5 Amazing Finds From Departed Friends

BURN IT. BURN IT WITH FIRE.

Need some incentive to be mindful of what you may leave behind should death unexpectedly come calling?

Here is a short but convincing list of 5 things that I have personally unearthed while taking care of a deceased loved ones earthly possessions.

1. Bad Poetry. So much of it. This is a fairly universal problem. Why don't we throw our teen angst journals away, and by throw I mean burn, and by away I mean into the firey pits of hell

2. Porn and sex toys. Obviously. Again, this is pretty much standard. Just keep in mind that your friends and family have to touch that stuff, so keep it tidy, would ya?

3. Secret lovers. Leave no evidence!

4. Secret FAMILIES. That's actually kind of a "thing" in my family. When my Grandfather died a few years ago, a safe was opened and there we were! My Grandma, my mom, my aunt Caroline, and my siblings and cousins, all 6 of us. They were very good natured about it all.

5. Money. This is not exactly a bad thing, but when you hide money, there's the assumption that you have a list of people you do or do not want having said money. However, if you hide it in small increments in every nook and cranny there's no guaranteeing who will end up with it, or how much of it for that matter. In fact, if other family members find out what you've found out-that the inheritance is hidden like some twisted Easter hunt, it could be mayhem!

Oh. I see what you did there Grandma.

The Blackstar Turns Blue - Always Monsters and You

I know it's not about me.

It's not.

David Bowie's death is profound, in general. Man Who Sold the World is one of my favorite songs of all time.

Several weeks ago, I dragged myself from another disappointing surgery consult to the couch of one of the most beloved owners of my heart, a friend who feels like home-the kind of home you'd like to be in when you die. 

The baby doesn't sleep well when we travel, so I hadn't gotten much more than 3 hours a night, for several nights. Finding the time and energy to feed myself had been proving too much that day, and possibly the day before. 

Nevertheless, if there's anything I've learned this year, it is that my time is far more precious than I ever imagined, and should be filled with the ones I have sometimes taken for granted, because they have always loved me, always just been there. They need me, and I have never needed them more.

I tell people things, but not always the truth. "I'm okay" I say. "Things are much better!" I say. "I'm in remission, so that's good." I say. But I don't lie to him. I don't say anything. I didn't have to tell him how tired I was, or how ravaged my spirit feels. That I am lost, and scared, and running on the fumes of a lifelong vitality that always seemed bottomless. 

But it isn't, it isn't. 

He knows me too well, and was gentle, didn't scold or ask too much. Let me ramble, bought me tacos, let the baby tug his beard. I knew he was sad, I felt his concern, he doesn't have to tell me things either. There's nothing I can do. I care in a far-away fashion, like loving through fog. There is just me, and my children. There is my loyal love struggling to cope-I am stronger than him, on the surface, and I am drowning. If I'm no longer the anchor...

But I used to be, I used to be. 

My heart-holder left the house to pick up tacos, and before he left he handed me a tablet, and told me to "watch this" while he was gone. It was a music video. I smiled, trying to remember the last time I focused on an entire video, a complete song, a single sentence uttered by someone else. He left, and I pushed play in surrender because no one has ever gotten me to sit still for this sort of thing.

But him, only him.

Blackstar began to buzz, and Lynchian music poured into the room, and I fell into a trance in the rare quiet moment to myself. I closed my eyes, felt like I was drifting too far away, then opened them and blinked. Bowie's were bandaged, he was dying. I felt that. I knew it. 

Not in real life, in the song. I felt him dying. 

I was sleep deprived, too comfortable, unable to stop my emotional switch from flipping, and I cried softly. Because he was dying. Because I am dying. Because it's all so beautiful and sad. I needed sleep and food, I was sinking into a surreal place....

and then UPS knocked, and the spell was broken.

And not everything is about me.

And my heart-holder came in with tacos, and we chatted, and sipped bourbon, and played with the baby until in my exhausted stupor, I lost my grip while dipping him to the floor, and while he wasn't hurt, he was scared, and cried. I was shocked, so was my companion. Our horrified eyes met and I remember, just for a moment, I remember what almost was.

But it wasn't. It isn't. 

When Bowie died, I felt more than I have in a very long time. More than I did for a friend who tried to leave this world and landed in an eternal sleep instead. More than I felt for Paris, or Sandy Hook, or Amy or Lemmy. I felt sorrow like I had felt from his requiem. I felt the sorrow of my heart-holder from hours away. When he heard the news about Bowie. When he heard the news about me. I knew at that moment, long before it hit the newsfeeds, that I had witnessed Bowie's own, personal farewell to us, that I was put under a spell by a dying man. I knew it was a beautiful thing to do. I want to do it too, for the heart-holders I cherish, all of them.

