Mourning Before the Morning: On Mothers, Dixie Carter, and the Ugly Fucking People in the Mall

Well, I was just sitting here being lazy and blah, and realized I had a text from someone - let's call her Rita Coolidge - who was feeling down tonight for various reasons, largely because of the Dead Mother stuff, and some child rearing shit too. Of course, I am all over this like white on rice, because who better to talk to about the mama stuff than me? True, my relationship with my mom wasn't as complicated as hers was with her mom, but you know, in the end, your mom is your mom, no matter how difficult the relationship, so I have to say part of me is glad that she is feeling shit about all of this, because if she wasn't, I'd worry. I say this because I know someone who's mother died last week, who was buried yesterday, and she didn't go to the funeral, even though she's 70, her mom was 92, and they DID have a relationship up until a few years ago, when the mama went senile and all this other family shit happened. I mean, when you are 70, isn't it time to just forgive? Ah hell, life is funny, hey?
Anyway, in the midst of all of this crisis, she mentions that Dixie Carter died. I reacted like I had shit my pants, but I have to admit something. On that stupid show - Designing Women - I couldn't stand Dixie. Fuck, that's another sign your social life was in the shitter, when you were trapped watching Designing WOmen on Monday nights. It always annoyed the ever-loving fuck out of me. You know that I am the biggest liberal out there, but I hated being hit over the head with it. Dixie was just so annoying, in the same way Ted Danson and his wife are annoying - the "oh, look at us, we are ultra-democrat and we are going to adopt gay black babies and french kiss them and then have "solidarity now" tatooed on our asses to show support for Poland, and then break WInnie and Nelson Mandela out of jail" type. I had thought Annie Potts was cool, but then again, I was 16 at the time, and as the show went on, she annoyed me. That fat one was really good, but then she turned out to be a gun-toting Republican married to Simon and SImon, so i couldn't like her in the end, being 18 and liberal, but I was glad someone else got fat besides me. And I always wanted to scream "It's fucking pronounced 'sharlene', not CHARL-ene'. And Meshach Taylor - well, you know I have absolutely nothing against the two-spirited people of the earth, but motherfucker, let the fucking brother be GAY on that show, instead of not mentioning it. Let him be full of hickeys and leather pants and shit, instead of being a fucking southern EUNICH.
But back to Dixie. In the end, I think I would have loved her as a person. But as a character, fuck me Dorothy, she annoyed back in the day. But rest in peace, Sugarbaker..... I wonder if that old man she was married to is still alive? And back to Annie Potts - wasn't she also in some bus accident, a la Barbara Mandrell and Gloria Estefan?? Fuck, those bitches and their bus stories. I still remember my friend Sue's mom, from next door, back when we were kids. The Mandrell Sisters show was on, and they were all singing and shit, and suddenly her mom, who had quite a few gin and tonics, jumped off the couch, and started shaking it, and imitated in a Mandrell voice, to the tune of the song they were singing "Who's boobies are the biggest" and was shaking her own business like nobody's business. It was so frigging funny. God love our drunken parents in the 1970s.
This is the most even keeled I've been today. I thought i slept ok, but I woke up tired and in such a bad mood. I was so grumpy, and, if I must admit, quite horny for much of the day, and I knew that an improved mood and time for some afternoon delight was really not possible, so I was just irrate with everyone and everything and was ready to freak the fuck out. By about 5 o'clock I was in a better mood, and my wife and I were out about town, without kids, and we had an hour before we had to pick one up from a birthday party, so I took her to this dive restaurant she's never been to, but one I love - I used to work across the street from it, and it's this Chinese place that smells really greasy and looks really dirty and is situated in the downtown core, which is really scary, of our town. Anyway, I love this place and took her there, and we had some great food and listened to this old Indian woman tell her companion all about Bingo and how big the last pot was, and how she didn't have enough $$ at Dollarama, etc., and it just made the day seem so much better.
