"I can't remember, were you into Canada Geese?" This line always fucks me up. Before you lose them, you have such a sense of who they are. They remind you of their interests by living their life around you. They grow as you do. You think, maybe subconsciously, "oh, that is classic them" as they engage in that activity you're watching them do for the last time. When you lose them, you archive. They were so into this thing. They did this so well. They were the biggest fan of that person. You're so certain of their impact on their surroundings, on you. Once it has been a while, longer than you realize. You start to wonder what they would have done. Their impression is so deep. But what would they have said? Would they have done it like this? They stop in their track as you gain distance. Further and further. Until their figure is a hazy mirage, way out there on the horizon. Who is that?
Exactly. After 17 years and 11 months, my most enduring memories of him are of the events going on behind the photographs, our most vivid conversations have become the anecdotes and narratives I've recited time and again. The intensity of his memory used to overwhelmingly occupy every one of my senses with such intimate familiarity and I wonder if those few remaining memories only exist as a product of the vacuous artifacts of repetition and recension.
"You were thinking ahead to a future you must have known Deep down would not include you Though you clawed at the cliff you were sliding down Being swallowed into a silence that's bottomless and real" In the last month, I've listened to 75+ projects, and I can tell you right now, it doesn't get more brutally real than this I don't think. My goodness, this song makes me cry every time.
I worked at a nursing home right out of highschool, and I guess I had always thought of death as being some some sort of grand mystical experience, until I actually saw it first hand. Witnessing death firsthand changed my perspective on a lot of things.
Every time I visit and look at the empty chair where you used to sit. Birthdays, holidays, sleepovers. I never knew that chair would come to represent your loss.
My dad died this month. It was sudden and awful. Only child. No family other than my mom. It's... you know, it's goin'. Desperately trying to inform my remaining parent (they were married 50 years) that she doesn't have to have an answer for "I don't know how I'm going to stay here without him" right now. Dude had a massive cardiac arrest when he got in the shower; was without O2 for 40 minutes before they got a stable pulse (defib'd 9 times, we had no say in any of that, we would Let Him Go); came back with non-stop seizures totally unresponsive in critical care; we got to watch him die after that; "at least" it was only 32 hours. I hate the word "comfortable." I always have because of one single situation it's used. And hearing it again for what's ~the 12th situation has not made me like the word any more. I get palliative/hospice care. I don't disagree with making them comfortable. That doesn't resolve the utter and profound bitterness I have toward the word when I hear it. They wrote it on his board. "Today's Goal: Remaining Comfortable." It's hard to appreciate the smiley face the kind nurse put on the board when the smartest dude you know will never complete a word again in his life and you'll never get to say, "Hey, sorry my last words to you were 'Fuckin' burn it. I don't care. Next time you contact me, make it an emergency.'" Important lessons in wrath: Don't talk to the people you care about like they can't die. We had a ton of times together and, honestly, it wasn't the first time we went back and forth over something absolutely trivial. It's not like I'm hyperfocusing on that. Just sucks. It's like a little rabbit turd cherry on top of an already putrid sundae. Got a full three days off when he died. Burned pretty much all my PTO, grief, whatever time. That sucks. We were going to take a weekend trip to the really nice aquarium a two hour drive away, my partner and I. Anyhow, whatever. If you're here and you're in a state of grief? Know that I feel that same grief. I'm sure it's different. I'm sure -- Death is real complex because it strips pretty much everything bare. It's exposed wires and electricity and one area of your life that suddenly no longer completes a circuit. Loss isn't a competition so: My dad, your rabbit, your spouse, a parrot, an uncle -- Loss is Loss. Make time for you. Make time for your grief. Find a place for your grief and find strength in it. Also remember to eat food and drink water. I ended up drinking around 32 liters of 100 proof liquor over 22 days. And that's how you end up with a raging kidney infection. So don't do that. You're already mourning. No need to piss blood over them. Pissing blood won't bring them back. I promise. I've done the research.
@aphexmandelbrot I am so sorry to hear about your dad. Please accept my condolences. I'm going through the opposite of you at the moment; I lost my mom last month, and it is definitely one of the most difficult things I've had to go through so far. Like your dad, my mom died suddenly and, in a certain sense, unexpectedly. She had no illness (apart from being asthmatic and on medication for high blood pressure) and wasn't even old, so it wasn't an age-related death. What can I say? It fucking sucks, and it affects everyone in different ways; some eat too much while others eat too little; some start hitting the alcohol a bit too hard (like you). Losing my mom has hit me in the sense that I simply do not know who I am anymore. What I liked when she was alive, I no longer like. My life has done a complete 180, it seems. I feel as if I have entered a new universe and left my mom in the one I left. I feel lost and alone. Since it's been a month now, things are starting to get a little better for me, but it's still fucking hard. Take care.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My dad died in 2009, and I'm still wrecked. It gets better, but it doesn't at the same time, if that makes sense. My mom wasn't in my life. One thing I can say now that I'm watching my aunt, my dad's sister, slowly die from cancer, I'm glad that my dad went quick, and being an only child as well, that I didn't have to make any real serious choices, because I could not have at the age of 23. I think one day you'll find that to be an odd blessing. My last words to my dad were nasty, and I'll never really recover from that. That was a huge lesson, and I found solace in the fact I know my dad knew I loved him and that I was loved, those last words aren't important in retrospect.
@Wishdom77 Thank you so much. Lost my mom last month, and I can honestly say that it is one of the most difficult things to go through emotionally. I will miss and love her until the day I die.
Absolutely brilliant and heartbreaking such an amazing love song to the lost and the left he is a great songwriter so hard to try to write something like this...his last lines destroy me
I miss you Mema, I know it’s been 3 years since you’ve left us but I miss you everyday. I still haven’t brought myself to delete your number. I really do miss you so much, I wish you could’ve met my girlfriend, I wish you could’ve seen me with my own place, my own car, a good job. I mis you really so much. I love you so much and I will forever and always just as you used to tell me.
I was at the LCD Soundsystem show in Brixton and two Irish guys told me to listen to this song and then listen to the nightcore version of this. Thanks for the laughs fellas!
