There’s been a lot of talk about death lately. Of course
Saturday was Dis De Los Muertos or All Souls Day. The Catholic Church makes a
big production out of the holiday. There are churches who coax people into
purchasing a resurrection lily for their friend or loved one. The Mexicans go
all out and have a party, putting trinkets, booze, and other items on the
graves of their loved ones. Gypsies do the same upon burial. If you go to a
gypsy cemetery you actually see a lot of packs of cigarettes because gypsies
smoke like chimneys. Then the cigarettes disappear. Gypsy superstition says it’s
the dead. I think it’s the living, jonesing and knowing smoking is an expensive
habit.
Then there is the talk about Brittany Maynard. Yes, the
Right to Die chick. She had cancer. She got seizures. To die legally she had to
move to Oregon. It seems like a lot of shit to have to go through to die. The
government is involved already. On top of that, you have to live somewhere else
to die. Everyone is so into being puckered and self-righteous they don’t see
the irony in this at all. Then as a whole we are supposed to mourn this woman
we didn’t know. I support her choice, but what if she was a real wench? What if she was one of those
people what if you met her you said, “Fuck this bitch! I hope she gets a flesh
eating virus the nasty cunt rag!!!” What if she stole money from the collection
basket in church? That is the strange thing about death. Everyone becomes a
damn saint. But maybe Brittany was a nice person. She would understand if she
were here, trust me.
Of course death is extremely final, so maybe it’s the only
way people can understand it. In middle school I had a childhood friend pass
away from a brain tumor, Karen Moorehouse. We got a bench in her honor.
Granted, I had been to the funerals of a lot of people that were older, but she
was the first that was my age. Her family had gone to my church, and her
brothers had played football with Wendell. Karen had been sick since she was a
baby, and while it was a relief, it also made me cry. I didn’t cry at the
funeral home but rather on the way home. Karen was gone. She wasn’t coming back
to health class in one of her crazy chemo wigs she interchanged like a 14 year
old would. Karen wasn’t cracking dirty jokes during sex ed. There would be no
more buying her Seventeen Magazines and make up kits for the hospital visits
she endured during her suffering life. Yes, this was permanent.
I had another kid from my high school drown at the end of
junior year, Arick Harmon. His sister Jackie knew my brother. It was a freak
accident, and the weird thing was I had only seen him two weeks before making
fun of our math teacher. Sure, it was kind of disrespectful. But Arick was
funny. Jackie has always been very serene about her brother’s death stating
that she believes no matter what happened that day, it was her brother’s time.
Confident in her faith, Jackie believes he is in a better place. Is he? What’s
on the other side? Do we know?
In college death hit me again on a personal level. My
breakfast buddy and first year scene study partner Spenser Kimbrough died of a
freak heart attack in his sleep. I still hear his velvety voice, a more
melodious version of James Earl Jones. We had a theatre poetry slam in his
honor, and someone said this was to celebrate this life. Yes, he was only
nineteen, but Spenser could bring color and levity to any and all situations.
Sometimes, when I see Angels in America and see the drag queen, I think of my
friend. So that being said, maybe it is wrong to cry when someone dies. Maybe
the best thing to do is to celebrate the way they lived.
Of course what gets me are all the superstitions about death
some have. My dad’s side of the family is Irish, and in Ireland they say the
banshees come and get you when you die. Their crying and screaming can be heard
for miles apparently. My dad’s family asserts that when the clocks stop or one’s
watch ceases to work, it means they are getting ready to enter the next world.
It all started with the death of my dad’s dad, whom I never met. A master
machinist in the mill, he had been experiencing back aches and attributed to
his heavy workload. His watch was broken, and he figured it was old. So he went
to sleep never to wake up. My dad’s family members suspected his mother-my
great grandmother-who died years before came to take her son. Apparently, her
watch stopped as well.
The same thing happened when my Aunt Margaret died. She was
in the hospital with advanced cancer, and was attempting to get on the waitlist
at Sloan Kettering. A lifelong nurse who’s patients attended her funeral, she
had cared for others but had been slow to get treatment for herself. In the
hospital, Aunt Meg told my Aunt Marie her watch was broken and that she needed
a new one. Like my grandfather, she went to sleep never to wake up, to die
peacefully. As Aunt Marie explained, “Daddy came to get her.”
My aunt’s funeral was beautiful, and my dad delivered a
eulogy with no dry eye in the house. My cousin Robbie played “Somewhere Over
the Rainbow” on his trumpet. When we got home, the grandfather clock in our
living room stopped. My mother believes it was my aunt telling us she
appreciated her send off, and thanked us. Or maybe my family has lousy luck
with time keeping devices. Hell if I know.
My mom was very close to her maternal grandparents, and they
were also her Godparents. Apparently, they were funny, good spirited people.
She insists sometimes they appear in her dreams to guide her. Sometimes, my mother
will call me saying, “Your dead relatives appeared to me in a dream warning me
about…..” Sometimes the dead relatives are a little vague, sometimes they are
spot on. Does my mother have a pathway into another world or is she just nuts?
I can’t say for certain.
