Freeballing into the afterlife.

I wrap my hand around the glass, the beading condensation cool under my finger pads. Some of the Tajin rim is now coating the top of my pointer finger. I bring it to my mouth before I think better of it and then, realize my mistake and swipe it on the cloth napkin resting on my lap.

I look at V, her hair perfectly coiled thanks to this humidity free evening and her meticulous habits. Her face is as warm and familiar as it ever was, but her eyes are sad tonight.

“They don’t tell you how hard this bit is,” I say.

“Which?” she asks.

“The adulting bit. The growing up and having to do all the hard shit, bit.” I reply.

She laughs then and some of the heaviness lifts from her face.

They don’t, I think, as I watch V lift one elegant hand to brush away a stray curl. No one talks about all of the decisions you have to make, how hard they are and how there’s really no road map. There are many who are quick to share their stories, but circumstances and conditions vary and so, most of us are left swinging in the dark.

For example, despite widespread popularity, I don’t use the phrase passed away anymore. One late night, a month or so ago, after hours of doomscrolling, I asked Siri how ‘passing away’ originated. I don’t remember the exact details except that I recall that the phrase emerged hundreds of years ago when the heartbroken tried to give a name to the difference between the journey of the body and that of the soul. I get it, I guess. Or got it, but I still think it’s ridiculous. Passing sounds ethereal and magical.

What really happens is that someone vanishes in front of your very eyes. Someone goes from the person you know to someone mostly unrecognizable. When Harriet died and I sat at the edge of her bed, I remember thinking that it was like that movie “Pleasantville”, except that she went from color to black and white.

Everything shrinks and seizes and retracts. I don’t know what your soul does, really, but everything else seems to leave. All the stuff that makes you, you. Everything that made you a living, breathing human.

“Everyone was really focused on my grandmother’s lipstick when she passed away,” I say, “like she absolutely needed lipstick. And then, they gave her this pink, this rose-colored lipstick that she would never wear, ever. It was so strange. Grotesque really. She only ever wore Revlon 710 which was this pearlized orange. Her lips always looked like two metallic tangerine slices for the nearly forty years I knew her as a living being, and then, she died and lost all her color, and her lips suddenly look like they belong to a “natural” 1950s housewife.” My words are rushed, or at least feel that way. I find myself mildly out of breath.

V looks at me, face serious for a moment. And then, she half-smiles. And when the right side of her lips tug up, I feel oddly relieved.

“When my dad died,” she says, “I had to do nearly everything. That’s the thing that I really think no one tells you. There is going to be one person that does everything and everyone else just sort of sits around and offers useless suggestions and criticism.”

V says this quietly and I nod, recognizing that there is more to be said.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I had to bring a suit to the funeral home so they could dress him. That felt strange. My dad didn’t wear suits, you know? I mean he wore one to my wedding, but that was about it. But mom wanted him in a suit, so he was going to be in a suit. So, I bring the suit, and they ask me if I have underwear for my father. Underwear!”

The second time she says underwear, she says it in that way that you might say “can you believe this shit?” Also, underwear is a weird word.

“I didn’t,” she says, “have underwear, I mean. I forgot. I didn’t even think of it. Like, he’s dead. Who thinks of underwear for a dead person? Plus, there was so much else to worry about. Like my mom and arrangements and all the other shit that needed to be taken care of so quickly.”

“That’s strange,” I say, hoping I sound validating and not condescending.

“Yeah,” she replies, “it was. Really strange. And of course, they offered to sell me a pair of whatever they have in stock there and add it to the already exorbitant bill. Dying is an expensive business, if you don’t know. But I didn’t care. Like in that moment, my father was dead, and my mother was alone, and I knew I’d have to take care of everything, and I was really tired and I didn’t care, at all.”

“What did you do?” I ask and realize immediately that this question is silly. Inappropriate. But V doesn’t seem phased. She takes a sip of her drink, ice cubes clinking against the side of her glass, and sets it down, pausing.

“Well, I told them, told him, that I guess my father would have to freeball it into the afterlife.” V looks at me after she delivers this line and there is a moment of silence and then, we laugh. We laugh until I’m choking on my own saliva, and V has tears running down her cheeks. We laugh until I poke the space in between my ribs to alleviate the ache that’s forming.

“Freeballing into the afterlife,” I repeat.

“That’s fucking great,” I say. “I mean, it’s not great, but it’s great.”

“Yeah,” V says, “I know what you mean. And I think we have to laugh about it, really. It’s just so hard otherwise, all of it. If we don’t laugh, then I think we’d just cry a lot or scream and really, nothing would get done. There’s so much to get done and if we all spent too much time licking our wounds and bathing in self-pity, then everything would just fall apart.”

“Yeah,” I say.

V wipes the tears off her cheeks, and I brush imaginary crumbs from the front of my shirt.

“They don’t tell you how hard it all is,” I say.

“Yeah,” V says, “I guess if they did, we would all just kind of give up, right?”

“Right,” I say.

The waitress comes up to our table at that moment, and her lipstick is the same shade as Harriet’s-her dead body lipstick. “D’ya need anything else?” she asks.

“No,” V says, “we don’t need anything, right now. Thanks.”

x

L.

P.S. This post is dedicated to V- a beautiful human who I’ve laughed and cried with for twenty years and counting.