Why Dead People Suck

Why dead people suck

The Top 10 Reasons Why Dead People Suck

1. They leave an eternal gaping hole in your heart

It is pretty apparent that I have a vaguely candid manner in which I talk about my dead mom and I think that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. For me this is the natural way to talk about her death. Maybe it is to lessen the gravity of death in general. My previous and perfect therapist had someone very close to her pass while I was seeing her and she said that she doesn’t think people should die, “It’s too much”. Sometimes I agree with that sentiment but then the athlete and climber in me takes over and says that just because it is hard doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen.

I don’t have a specific faith but I do deeply believe in the necessity of balance in the world, the yin and yang, dark and light, happy and sad, life and ultimately death. Just because it is devastating doesn’t mean it shouldn't be. Now don’t get me wrong, I hope it goes without saying that I very much wish to whatever Gods that my mom wasn’t dead but as we all know that is clearly not the case. 

So here I am with my dead mom who happened to also be my life partner who is now just gone in maybe the most crucial time of my life as Anthony and I try to figure out and navigate life as “adults” and parents. What a nightmare. But in a very Jasmine manner I am just trying to find solutions, solutions to life while also  trying to navigate this awful experience of the love of my life quite literally evaporating. In a nutshell that’s what happens, they just go away. I was really banking on something special or magical happening when my mom died. I was ready for the last breath or the soul or all the things that are talked about when people die but spoiler alert, literally nothing happened. It was pretty anticlimactic and I think this really triggered my avid non-romanticizing of death. The magic was gone, it was like finding out that Santa isn’t real, which ironically enough when I asked my mom in like 4th or 5th grade if Santa was real and, as she told the story I said, “and don’t lie to me” so in the very Joy manner that was she, she told me the truth. From parent to parent, I am not sure that honesty at all costs at such an early age is the answer, take it from the product of her actions, me. Anyway, on the hill of Iowa Elementary in Aurora, Colorado, I broke the news to Karin that Santa was, in fact, not real. If you are wondering how that went, well her mom called my mom in a heated rage. It may have been because Karin started crying when I really dug in because my mom, who I very much trusted said so, and she didn’t lie because I told her not to. This retelling of the truth wasn’t malicious in intent it was just the truth, which as I write this seems very similar to how I am handling and talking about death. I guess I have always been this way, facts are facts. This topic is for another post but to scratch the surface of understanding, this is why I have a really hard time with lying and what has caused my youngest sister and I so much conflict. Lying is a very deep line in the sand for me because I lied to my mom once and she said, “If you lie to me I will never know when to trust you.” She and I had an obviously very codependent relationship, again, I don't all the way recommend, and this really ingrained in me, NEVER. LIE. EVER. She said that her mom had said the same thing to her. You can tell your kids this is passing but this as the word of god, is too much. Just ask poor Karin. 

Alas, I digress. The point is that I don’t know how else to talk about the death of my mom. With the passing of my grandfather I have a lot more bedside manner and grace, with my mom I think I feel so helpless that if I am curt and real and mad about it it's not as heavy. Who wants to think about the gravity of their dead mom? 

Having my mom pass was just another big thing in adult life that I knew nothing about and felt completely unprepared to deal with. While she was sick and she wasn’t taking care of herself in the manner that I thought would be most helpful or successful I would talk to Carmen about her just “dying then”. I feel like maybe they portray that in movies but the guilt of wanting it all to just be over already is awful. Watching someone suffer is miserable and my mom’s way of doing it as she had done with all things in her life was incredibly graceful. I had no idea how much pain she was in. When her kidney, I think it was kidney, gave out she wasn’t even crying when she walked, yes walked herself to the ambulance. The pain that she was in was immeasurable. It's awful to think back on. She has always been that way, too strong. Once when we lived in “the Kula house” she was doing laundry downstairs, the machines were awkwardly located under the house and there wasn’t a lot of wiggle room to maneuver, she was pulling laundry out of the washer and moving it into the dryer. At some point she hit her already hurt and inflamed pointer finger or thumb, I can’t remember which and she came up stairs, likely after finishing the laundry lol, and started crying but my sisters and I thought she was joking because we honestly so rarely saw her fall apart from physical pain. Honestly I don’t remember her really crying or falling apart when she had her double mastectomies on Oahu. It is possible that I just blocked it out but I really remember being a bit wary that she wasn’t more panicked. She was mad though. We went to Safeway, a big journey of walking for her physical state and at checkout the cashier asked her if she wanted to donate to breast cancer research for breast cancer awareness month. Imagine, you just had your breasts sliced off to try and beat breast cancer and an unknowingly somebody is asking you to give money to breast cancer research. I would be pissed too. I wasn't because I didn’t understand in the moment but fuck, looking back what a hand this woman had been dealt. My poor mom.