But let me say that we were downtown doing errands, and we had to go to the mall, and remember how I said how ugly people were in our Walmart? Well, the people in our mall are even uglier. The mall is in the downtown core, full of gang people and ugly white trash and everyone had tattoos on their necks, and i am sorry - I know many of you have the tattoos and like that shit, but when it's on your neck, you know it just screams trash. So when people have some bullshit name written on your neck, like "Keyanna" or whatever the fuck your daughter is named, or worse, some fucking Asian bullshit letters that just prove you are a drug addict, or some hideous picture of a star or whatever, well, I hope you enjoy wearing turtlenecks 20 years from now. Because, you know how people laugh at those eagle tatoos from the 70's mullet men, or the black roses from women in the 80s, or hearts on men in the early 90s men? Well, that neck bullshit will be judged the same. So suck it up buttercup, because you will be hiding those things like hickeys soon.
Anyway, I hate to cut this short, but I really need to get to bed. But let me just say this: Mourning is mourning, and it doesn't end. There are good days, and there are bad days, and there times you wonder why it is hitting you like it does. Like yesterday - I was laying in bed, reading my Mormon book, and then I was reliving my mom dying, and the moment I had to leave the hospital room, and her, forever. And in that moment, that caught me by surprise, because just 1 minute ago I was thinking about Mormons and their misguided ways, and suddenly I am holding her hand and kissing her goodbye again, and trailing my sisters out of the room, and getting one last look, and thinking "this is the last time I will see her again" and feeling that panic and then leaving the room and getting into my car, and realizing as I drove away that this was the loneliest feeling I had ever had, and I wanted to just drive my car straight down over the bridge and into the river. And how that whole thing came to me, I don't know. But it's those moments out of the blue that shock us, no matter how well we think we are coping, that make us freak out and wonder when it will be better. But you know, maybe it's a good thing we still feel. I think it shows that no matter how guarded we are, it shows how deeply we love, and how deeply we carry the memories of those we love. And even though we will always be filled with regret - the should of, could have, would have syndrome - you know the Kate Bush song "This WOman's Work?" Not the Maxwell version, but the orginal, written and performed by Kate whilst her mom was dying - youtube it if you are strong enough for a cry - in the song, Kate sings the words "all the things we should done but we never did, all things we should have said but never said" (I got those two lines backwards, sorry). Well, we are always haunted by that stuff. But you know, we can't change the past, and even if you aren't of a spiritual nature, I truly believe they know how you feel. Even my wife, who I would say at best is an agnostic who doesn't deny a higher power but doesn't necessarily believe in one, will tell you that the two people who have died in my immediate family since we've known each other have sent us messages - the night my brother in law died, when my phone was busy for hours because I was on my dial-up modem, my sister was on her way to our house finally at 1:00 to tell us, and right before she rang the bell, our candle holder exploded, shooting fire and glass everywhere, which woke Rachel up and got me off the computer, right before the bell rang.
Then when my mom died, and I was planning the song for her funeral and got everyone to agree with "In my Life" by Judy COllins, my sister popped over, and I said "well, for my funeral, I want "Life is Eternal" by Carly Simon, and i put it on the stereo, and about 30 seconds into it, the volume on the stereo shot up to full blast - from 11 to about 47 - and nobody was by the dial, and the remote was sitting without batteries in the drawer in the kitchen. I had to run to the stereo, turn it down, and said, out loud "OK, Mom, Carly it is". So yeah, I think they are with us then, and know how we feel. SO no need to feel guilt about anything. And I think we should cry when we want to and need to, no matter how much time passes. At times I get weirded out that I am still not entirely healthy because of mom dying, and it's been almost 2 years, but you know, we do what we do, and we don't just move on. So I say let's feel what we need to, cry as much as we want, and just be.
Ok, I fell off the soapbox - so, let me just say rest in peace mom, rest in peace "Rita Coolidge's mom", and rest in peace Dixie Carter. We'll laugh at our fun memories, we'll regret so much we wish we could go back and change, and we'll think we are over it, and be upset that we can't get over it, and also be glad that we will never be over you, because you are worth mourning forever and ever. But we will also do our damndest to make the most the time we have here. And we will always be thankful for friends who "get it" and understand. And even when we feel alone and apart from others, and alone in our mourning, well, we are not. So, Rita Coolidge, even though you may never have any kind of "All-time High" relationship with your biological family again, it's still necessary to mourn your mom, and even if you aren't sharing your grief with them, Lord knows you got us, here.
So, everyone, it's ok - we'll be ok. As the recently departed Alex Chilton sang with Big Star, in the song best known as the theme to "That 70's Show", 'we're all allright.'
Amen Brother.
Seacrest out.