When my husband, Frank, died, suddenly and unexpectedly in the hospital on May 15, he took my joy with him.
To distract myself, people told me to write a post for my blog. But, my blog is supposed to make readers laugh. What’s to laugh about anymore?
Of course I’ve laughed in the past two months. But nothing is as funny as it once was. Or as enjoyable. Or as hopeful.
I have nothing funny to say.
When I do, I’ll be back.
Oo-oo that smell
Can’t you smell that smell?
Oo-oo that smell
The smell of death surrounds you.
Lynyrd Skynyrd
There’s a deathly smell in our backyard. It fills my nostrils with its stench and my heart with dread.
Our neighbors on both sides have recently begun landscaping their yards. I’m hoping that the foul odor is emanating from the fertilizer that one of them used. I know better, of course. And the truth is making my heart race and my stomach twist with anxiety.
The fear I’m experiencing is akin to the terror felt by the protagonist in Edgar Allan Poe’s, The Tell-Tale Heart. He killed an old man, dismembered him, and buried him under the floorboards. Even though he knew the old man was dead, he was driven mad by the sound of thumping, which he believed was the beating of the dead man’s heart.
My heart thumps wildly every time I step outside and am assaulted by the pungent aroma of decay, which sends me running back inside.
I know that smell. I’ve smelled that smell. A once-living being is rotting in my family’s yard. It’s only a matter of time until the jig is up.
Many years ago, my husband and I took the subway from Manhattan up to the Bronx to visit his mother. We had to walk several blocks from the subway to her house. As we walked down a short block, we were overcome by a vile aroma. We hurried down the block and soon forgot all about it. Then, the next day, we saw on the news that we had walked past a car that had a dead body in its trunk. The body had been in there for weeks.
Decades later, I still recall the foul air surrounding that car. And now it’s back. In our yard.
My fear is that it’s coming from the grave we dug for our dog, Rudy, last August. He died rapidly and unexpectedly on a Sunday evening as the sun was setting. The grave we dug was about three feet deep. We didn’t have time to dig any deeper. It was getting dark and flies were landing on him. We wrapped him in his vinyl wading pool and buried him before any nocturnal animals or vultures could become curious and pay us a visit.
The next day, the top layer of soil had sunk a bit, so we spent the next few days adding dirt to the top of the grave. No animals disturbed it. No rank aroma arose from the grave for the rest of the summer and fall. Then winter froze the ground and we felt confident that we were out of the woods, and Rudy was part of the earth.
But now, I wonder. Maybe the pool delayed his decomposition. Maybe he thawed out this spring and is just starting to decay. Maybe the vultures are on their way. Maybe the police are on the vultures’ heels.
There’s only one thing to do: buy especially offensive fertilizer and spread it all over the yard. We’ll have to do it every week, until the original stench dissipates. It’s going to be hard to differentiate between the two stinks. I guess we’ll have to fertilize forever.
At least we’ll have a legitimate explanation for the rancid cloud enveloping our home.
When I was 10 through about 12, I was determined to marry David Cassidy. So were millions of other preteens. We all thought that we, alone, had what David Cassidy needed in a wife. We weren’t sure what that was, but we had it.
I remember reading my Tiger Beat magazine and discovering a contest to meet David. All I had to do was explain why David would want to meet me, personally. I told my mother that I was going to win because I cleverly wrote, “David, you have to meet me because ‘I Think I Love You!'” My mother said she imagined that every young girl was going to use the title of his hit song in their plea to meet their idol. I was stunned. Really? Others would think of this, too? Well, it turns out that they did. And some other girl, who was not me, won that contest.
Teen and preteen crushes are powerful things. They twist up your insides and can bring you to tears. You think that you just cannot live without the object of your infatuation. You learn that love can be physically painful.
And then you move on … to crushes on real people, or older famous people. I worked with a young woman, when we were both in our late-20s, who was determined to meet and marry John F. Kennedy, Jr. It was lucky for her that her dream didn’t pan out.
I moved on to real people in my late teens and 20s … and to Barry Manilow. I was way too old to still have crushes on celebrities, but that didn’t stop me. I listened to his albums day and night. I even exercised to them … and forced my boyfriends to listen to them. I ignored comments from those who said he was gay. How could he be gay? He was going to marry me! Of course, it turned out that he was gay, and he was not going to marry another woman. (He’d been married to a woman in his younger days.)
