Post hoc ergo propter hoc

"Where's her head."

That was the first thing the Elder Boy asked upon my return from Houston. He was in the bathtub, naked. His brown eyes, a testament to Mom, were wide with anticipation.

"With her body. At the morgue, er' funeral home..." I shuddered at that reality. Mom's physical body in some refrigerated drawer like I had seen on television. "She might already be cremated at this point. I'm not sure, to be honest."

Those brown eyes, a mirror of mine, still wide with wonder, "How?"

"How what?"

"How they cream aid her?"

"No. C - R - E - M - A - T - E. Granny wanted to be cremated."

To which, Wy Wy, in the same tub, with the same brown eyes added, "Granny died."

To write that this year has been life altering for Team Tinsley is a gross understatement. I think back to when it all started, which for me was on my throne of impotence with a bag of doritos in my lap and Entourage on HBO. As the clock struck midnight, and 2005 became 2006, I clearly remember wiping my nacho cheese crusted fingers off as I got up and went back to look in on the Boy(s), asleep in their beds.

I'm not sure if it is because I've seen The Mexican or that I'm naturally disquiet, but on December 31st I often worry about stray bullets coming through the roof and harming those I love. Reassured by their peaceful slumber, somewhat, I licked the cheese off of my thumbs as I walked back to my throne. That is when I was struck with a palpable sense of dread - when I thought to myself, will Mom live to see 2007. Dear Readers, as well as regular readers of this here BLOG know that sad answer. No. Mom died on October 18.

Looking back, as I look forward, I'm disheartened with myself. My Lovely Bride says that I'm being hard. She is probably correct. Still, it doesn't change how I feel, which to be honest, is like shit. The past two weeks have been especially hard. Starting with our trip to Houston to go through Mom's things, and then her Memorial. Followed by Christmas. Christmas was tough. I've always had mixed feelings about Christmas. I actual spent Christmas Eve in Church this year, which resolved a lot of my past demons. Still, I hurt, so much that I had self medicated at our annual white elephant family gathering earlier in the day and was border line drunk. That sucks. Not so much in a moral sense. If you know anything about Jesus, you know he was all about the sinners and loving everyone. I think it sucks because two months and some change since Mom died I'm still not right in the head. To quote Paul Gleason's Principal Vernon from The Breakfast Club (who, ironically enough died of a rare form of lung cancer in May 2006), "I expected a little more from a varsity letterman!" Funnily enough my high school letterman jacket is one of the things I found when we went through all of my Mom's stuff. Something she had saved.

I recently read a BLOG of a guy who is from my hometown. A fellow Sandite. His BLOG entry commemorated the 10 year anniversary of his father's death. His father was my bus driver for many years. But that isn't the point. In his BLOG entry he said:

"To those of you who like to cling to the old Nietzsche grind that "that which does not kill me makes me stronger", I tell you that's a load of horseshit. In that month, on that day, I was not made stronger by the things that happened to me. What I learned was to mistrust that the universe holds me any goodwill. The legacy of that day was to destroy all my certainties, and replace them with constant worries about everything."

Thinking about this year, and Mom's death, I agree with most of that. However, for me, personally, Brother Nietzsche's grind is somewhat correct. Not to say that all of this has made me stronger. I don't think that is true. I think of the experience more like a callus. Hardness has set in, and I need some protection, the thinner my skin

My Near Year's Resolution, if you can call it that, is to simply open up my heart, and live my life in a way that is befitting Mom's memory. I need to take something good from all the bad. I don't want to be be angry, or bitter. Not waste time. That all sounds like such a cliche. Unless of course you are me, faced with such a profound loss.

So, Merry New Year to all those that come to this here BLOG, whether I know you or not. While you are here, please join me in crossing your fingers in the hope that I don't fuck it up, and end up walking in my old footsteps once again.

Until I BLOG again... after this, therefore because of this.

There is no way to hide

Oh, irony, you sadistic mind fucker. How you love to push my buttons. How you must have loved seeing me sitting on that crappy exercise bike on the third floor of the Hampton Inn preparing to exercise in the hope of burning through some of my Mom's memorial morning anxiety. The look on my face must have been Mastercard priceless as I turned the television on and realized that not only was Four Weddings and a Funeral on TV, but that it was nearly time for the funeral scene. Seriously. Three hours before my Mom's Memorial. How do these things happen? It truly is stranger than fiction, in fact, I could never even make this up, I'm not that clever. The same way I'd never have thought to cue the irony and have the dog die this past September. Genius. Cruel, sure, but genius never the less. Just like having Field of Dreams on HBO upon my return from the Memorial trip, one movie that always makes me cry, hard.

I thought that might be the coup de grâce. As usual, I was wrong. That happened this morning. I was stuck at a light for nearly 30 minutes because of an accident. I was listening to my iPod. It was set to play my Houston Roadtrip mix on shuffle mode. There are 57 songs in this mix. This fine morning, stuck at the light, in the driving rain, Do You Realize?? was song 50. In My Life was 51. Back to back. The same order as in the slideshow I did for Mom's memorial. The same slideshow in which the Elder Boy, at a table in front of so many who were there to pay tribute to his Granny, became overcome with his grief. It was gut wrenching to see such pain.

I'm not sure how this all works. How it happens. If I'm looking for meaning in coincidence? Or is it something more and I'm such a dumbass I don't get the bigger picture because I'm unable to let go of all the junk in my head and heart? Like two of the character in the movie Raising Arizona say:

"It's a crazy world."
"Someone oughta sell tickets."
"I'd buy one."

Indeed.

Until I BLOG again...Don't let it beat you, say 'nice to meet you' and bye

Do you realize??

Until I BLOG again...that everyone you know someday will die

Waiting for an invitation to arrive

Turn, Turn, Turn my ass, I think the Byrds are full of shit. I know they didn't write that song, but they did take it to number one in 1965, so I'm holding them accountable. Plus, that is a much better choice than the actual songwriter who cribbed most of the lyrics from the Book of Ecclesiastes. I'm uncomfortable calling that book full of shit, since, stop, drop and roll doesn't work in hell. But, as always, I digress.

Turn! Turn! Turn! (to Everything There Is A Season) my ass - try losing a loved one to cancer two weeks before Halloween. It is jacked up, hard. How strange it is to drive by homes that have ghastly decorations in their yard. Thinking about those zombies coming up from their faux graves while you are sitting next to a real life skin and bone zombie who is your Mom. At the end she even moaned like a zombie.

I realize that I shouldn't bring up, what I can't put down, because nearly two months since Mom's death, I'm clearly still haunted by it all.

I get that. What I didn't get is how people could decorate their yards with the faux dead and stay up late into the night watching horror films and not be able to look me in the eye when they learned that my Mom had died. How many couldn't even acknowledge her death.

I didn't understand that so many embrace Halloween in all its macabre, ghoulish glory because they are scared to death, of death. You know what? I was one of those many. I can think back on times when I didn't know what to say to someone when they had lost a loved one. How I had dodged them or simply said nothing.

If I've learned anything from this, it is the fact that you should keep your eyes open when you walk past the proverbially graveyard rather than whistling past in a state of denial.

Until I BLOG again...Goin' to a party where no one's still alive