HOLLY
You know how, after your first real heartbreak, when the guy you were totally in love with leaves you, you see him everywhere? It is so much worse when the guy who leaves you dies. Just like after a bad breakup, it’s not the big things that send you down an emotional spiral: a birthday, an anniversary, or some other date that you can emotionally prepare for ahead of time. It’s the little things that remind you of the person that ambush you: You find yourself bursting into tears because “Teach Your Children” plays on the sound system at Target, or you pass your beloved’s favorite museum or football stadium, or someone is wearing the same aftershave he wore. (Dad wore Old Spice. I used to joke that every time I smelled that on a man, I had the uncontrollable urge to miss curfew. Now I have the uncontrollable urge to vomit.)
In this case, the trigger is a catalog that came in the mail this morning from his favorite candy company. Every year at Christmas, I bought him a pound of milk chocolate and a candy called bear claws (his favorite) from this little chocolate shop in Dad’s hometown. So every year, they sent me a catalog, usually around Christmas, occasionally before Thanksgiving, and then once or twice a year other than that.
The catalog came in the mail today, and I’ve been crying off and on for the last three hours.
It’s my own damn fault. I really wanted to leaf through the catalog the way I used to as a kid. My favorite pieces were always the chocolate-covered Oreos. In the fall, they hand-decorate each cookie with a sugar pumpkin or turkey or cornucopia. In the spring, Easter bunnies and chicks.
Without thinking, I opened the catalog to peruse next season’s decorations.
And now I’m sitting in the corner of my bedroom, cheeks wet from tears, feeling like I’ve just been punched in the gut.
Because the candy made me miss him, which made me want to hug him, which made me take down his urn from my bookshelf, because (stupidly) I thought hugging the urn might feel the same. Which, of course, it didn’t.
And also now I feel guilty, because I’m not even supposed to have the urn.
I didn’t steal it from his grave or anything. I mean, I totally would have done that—I was nuts right after he died—but my parents have been divorced forever and I’m an only child, so I got the urn.
I also had very specific instructions in his will that I have chosen to ignore. Hey, it’s not the first time he ever gave me an order I skirted around.
My dad had wanted his ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean. He wanted me to take his old kayak, which he had made from a kit, out into his favorite harbor, then past the rocks making up the jetty, and over to a particular buoy where we met a seal one day that tried to jump into our boat. I should have scattered the ashes months ago. But I just can’t part with them yet.
In my head, I can hear my dad say, “Don’t be a martyr. That’s not me in there.” Dad put himself through college by working at a mortuary, and he always thought people spent way too much time, money, and emotional energy on the remains of a body. He used to tell me that the body was the vessel that housed our soul, and to give any significance to a body would be like going to someone’s old house once they had moved out: They were already long gone. And the house was just a house.
I look down at the wooden urn and decide to open the top. Maybe if I just kept, like, a baggie’s worth and scattered the rest of his ashes, Dad would be okay with that.
The top won’t budge. I get my fingernails under the lip and really yank. Nothing. Okay, just make your hands into a claw and really pull upward …
I flip the entire urn up several feet into the air, then cover my hands over my head instinctively to shield myself when what goes up inevitably comes crashing back down, in this case onto my hardwood floor.
Well, it’s not the most elegant way to open the damn thing, but at least it’s done. I grab the top and … it’s still completely sealed. What did they use on this thing? Krazy Glue?
I walk to our kitchen, pull a flat-head screwdriver from our toolbox, and try to pry the top open. Nothing. I grab the hammer from the box and bang it into the screwdriver, trying to chisel underneath the lid. Still nothing. The ashes might as well be encased in Fort Knox.
Okay, clearly I need to look at the problem from another angle.
Dad used to say that if you can’t find the solution to your problem, it’s because you’re seeing the wrong problem. I turn over the urn to see how much glue they used on the base. Aha! The bottom is held together with six screws. I retrieve a Phillips head and quickly begin to unscrew. Two minutes later, I have the base off. Success.
But when I open it, it’s just a bag. Nothing special. Ashes stuffed into a bag, by a guy who does this every day. And the ashes aren’t gray. I always thought people’s ashes would be gray—like cigar ashes. But Dad’s are white. They look like the white sand at a beach in Hawaii my parents took me to before they divorced and everything got messy.
Suddenly weak, I slide down to the kitchen floor and begin crying in the corner. Nat is out cold on Vicodin, so I’m by myself, wondering how I’m ever going to get through this. When does losing a parent quit hurting?
There’s this person who’s supposed to be around no matter what. No matter what! How can I continue to live without the person I can’t live without?
Ironically, the guy I most want to call right now is Dad. He’d make me feel better. He’d say the perfect thing. Something to let me know that this gut-wrenching feeling is temporary. That I will get through it. That I love and am loved by lots of people, and how lucky I am that I have at least ten people I could call right now who’d be here in a heartbeat.
Or something like that. The truth is, I know that’s what I’m saying to myself. And it’s not making me feel better. I have no idea what my dad would say.
My phone beeps a text. I wipe my tears from my face and walk into the living room to pick it up.
None of this is getting decided today. You’ve already done way beyond what I could have expected from you this soon. Take the rest of the day off. Inspiration for how to get through this will come to you.
What the …
That’s exactly what Dad would say.
Except the text is from Joe. How would Joe know what’s going on with me?
I text back:
Truer words were never spoken. But I have a feeling your text was not meant for me.
Crap. I’m so sorry. That was for my director of photography, Holly. The lighting on this next commercial is very tricky because it’s all supposed to be one shot. I’m so sorry.
You have a woman DP?
Um … yeah.
That’s very cool. I don’t know a lot of men who think to hire women for that job.
Joe doesn’t write back for a minute or so, and I wonder if my text came off as critical. But finally he comes back to say:
I have a woman editor too. As I told you before, I’m really not as much of a dick as I was to you that day.
And suddenly, I hear my father, as though he’s whispering in my ear, say, “Ask for help.”
Something I remember my dad saying one night, sitting in his favorite chair, wearing his favorite tattered white bathrobe: “The greatest gift we can give other people is to accept their help. People love feeling needed.”
I pick up the phone and dial. Joe answers on the first ring. “Hey,” he says. “How’s my favorite shark diver?”
I sniff, trying to steady my voice so I don’t sound like I’ve been crying. “Ummmm … Okay, I guess. Do you have time for lunch?”
“Are you crying?” Joe asks, his voice soft.
“Yes and no. I … Actually, more yes. I’m having a bad day.”
“I’ll be right over.”
Soon after, I hear my doorbell chime. I open the door to see Joe. He takes one look at my tear-stained face, juts out his bottom lip to make a sad face, and puts out his arms. I walk in for a hug. “I’m an idiot,” I tell him sadly.
“No, you’re not.”
“You haven’t seen what I’ve done to his ashes.”
“Did you accidentally drop them onto your carpet?” he asks quietly.
“No.”
“Well, then, you’re ahead of my mom,” he says.
I pull away from him. “Can I show you something?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll warn you. This is the worst kind of freak flag to have waving. If you want to just leave after this, I totally understand.”
“Please. Where would I go?”
I take him by the hand and walk him over to Dad’s now upside-down urn in the middle of the floor, a sealed, clear plastic bag of ashes resting next to it. “It’s awful, right?”
“Your dad dying suddenly was awful. This … this is normal.”
I can’t breathe and almost start crying again. To show someone the worst possible side of me, the crazy, and have him not flinch? To just accept it? What do you say to that kind of acceptance? “I’m not normal,” I tell him.
“No, in many ways, you’re not. You’re gorgeous, you’re smart, and you could pass for twenty-five, which for those of us with receding hairlines and crow’s-feet borders on annoying. But let me turn this around. If you were at my house, and you saw this in the middle of my floor, would you think I was an idiot?”
“No, of course not,” I answer.
“Would you secretly be planning your escape?” he continues.
I shake my head vigorously from side to side …
“You said ‘freak flag,’” he continues. “So I guess you’d think I was a real loser for still caring so much about—”
“No.”
“Then why won’t you treat yourself as well as you’d treat me?” he asks.
I smile, then shrug. “Habit?”
Joe gives me another hug, then kisses my forehead. He looks me in the eyes and assures me, “You’re right on track. You’re exactly where you’re supposed to be in the process. Healing is messy. It’s not only okay to be a mess, I’d think you were a freak if you weren’t. So, are you more in a salad or a burger mood?”
“Actually, I could really go for nachos,” I tell him honestly. “Is that weird?”
“Wouldn’t it be fantastic if that was the weirdest thing about you?” He takes my hand and says, “Come on. I know the best place in town for nachos. It’s a little hole-in-wall Mexican place in East Hollywood.”
I stop suddenly. “Oh, God. I totally forgot. East Hollywood reminds me of West Hollywood, which reminds me … Today’s Monday. Do you have any interest in going to drag queen bingo with me tonight? It’s really fun, and it’s for charity, and I told my friend I’d go.”
Joe smiles. “That sounds like a blast. I’d love to.”
“Really?” I say, suddenly feeling … better. Not perfect, but better. “Okay, let me grab my purse.”
And he took me for nachos, and he bought me a really big hot fudge sundae for dessert, and he talked to me about everything and nothing for three hours. Which was exactly what I needed.