Talking to the Dead

Look, I don't know if there's an afterlife. I don't know if souls continue when the meat expires.

Talking on the phone is gross and should only be used to report deaths, but I tell you what - if I could find the digits to reach my friend Milo who died last year - I would have him on speaker begging him to sing his guinea pig song to me faster than my bra comes off when I get home from work nowadays. I'd share the link to James McMurtry's song "Long Island Sound" and eat up his reaction. I'd ask him where to go after devouring all the Travis McGee and Dave Robichaux novels.  I'd tell him I miss him. I'd tell him I love him. 

Digital messaging would be ideal, because I'd really like to send my old high school friend C.Z., who died a few years ago, a link to the cheesy "Eye of the Tiger" video and poke fun at him for purchasing the trumpet sheet music in middle school, though I was a chum and helped him learn it. 

Recently the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame started promoting their upcoming posthumous induction of Warren Zevon for the "Musical Influence" category, which is long overdue, and delightful good news at a time when scrolling the headlines can be detrimental to one's mental health. This reel of Jackson Browne playing Zevon's song "Don't Let Us Get Sick" delivered a triple-whammy of need to share with my dead sister Martha, who not only introduced both Browne and Zevon to me, but DID NOT TAKE THE GOOD ADVICE IN THE SONG and went ahead and got sick anyways. Plus, Martha was known to cry easily, and there are few things I love more than nailing a sibling right in the feels. I know this would dissolve her into keening wails and gasping sobs, because I also cry easily, and that's what I did when I first saw it. 

I want to ask Dad what the hell we're supposed to do in this bewildering fever dream our nation is flailing through. And how to fix my lawn mower. And confess to him that the engine that drives my work performance is built entirely of the desire to be the kind of assistant who would have kept him alive at least through retirement age. 

And Mom....dear dog in heaven, the things I wish I could tell her or show her or ask her. "You were right, please forgive me" and "Thanks" and "I was right but I forgive you". Pictures of Ringo, who is an argument for the recycling of souls in his tempermental similarity to Thurman, who was Mom's canine sidekick. "How do I make your peanut butter fudge? What do you do when your adult spawn does something you don't like? Am I doing this right?"

Ringo. He's a good boy.

 

Mom with a fresh perm and her good boy, J.C. Thurman.

Anyhow. If you're reading this, there's a strong likelihood that I love you and I miss you, dead or alive.