“Pulled what?!” I yelled. “You said you wanted to go out to dinner and I agreed and now you’re acting like I have somehow fucked you over.”
“I just don’t feel like going out. I feel gross and I’m tired and I just want to stay in.”
“Well, that would’ve been fine a few hours ago, but this last-minute, forget it. You aren’t even making sense. This is the most irrational argument I’ve ever had, and I’ve had a lot of irrational arguments. You’re mad at me for keeping plans with you, basically.”
“You guys have fun,” she said as she hung up on me.
Look, I understand not feeling like going out—we all go through it, especially girls. One day you just wake up and nothing fits and you hate your life; believe me, I get it. Had this been the only moment of Renee acting like an asshole, I probably would have called Jess, told her to bring her PJs, and ordered a ton of Chinese food. But once again, Renee was lashing out, and I was tired of asking, “How high?” when she told me to jump. I was just done. That was the last time I spoke to her.
Now, before you decide I should have run some kind of intervention for her, she is a grown woman. She lives with her boyfriend. She’s quit drinking in the past and I can’t say that she acted much differently sober. There is a trigger in her that I don’t know how to deal with. We were good friends for well over a decade, and not all of it was terrible. We had some great times together and there were times she was there for me when nobody else was.
But I guess just like relationships, friends can outgrow each other. It’s similar to couples who get married in high school—Renee was like my jock high school boyfriend, and it was time for me to move on.
Parental Misguidance
Probably one of the toughest parts of your parents’ getting older is that they lose their parents. Thus, one of the toughest parts of your getting older is watching your parents lose their parents.
At this point, both of my birth parents have lost both of their parents (I clarify “birth” because I have stepparents as well). They both lost their moms before their dads—which I think is a little rude on the men’s side. I mean, have some manners and go first, you know? It’s called chivalry. And because my mom’s mom passed away young, at sixty-six years old from cancer, my mom is convinced she knows her own fate.
“I’ve got two years left,” she said to me shortly after her sixty-fourth birthday.
“Mom, don’t say that,” I replied.
“Well, my mom died at sixty-six and her mom died at sixty-seven.”
“So technically you could have three years left,” I said sarcastically.
“I guess,” she answered. “But cancer got both of them and it’s going to get me, too.”
“What? Why would you say that?” I yelled, even though I knew why she would say it: she’s a fatalist. She constantly worries about everyone and everything. Like when I called her to tell her that I had to have my cat murdered.
“Oh, no. I’m so sorry, poor little guy,” she said sympathetically.
“I know! I feel terrible! But he’s so sick . . . ,” I told her, sobbing.
“Well that’s what happens when they get older,” she told me. “Elektra is almost nineteen years old,” she went on, referring to her own cat. “I don’t know how much longer she’s going to live, probably not much.”
“Well, she seemed okay last time I was home . . .”
“I know, but she doesn’t eat much and she’s so skinny. I’m sure at some point soon she’s going to die,” my mom said, starting to cry.
“Mom, don’t cry! Elektra is fine. Who knows—she could live for a couple more years!”
“I hope so but I don’t think she will,” she said, crying harder. “I just don’t know what I’ll do without her,” she sobbed.
“Mom, you can’t think that way,” I said, finding myself consoling my mom about her healthy cat even though I had called to talk to her about my dying one.
Don’t get me wrong: my mother is one of the most caring, wonderful women you’ll ever meet. In a situation like this, she isn’t trying to turn the conversation around—it’s just the way her mind works. It isn’t her fault, really. She’s worked in a funeral home for almost thirty years—she’s surrounded by death on a daily basis, so to her it’s just a part of life. I mean, I guess technically death is a part of life for all of us, but to her it’s part of her daily life.
It can also be very entertaining at times. Like last Mother’s Day when I sent a dozen yellow roses to her at work.
“I was so surprised!” she gushed as she called me to tell me they’d arrived.
“Oh, good! I’m glad,” I said, very proud of myself.
“Yeah, because when the delivery guy walked in with them I assumed they were for a dead person.”
“Well, they were for you. I know they’re your favorite,” I said, hoping to turn the conversation off of death.
“They are! I told Eric”—Eric is my stepdad—“that when I die I want a yellow-roses casket spray.”
“Okay. So, what are you guys doing for—”
“And I want ‘Play It Again’ by Luke Bryan played at my funeral.”
“Noted.”
“That’s just me. I really do like some religious songs, but I want something more upbeat. Eric says he doesn’t mind if it’s Luke Bryan as long as it isn’t ‘That’s My Kind of Night,’ because that’s not really an appropriate song for a funeral.”
“Why are you so convinced you’re going to go before him?” I asked.
“Well, because . . . your grandma—”
“Never mind!” I interrupted, not wanting to talk about my mom’s future death on Mother’s Day. Plus, I know she’s wrong. She’s going to live a long and healthy life, while constantly reminding everyone that she’s about to drop dead.