Speaking of inappropriate crushes, I was in my 50s, and married, when I was infatuated with Robert Pattinson. Looking back, I’d prefer to think that I was infatuated with his Twilight character, Edward Cullen, instead of a young man in his 20s.
But, as they say, I digress. All of this reminiscing started with David Cassidy’s death. He brought many people joy with his music and his show, “The Partridge Family.” Both are firmly entrenched in the memories and psyches of multiple generations; kids born in the 50s, 60s, and maybe the 70s, as well as their parents, watched the show when it originally aired, and then later generations watched it in reruns, when their parents insisted.
Many are saddened by the passing of David Cassidy. Are we mourning the death of our youth, blah, blah, blah? No. We’re mourning the loss of David Cassidy.
Why? Because we think we love him.
The other day, I went to the American Folk Art Museum with Maisie, my first-cousin-once-removed. Maisie is a student at Barnard College. In all the time she’s been there, I have never invited her to our home, which is an hour away from her campus, or gotten together with her. Since she’s graduating this year, I was running out of time to assuage my guilt. We are first-cousins-once-removed, for heaven’s sake, and my son is her second cousin, plus we’re really close with her mother (my first cousin) and her husband. I was totally negligent regarding my older-cousin-once-removed duties. The crazy thing is that my family loves Maisie. Time just got away from us, which, of course, is no excuse. I had to make it up to her.
The museum, which is across from Lincoln Center in Manhattan, had moved since the last time I saw it (decades ago when my roommate worked there). It was always in the Lincoln Center area, but it used to be in a storefront. I think it had one room, but I’m not sure. I never actually went in. Whenever I met my roommate after work, I stood outside and waited for her. I was probably avoiding paying an entrance fee, which turned out to be unnecessary since there is not now, and never was, an admission charge. (You can feel free to tuck a bill or two into a prominently displayed lucite rectangle with a slit in the top, however.)
I assumed that the museum had moved to get more space. I was right. It now has three rooms. Three areas, really. We went looking for the rest of the museum after we had looked at the featured exhibit, “Securing the Shadow: Posthumous Portraiture in America,”and we were told that we had seen the entire museum—and that I should put my camera away right now, because photographs were forbidden in all but one area.
At least the featured exhibit–the only exhibit–was entertaining. One room displayed posthumous oil paintings, i.e., oddly proportioned depictions of children who had died before the paintings were commissioned. According to the explanation handwritten on one of the walls, before the invention of cameras, parents had no way to remember their deceased child or children once the memories faded. Up until fairly recently, children regularly died before reaching their second birthday (the “safe” birthday, when their chances for survival got better). In the 19th century, itinerant corpse painters were all the rage. They offered their services to mourning parents and were often hired by those who could afford an oil painting, plus the expense of housing and feeding the painter until he or she (usually he) finished. Having such a painting was a way to cheat death, according to the writing on the wall.
In another area, there was a wall essay which explained that, once in awhile, parents of one dead child and one living child would have a painting of each child made, so that the children would finally “meet,” since they never met in life. We saw some of those. We also saw paintings of whole families of children playing or standing together, even though not all of them were actually alive during the time the painting was done. Maisie and I both guessed who was dead in each picture, and then we’d check the painting’s documentation. She won that game.
In that same room was a chalkboard tombstone, with chalk. Visitors could wipe the tombstone clean and write their own epitaphs. Again, the history
Posted on the wall of the American Folk Art Museum 10/13/2016. No photo credit for legal reasons.
of the chalkboard tombstone appeared on the wall behind the display.
In my opinion, the museum could save a lot of time and money if they just painted their walls in chalkboard paint. Then, when one exhibition moved out and another moved in, they could erase anything about the former and have a clean slate (oh, that’s where that expression came from!) for the latter, instead of having to repaint the walls.
Maisie and I couldn’t resist writing an epitaph.
After a few tries, we came up with, “Wish you were here (beer).” Maisie added the “beer” part. I attributed this to her being a college student but she disabused me of my stereotypical assumption and said that last summer, when she and her parents were in China, they saw a toddler wearing a shirt emblazoned with, “Wish you were beer” and they thought that was hilarious. I had to agree.
