My stepdad Jim made me hate Gomez, which is bullshit. I used to LOVE listening to Gomez - especially Bring It On, which they released in 1998.
I kind of narrated Jims death in a series of posts last year.
Half The Moon Is Gone
Rome Is Burning
Leaflines
Smouldering Ruins
Death In Venice
Cutlets
Unknown Seas
Mosaics
It was a strange, sacred, important thing to do. Lots of people who knew Jim would come here - (to this inappropriate blog) - and be updated on him.
Half The Moon Is Gone was written so fucken angrily, in a library. As I was writing it, the guy across me was on the nod SO BADLY he could hardly lift his head. He sat there, and when he woke up with a start, he always looked around the room and sucked his spit back in. And kept drawing with his pen. He looked almost fifty. Kids - drugs waste lives!
Druggo dude got up to go to the toilet at one point. Curiosity got the better of me. I was halfway through one of the biggest posts of my life but had to stop, get up, and go spy on this guys notepad .... it was just cars. A series of cars and utes. Pretty shittily drawn, because he wasn't concentrating properly. I remember feeling disappointed - like, he should have been drawing me a special message, something to ease my pain.
Sometimes we look for meaning and there is none.
About a month ago it was a year since Jim died. Mum went to my stepbrother Marks house on the day. So her year of firsts, without her Jim, have come to end. (I guess - she just starts on her year of seconds.) I don't think it really makes it any easier. We often say to each other how we can't believe he is gone. You don't ever get over the death of somebody you love. You just learn to live with it.
Also, you know what often happens when somebody in a family dies? Fault lines are brought to the surface. So, my family has been quite fractured these days. It is what it is. We'll see what happens - we've always been quite fucked up anyway.
I vowed to not let it get to me, the first anniversary. But of course it did. I took the boys to our favourite pizza joint so I didn't have to cook. Jim is so very missed. My sisters and I have #threedeaddads. (Our brother has two.) Ads for Fathers Day this Sunday don't *really* get to me. It's kind of like a pinprick on a HUGE wound. You notice it, but it always hurt anyway so you just take it in your stride.
Jims death shook me to my core and took away a lot of my faith. My first stepfathers suicide tore our family apart, ending all of our childhoods in one swift blow. Yet, it was the death of the first guy - the "real" dad, the man whose eyes and long limbs and face and blood I have. THAT'S the death that does me in, continually. I hardly even knew him but the hole he left is huge.
GEE ISN'T THIS A CHEERY POST AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU CAME
On the day of Jims funeral, I tried so hard in the car on the way there to appear fine that I downloaded a Gomez album and played it loud. All the boys in their good clothes sitting in the back. We arrived at the funeral place and I couldn't get out of the car. I just couldn't. It took Tim, my gorgeous firstborn from another mother to walk around to the front of the car, kneel down, and say "EDEN! YOU CAN DO THIS! COME ON ..... YOU'VE DONE HEAPS HARDER STUFF THAN THIS! GET OUT!"
And I did. Jims funeral was the most beautiful I will ever go to, indicative of his beautiful self. He was there, listening to us all. Probably embarrassed at the fuss and attention.
At my wedding in 2005
I kind of narrated Jims death in a series of posts last year.
Half The Moon Is Gone
Rome Is Burning
Leaflines
Smouldering Ruins
Death In Venice
Cutlets
Unknown Seas
Mosaics
It was a strange, sacred, important thing to do. Lots of people who knew Jim would come here - (to this inappropriate blog) - and be updated on him.
Half The Moon Is Gone was written so fucken angrily, in a library. As I was writing it, the guy across me was on the nod SO BADLY he could hardly lift his head. He sat there, and when he woke up with a start, he always looked around the room and sucked his spit back in. And kept drawing with his pen. He looked almost fifty. Kids - drugs waste lives!
Druggo dude got up to go to the toilet at one point. Curiosity got the better of me. I was halfway through one of the biggest posts of my life but had to stop, get up, and go spy on this guys notepad .... it was just cars. A series of cars and utes. Pretty shittily drawn, because he wasn't concentrating properly. I remember feeling disappointed - like, he should have been drawing me a special message, something to ease my pain.
Sometimes we look for meaning and there is none.
About a month ago it was a year since Jim died. Mum went to my stepbrother Marks house on the day. So her year of firsts, without her Jim, have come to end. (I guess - she just starts on her year of seconds.) I don't think it really makes it any easier. We often say to each other how we can't believe he is gone. You don't ever get over the death of somebody you love. You just learn to live with it.
Also, you know what often happens when somebody in a family dies? Fault lines are brought to the surface. So, my family has been quite fractured these days. It is what it is. We'll see what happens - we've always been quite fucked up anyway.
I vowed to not let it get to me, the first anniversary. But of course it did. I took the boys to our favourite pizza joint so I didn't have to cook. Jim is so very missed. My sisters and I have #threedeaddads. (Our brother has two.) Ads for Fathers Day this Sunday don't *really* get to me. It's kind of like a pinprick on a HUGE wound. You notice it, but it always hurt anyway so you just take it in your stride.
Jims death shook me to my core and took away a lot of my faith. My first stepfathers suicide tore our family apart, ending all of our childhoods in one swift blow. Yet, it was the death of the first guy - the "real" dad, the man whose eyes and long limbs and face and blood I have. THAT'S the death that does me in, continually. I hardly even knew him but the hole he left is huge.
GEE ISN'T THIS A CHEERY POST AREN'T YOU GLAD YOU CAME
On the day of Jims funeral, I tried so hard in the car on the way there to appear fine that I downloaded a Gomez album and played it loud. All the boys in their good clothes sitting in the back. We arrived at the funeral place and I couldn't get out of the car. I just couldn't. It took Tim, my gorgeous firstborn from another mother to walk around to the front of the car, kneel down, and say "EDEN! YOU CAN DO THIS! COME ON ..... YOU'VE DONE HEAPS HARDER STUFF THAN THIS! GET OUT!"
And I did. Jims funeral was the most beautiful I will ever go to, indicative of his beautiful self. He was there, listening to us all. Probably embarrassed at the fuss and attention.
I realised lately that mum goes back and reads those posts often, and to this day finds SO much comfort in your comments. Thank you! Thank you. Blogs can be a lot of things. Last year, the comments left here helped a whole host of grieving family and friends.
Priceless.
xxxxxxx
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Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell