I cackled my way to tears, and before he took his seat, I hugged him with all of the love I had in my body, which was the only thing that existed inside of me on that glorious day.
I was so happy.
03 Week One
I didn’t know it was possible to awaken from a state of sleep in tears, but the morning after your death, I learn that it is. It’s my thirty-fourth birthday, but Facebook doesn’t understand that I’m not in the mood to celebrate anything ever again. Every time I log on, a window pops up with an exploding firework graphic and a happy birthday banner that displays all the wall posts about your death. I tell Mike to take my birthday off the calendar for the duration of our lives.
Over the next few days, we all want to die but make arrangements instead.
We meet with the funeral director. Talk programs. Select pallbearers. Pick out burial clothes: a Phish T-shirt, your favorite reindeer pajama bottoms, house slippers, and a Phish hat. We choose a casket out of a binder with plastic sheet covers that the funeral director presents. It’s traditional to bury a Jewish person in a plain, pine box, but Mom insists on something nicer.
We meet with the current rabbi of our synagogue who married Mike and me two years before and the retired rabbi, who Bar/Bat Mitzvahed both of us as children. Do you remember after your speech when he told the audience to look for this kid at the Laff Stop some day? You were always you. The rabbis will co-lead the service. During the recessional, we’ll play “Once in a While,” our favorite Don’t Stop or We’ll Die song. That was your band, and you loved playing drums in it more than almost anything, so it feels appropriate.
In a way, this is all just like directing a play. A very depressing play.
Everyone decides that I should deliver your eulogy. Mom and Dad always said I spoke for you the first five years of your life—they thought maybe you were mute—so I guess it’s fitting that I speak for you now. Somehow. I spend hours working on it. Remembering, writing, revising; remembering, writing, revising; remembering, writing, revising. When Mike prints out the final draft for me, the cover page logs twenty-six hours of work. Meanwhile, Mike writes an obituary that is beautiful and poignant, but the newspaper sends an invoice for $2,563.72, which is fucking lunacy. It’s like that scene from The Big Lebowski where the snooty funeral director tries to sell John Goodman’s character an urn for $180, and he shouts, “Just because we’re bereaved doesn’t make us saps!” Then he pounds his fist on the desk and transports the ashes in a Folgers coffee can. Mike edits the obituary down to $1,406.34.
People keep asking where they can make a donation. These are the sorts of things you have to figure out when a person you love dies. We all agree on a scholarship fund at the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, where I currently teach acting full-time. You and I both graduated from the theatre department, and you always loved to come talk to my students when you were in town. It feels like a good fit. I call my boss, the principal of the school, to hash out the details. In the same conversation, I tell him I’m not sure when I’ll be coming back to work. He tells me to take all the time I need. I wonder if forever is an option.
You also made me the executor of your estate, a demanding job for which I never applied. Over the course of the week, I sign various documents. Turns out, you had created a living trust several years ago that was completely squared away and in order when you died. Not a single string was left untied. Fifty percent of your estate will go to me, and fifty percent will go to Mom and Dad. Your business manager said it’s extremely unusual for his clients, especially the young, creative ones, to be this detailed with post-death arrangements. Mike and I have an actual child and don’t even have a will yet. I make a mental note to call the attorney and schedule an appointment to get that done once the dust settles. If the dust ever settles.
All the while, we try to coordinate with the funeral home in Houston, the detective, and the coroner’s office in LA. The coroner won’t release your body until they complete an autopsy, and there are too many dead people in line.
So, we wait.
Meanwhile, people come and go. They bring deli. It feels wrong.
When an old person dies, it makes sense for people to visit, nosh on corned beef, and make small talk. But not now. Not when a young, talented, brilliant, remarkable person has died. True tragedy transcends small talk. The occasion, however, hasn’t stopped Dad from being Dad, and he’s still trying his best to do the “polite host” routine. He keeps perfunctorily asking people how they are, and they keep carelessly responding with the latest news about their children and grandchildren. To a man who’s just lost his own child and future grandchildren. If you were here, you’d comment on what a fucked-up scene this is.
My fuse is particularly short. I don’t want to hug or commiserate or cry on another shoulder. I have no tolerance for social conventions. Anyone who asks, “How are you?” is met with “Terrible—my brother just died.” Some version of this sentence keeps running through my mind like
