. Her music album collection consisted of Queen, David Bowie, The Beatles, The Kinks, Adam and the Ants, Alvin and the Chipmunks. She'd place these albums on the record player and we'd clean house or play games or dance about like the crazy neighborhood freaks we were, and those memories are held dear to my brother Tony and I. 

My step-father and sister never knew this woman. Only Tony and I were lucky enough to embrace her before she abandoned her for another persona. 

Somewhere in taped up boxes in my step-father's work warehouse lie Mum's Kink's albums, her sketches, her ceramic creations, her Bowie costumes, her complicated yet intriguing history. Somewhere in those boxes (that can be gone forever at any time) lie my brother's and my baby pictures, our special newborn outfits, the blankets she made especially for us, and small keepsakes from our respective fathers. 

Bill and Kelli never knew these memories, these blankets, these fathers, these moments, this life. And yet, they refuse to let them go--to us, at least.

.....

I'm working on a video project for disadvantaged children, connecting them with grown, successful mentors of sorts via video interviews. Starting in August of last year I was attempting to gather any equipment I could, and being on a tight budget, remembered Mum had loads of video and camera equipment in storage that wasn't being used and had sat there gathering dust for the past three years. If Mum were alive, she'd want to help. So I called my sister to not only discuss borrowing Mum's equipment for a few months, but also to arrange a special birthday dinner for her in Los Angeles.

After discussing the dinner in high spirits, I brought up borrowing the video equipment. 

"I don't want to keep it, just would like to borrow it for a few months. I know Mum would want it to be used and especially for something positive."

"No! That stuff is all MINE now. I don't care. Not you, not Papa, not Tony, not me, NO one will touch any of those things. I'm locking them up in storage until I die!" she replied. 

"I'm not asking to keep . . ."

"I don't care. No." Click. 

That was the last time I spoke with my sister. And no, we didn't end up going to a special dinner for her birthday. 

Months went by and after discussing the situation with my brother Tony, we decided we should give Bill, our step-dad, a call. After all, legally, my Mum's possessions were his, as they were legally still married before she passed (even though she told me just after her surgery that they were about to divorce). At this point, all Tony and I were looking to have is our baby pictures, our baby clothes, and a few knic knacs that meant something to us that they would have no clue of the significance. It would kill us if they ended up in a landfill next to soiled diapers and yesterday's treasures being picked at and shat upon by seagulls. No, please, no. 

I wish she'd written a goddamned will. 

His bottom line was, "I'll have the stuff moved into a storage unit. When we do that, anything that has your name on it I'll put it outside and good luck getting it." 

Trouble is, it won't have my name on it. Nor Tony's. 

Before Bill gave me this incredibly generous offer, I had offered to help them move it. I offered to get dinner, pizza, and help sort through all of it. We could do it as a family. I told him I was in no personal rush to get it, but I wanted to be sure it didn't end up in the dumpster before Tony and I have a chance to go through it. 

"I don't ever want to see your brother again." He said. 

"Why not?" I asked. 

"Because I'm sick and tired of hearing about how bad I treated him."

I wondered where he was hearing these stories as Tony and I had forgiven him long ago for the abuse. Must be his conscience, I thought. 

So, family members die, and I have to wonder if the most pain comes from losing the dead or losing those who are still alive and well. At least when losing the dead, there is a reason: car accident, long-standing illness, suicide, or in Mum's case, cancer.

.....

The hat I have sitting on the hospital pan represents a mum I didn't grow up knowing. It was her newer persona, the persona Bill and Kelli knew well and embraced, the persona loved and adored by her paranormal society colleagues, by her newer friends. I know my little sister would love to have this hat, and I'd gladly give it to her because I know how much it would mean to her. 

But she won't talk to me.  

No reason.

Tea Cups, Pancakes, & Deadly Weaponry

Photo found here: http://www.droold.com/i/236-Crazy-Egg-Pancake-Fryers

The cozy breakfast diner had at least one hungry customer at every table, except for the empty booth in the back corner, which thankfully, is the usual place I look to in hopes I might be sat for quiet solitude and maximum people viewing potential. It was mine.

I had no idea when waking that morning, that while hacking away at my buckwheat pancakes and guzzling down my dangerously caffeinated self-brought English tea, I’d be witness to many people’s personal nightmare.

As my husband sat across from me, relaying behind-the-scenes war stories of working in film and television, I noticed two uniformed police officers enter the dining room and were headed straight to the back of the restaurant. I was no longer listening. They were headed straight for us.

“This is it,” I thought. My time was up—they’d finally found me. I was to be immediately extradited to my far off no-longer-secret originating planet, or they’d been on my trail for years as I continually checked out books from the library on communism, secret societies, and Area 51. Or perhaps they’d been observing my frequent viewings of online documentaries on the effects of LSD, who killed JFK?, and those ultra-fabulous Linda Evangelista make-up tutorials. I knew they’d catch up to me one day—I know too much.

Just short of reaching our table, it was as if the earth simply stopped. The chattering ceased, and only slow motion body movements commenced. A mother grabbed her little girl and held her head in her arms whilst her face exhibited surprise and fear. Heads were turning towards the walls, as if humans in this brief moment were instinctually displaying the calming signals animals give when they fear for their lives.

A matte black pistol appeared and was slowly being raised up above the head of a young man, over the trembling mother and daughter, just behind my husband. The weapon was now in the hands of a police officer. And the room was silent. Time stood still.

Slowly, and quietly, the young previously-armed man left the restaurant with the officers. His friends continued to eat, though they avoided any eye contact with fellow diners. The chatter was resucitated and the feeding frenzy restored. 

Why are they still here? Did that really just happen?

I apologized to my husband for not giving him my full attention, quietly filled him in on what had just occurred just feet away from behind his back, shoved a few too-large chunks of pancakes into my mouth, then in walked the young, previously unarmed man, with his gun in plain sight, tucked into his baggy, sagging pants.

"What happened to the officers?" I thought.

The no-older-than-nineteen now-armed man began to ask others sitting near him, including the woman who feared for her daughter’s life, “Who told on me? Why did you report me? It’s my right! This is for my protection!”

As if they were going to say anything to further anger him.

Great. And I’m now stuck in the back corner. Nowhere to run. 

He returned to his plate and the room settled once again.

Forks irritatingly scraping plates accelerated, and finally, Mr. “Lay off my plate or I’ll shoot” and his small pancake-eating posse left the restaurant.

My husband and I wondered aloud, “Whom was this guy running from? Is this form of ‘protection’ needed when dining in a family restaurant? Is the breakfast burrito that good?”

His right under law or not, my logic stricken brain came to a conclusion: if I didn’t feel safe in a family restaurant and resolved to require a weapon in order to enjoy scrambled eggs out on the town, I'd likely stay home and scramble my own eggs. And if by chance I'd run out of eggs and lost my ability to cook for myself, I'd make use of a holster. And a bad-ass one at that.