She was gracious and dignified, two qualities I am in short supply of. My grace is grit, and my dignity is outrage. She would cover her mouth when she laughed, and she hated being photographed—she was from that era. I always wanted my mom to smile big. I wanted that for her. She probably didn’t care about it, but I wanted her to be freer. I wanted her to throw caution to the wind, not be so ladylike, to be a little bit bawdy and crass—I wanted her to be more like me.
She was nothing like me. My mother would have probably hated me, had I not been her daughter. She was warm and fuzzy and chunky with lots of side pockets of meat to grab onto, which always made me feel like I was home. It’s why I love meaty pets and meaty babies and meaty people. My mom wanted the best for her kids, but she and I both knew that she was probably not the person who would be providing it. She never wanted you to be sad—or to cry. She had a ton of compassion. And empathy in spades. She always wanted everyone to be happy, to feel better. She was soft with her touch, and always had her arms open for anyone who needed comfort.
She worried about Shana and Roy. She always told me she never worried about me. She never held any of my past behavior against me; she never passed judgment—she was always ready with new unconditional love. She was my mother—the person who would love me more perfectly than anyone else ever would and never asked for much in return. When my dad and I went through our rough years, she did whatever she could to make the situation better for me. She knew my father was an asshole. She knew I was one too, and with two assholes in such close proximity, I’m sure she wondered what it was about her personality that drew those types of people to her.
* * *
• • •
“It takes an asshole to make an asshole. You got it from your father,” she told me after I told her I was pregnant at sixteen and planning to move to Niagara Falls, where I could raise my baby in peace. When my mom yelled at you it was hard to take her seriously—it was almost like she had peanut butter in her mouth. Hearing my mother curse always put a smile on my face, even when things were bad. She didn’t do it often, but when she did it, you looked up.
“You’re not having a baby. You’ll ruin your life. I’ll let you do almost anything else, but I will not let you bring a child into this world—not while you’re still acting like one. You have no idea what that responsibility is like.”
“Well, it doesn’t seem that hard,” I told her. “You can just sleep all the time and never show up to anything.”
I was terrible as a teenager. I always had a knee-jerk reaction to things I didn’t like hearing. I put my mother through hell, but she never gave up on me, and she never stopped loving me. She always told me she knew I would turn out okay, and that I just needed my independence, and that once I was an adult, I would shake myself out. Maybe that was another thing she made true, simply by saying it.
When my father and I used to go to war, he would yell at me and throw his hands up and say, “She’s not right! Something is wrong with her!”
My mom would tell him not to talk about me like that—that I was in pain and I needed to get it out of my system. I overheard her say that to him once while they were arguing about me. I thought then about how out of focus that seemed. It has nothing to do with pain—I just want a different family. I know now that it had everything to do with pain, and that what I wanted was my family back in one piece. If I took control of making my family dysfunctional, then I would never have to mourn anyone again.
* * *
• • •
My best friend from high school told me many years later that my mom was the first person to tell her she loved her. I couldn’t believe that. I could believe my mom did something like that, but I also couldn’t believe her own parents had never told her they loved her. Another broad reminder that your experience isn’t like everyone else’s. I never felt unloved. I felt disappointed, and abandoned, but I never felt like I wasn’t loved.
“No one had ever told me that before,” my friend said. “Your mom told me she loved me and that I was lovable. She just somehow knew I needed to hear that.”
* * *
• • •
The day of the funeral, I headed upstairs to my mom’s medicine cabinet. Roy was already standing there looking through the options. “What do we got?” I asked.
“Valium, Norco?” he said.
“That’s like Vicodin.”
“Codeine?”
“That’s good.”
“Percocet?”
“That’s pretty strong. Give me the Percocet and you take the rest. By the way, all of these things make you constipated,” I told him.
Roy pursed his lips to indicate he had bigger problems at the moment, but I knew, as a pharmacological intuit, I had the duty to inform him of all pertinent side effects. I had been prescribing drugs to people for years, and I knew the ethical guidelines that go with said profession. I can tell by someone’s weight, body type, personality, and mood what the right dosage for them will be. I’d known my brother my whole life. He needed a Vicodin.
My dad walked out of the closet he shared with my mom wearing a pair of suspenders strapped to a pair of khakis and a shirt that he couldn’t button all the way. He looked like a giant baby.
“I don’t think so, buddy,” I told him.
“Nothing fits,” he declared.
“Neither does what you’re wearing.”
“What are you two doing in there?” he asked, cocking his head to one side, playfully. “Careful with that stuff. It’s strong.”
Roy elbowed me, like we were twelve. Once I was an adult, I knew I always had the upper hand with my father, simply by virtue of telling the truth.
“It’s Percocet,” I told him. “Do you want one?”
“No, I don’t touch the stuff. But you should take two. I don’t want you to have another one of your hysterical hospital episodes at the funeral.”
