Gone Baby Gone

Excerpts from February 1997 “Death” letter in italics

“Now that I am an orphan, I’ve taken the time to ponder the mysteries of life and death, and I have an observation to share. For millions of years, I didn’t exist, and things were perfectly fine with me. No pain, no suffering, no torment, no IRS. When I cease to exist, I believe things will once again be the same. I don’t accept that we should be penalized for living our lives. Nor am I expecting any reward. I think life itself is both our agony and our ecstasy. “ – Bill Robinson

Social media has transformed how people experience death. I learned of Michael Jackson’s death on Facebook and Amy Winehouse’s via Twitter. It seems like such an impersonal medium, which is ironic since death is extremely personal.

I don’t think there is any good way to share that someone has died, but I think electronically may be one of the worst.  Because just when I am tooling along Facebook, reading people’s deep thoughts such as “OMG, that grilled cheese was fabu!” or “There are not enough tiki huts in my life,” (Ahem. Word.) someone sneaks in a serious, deadly post.  It was in this way that I found out my favorite Facebook friend, Francie, and her three young children, had been brutally murdered.

In my original draft of this post, I detailed just how bad the incident was. After reading it, I deleted the details because they are much worse than anything your brain can imagine. Even Stephen King would say, “Now that’s just too much.”  I don’t want to share the sorrow, but the shock.

You see, Francie was the one who posted a picture of her fabu grilled cheese because honestly? It’s not easy to make the perfect grilled cheese.  I found out about the best way to butter and toast a sandwich, as well as her untimely death just a day later, on Facebook.

A mutual friend posted, “Now Francie and her babies are together in Heaven.” What the eff are you talking about, Willis? I immediately called our mutual friend who filled me in on the situation. (Sorry about that, mutual friend. The last thing you needed was me crying my face off to you.) I mean, how does this happen? Why does God allow this? My father would say, “God didn’t allow it because God doesn’t exist.” Well Dad, I disagree. I do believe in a higher power and respect those that do not. Yet I also understand it is REALLY hard not to question God’s existence when you hear a story like this.

If we are really fortunate, though, we sometimes can laugh through our tears when dealing with death, regardless of who it is and how we found out.

When my grandmother died, my dad called me to the hospital to say goodbye to her pale, lifeless body (squick).  We had known it was imminent, but it still hurt, BAD. She helped raise me, and I hated that she had left me. As my dad walked me back to the elevators, he said to me, “Now I am an orphan.” Oh my God, that was the saddest thing I had ever heard anyone say. But that was as emotional as I saw him get. In my family, we tend to celebrate life, sometimes in pretty ridiculous ways.

“As you experienced at the funerals, our family does a much better job of celebrating life than mourning death. We try to remember the happy and the funny times, and we make the most of the occasion that brought us all together. Later, we can fall apart on a more private individual basis. It’s just the way we are.”

When his father died after a protracted illness, compounded by acute hypochondria, my father inscribe on the tombstone, “See, I told you I was sick!” We are Klassy with a capital K. So when my grandmother died, he had inscribed on her tombstone, “She was worth her weight in shrimp.” Let me explain...

When my dad was growing up, they didn’t have a lot of discretionary funds. Shrimp was expensive and only purchased on special occasions. It had the financial equivalent of gold to the family. Thus, gold = shrimp. In addition to Klassy, we are high-falutin’, too.  

So, at the funeral, the minister said, “I love the Robinson funerals, they are always so much fun!” Thanks, lady. May God have mercy on your soul. But I get what she was trying to say. Death is sometimes horrifying, sometimes a blessing, and always sad. If one is able to laugh at a time like that, it’s pretty powerful.  During the funeral, each grandchild did a little routine about the best (and worst) traits of our grandmother then claimed to be the favorite, except me. I couldn’t do it. I froze. How could they be so cavalier? To this day, I regret not being one of the grandchildren to stand up at my grandmother’s graveside and say, “…blah blah, love, blah blah, cheats at Uno, blah blah, taught me how to play ‘Oh Shit’…but everyone knows I was her favorite.”  Looking back, I dropped the ball. Especially since I was her favorite. Obviously.

Like all children, I am terrified of my parents dying. One, because I love them to an insane degree, and two, because I will be expected to come up with a pithy saying for the tombstones and give a stand-up routine at the funeral. Public speaking and dying, people. What are you trying to do – kill me?! (Lazy joke. I know, I’m embarrassed for me, too.)

“The most important lesson we get from death is that life is a wonderful gift. Make the most of it, and death loses any power it might have had over us.”