We were permitted to photograph our tombstone in order to enter the project’s epitaph contest. If we’re lucky, our tombstone will soon appear on the iPad that is nailed to the wall and displays the most creative entries.
There was also an area dedicated to daguerreotypes. Daguerreotypes were early photographs that were taken in the mid-1800s. There were about 60 daguerreotypes, in velvet-lined, metal, bifold cases, which were displayed on a glass-topped table. Each daguerreotype was numbered. On the wall, someone had started listing each photograph by number with its history, but the task must have been overwhelming, because only 16 or so appeared. Unlike the oil paintings, which were strictly of children, posthumous daguerrotypes also included adults. There were photographs of deceased adults, as well as living adults holding deceased babies. Some of adults were propped up like they were alive, and some didn’t even try to fake it.
When we were ready to leave, we made a quick stop in the gift shop where it became apparent why no photographs of the paintings were allowed: they were selling postcards of the paintings and didn’t want to miss out on sales. They also sold disembodied wooden hands, distressed plaster casts of baby-head candleholders, and a three-pack of journals for planning your death down to the last detail.
Maisie wasn’t very hungry after viewing the exhibit, but my appetite wasn’t affected. We went to the nearby P.J. Clarke’s and had a lively debate over which paintings or photos were the most disturbing.
All in all, it was a fun night. I might have neglected Maisie for three years, but I’m fairly certain that this trip made up for it. I’m probably good for another few years. (Just kidding, Maisie’s mother.)
I was sick all weekend, including today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—a paid vacation day at my company. No Marty Party for me (credit my husband for that fun phrase). All of my ailments were in my head and face, which I’m being treated for, so I dutifully took my handful of pills and lazed around the house. Then I got a burning sensation in the center of my chest. My husband said that I had heartburn, but I knew better. I told him that I was dying and that we’d better get our will written—stat. He told me to lie down (code for “knock it off and be quiet”).
He then surprised me. “Hey, do me a favor,” he said. “When you die, will you give me a sign from the next life so that I know there is one?” I wasn’t surprised at his request for me to contact him. But, I was surprised that he needed proof that there was a next life; Catholics are supposed to know this for a fact.
“What kind of sign?” I asked.
“How about flicking the lights in the house three times, when I’m home, the day after you die?”
“I guess I could do that,” I said. “But what if there’s an electrical storm that day and everyone’s lights are flickering?”
He gave that some thought. “You’re right. We need a backup plan.”
We pondered for a while and then he said, “Play our wedding song on the station I’m listening to in the car the day after you die.”
“You want me to play Summer Wind, sung by Frank Sinatra, on the classic-rock station you listen to?”
“Yeah, that’s a good plan. Then I’ll know you’re contacting me from beyond.”
“But, how am I going to get a rock DJ to play Frank Sinatra? Or, what if you’re listening to that 24-hour sports-talk station?”
“You’ll figure something out,” he said.
Suddenly, my heartburn was worse than ever.
“I love you,” said the seven-year-old boy whom I was driving to his karate lesson.
His three-year-old brother and two-year-old sister were in the back seat of the car with him. They are at an age where they act instinctively, so I always get lots of proclamations of love from them. The seven-year-old shows me that he loves me, but he rarely says it.
Today, however, I must have done something to deserve hearing how he felt about me.
“I love you, too,” I said.
“But,” he said, “I will love you … even when you’re dead.”
“That’s so nice,” I said.
He continued, “I’ll even go to your funeral.”
“Oh, thanks so much,” I said.
When do you think that will be?” he asked as we pulled into the parking lot.
“Hopefully, after I pick you up and take you all home,” I said, as I unlatched the buckles from his car seat and watched him enter the karate studio.
My 19-year-old son now owns a pair of $450 handmade leather dress shoes. This irks me for a number of reasons. First of all, my son, Luke, (who has forbidden me to blog about him, so I’ll be referring to him as Mike), doesn’t care a whit about shoes. When Mike goes out, he wears whatever sneakers are closest to the front door, even if they belong to my husband, or a visitor. When Mike has to dress up, he doesn’t waste time deciding what to put on his feet; he owned exactly one pair of black dress shoes and they suited him fine. Now, he also owns an extremely well-made pair of brown leather shoes. And, he seemed really happy to get them. That surprised me, but not as much as the manner in which he obtained them.