And I was mournful, sunk. 

David Bowie died of cancer. Not me. 

I lived. I survived. 

But I'm running. My mind is running, I work until I collapse, I talk so I can't listen, I create so I don't stop to observe. I'm running for my life. I'm running because if I stop I have to feel what happened to me, and what happened to my loved ones, and what could happen to my children if it catches me again. I'm running from the look on the face of my troubled partner, my gentle son, and my ever-faithful heart-holder when I woke up in the hospital and they were all around me. Their faces when it catches me again. 

I didn't cry for Bowie because The Man Who Sold the World fills me with longing, or because of the gifts he bestowed. 

It's not about me. 

I lived, I lived. 

But don't forget. 

It caught a god. It can catch me. 

So I run. 

Posy-Filled Pockets Was Meant To Be...And It Was Meant To Be Here

This is my version of the story of how PFP came to be, and why Nevada County is the perfect place for us to build this community.

Last year, I brought Odd Salon, the SF cocktail lecture series that I co-founded along with two partners, to my weird little hometown. Once the boomingest boomtown, Grass Valley is now an adorable tourist trap in the Gold Country, a refuge for musicians, artists and eccentrics, and my favorite and least favorite place on earth. I don't really know why, I just had a feeling...this would be the perfect place.

 My partners thought I was nuts, but I convinced them that a pop-up would be risk-free. Worst case scenario, I would personally eat the loss. I batted my eyes and stomped my feet and lay down on the carpet illustrating how I would probably die if they said no. They agreed to humor me.

That's me, standing in front of more high school boyfriends than I care to admit.

Our SF audience had been "warmed up" to "learning something weird" by previous events, and I wanted to see how it would go over with a completely cold, uninitiated audience. Does Nevada County want to drink and listen to us tell them bizarre stories? Is the flyer and Facebook invite going to be enough to pique interest in a history lecture at a bar? Is there a place for our style of educational absurdity everywhere, or was it a regional attraction?

I wanted a testing ground. Since I knew I could guilt enough of my friends to attend to at least break even, I thought it would be the perfect place to experiment.

We packed up and headed to the foothills with a combination of local and ringer SF speakers. After two weeks of promotion, we brought GOLD, MURDER, & SPIRITS to the Holbrooke Hotel...

...and we sold out.

The venue loved us and invited us back anytime. The audience was pleased, and I was rewarded for my leap of faith by enthusiastic insistence that we do it again and again. While it didn't seem feasible at the time, it was obvious that Nevada County would be a fantastic place to create a salon-inspired community project like ours.

Sean Sanford extrapolating on Black Bart's softer side

Maybe someday.

One particularly meaningful accolade came from my friend Len. Len's opinion was very important to me. He was a very serious, quiet man who didn't drink or smoke, and always had valuable practical advice, pulled no punches, and inspired the people he cared about to be their best, even if what he had to say could sting a little in the dignity department.

He told me how impressed he was–he hadn't known what to expect, but he hadn't imagined a drinking-related night of intelligent discourse. (even though he could have done without the foul language)  He explained how hard it was for someone like him to meet other people. Shy, sober, unable to engage in small talk or mindless chatter, this type of event could change his entire view on developing a social life. He said we really had something very special.

"Glowing" isn't usually a thing I am, but I know I was.

Fast forward several months later. I am giving my first Death Salon lecture on suicide, a topic very significant to me for many reasons that I'm sure will be touched upon as this project forges ahead. I was a little nervous, but I knew my subject well.

Transcending the East vs. West Suicide Paradox: Netting the Bridge and Walling up the Volcano 
"By comparing Mount Mihara and the Golden Gate Bridge, we’ll look at the conflicting ideologies surrounding suicide in Asia and the US, using these popular suicide locations and their prevention solutions in each locale as focal points to examine not only the opposing cultural attitudes, but how they are evolving from opposite sides of the philosophy spectrum and beginning to “meet in the middle” with concern and compassion."

I did okay. Not my best, not my worst. I would have been much more prepared had I not been so distracted. I was relieved when my talk was over, and now my heart was pounding in anticipation for a fellow speaker's topic that I had previously glanced over with only a casual interest.