My father lost his mother when I was still in high school, but he lost his dad in the fall of 2012—my grandfather was eighty-eight years old. I remember very distinctly how my sister and I felt when we lost our paternal grandmother, but I wasn’t close enough to my dad at the time to really know how it affected him. Obviously, it was hard, but I wasn’t there to witness it the way I was when he lost his father because back then we didn’t live in the same state.
Since I moved to California, my relationship with my dad has really changed, because we’ve both really changed. Before, there was some of the usual divorce stuff, where I was mad at him for not being around more, and he wasn’t sure how to be around more when we lived 1,546 miles from each other (I just Googled that). Now that we’ve both matured, we’ve grown to appreciate each other. Look, that shit takes a while. But, in my opinion, it’s like this: I have a great family. Maybe everyone’s role hasn’t been played out in the “traditional” way, but I wouldn’t trade any of them for anything (most of the time).
So at one point, sometime in my mid-twenties, I realized that although my dad may not have been completely present at every point I wished he had been when I was growing up, he wanted to be now—and I could choose to hold on to my crap or I could choose to let it go and have a real relationship with him. So, I chose the latter—and I’m really glad I did because it means a lot to me. He even sat me down one night and told me how much he respected my stepdad for being so wonderful to my sister and me. That took real strength and confidence. He wasn’t competing for my love; he was letting me know that he’s glad I had a fantastic male role model in my life when he couldn’t always be around. I didn’t have the heart to then tell him that even though he was correct about my stepdad, most therapists would probably still blame him for some of my poor choices in life.
But to be honest, I think it worked out exactly how it was supposed to. Because now, as an adult, after making the decision to pursue a career that required me to move far away from the family I was around my whole life, I’m lucky enough to still have family within just a coup
le hours’ driving distance from me. I have my dad, my stepmom, her daughter, and my stepniece. They’re all pretty amazing. And hey—you can’t spell “stepfamily” without “family.” (If that phrase takes off at all, I totally coined it.)
When my dad lost his father, it really revealed a lot about my own father to me. He and his dad weren’t necessarily that close, but there was a lot of love there. It reminded me a little bit of what our relationship had been like a few years prior, leading me to appreciate my dad even more. I watched him really step up when his dad was sick. Maybe that sounds silly, but it can be easy to just keep looking the other way when things get difficult, especially if you’re not much of a constant in one another’s lives.
But when my grandpa passed, my dad stepped right up. I was performing in San Diego when it happened, and I’ll never forget this moment—because it was kind of ridiculous. My best friend since college, Michele, was living there at the time, and we were just walking out to get ourselves a relaxing manicure-pedicure. I saw that my dad was calling, which I sent to voice mail since I was on my way out. Not because I do that to my dad, but because I do that to pretty much everyone. Knowing this about me, my dad left the news of my grandfather’s passing in a voice mail. This may sound harsh, but trust me—it was not. My dad knew me well enough to know that I’d rather hear that than some cryptic “Call me” voice mail that might leave me in a panic if for some reason he couldn’t answer when I returned the call. In other words: I’m the asshole.
“My grandpa died,” I told Michele as soon as I listened to my dad’s message.
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she said sympathetically.
“It’s okay. I just need to call my dad,” I told her.
We stood right by the door of the hotel room while I called my dad. My grandpa had been sick for a while, so we knew it was coming, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt. All I could think was how much I hated hearing the pain in my dad’s voice. I knew I was supposed to feel pain, too—and I did—but mostly it was for my dad. I hadn’t seen my grandpa in years. He wasn’t the best at being close to his family. He had his own life in this retirement community and he was happy. He didn’t send cards and he didn’t call. I’m not blaming him for that; after a while I didn’t send cards or call either. But my point is, on my dad’s side of the family there is definitely a disconnect. That day, however, there was no disconnect in my father’s voice—he was hurting.
I asked if he needed me to leave San Diego and he said no. I was working and I’d be back the next day.
“No need for you to cancel a show tonight,” he assured me. “You can’t do anything right now. I’m okay, Shirley is here,” he continued, letting me know my stepmom was right by his side.
After we hung up the phone, Michele looked at me. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, let’s go get those manicures.”
“Sarah, we don’t have to go do that now. We can just stay here . . .”
“Well, I’m going to need my nails done for the funeral, anyway,” I irrationally explained.
As we walked to the nail salon, I wondered what was wrong with me. My grandpa was dead and I wasn’t crying. When my mom’s dad had passed away the year before, I definitely cried right away. But then again, I grew up with him. I saw him every holiday, every birthday—hell, almost every weekend. It wasn’t like that with my dad’s dad.
So when the little Asian lady at the nail salon told me to pick a color, I burst into tears.
“Oh, no, sorry. I can pick color for you!” she exclaimed.
“No, no. I can pick the color myself,” I told her.
“Should we leave?” Michele asked, unsure of how to handle my sudden outburst.
“No, I’m fine.”
“I pick color for you, you sit,” the little Asian lady said insistently as she guided me into a chair, then shouted something in another language to the other ladies, who immediately began talking among themselves and trying to avoid eye contact with me.