The shoes came from the closet of a deceased middle-aged man. The man had expensive tastes and closets full of garments and footwear, all with their sales tags attached. His sister inherited his home and its contents. She generously offered her coworkers and their family members the opportunity to check out the merchandise and take whatever they wanted. My husband, some of his colleagues, and Mike decided to take her up on her offer.
I have never been offered a dead woman’s expensive belongings, so it’s not really fair of me to judge my husband or Mike–especially since I have been guilty of attending estate sales and buying things that I have to assume were previously owned by a now-dead person. But, in my defense, I never asked if the owner had passed on (on one occasion, my friend and I were pretty sure that the “dead” person, whose possessions were being sold, was actually alive and hiding in a room because the estate-sale coordinators kept handing food and beverages into a room marked “Keep Out”), so I could honestly tell myself that I wasn’t certain that I was stealing the shoes off a dead man, or woman.
My husband and Mike, however, couldn’t make the same case for their actions. But they didn’t even want to excuse their behavior. “What’s the big deal?” my husband asked me. “All of the stuff was brand new, and we were told to take whatever we wanted. Otherwise, it was going to charity.” I asked him if it wouldn’t have been better if it had gone to charity and he looked at me and said, “No.”
Their haul consisted of two duffel bags filled with beautifully made shirts, a leather jacket, and those shoes. Both my husband and Mike were thrilled with their “purchases.” For two men who hate shopping, I was surprised. Maybe they don’t actually hate shopping–just the paying part.
My husband’s coworker was glad that her brother’s belongings had found good homes and she told the beneficiaries of her generosity that they could go back a second time and see if they overlooked anything during their first visit. I had come to terms with my family’s first trip, but it’s going to take some time to accept that they’re going again. I’d better accompany them this time, just to make sure that they don’t mistake greed for need.
And, besides, I heard that there were brand-new sheet sets up for grabs.
I get why we’re not allowed to know when we’re going to die. It’s to keep us in line. If we don’t know when the light is going to show up and pull us into the beyond, we have to at least consider our actions and the consequences of such actions. (Unless we’re under some influence or other. Then caution goes out the window. But let’s save that topic for another blog post, or St. Patrick’s Day.) The younger we are, the less we think about our mortality and when we do spare it a thought, it’s fleeting, because, as everyone knows young people are immortal.
Then middle age happens and more of life has been spent than is left. The well-known midlife crisis happens at this point. We start having regrets, changing our bad habits, being more patient, and driving Porsches. So, not knowing our expiration date is probably beneficial to the human race in general, and to luxury car makers in specific.
I can live with not knowing how long I’m going to live. It’s probably why I’ll never get a full-body scan. Sometimes I’d rather be in the dark. But not when it comes to unemployment. Losing your job and looking for one can be devastating. Even if you can afford to not work for awhile, because you don’t know when your next job will come along, you can’t enjoy the time off. Every time I’m unemployed I spend all of my time panicking and sleeping. Then when I get a job, I have to scramble and do everything that I put off during my time off when I had plenty of time to do it. I can see how this happened to me the first time I was between jobs, but now that I know I should be organizing my taxes and making pinatas, I still don’t.
I should at least organize my house. My drawers used to be a metaphor for my life. Five or six years ago, if you walked into my house, you would have been greeted with cleanliness and order, and the soothing smell of bleach and cleansers. You would have said, and probably did, “My, she certainly has it all together.” You would have remained blissfully unaware of the chaos raging in my brain unless you opened a closet or drawers. As mountains of mismatched and discarded debris tumbled toward you, or on you, you would have rethought your initial impression. That wouldn’t have happened, however, because I guarded my closets and drawers with the tenacity of a drug lord’s pit bull.
Now, if you walk into my house, you will harbor no illusions about the state of my mind. After signing my guestbook, which entails writing your name in the dust on our sideboard, you will be greeted by muddy floors, piles of papers, mounds of books that have overtaken several rooms and have been granted squatters’ rights, and frosted window panes that really aren’t frosted at all.
Another indication of my scatteredness is that, a year or so ago, I would have had this blog post all plotted out. I would have known how I would start, what would be said in the middle, and I would have tied it all together at the end. Not anymore. In fact, I’m a little bored. I think I’ll go price Porsches. I’ll write when I get work.
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