Today, Beza Merid had my full attention as he gave his death-related talk on the same podium I had just vacated. What he had to say was vitally important for me to hear now, because it was about the only thing I'd been able to think about since my OBGYN had called two days previous, leaving a kindly short voicemail with my biopsy results. Beza's talk was called Stand-up Comedy and the Popular Culture of Cancer.

It is the only talk I remember hearing that day, everything else was static. My bilateral mastectomy would take place a few weeks later, as soon as my pregnancy was in it's second trimester.

It was a very long year.

I don't really want to talk about that right now.

While I was recovering, we received a call telling us that our sincere, earnest, wonderful friend Len was dead. He had taken his own life, no one knew exactly why. I still have the voicemail he left me, telling me that I had something special, and I had a duty to share it with others. I listen to it when I don't think that's true.

Whew! That was getting awkwardly heavy. Let's move on.

Fast forward several months.

I am in full remission, and have a beautiful baby boy that is perfect in every way. I have moved home to Grass Valley to be closer to my family, and slow down the breakneck pace of my life as it was in the city. I am peaceful and grateful, but I am...disappointed. I loved what I was doing. I loved my work, and I loved Odd Salon. Cancer stole a lot of things from me that I could live with, but my career, just as it was exceeding my own expectations? What the cock was that? I had worked harder than I ever had, given up so much...and it was paying off! It was crushing, to be honest.

It remained too awkward and painful to be said out loud. I will always be a founder, and my voice and my mark can still be seen woven into the patterns of the voices of my partners. We all pretended like I would have this triumphant return, but I knew, and I assumed they knew as well, that I could never come back.

I was three hours away, had a newborn, and I was still very tired, and very affected. The salons had matured and improved in the year I was gone, and I had changed. I had spent years writing articles and telling knee-slapping stories about death and dying, but my interests had shifted, and mortality had stopped being a "story". My last talk with Odd Salon was dark. A lot darker than I intended. People stopped seeing me as vitality incarnate.

They started seeing me as someone death had brushed by.

I had never once considered that death would come around to heckle me just as I was warming up, using it as fodder. Was this some sort of cosmic joke? HAHAHAHA. Good one, universe.

I was lost and unsure of where to go with my career. I still wrote for the same places I had always written for, but I missed working with other people, curating topics and interacting and sharing ideas somewhere other than spreadsheets.

I had more insight into the topic of death now, too. My perspective had shifted, I was no longer gazing in through safety glass, I was all up in it, advanced directive and all. Where were my death homies? Where were my people?

One day I opened up my Facebook to an invite to a local Death Cafe. I had attended one in the area a year previous, and was impressed with the turnout. Even though Death Cafe tends to operate with more brevity than I'm always comfortable with, they were still my people, so off I went. That's where I met Mr. Tim Lilyquist, the mortician in charge of the event's venue, Chapel of the Angels Mortuary.

I just steal these photos off of Tim's Facebook. I don't even ask. He seems fine with it.

So the rest goes something like this.

"Blah blah I think death is rad."

"Yadda Yadda, so do I"

"I'm pondering setting up a 'thing' here, kind of like a salon, but with some more variety, to appeal to a few different aspects. Like the industry! But I don't know much about the industry."

"That would be so bitchin'. Hey...I know all about the industry, and I have opinions and stuff too..."

"GET. OUT. OF TOWN. We should totally do a thing. We're doing a thing."

So, here's our thing. The other things and their influences will be apparent, but it will be it's own unique thing. Because the thing I do now, is much different from the thing I did then, in the "before" times.

I hope that Len was right, and this is something people want, maybe even need. I hope Tim can tolerate me. I hope you will want to be a part of it with us, because it's gonna be so extremely, ragingly bad ass.

Len said so. He wouldn't have referred to it in such foul language, but I know that's what he meant.

Len's memorial garden. The skull says "Godspeed Len" in fancy silver paint pen. As it should be.

Hey internet...I guess I should tell you, I lost the baby

This is a personal death story that I shared online in 2012. That was the story that enlightened me to the fact that people want to feel less isolated when it came to grief. I received countless private messages about how reading about my loss helped someone to feel less alone. Some were people I was extremely close to, but had no idea they had lost a pregnancy too. In my opinion, hiding our vulnerability and sadness is a lonely choice. -R

Hey internet...I guess I should tell you, I lost the baby.

March 16, 2012 at 9:54am

One of the downfalls of choosing to live your life openly and the compulsion to write about it is having to share the painful, gut-wrenching parts of your journeys along with the achievements and quirky anecdotes. This has never been more difficult for me than it is right now, but it's who I am, and it's who I want to be, even when being me is torturous, humiliating and sad.

