Death, a Prisoner

Deep Talks and a List for Halloween

Happy Halloween!! I had hoped that I’d get a list out much earlier but you know, kids and life did that thing where they demand attention and all else slips.

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I can tell my son is upset. It's bedtime and his dad is reading him a story on the couch when I walk into the living room. I ask what's wrong while my husband tries to console him. 

“He is afraid of death and dying.” my husband explains. My son frowns and looks down, his big brown eyes doing their strongest appeal to heartache. This isn’t a surprise, we’ve been circling into this topic for some time so in a kind of synchronicity, it rears its head right in time for the very season of death. I won’t say I’m excited to talk about death, but I’m also not afraid to talk about it. 

I have this memory of growing up and gaining this realization of death while having this deep, primal fear of eternity. My mom was raised in the fiery, evangelical tradition. My dad was a cultural Lutheran (like Catholics, but without the priests, he’d say) and was not really religious. I’d get snippets of my mom’s faith here and there - women were born in sin because of Eve, we will spend forever in the cloudy palace of heaven. It was heaven that scared me, the idea of just being you forever and ever into eternity. I was afraid to die, but I also didn’t want some continuation of whatever this is for forever. 

And then my aunt died when I was about 10. She was this beautiful woman, married more times than I can count, hopping from one husband to the next. She loved the lord and was this larger than life character. She was in her early 40s when she got sick with cancer. I held her hand in the hospital as she died. Later that same night I had this vivid dream where she came to me very much alive and told me that I better make sure she looked good for the open casket at her funeral. 

In death, the beautiful symmetry of returning to the earth, to the womb of dirt and dark and everyone that's come before. The final adventure. The thing that makes life meaningful is its eventual end. The thing that animates us all  - the building, the creating, the being, the constant human refutation of dying even though we know we will all meet there eventually. 

For soil to be fertile it needs equal parts minerals and organic matter (things that once were vessels of life and energy). New life requires death. We live in cycles, continuity, with each other. 

But all that’s a lot to explain to a kid, right? I try my best: 

“We don’t know what happens. Some people believe we go to heaven, another place from earth where we live for eternity. Other people think that doesn’t happen. But the fact is, we don’t know and isn’t that kind of beautiful? It’s a giant mystery.” 

He does not think it's beautiful. 

“I just want to live with you and dad forever.” 

There is the crestfallen, saddest look you’ve ever seen. The realization for me that I can handle my own mortality fine but what I am in denial of is my kid’s mortality. 

“All I know is that you don’t have to worry about it for a long long time. Me and dad will always be with you, even when we are not.”  

Later, after he goes down for sleep he runs out of the room. He is still scared of dying. I try to intellectualize his fear, again to explain, explain, explain. 

Ultimately I give this up and settle for comfort. That's all I can give - a kiss on the cheek and arms to wrap around him. 

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This comes to here and now and this season, to autumn, fall, Halloween, me calling it “spooky season” with no hint of irony. The season about honoring death, the dead in our lives, the season changing, slowing and getting colder, prepping to become that mulch and compost that the next spring is grown off of. It's the season of pumpkin spice lattes, making costumes, candy, sleepovers, being scared, the thinned veil, horror and screaming, finally getting colder, the start of holidays. 

It is my favorite, despite or perhaps because of all of this existing simultaneously. It’s wonderful, strange, sad, funny, scary.

So rounding out with a fun Alt death-spooky-things I’m enjoying list of sorts for the season:

1. The Solider and Death - The Storyteller 

These little devils make a memorable appearance

The Storyteller was my favorite as a kid. It’s this Jim Henson created series retelling European folk tales, my favorite of all is the Solider and Death which tells the story of a soldier returning from war who through a series of events - barters and tricks, schemes his way to capturing death. But of course, this has its own consequences. I showed this one to my son after our talk and tried to say, hey see what happens when you capture death? It’s not so great huh? (He didn’t quite understand what I meant)

Oh and there’s funny little devils in it too. Death kinda looks funny as well but it’s a classic and it’s perfect in my eyes.

2. Ghosts in the Burbs Podcast 

Ghosts in the Burbs is this wonderful lofi and perfect podcast. It's one of my favorites. The creator, Liz Sower, writes fictionalized stories of her town Wellesley, Massachusetts and the ghost and creepy unexplained she runs into. Sower is a mom, former librarian and on top of this being such a well written podcast, I admire her just … doing the thing. Going out and writing, podcasting, by herself and she’s kept doing it for years.  This is in the genre of “cozy horror” and IYKYK.

3. Read the Shining, watch the Shining 

That iconic carpet pattern…

I’ve written about how the Shining is my favorite movie before, probably a few times too (how embarrassing). I went to see it again in theaters recently and guess what, it’s still the best. Years ago I read the book. I think both are good but for different reasons. The book is far more about Stephen King’s own struggle with alcoholism and the general supernatural angle. It’s fun and readable, like all his books. The movie on the other hand, is a bit different. Obviously people have many theories of what it’s about but this recent watch something different stood out to me. Kubrick’s movies are all kinda about men and men’s roles, etc (in my view). This is the man in the family and the horrors of family life, played out in the classic horror genre. The complete isolation of the hotel amping up those dynamics. King famously hates the movie, which makes sense because the movie offers no redemption for Jack Torrance. He was an asshole before the hotel and he was an asshole at the hotel after he gets possessed. King wants the redemption for his main character (you know, himself), he wants the pathway that there is always the chance that not too many mistakes were made. Kubrick doesn’t give him that.

4. Rewatch True Blood 

I find myself nostalgic for the time when this show came out. It was the ascendant of “prestige tv.” This show was so stupid and fun. It's the exact kind of show that could never be made now. I read somewhere that they were thinking about remaking it and I hope to god they do not. I think the culture now is far too self aware and anxious to make a show like this.

(Don’t watch after season 4 or 5, also #TeamEric)

5. Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein 

I’ve most definitely written about my sons’ obsession with this movie and with universal monsters. These are great movies so if you haven’t seen them, you should. Also, this one has the best union joke in it: 

What are your Halloween must do/read/watch? Any weird ones? I’d love to know.

Happy Halloween!!

-Until next time