I wondered if my father was relieved that my mother was dead. I remember looking at him in those suspenders with his giant belly protruding, thinking, Why on earth did I bother fighting so hard to keep you alive, when my mother was the one worth fighting for? Then I thought about my mother watching us from where she believed she was going, and thought, She’s already laughing at us, and then I was laughing, and then my father, and then Roy.
My father’s plan for my mother’s funeral was exactly the kind of hijinks we’d all learned to expect from him. The funeral was a long afternoon of avoiding eye contact with anyone Mormon. This was the epitome of our family. We couldn’t even get death right.
After my mom died, my dad acted like my sisters and I were just going to pick up where she left off, as if there had been some indication that we had any of her talent or gift for homemaking. He simply presumed that because we were related to my mother, we could all make a casserole out of matzoh. My sisters would complain about him showing up at their houses demanding a fresh-cooked meal. Nothing is more annoying than someone who can’t cook pretending they can, and none of us can cook, but somehow during that time, my father must have convinced Simone that she had the gift. She got on this recipe kick for a while—because my father was tricking her into making food for him—and she’d talk about cooking as if she had just somehow magically inherited my mother’s culinary skills. She acted like she was the first person who ever roasted a chicken with peaches. Hopefully, the last.
* * *
• • •
I grew up with people always telling me that I looked like my mother. When I was a teenager, my mother was old and chubby in my eyes—I loved her, but I didn’t want to look like her. Now that she’s gone, I always look for myself in pictures of her. I want to resemble her now. Probably the same way parents look for themselves in their children. I guess it’s all about whoever is on the other side of the looking glass. Now I want to look like my mother, and—guess what—now that I’m older, I
do.
My mom died a day before I was supposed to start production on my very first TV show, The Chelsea Handler Show. This was a short-lived venture that turned into Chelsea Lately.
While her life was ending, mine felt like it was finally starting to make sense. I had been doing stand-up for years, I had published my first book, and my future had begun. New Jersey represented the past. My life was in Los Angeles now. I wanted the past to be over and the rest of my life to begin.
Keep moving. Keep doing. Keep going.
Weirdly, the relationship between my mother and me strengthened after she died. It was then that I felt her looking over me and after me, way more than what I felt when she was on earth.
Every day before I went onstage for Chelsea Lately, I would stand backstage and look up and imagine this warm, glowing light.
Whenever I got nervous, I would always think of my mother. I’d look up, and welcome her light, and ask her to watch over me, and help me shine. It used to happen when I was performing, but now it happens mostly when I’m skiing, because that is where I’m willing to take almost any risk to get better. When I ski, I sometimes feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder. Sometimes it’s Chet’s hand I feel.
Slow down, I’ll hear, when I’m gunning down a mountain out of control. Cool it, one of them will say, and sometimes I do. I listen to my mother more now than I ever did when she was standing in front of me.
She knew I was reliable before I did. She knew about my strength before I did. She knew my sister needed extra love, and she knew my father was one big hot mess that she needed to try to shield us from—protecting us in the best way she could. She knew a lot more than I ever gave her credit for knowing. Her strength was quiet. Her determination wasn’t loud or ugly—it was refined. I never knew determination could be quiet. I suppose it depends on who’s got it.
My mother died twenty-two years after Chet—the same amount of time he was alive. She had him in her life for twenty-two years, and then she tried for twenty-two years to live without him—and then she gave up. I know now that she did her best.
Whereas siblings tend to police you, cousins are your partners in crime. A cousin is who you go out to breakfast with after a night of debauchery, and who doesn’t flinch when you ask the server to put a margarita in your omelet. My sisters would tolerate that behavior, but they wouldn’t help me achieve my goal—or try to reason with the server on my behalf. My cousin Molly would.
I would also say that if there’s anything better than a cousin or a sister, it’s Molly. Technically, she is my cousin, but I think of her as my mother, father, sister, brother, and daughter. We are intertwined. My ugliest is fine with her. I wish I could say the same about her, but her breath in the morning is strong. She knows that although it’s not a deal-breaker, she should always have her back toward me when we wake up after a sleepover.
Molly is a producer on all of my projects. Karen is also a producer. Karen started out as my assistant on tour about ten years ago, and then became my personal assistant full-time. When she was ready to move on to a different role, she found Brandon and Tanner to take her place. That’s why I call Karen “Bitch.” Because it took two men to replace her. Also because she doesn’t put up with anyone’s shit.
Karen is kind and strong, but she makes you earn her trust. She’s from Oklahoma and she’s a Christian, and the fact that she supports whatever I do is a testament to the strength of her character. I chose her to come on tour with me initially because she didn’t speak very much, and at that time in my life, that’s what I was looking for. She also knows how to run a book signing and a comedy tour, and she always lets me find out about people on my own, even though she usually has them pegged months before I do. Like the time I got sick of my therapist (not Dan) and sent Karen in my stead. After her second visit, I asked her if she felt like she was making progress.
