death

It’s all you now, Dad

Nothing cures sadness like alcohol, and that’s why my dad needs to stop for some on the way home. If only he would pay attention to my plaintive texts.

It’s not just for me, my fellow inebriates, it’s for my mum. Davy Jones of The Monkees died today of a heart attack at his home in Florida. This is depressing enough, reminding my mum as it does of both his age and hers, but it’s worse because my mum spent her pre-teen years fawning over Davy Jones and fantasizing about a romance with him in her oh-so-distant adult life. Even when she occasionally took a rest from Davy to fantasize about Peter Tork, Davy was mostly it for my mum.

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Being a young bear, I missed The Monkees and didn’t get to experience Davy’s moves on a crappy rabbit-eared TV. I wasn’t there when my mum made such a compelling case to her brother about how dreamy Davy was that her brother conjured up an imaginary friend named Davy Jones and professed his love for him at the dinner table, weirding the whole family out. I’d never even heard him sing Daydream Believer until today, people.

And that’s why I’m guessing my mother is devastated by Davy Jones’s death today. She must be reeling, bereft, inconsolable, abject. Which calls for wine.

So Dad, if you’re reading this, please go and buy some wine. Your woman is suffering and you need to remind her that you’re the main man in her life now.

 

She’s heeeere

An eerie feeling has been creeping up on me …someone might be around. Someone who isn’t with us any more.

The general policy around LBHQ is to be skeptical about paranormal activity. Things get weird enough when your brain cells spend the percentage of time marinating in tequila that mine do. It’s already a sufficient struggle to keep track of the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny without entertaining the notion that my deceased Granny might be haunting us.

BUT. Weird Things Have Happened.

If you missed my last reports about Granny, here are the facts:

  • Granny was my mum’s mother. She was part of the liquor-store shopping expedition during which I was purchased in 2005.
  • Granny was one of those people who understands bears. She even had her own bear, which my mum sent to her seven years ago, and which resided with her in Ireland.
  • Granny and I enjoyed a glass of chardonnay together from time to time when she visited Canada.  
  • Granny died in November.

We try to be very fact-oriented around here, but with two little girls under six ruling the household, things get unavoidably fanciful.

And those girls have been ardently wishing for Granny to come back.

Do they know what they’re asking? OMG! I don’t think they do. You see, my parents haven’t shown them any zombie movies or documentaries about the Shroud of Turin, nor do they read William Peter Blatty books to them at bedtime. Thus the kids have no points of reference vis-à-vis resurrection, the undead, or even poltergeists. So when they wish for Granny to return, they’re expressing an innocent hope without tapping into the arsenal of pop-cultural paranoia to which we older types have ready access.

HOWEVER. There Are These Weird Things.

Exhibit A

Cold spots. If you’ve seen The Sixth Sense you know things get cold when there are ghosts present. Well, our house has been freaking cold! In fact, only when my dad fixed the furnace did it get warmer. You be the judge.

Exhibit B

Noises. When my mum had her birthday last month, my dad took the kids out for a few hours. The house became uncharacteristically silent, and she started doing my typing. Then, suddenly (!) there was a loud crash from another room. Something had fallen. All by itself. Now…was it the precarious pile of toys in the living room simply conceding to gravity, or was it Granny wishing Mum a happy birthday?

Exhibit C

The kids are terrified of going upstairs. When Granny died in November, the whole family talked about it without any reference to the possibility of an afterlife, ghosts, spirits, haunting—any of that stuff—and certainly without any ideas about the dead coming back or watching us or trying to communicate. And, despite some sadness over Granny’s death, the girls bounced back quickly to their normal selves—and had no reason to be afraid of roaming the house. UNTIL…

Exhibit D

Fluffy. The weirdest thing has been the arrival of Fluffy, the bear that, years ago, my mum sent to Granny in Ireland, and which was returned to us after her death.

Shortly after Mum’s brother brought Fluffy back to us from the funeral, the girls became afraid. First the four-year-old refused to go upstairs alone, then the six-year-old (never previously afraid) became anxious too. Now neither will go upstairs without the other. When questioned, they don’t produce a reason, but something has changed.

Fluffy remains uncommunicative, his brain seemingly damaged by the long soak in detergent and fabric softener he was subjected to before his trans-Atlantic flight. Catatonic as he is, Fluffy has still captured the affections of my bear-fetishizing once-upon-a-time girlfriend Dolly (perhaps she digs catatonia too).