“Sarah, seriously, we can go back to the hotel,” Michele reminded me. “I think it’s just starting to hit you—”
“It’s not hitting me at all, that’s the problem,” I said through tears.
“Huh?”
“It’s not hitting me. I’m crying because I feel guilty for not crying. That’s what is happening right now,” I sobbed. “I’m a bad person.”
“You’re not a bad person.”
“I didn’t cry when my grandpa died. I’m a bad person.”
“You’re crying right now and you just found out like five minutes ago,” Michele said gently. “I think that counts.”
“It doesn’t count if I’m crying for the wrong reason!”
“And what’s the wrong reason?” Michele asked, baffled.
“That I didn’t cry!” I yelled—alerting all the little Asian ladies to my apparent nervous breakdown.
“You want shoulder massage? It helps when I have period,” one of the ladies offered.
“What? Oh, no, I don’t have my—”
“Yes! She does want a massage!” Michele responded. “And I’ll pay for it. Do you guys serve alcohol?”
Since the nail salon did not serve alcohol, once we were finished there, we decided to go get a bite and a drink at the hotel bar. Once we sat down, I called my dad again to check in on him.
“I’m okay,” he assured me. “I’m just trying to get in touch with Jeff. I don’t have his number.”
“You don’t know your brother’s number?” I asked.
“Well, the one I have for him doesn’t seem to be working anymore.”
God, this is so depressing, I thought.
“Well, I’m friends with his kids on Facebook. I can try to get in touch with them,” I offered.
“That would be great, thank you,” my dad said, exhausted.
I excused myself, leaving Michele alone at the bar to tackle our order of sushi while I attempted to reach out to the cousins I was friends with on Facebook but not in real life. As annoying as Facebook can be, I guess being able to reach someone you otherwise wouldn’t be able to can come in handy at times.
“Hey. Can you have your dad call my dad? He needs to talk to him. I know this is a weird way to get them in contact, but it’s important. Thank you,” I wrote to one of my uncle Jeff ’s kids.
“Just wrote your sister, too. Trying to help my dad contact yours. He needs to talk to him. Here’s his number. Sorry for the vague message, but if you can pass that along it’s a huge help. Thanks,” I wrote to another cousin.
I was so busy trying to connect with long-lost family on Facebook that I didn’t even realize I was on a sidewalk outside of a hotel, hunched in a corner, crying.
“Sarah?” I heard an unfamiliar voice call out.
I looked up to see two girls standing right in front of me, concerned expressions on their faces.
“Yeah?”
“Um, we are just going to see your show tonight. We’re excited . . . are you okay?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’m great,” I said, smiling, as if what they were seeing in front of them was totally normal.
“Okay, cool. So, we’ll see you tonight,” the other girl said, awkwardly trying to either make me feel better or just get the fuck out of there.
“Yeah!” I smiled as I walked back inside the hotel bar.
I immediately sat down next to Michele and started laughing hysterically.
“What’s so funny?” she asked, laughing along with me.
I explained the scene outside to her and we both began laughing even harder.
“I can’t even imagine what they must be thinking,” I said as we ordered another round of drinks, tears of laughter streaming from my eyes. “I must have looked like a crazy person, all bent over, scrolling through Facebook and crying.”
“Please, who hasn’t scro
lled through Facebook and cried?”
My phone rang again; it was my dad letting me know he’d gotten in touch with his brother, and I felt a big wave of relief knowing that I didn’t have to resort to randomly tweeting about my grandpa’s death in hopes that someone I was related to would see it.
A few hours later, I went and did my show as planned. Once I got onstage, most of the thoughts of the day left me and I was just performing. Afterward, while I signed books, I avoided eye contact with the two girls who had seen me crying and they politely pretended that the earlier event hadn’t happened.
Later, Michele and I found ourselves at a bar that had a mechanical bull. We stood at the bar and made fun of all the dumb girls who were embarrassing themselves trying to ride it, until we had enough cocktails in us that we thought it would be a good idea for us to ride it, too.
The next morning we packed up to leave: me to my dad’s and her to her house just a few minutes away.
“My ass hurts,” I complained as I zipped up my suitcase.
“You landed right on it when you fell off the bull.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“I’m pretty sure I got video of it if you want to see.”
“No, I’m good.”
“Do you want to go get breakfast before we take off ?”
“No, I should get going.”
“Okay.”
“Are you sure I’m not a bad person?” I asked her as the valet pulled my car around.
“For not wanting to get breakfast?”
“Because my grandpa died yesterday and I reacted by riding a mechanical bull.”
“Well, the mechanical-bull ride was a reaction to alcohol, not death. And for the last time, you’re not a bad person. Everyone deals with grief differently.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who deals with it on a mechanical bull.”
“Probably. But your grandpa would have been proud of you last night.”
“No way! I was only on that bull for like two seconds.”
Has Anyone Seen My Pants? Page 13