Going against the classic advice of not telling people about a pregnancy until into the 2nd trimester is in direct opposition with my nature. I know very few women who actually abide by that rule anyway, although they may not announce it to the internet. This is probably wise, and while a part of me would do anything for a time machine and some discretion, I realize it wouldn't have mattered, I would have done it anyway, because the internet is where I express myself, Facebook is where I blog, and everyone knows it. How could I talk about ice cream and tortoises for a whole 4 weeks and not mention that, in other news, there was a OMG baby growing inside me!

Many years ago I went through a very dark time. My friends and family didn't hear from me, people who had been in my life for years didn't even know where I lived, no one had my phone number. I never went out and I didn't even show up for my best friend's wedding. Normally someone who had always lived loud and fast and painfully honestly, I became a ghost, in more ways than one.

The short version of that very long story is that I made a bad partner choice, and was sucked into a vicious, sick, abusive relationship that involved addiction and things I'll never speak of. I escaped that life by steeling my guts and reaching out to Sid, and my best friend, and every other person I had ever trusted in the past, even though I was scared they hated me, even though I didn't deserve their help. Once I was extracted, I swore I would never live my life in the dark again, or keep secrets from the people I loved, and who loved me. I survived by being brave enough to tell my story.

Not only did I survive, I prospered. I battled my demons, I took medication, I stopped taking medication, I went to therapy, and I did my own therapy. I fell in love with Sid all over again, became the mother I wanted to be and the friend I had never been. I decided what I wanted to do with my life, and I did it. I also decided to never live in the shadows, as a secret ever again, and to tell my story, light and dark, and I have ever since.

Some people find it naïve or narcissistic, some think I'm a fool. Others have told me they admire me, and have called me brave, and still others have wished they could live without fear of judgement like I do, even though that's far from true. I'm scared all of the time. I just feel compelled to tell my story anyway, to be a writer, and a blogger, and a village idiot and once in awhile say something to somebody else that means something.

That is why I didn't keep the pregnancy a secret. I was so god damned happy, how could I? My life finally got to a place where I could think about the things I wanted instead of needed, and being a mother again was what I wanted most of all. Not only that, Sid wanted it too! There would be no peeing on a stick and then preparing to see the terror in a guy's eyes as you hold your breath waiting to see if he would be angry and bolt, there would be hugs and kisses and pure joy! For a girl who never went to prom, or graduation, or had a sweet sixteen, or a proper wedding or honeymoon, having the man I love look into my eyes and ask if I would have his baby seemed to make up for all of those milestones in a woman's life that I seem to miss out on.

We tried for 2 years, as quietly as I do things. I mentioned it here and there, but I felt judged by some. Disapproving eyes accusing me of being too old, too poor, too crazy. Shakes of heads doubting Sid's ability to settle down, my ability to settle down, our lack of a marriage license. It put seeds of doubt in me, but I didn't let it stop me.

Then it happened. I was pregnant, two months pregnant in fact, by the time I realized it. I was doing it again and I was so happy and I cried those tears of joy and Sid held me close. After the shock wore off, we got busy coming up with names (we even decided on a girls name) coming up with ways to accommodate this new family member, getting Mars prepared to end his career as an only child, and I admit, fondling baby socks, reading all of the pregnancy books, and diligently rubbing cocoa butter on my belly with one hand while tossing pre-natal vitamins down my throat with the other.

This Monday, the 12th of March, at about 12 weeks along, I was to go in and hear my babies' heartbeat for the first time. I was so excited, I could hardly sleep the night before. I felt sorry for Sid that he didn't get to go, poor sap. I'd tell him all about it when I got home, how it sounded like a little bird heart, how it was finally real, and how cold and gross the gel was and how the exam was lame but it was all worth it, because I would finally get to hear that beautiful “whompwhomp” sound.

But that's not what happened.

First, there was the blood. I had noticed some very light, hardly noticeable spotting, but nothing that even blipped on my radar. No spidey sense went off at all, I was blissfully sure everything was fine. My OB did not share my blind enthusiasm. In fact, she turned downright dour, and immediately pulled out the sonar wand and began searching for the heartbeat. I strained, stopped breathing, listened with all my might....and heard nothing but that empty, sonar echo. My ebullience that I'm known for, my optimism, my joy, my happiness, it all imploded right then, in those 5 minutes. Something was wrong.