And this friends is why dead people suck, you can’t tell them anything. I mean you can, I ‘talk’ to my mom sometimes but I find it frustrating so I don’t often. I can’t tell my mom that I am so sorry her life was just

one shit hand after another. I can’t tell her that I see her. That I finally see a lot of her struggle. That I am sorry that I wished she would ‘just die already’. That I am sorry that there was no way to understand what level of pain she had to be in to want to kill herself right after the birth of her first grandkid. The part in life where you finally see your parents, where you get to grant them some grace and understanding and love, I didn’t get to do that for her and that is the real heart break. Mom, I finally see you, you did such a good job. I am so sorry it was so hard all the time. I am so sorry. I can’t tell her. Not only can I not take from her, take more information and guidance and insight, mostly I can’t give to her. I think that probably really pulls a parent/child relationship full circle. I got skimped. Not to mention my poor sisters. I got so much more than them and it’s still not enough. Dead people suck because the finality and lack of understanding are so suffocating and leave you so helpless. 

Then there's the part of death where your truth about your loved one is different from that of the others in their lives. There becomes this tug of war about what you believe about them and what others believe about

them and it's not like we can ask her, “Hey Ma, how do you feel about God? Any thoughts on politics?” It’s this frustrating my truth, your truth battle and it feels threatening because you don’t want to be challenged on how you 'know' them. When the reality is that one person is many different people to everyone in their lives and that is how it should be. She should be my mom and Tim’s wife, and Angus’ grandma, and my dad’s ex-wife etc. Each version of Joy is Joy but it’s specific to each of us so the commiserating over our dead counterpart can be very sensitive and threatening and frustrating. This is maybe one of the parts I hate the most, keeping my theory of Joy alive while being challenged or informed of other people's theory of Joy. I do not like it one bit. I don’t like it with a fox or on a box or in a car or at a bar or in a boat or wearing a coat…I don't like green eggs and ham.

But that's the thing about dead people, it doesn't really matter, you just have to keep swimming because they don't become undead. Unless you do some weird seance stuff like in that movie Practical Magic, a wonderful 90’s classic by the way 10/10, and I don't mess around with magic and such so here I am just

stuck with my thoughts. These loved ones don’t come back to clear anything up. It’s final and not like a breakup or something where if you really wanted you can reach back out, it’s final like you never get another chance to do or say anything. Death is the ultimate helplessness. There is nothing to do and nothing to fix, which are my two main go-tos with any challenge in my life.  But you can’t. You just think and yearn and think some more and try to find the best way to honor your dead ones and try to figure out how to express the pain of your loss. For a long time I didn’t talk much about my mom’s death because it makes people very uncomfortable, for all the reasons previously stated but I recently started following this guy Blake Kasemeier @blakeoftoday and he is an artist and poet with a beautiful way with words and he had a very honest and raw post about his dead mom that was very inspiring for me. Thank you Blake, honestly. 

Anthony often talks about how he wants to be more candid about death, “we are all going to die, not something to hide from” and he’s right, it has more weight and power if we avoid it. I think that is why it was so easy for me to lean into Dia de los Muertos after my grandfather passed, there has got to be something reasonably ‘good’ about all this, whatever that looks like. So I guess this is what I will do, I will nurture this tradition with our kids and I will tell you people about death and I will just keep trying to figure out what feels best for me to honor The Joy of Maui. When my mom passed, the mother of one of my amazing friends sent me a card with kind regards that said something that really stuck with me. It went something along the lines of, “When my mother passed it was the worst day of my life. All you can do is try to share the love and care and joy that she gave you with your children.” It makes me cry just thinking about it. It hit so hard because the love I know deep down to a cellular level that my mom had for me, that security and warmth that I never had to question is absolutely the best gift that she gave me and that I am desperate for my kids to also know. If you can give anyone anything, true ,pure love is absolutely the best gift. Well, that and like a house and money to have a head-start and get ahead, just saying.