Getting jilted isn’t the weird part, though. The weird part is Fluffy’s impassive, expressionless yet overwhelming presence. Oh, we regular bears have tried to get to know him. He even sleeps in the bear bed with us, his sheer fluffiness taking up half the bed. But he doesn’t respond, even when I grind up against him obnoxiously just to elicit a reaction. Nothing. And yet, he is. Fluffy is here.

I don’t know if Granny ever talked to Fluffy while he lived in her room. She was very solitary; she used to stay in, reading and smoking (Fluffy has probably been in nicotine withdrawal the last couple of months).

EXHIBIT E

Streakers. As you know, I spend a lot of time staring—just staring—and the almost-things I see are just in my peripheral vision. And there are more of them since Fluffy arrived! My mum says this comes from drinking wormy mescale. You be the judge.

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Okay, so Fluffy’s not friendly, but is he possessed?

My mum says it’s just jealousy and mescale talking, but I think so.

Has Fluffy permanently stolen my girlfriend?

Yes. Fleecy is to Dolly what Axe body spray is to teenage girls, and I can’t compete with his outrageous floral aroma.

Is Fluffy going to compete with me for liquor?

We’ll see. I don’t mind if he helps open bottles, but he isn’t any more equipped with thumbs than he is with a vocabulary.

Is Fluffy harboring Granny’s ghost, and is she gathering strength so she can reveal herself to us? OMG! I don’t even have any chardonnay to offer her.

Granny was my mum’s mother, so I asked her if she thinks Granny’s here. She says she doesn’t know, but she’s going to tighten the cap on the mescale.

Raise a glass

When I refer to my parents I of course mean my adoptive parents. I mean, look at me—I don’t have 23 sets of chromosomes; I have 37 sets. I’m a bear, not a human. So, no, my parents didn’t conceive me, which is a great comfort given what a visual creature I am.

They picked me out during a heavy pre-Christmas liquor-buying foray. I practically leapt into their cart, so loaded up was it with booze. They were feeling celebratory because they had a houseful of people. My mum was nine months pregnant and, since she couldn’t partake in the drinking, she was at least vicariously enjoying stocking up.

But I have to give partial credit for my purchase (i.e., the purchasing of me) to a third member of the shopping party. You see, I wouldn’t have jumped so readily into my parents’ shopping cart had it not been so loaded up. And it was my mum’s mother—my Granny—who tipped the scales in that direction. Let me explain…

She was excited. Granny had just arrived in Canada for the birth of her first grandchild. Jetlagged and emotional, this frail little woman, who could have used a post-flight nap, was instead heaving bottles into the cart, jubilant at the prospect of a Christmas party that would bring the whole family together, including a new baby.

I watched, my eyes glassy, as Granny hefted a magnum of sparkling wine into the cart, insisting on buying it for everyone (well, haha, not my rotund mum) to share. My heart melted, and I knew I wanted to join this family that obviously equated copious alcohol consumption with happiness.

And so I took the leap and went home with these people.

It was a calculated risk. Based on the excess of hooch they purchased that day, I thought my new family would keep me gooned forever. And though, sadly, the shopping spree was just for Christmas, and everyone returned to average imbibing levels afterwards, I have since been satisfied with my new home.

I was sad to see Granny fly home that new year. There’s a long-running tradition of talking to bears in her family, and she was no exception. She and I had plenty of white-wine-fueled discussions, and she told me about the bear that had lived in her home since she was small—a bear her mother used to consult whenever a decision needed to be made, and who had multiple pairs of wellingtons. I thought he sounded a bit dry and crusty and that he could use a drink, which Granny said she would consider.

The best part about Granny was that she was always willing to split a bottle with me. While the rest of the house was swilling reds, she’d have her chardonnay, and there I’d be, helping her out. She didn’t need much help, really, as she could put it away, but she didn’t mind my company. She’d had a long history with white wine, sometimes relying on it during hard times, and didn’t always feel welcome to partake among people who knew that about her. She needed someone to say it was okay, that she’d had a difficult life and it was okay. And no one ever did.

Last Saturday Granny, a lifelong smoker, died of lung cancer. When I heard about it, it sobered me for a moment. Granny was a kind person who did her best to be happy, even though it was sometimes very hard for her.

I always figured I’d see her again, and maybe share a glass.

Instead I raise a glass to Granny by myself. Because she’s gone from life but not from mind. And because she was the sort of person who talked to bears.