To The Dead

It’s the Day of the Dead. Now is the time to honor all your dead ancestors and homies and those you miss and love who have crossed over to the other side, unable to be contacted by John Edwards. I love all my dead and here they are..

My grandmother, who would lock herself into a tiny room to pray for me, so afraid of my fate, as I was such a terrific disaster as a child, because I was awfully ugly, clumsy and stupidly too smart for a girl, too sharp tongued and selfish to make a good wife, had supernatural powers that she didn’t understand and feared would not be put to good use especially against myself, pitifully cared for by irresponsible parents, desperate for God to intervene on what she worried was my destiny of loneliness, madness, illness, poverty and early death. She would sit in there for hours, murmurs coming from underneath the darkened door, only to emerge exhausted, as if she had gone twelve rounds with the Lord Himself, and won. Thanks a lot Halmonee, what we called her. I neverknew her real name. Halmonee made a big difference in the way my life was to be. She gave numerous shout outs in her prayers for me and I think that if she hadn’t prayed for my extraordinary and odd collection of traits and circumstances that made me, my life might have been different. Thanks for all the bacon and eggs that you fried up, the safety I felt whenever you were around, for you were my sanctuary from all the predators in my home. When you were there no one laid a hand on me because everyone knew better. I wish that you were always there but I understand that was impossible. But you somehow got inside me and protected me from in there. So thank you for that. You are inside of me still, and thank you for being my interior suit of armor, because you make me know that I could be Joan of Arc. I know I got kind of mad when you told me once that I was bloated beyond recognition, but I was drinking a lot, and I don’t anymore, so it’s all good now.

Halmonee is in a burial plot right next to her husband, my grandfather, Harabogee. I love him, and I was always impressed by his tall, handsome demeanor. He wore hats, tipped slightly to the side, he had the easiest laugh of anybody, he was fluent in English and Japanese and spoke to me like a peer. Harabogee was a popular minister, and his congregation loved him, especially the ladies. At his funeral, all these old Korean women were beating their chests and throwing themselves all over the place, like when Valentino met his untimely death. I am sure that a single rose is delivered to his grave daily by a mysterious woman dressed in black, and my grandmother doesn’t mind in the least. She wasn’t the type to be jealous. Halmonee and Harabogee, dead, but not gone, floating in the air above my house, watching over me and my little family, loving us and protecting us from all harm. I give thanks for my heritage, thanks for your love, reaching beyond the veil of death, comforting, salvaging, advising..

Hello Duncan. your birthday just passed. if you were alive, you would have been 38. hard to think of you as that old. Somebody was singing that Paul Simon song, “Duncan”.. “Couple in the next room. bound to win a prize. they been going at it all night long..” And I could feel you right there. Your long blonde hairs grazing my arm and you walked right through me, and I tried to hold you close by holding my breath. A brief hug from a distant love. My old friend. I find that even though we have not seen each other now for decades, you are never far from me, and we pick up where we left off every time we are together, and I feel you, not as a cold spot or a speck of light on a photo, more like warm hands around me, a solar powered heat coming from nowhere and everywhere. Have you seen Elliott Smith? Did you seek him out when you found out he was coming? I hope so. I bet you would love him, and probably loved him before he crossed over to your side. Do you get the same music that we get here? I am sure you do. If for some reason you didn’t know about him, please go find him, and tell him that we are all on earth sending him as much love as there is love, that the sidewalk in front of the recording studio on Sunset is covered in flowers and candles and notes and young girls numb in their grief and missing him, like I am. I am sure that he already knows people, but please, if there is a cafeteria or something, go sit next to him and tell him that we all say hi, from here.

Frank.. Are you still wearing that denim suit and that graying handlebar mustache? You died wearing that outfit, so you must still have it on. and of course, you always looked good in it. My manly Marlboro man, but it wasn’t cigarettes that took you, it was AIDS, and even though you looked like a cowboy, you shrugged your shoulders when you’d flirt like Doris Day, so I guess that makes you Calamity Jane. You aren’t around me, but somewhere beyond, because I can’t feel you, but I think of you, and perhaps you moved out of the City of the Dead into some fabulous suburb with your boyfriend. You were like a father to me, and also a bitchy, queeny Mommie Dearest, and you weren’t ever good at returning phone calls so I don’t mind, because I know I will see you when I do.

Maria. The last time I saw you, I was so scared. I didn’t act like I was, and I tried to be normal, tried to be a friend, but I wasn’t a good one. Maria, you make me sad because you didn’t have an easy time of it. Nothing was easy for you, but you had lent out a lot of love, which wasn’t repaid in full when you died, and part of that is my fault. I must make my apology, and I will do so in person, or in spirit, when we meet again. Was it that you were afraid to die? AIDS is so terrible, and you were not there, when we last spoke on the phone. You didn’t understand what I said. You knew who I was, but that was all. Maria. I am sorry, your lovely blonde hair had gone, and you wore a scarf around your head to hide it. You were always thin, but before you died you disintegrated before our eyes, and we just weren’t there for you. For all you gave me, I gave nothing in return, except my regret now, my remorse now, my guilt now, whatever that is worth. Thank you, for believing in me. Loving me like you did. Your warm smile I hold in my heart, your confidence in me I carry like a talisman. I wonder what happened to your collection of little cars, those Metropolitans. The yellow one you drove most often, the one that was your favorite. You were beautiful behind the wheel, like Eva Marie Saint, a pale, lithe, aloof Hitchcock babe. Does Mitch have it? All of us went our separate ways. I went to Greg’s wedding, and I heard he had a child, but I haven’t seen him. Terry and Robin had a Shakespearean wedding, but I wasn’t able to attend. Laura and I got married too, and we love our husbands. Robert was at the Four Seasons for a while, that was the last time I saw him. Kennedy still does stand up and Gerri has a lot of success in the improv scene back in San Francisco. I don’t know where John is. Nobody had a fight or anything, it is just that time tends to disperse people, casting everyone off in different directions. I guess that is what happens when you grow up. I wish you well Maria. Forgive me. Forgive my grief.

Hey Kraig. I saw your boyfriend last week and he said that he was going to sprinkle your ashes over Monterey Bay soon. I haven’t had my hair done since you promised to do it for me when you got better. I kept waiting for you, but then you died, and I haven’t had the heart to do anything with it. Don’t worry. I will take care of it when I have to. I just wanted you to do it. Don’t tell me you can see my roots from where you are, beyond the world of the living. I am just kidding. All my love to you.

All my love to the dead.

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