However, in my mom’s family there is a superstition that her
maternal grandfather sometimes comes to parties in spirit. This was said to
happen when doors would fly open by themselves. One time, we were hosting
Christmas at my house as a kid. The Florida room door flew open out of no
where. My mom and her siblings said, “Why hello, Grandpa Young.” Maybe it was
my great-grandfather, or maybe they left the window open. I leave room for
either side either way.
Still, there are times when I can feel the spirits of my
deceased friends around me. It feels kind of weird saying it. But as my mother
explains, energy can neither be created nor destroyed. Several Fridays ago, I
appeared on Wendy Williams. It was the anniversary of my friend Chacho’s
passing. The shade throwing ball queen had lost his battle with addiction, and
towards the end of his life we were not on speaking terms. Yes, the man who
once told me he didn’t smoke because it was “disgusting” but was apt to get
booty bumps filled with crystal meth and have lots of sex with strangers. He
makes me laugh now, but I was pissed with him towards the end of his life. I
feel a lot of guilt still about not being there for him towards the end of his
life, and not telling him that I loved him but not his drug habit. I try not to
remember the anniversary of his passing because it puts me in a rotten place.
Just to let you know though, Chacho was the ultimate Wendy fan. Do I think my
appearance on there was a coincidence, maybe? Or do I think it was my deceased
friend giving me a present, my third time on a nationally syndicated show
making me a semi-regular, so I wouldn’t cry buckets? Depends on what you
believe.
Of course there is my friend Joe who got me to write again.
Yes, the one who got me to write my book. I spoke to him through Thomas John,
dead talker, several years ago when a friend booked him as a guest for a radio
show. I still remember the experience being breath taking, because either
Thomas John was that good or I was speaking to Joe. Either way, it made me feel
better. There have been two book events, one that took place on Joe’s birthday
and another on his death date. I didn’t plan this. It was the time the venue
had available, and only did someone mention this afterwards to me. I wish I
could say I was that morbid and somehow figured it out but I am not that
sophisticated. Is it an eerie coincidence or does my buddy still have my back?
Or even Otto Petersen, a ventriloquist with a dirty sense of
humor that was kind to me has maybe sent me messages from beyond. I was having
panic attacks about performing at a theatre and I got a group text where
someone sent me a photo of George, his ventriloquist figure. Seeing the picture
of George calmed me down. I am open to saying the timing was coincidence. Yet
the calming effect was unreal. Maybe it was one of my comedy heroes gently
telling me what he did in life, “Stop being such a fucking hack and calm down,
April.”
We have dead talkers and Ouija Boards where people are
desperate to speak to those that passed on. Do they work? Just as we want to
speak to those that have departed, do they want to speak to us? Every theatre
and some of the comedy clubs in NYC have a ghost or two. I was interviewing
with the booker of one venue when the lights just turned on by themselves. The
booker smiled and said, “These are friendly ghosts. Don’t mind them.” And
laughed.
Perhaps they are. Perhaps the ghosts who live in some of the
theatres are performers who used to dawn the stage, and pop in to make sure
those who are losing their mind show night make sure to remember to have fun.
Maybe these same spirits want to send love to those performing who often
question whether or not the journey is worth it because of all the hardships
one must endure, letting them know it’s going to be alright. Maybe those same
spirits also lend a laugh when the punchline falls short lending their empathy
because they have been there. Maybe, that is, assuming there is an afterlife at
all.
Then I remember as I think of the ghosts in the comedy
clubs, how there are times I could relay messages to certain people who have
moved on. I want to tell Chacho he’s a pain in the ass but I still love him. I
want to tell Joe about my writing success. Then I wish my Nunni and Pop Pop
could see all the cool things I was doing, and them along with Otto Petersen
could see the DVD I dedicated to them. And I wish Aunt Margaret could read my
book. I would also want my friend Scott, yes Scott who I lost touch with for
several years that lost his battle to cancer, that I wish I could have said
goodbye and known he was ill. I would also want to tell Spenser than you for
telling me I am funny, and I am making people laugh like you told me I should
be. Then I would want Mrs. Telles, my high school musical director, to know
about all the things I was doing. Same with my high school history teacher Mr. Williamson,
who was one of my original fans from the beginning. The list goes on….
Of course, this blog was inspired by a conversation I had
with another original fan of mine. A young woman who has followed me from the
beginning, she recently had the misfortune of burying her grandmother. Sad and
distraught, during our convo I assured her that her grandmother’s spirit was
around her. I did this because part of me believes it, or would like to, but
also because it’s what people say.
So what is the next stop? Is it heaven or hell depending on
how you behave? Or do we sail down the River Styx, meeting the sullen boatman
headed to Hades, the one stop shop for everyone? Does your loved one come back
as someone else or a botfly depending on how they were in the first life? Or
are they gas that melts into the ether? Or are they just fertilizer? Or maybe
the afterlife is somewhere that we cannot fathom because it is so beautiful,
terrifying, and awesome at the same time.
The only way to know for sure is to die. We never know when
that time comes, so treat those you care about with the upmost love and
kindness, even when they piss you off. Just as you know not when your time
comes, you don’t know when their time comes either. The only way not to fear
death is to embrace life, so that when the next step comes there are no
regrets.
So to all my friends and loved ones no longer with us, just
know that here on Earth, “Everyone says hi.”
www.aprilbrucker.com
