Illustration by Cecile MancionSunday night was quiet at my mom's. Last week has come to a close, and long gone are the days that seemed like years ago of uncertainty at the hospital, the sense of finality at the wake and funeral and the acceptance and celebration of my aunt's life over lunch in Queens. Now is the quiet lull that always comes after a loss, once everyone has gone back to their homes to digest what exactly has happened. I hate this part.
Séb, my mother and I sat in silence over a comforting dinner of brocoli di rabe and grilled chicken pizza and a bottle of Cakebread Chardonnay. We absorbed the silence as we let the warm pizza and cool wine temporary alleviate our heavy hearts. The bleakness of what would otherwise be another Sunday night on Long Island was deafening. I let my eyes glaze over thinking about the aunt that I lost, thinking about Ginger and Vinny, who have just lost their mother, and the injustices of life.
Leave it to my mother to pull me right out of that funk - or at least attempt to.
"Are you peeing right now?" my mom whispered over the table.
"What?" I responded, not exactly sure if I heard her question correctly.
"Are you peeing?" my mother continued, "y'know, in your Depends?" "My Depends" I don't have "My Depends". I have Depends that were bestowed upon me but they are certainly not "mine". Just as I was going to make a snippy comment that I was not urinating at the dinner table, I caught my reflection in our kitchen window and you know, she had a point. I did have that concentrated look on my face, a face that I could imagine one wearing Depends would make while releasing in public. I took a bite of my pizza and with a full mouth informed her that no, I was not peeing and that I regretted ever trying them on for "fun". This Depends story is going to follow me for life. I just have to accept the fact that whether it's true of not, I now wear Depends. So be it. It also doesn't help that Lisa Rinna has been all over the news endorsing the brand and showing up to red carpet events announcing what's going on under her dress. How gross. And of course it has to be Lisa Reena, my mom loves her. Are you surprised? My mother once asked a woman on a street in Los Angeles if she had ever been to Lisa's boutique in Valley and if she knew where it was. That woman was Catherine Keener and I was mortified. So you can imagine my irritation that of all people and all products, the two banes of my current existence are now joining forces.
A sense of humor certainly runs in my family and this is how we release during tough times. Ginger, who is no exception, gave a speech on behalf of her mother that managed to make us all laugh, and put smiles on our faces, even in the setting of church that was packed with one familiar face after the next. The last time I saw her girlfriends was exactly a year ago when they all came to Paris. In an effort to cheer me up after my crisis of 2011, I was asked to be their photographer for the week, to take campy photos of them around the city in hot pink berets. What a difference a year makes. I was devastated over MF, couldn't crack a smile at our ludicrous photo shoot and was a shell of my former self. I was desperately trying to laugh and enjoy having friends in from out of town, but I was so blocked by what had happened that I couldn't see past my own drama. Do you know how dumb I feel now? If someone would have told us what would happen a year later, I would have smacked myself for being such a little whiny bitch.
While it didn't take the experience of what has happened this week to realize that life is short and no man is worth what I put myself through, it was a good reminder. As I reach my full year, I am becoming more and more aware of who I am and am almost ashamed that I let myself become so heart broken over someone who was not worth my long and desperate nights of isolation, locked up in my chambre de bonne, not wanting to live life. Shame on me.
For me, my aunt Mary will be remembered for her quick tongue, terrible taste in music, blunt yet maternal nature, sharp wit and her fritatta (which I used to always make fun of how she would say a sentence with a thick Queens accent accept frittata - it had to sound all Italian. She'd then give me a warm hug and gently call me an asshole). My heart reaches out for my cousins Ginger and Vinny during this time. No one should lose their mother at such a young age but I'm glad they have people like me and some of our other friends in their lives who have lived through this, because this is a heart break that cannot be undone. Aunt Mary will truly be missed.