The rest of the week was torture, waiting for the ultrasound, weighing the possibilities. My uterus could be tilted. The baby could be much younger than we thought, and the heartbeat undetectable. The blood? What blood? There was barely any to speak of, a vague brown tint on toilet paper. This was just a mistake. A bump in the road. A scare. I would go to the ultrasound, Sid would hold my hand, and we'd grip each other in fear until the doctor said, “There the little bugger is!” and we'd laugh and cry and hug, and then get some Thrifty's ice cream and go home.

But that's not what happened either.

I laid on the table, and there was no place for Sid to stand near me, so he stood across the room, arms crossed and mouth covered. I stared at the screen, pretending to know what I was looking for, and the tech said, “There's the little cutie!” but then she got very quiet. She started pressing buttons and measuring and running lines across the bottom of the screen that looked very much like a sound monitor that should have been showing peaks and valleys of heart activity, but were as flat as the desert. Then she said she was very sorry, and she would send the doctor in to talk to us. The baby was dead, and possibly had been for a couple of weeks, as it had stopped growing at about 8 weeks, while its sac had continued, and was the size it should be for 13. The week it's supposedly okay to start telling people.

That was yesterday.

Today I have go in and find out how to expel from my body what in my mind was to be a beautiful, blonde, chubby baby girl that was going to put her tiny hands on my face and smell so delightfully good in my arms. I have to back up, remember that this was not a baby yet, and was never meant to be, and is now merely a fetus that isn't viable. I have to grieve something that never existed, and abort something I desperately wanted. I'm scared, and miserable, and confused. Every single time I use the bathroom I want to punch through the mirror, just to see some blood, because, where is the blood?? There is still none to speak of. In my mind, a miscarriage was dramatic, like in the movies. I would go into the bathroom and begin to hemorrhage, scream for Sid, and he'd have to carry me to the truck with towels shoved in my crotch to stave off the copious amounts of blood as he rushed me to the ER. I guess many woman do have that experience, and it's defiantly how it is on TV.

But that's not what happened to me.

Nothing is happening, except some brown tinted toilet paper and some cramps that my menstrual cramps would scoff at. I wouldn't even call it minor discomfort. One teeny cramp and a streak of blood and an empty, hollow sonogram echo is all I have.  This was a slow, silent death, so silent, I still feel like it can't possibly be true. My heart knows it is, but where is the proof?

Today they will examine me, check my hormone levels, and give me my options, which are basically wait until it decides to leave my body and suffer through that wait and the natural process of expelling, which could leave me open to complications and infections, take a medication to move it along, or get a D&C, something I swore I would never, ever do again after doing it intentionally when I was a teenager and practically having a nervous breakdown because of it. These are my choices, and my appointment is drawing near, and I'm terrified, because to be honest, not one of them sounds like any fucking fun at all....and I still have yet to get any Thriftys ice cream out of the deal. Did I mention my active imagination? The part of my brain that is protecting me is doing it's usual-Jokes about zombabies mixed with flashes of the very real horror that is having something no longer living inside my body, refusing to leave on it's own accord.

So internet, you who I tell everything to, this is what has happened, and this is where I am. It's a dark, scary place, a miserable painful place, but I'm not alone. My boys are taking care of me, my best friend is here, and my circle of wonderful women (and a few men) have circled the wagons around me and I do not feel alone, despite the solitary nature of this experience. I am strong, we will try again, and I will eventually be fine. I'm broken into about a million pieces right now, but I've cleaned up this mess of a heart before, with the help of my wonderful friends and family. I'm telling you, because I tell you everything, and this is part of everything.

I will be writing about it more, I'd imagine, once I'm not in the thick of it. I'll be writing to give comfort to others that have gone through it, and I hope some of you who have experienced this loss will tell me your stories, to help me through it now. Just writing this has been cathartic, and kept me from sobbing and gasping like a dying animal for about an hour, which has been a nice break. Be sure, I will be talking about the D&C procedure that I am sure to be experiencing in the next day or so to remove a fetus with no heart that was never meant to be my child so that I can get my health back and take care of the beautiful child I already have. Be sure I will be talking about a bill in Wisconsin was written to outlaw the very procedure I'm facing today, and how the current reproductive rights battle effects women like me, the women the "pro-lifers" want to pretend don't exist, because we blow their "slutwhore" reasoning out of the water. Be sure I'll be talking about that when I'm not so gut-churningly sad, and I'm using my anger to propel me out of this bed.

Thank you for listening, reading, and letting me be true to myself in front of you.