Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . And You Too! by Handler Chelsea

Author:Handler, Chelsea [Handler, Chelsea]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humour, Biography, Adult
ISBN: 9780525511779
Amazon: 0525511776
Goodreads: 43885930
Publisher: The Dial Press
Published: 2019-04-09T07:00:00+00:00

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• • •

I was thirty-one years old and in London for my very first book tour, when my cellphone rang in the middle of the night. It was my sister Simone.

“You should come home. Mom isn’t doing well.”

I knew this call was coming. I knew when I flew to London that my mother was going to interrupt things.

Two months earlier, I was sitting in my parents’ living room when Simone came down the stairs from their bedroom, slumped down on the sofa, put her head in her hands, and sobbed. It was eerily reminiscent of when my dad had lost his composure after Chet died. I had never seen Simone be weak. If I had, I didn’t remember it. She wouldn’t have been weak in front of me, since she had always been a mother figure to me.

My sister gets along with every person she meets. Everyone loves Simone. She’s a conflict avoider, a passive, popular, easygoing sorority president—she’s eminently reasonable.

Is she really surprised by this outcome? I thought, sitting next to her on the couch. This was my mother’s third bout of cancer…What did Simone think was going to happen? I didn’t say those things to my sister. I felt bad for her. I also felt guilty that I wasn’t dreading my mother’s death as she was—I just wanted to get it over with. My mom had been fighting cancer for so many years—in and out of chemo and radiation, bald, not bald, always a little sick. She never complained, and when she started sleeping more hours a day than she was awake, and could eat only applesauce for weeks at a time, it seemed the writing was on the wall.

After all, everything had been leading up to this—the glue of the family was becoming unglued because she was tired of the chaos. She was tired of living through my father’s never-ending lawsuits—his financial unevenness. Being married to my father would have given anyone cancer. My mom was tired of fighting, and she was enervated. Her idea of heaven was dreaming about life while she slept, so in her mind, I’m sure, she was actually looking forward to being able to watch all of us without having to participate. In the afterlife, she would have a front-row seat to all of our lives, but from a higher perch and without the need to get dressed in something other than a housedress. She was worn-out.

I didn’t feel sad that my mom was going to die; I felt sad that no one in my family seemed prepared for it. When I saw my sisters suffering at the prospect of her leaving, I felt like they hadn’t learned their lesson the last time. There was my lack of empathy again. Never understanding that other people may be receiving things differently.

That’s okay, I told myself. I didn’t need my sisters to be fighters. I have enough spinach for all of us.

Death.

This, I know how to do.

Move over, everyone.

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