“For who?” she asked.
“For you,” I said.
“I didn’t know I was supposed to talk about myself,” she said. “I thought I was in there to talk about your problems.”
I’ve learned more from Karen’s restraint than she could ever learn from my noise. She disagrees with me on so many topics, yet is the first one to get up and start planning when I say I want to cross the country and talk to Republicans about abortions and guns. We’ve grown a lot together over the years.
Molly, Karen, and I are a triad.
Molly is the one in charge. Karen supports the decisions Molly or I make, and I do whatever Karen tells me to do.
We have an understanding: They will enable, support, and encourage me, as long as I behave in a loving way toward others and myself. If I behave badly, they are more like disappointed parents whose daughter got suspended from fourth grade for the third time this year.
* * *
• • •
The three of us were sitting around my office, brainstorming about a documentary series I was filming for Netflix. We had chosen three topics—marriage, race, and Silicon Valley (and my allergic reaction to technology)—but we needed a fourth.
“I think I should do one about drugs,” I said. “It’s kind of like my wheelhouse, no?”
“Yes,” they both said in unison, as if I asked this question several times a day.
“Do you think Netflix will let you do that?” Molly asked. “Won’t that just sound like another one of your boondoggles?”
Molly likes to write down words that I throw around or misuse, look them up, and then use them properly in a sentence directed at me.
“You guys want to do it with me?” I asked them, winking at Molly for her on-point usage of “boondoggle.”
“I’m not doing any drugs on camera,” Karen said, zipping up her sweatshirt.
“I would,” Molly said, “but if we film this, I’ll technically be working. I don’t think anyone’s going to go for that.”
“Why not? Chelsea will also be ‘working,’ ” Karen reminded us.
“Yes, but Chelsea’s ‘work’ requires different things from her than ours does from us,” Molly said.
* * *
• • •
My first choice of drug was mushrooms, my favorite, but that is pretty much illegal everywhere. Someone mentioned ayahuasca. This is the drug that’s derived from a plant in South America and brewed into a tea that you drink. More often than not, you shit your pants, vomit, and then have some sort of transcendental experience—in that order. There are some people who actually have mental breakdowns during their experience, but I have always felt that I’m not a candidate for that sort of thing.
“I don’t know how I feel about shitting my pants on camera,” I told them.
“Why?” Molly asked. “That seems like something you would do.”
“They don’t have to film you actually shitting your pants on camera,” Karen reminded us. “And I’m sure you don’t have to shit your pants. I’m sure production can secure a toilet or a bucket for you. They can’t force you to shit your pants like a baby.”
“But can we?” Molly asked Karen, with one eyebrow raised to somewhere between the middle of her forehead and her hairline.
“To do it legally, you’d have to go to South America. It says here, Peru is pretty much the place for that,” Karen said, squinting at her computer.
Molly’s eyes lit up, and she wiggled her shoulders. “You looooove Peru.”
Molly and I had just come back from Peru, where we’d gone after I announced that I was ready to tackle my phobia of snakes. This idea was based simply on the time of day, the amount of marijuana in my system, and my willingness to travel anywhere, for any reason. We were in Santiago, Chile, tagging along on one of my brother Glen’s “business trips,” when it dawned on me that Peru was basically up the street.
We had gotten some weed off of our sixty-seven-year-old driver in Santiago—who ref
used to take any money for it, being that selling drugs in Chile is a crime whereas gifting them is not. We were all very stoned and exhausted from walking around the city for hours. For some reason, Glen had dragged us from one corner of the city to the next, as if he owned the place, until finally Molly and I told him to fucking cool it.
“Don’t go to Peru, Chelsea,” Glen said with a scowl, as we sat in the bar of the Ritz-Carlton in Santiago, catching our breath. “That’s going to be a full-blown nightmare for you. There are snakes everywhere.”
“Ooooh, this is going to be scary,” Molly said as she started looking up flights.
“I have no fear of dying,” I proclaimed.
“No one should fear dying, Chelsea. It’s going to be glorious,” Glen said, smiling longingly.
“Flying, Glen. I meant flying, not dying.”
“Commercially?”
“She means coach,” Molly interjected. “Some of these smaller planes don’t have first class. So the whole plane is coach.”
“I’d fly coach if it meant finally conquering my fear of snakes.”
“Can you imagine if you had to be a flight attendant, Chelsea?” Glen asked me, smiling and looking off into the distance.
“In coach,” Molly added.
“You’d be collecting unemployment.” This image delighted him to no end.
“Or in jail,” Molly said.
I got up and tried to find some chicken fingers. When I realized they weren’t just sitting on a table in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton, I came back to the bar and asked them what the plan for food was.
“You’re not hungry, Chelsea,” Glen told me. “We’ve been eating all day. You’re just stoned. Sit down and have a drink, like a normal person.”
Life Will Be the Death of Me Page 12
