Tre Miller Rodriguez's Blog, page 90

Rock opera #thegreatcomet is the most entertaining day...

Rock opera #thegreatcomet is the most entertaining day I’ve ever spent in a tent. Including that one time in Big Sur with the mushrooms.

Rock opera “The Great Comet of 1812” may be the most...

Rock opera “The Great Comet of 1812” may be the most entertaining day I’ve ever spent in a tent. Including that one time in Big Sur with the mushrooms.

Proxy for a Perfect Day

A few weeks ago, a thread on a widow/ers page asked members if they could spend one more day with their deceased, what would they do?

The answers were what you’d expect: goodbye kisses, Iloveyous, point-blank questions, reunions with infants who’ve grown into schoolchildren.

I didn’t have an easy answer but the question lingered like a crossword clue that your synapses are on the verge of solving.

The answer manifested itself today in the shape of my late husband’s mother, who arrived at my apartment last night. While she slept in, I read the morning paper to the uncanny tune of Hilda snoring at the same tempo as Alberto.

When she woke, she rubbed my head affectionately on her way to the bathroom. By the time she emerged, I had placed the Times and a cafecito beside her reading glasses.

Around noon, she asked if I was hungry?

Sure.

Should we go to that crêpe place?

Yes, let’s.

After a lazy lunch, we strolled the neighborhood.

Wanna get massages?

Um, always.

By the end of my massage, today starts feeling not unlike my version of a perfect day with Alberto.

My synapses surge into gear, and as we pull on jackets, I ask if she—and her surgically replaced knee—are up for the High Line?

We talk about going there every time I visit. We should go.

At the top of the stairs at 23rd street, I watch her absorb the city from the park’s three-story vantage point.

She gawks at the rail lines incorporated into green space. Pauses to stare at century-old buildings. Shoots iPhone pics of birds foraging for seeds.

I have never…this is incredible, Tré.

These words mean more than she knows. More than I realized. And though they’re coming from my Next Best Thing and not Alberto—who died two months before this much-anticipated park opened—the moment is intensely gratifying.

Back at the apartment, we settle into our preferred spots in the living room, engaging each another between the article she’s reading or the email I’m answering.

Does Italian sound good for dinner?

Yep. We can do Don Gio’s for delivery.

Her order—right down to the garlic knots—is the same as Alberto’s and I am officially embracing the hell out of this day.

I know it will end with a car taking Hilda to Jersey, but for the few hours we have left, I want to introduce her to something her son would’ve devoured.

Do you watch “House of Cards?”

No. I’ve heard of it though.

Two episodes later, she looks as mesmerized as Alberto did when he discovered a new season of “24.”

My car is downstairs but I want to see what happens!

You’ll just have to come back!

I will be back.

You better.

Love you, Tré.

Love you too.

No Sleeps 'Til Booklyn

Bioré pore stripping? Check.

Statement T-shirt and mostly clean jeans? Yep.

Rehearsal of heart-shaped excerpts? Indeed.

Money on Metro card? Hopefully.

Thinking about seeing NYC Tumblrs for my reading tonight at BookCourt in Brooklyn? Hells to the yeah.

Because Friends Don’t Let Friends Grief-Google

I once googled are there any young widows out there and got a list of stunningly offensive dating sites.

Grief resources for young people yielded creepy therapists and angel Web sites built on Go-Daddy templates.

When you’re a grief-stricken 20- or 30-something and you’re just trying to find your tribe, Google fucking sucks.

(Yeah, everything sucks when you’re mourning, but somehow faulty default-search engines are an especially personal affront.)

The stupid search spiral ends here. 

If you’ve lost someone and ever wondered how the hell to do X/ where to find Y/ if anyone else struggles with Z, ModernLoss.com is your get-outta-exile-free card.

The young founders and contributors are members of the club no one wants to join and they believe in moving through loss…not in asinine phrases like everything happens for a reason.

If you relate to what you find there, I hope you share the hell out of it. Because friends don’t let friends grief-google.

Full disclosure: I’m a proud contributor to Modern Loss. The first installment of my bi-monthly column, “Mourning, Noon & Night”, uses four-letter words, shares things buried in diaries and shamelessly plugs my Tumblr community. It originally appeared on ModernLoss.com and is republished here with ten kinds of permission. Insert mic drop.)

When my 18-year-old brother, Phil, died in a car accident in 1994, my parents and I didn’t grieve politely. Phil was the first major loss we’d experienced as a family, and we mourned him in ways that reflected his live-out-loud approach to life.

Which may be why we chose a steel coffin that resembled his beloved Nissan 300ZX, and didn’t blink when his friends slipped blunts into it at the viewing. Beside the funeral guest book, we placed a jar of glass from his broken windshield with a framed message: “The glass may be shattered but our memories are not: Take a piece.”

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"It seems we each lost our loves around the same time. What you have done is what I want to do, in my..."

“It seems we each lost our loves around the same time. What you have done is what I want to do, in my own way. Once again, another brave, strong woman strengthens my resolve to keep writing through the heartache. Thank you.”

-  — veuveperdue

Pinch Hitting on November Tenth

During an interview I recently gave to a Portuguese journalist, she asked if I’d seen the movie “Juno” and how it made me feel?

Made me wish I’d written that screenplay first.

No nostalgia for your experience?

Nope. Honestly, I just wished I’d written it myself.

Like any good journalist, she continued to press me.

Well, teenage pregnancy doesn’t give me any nostalgia.  The father contesting the adoption doesn’t give me any nostalgia. But the fact that I spent that summer in Idaho with my brother, who died the following year, does.

That trip completely changed our relationship. We were  away from our parents…and got to know each other as people instead of siblings or children. So yes, in that respect, I am nostalgic of that period. I miss Phil and I’m grateful to have spent that time with him.

Today is 19 years since Phil died.

And I am hella nostalgic.

Couldn’t spend November Tenth with my parents this year, but I learned around noon that they were spending the day sick in bed.

Too sick, in fact, to perform the sunflowers-on-his-grave ritual.

I felt sick when I realized no one would be visiting Phil today. 

Could I do something in NYC to honor his memory? Maybe float sunflowers down the Hudson? Smoke a j? See a Pink Floyd tribute band?

I queued up my “Phil’s Day” playlist and wandered into the shower. When I emerge, Bob Marley’s voice and a photo message from Phil’s BFF greets me.

It’s not just a picture of Phil’s grave.

It’s Phil’s grave surrounded by his signature shirt, sunflowers, beer and funeral programs for other lost friends. 

A copy of my book sits on top of it all. 

Richy didn’t know I wasn’t in town. Didn’t know my folks were nursing the flu. But, as he told me a few minutes later, he’d woke at 6am, and decided to throw Phil a party at the cemetery.

And just like that, November Tenth is salvaged.

Re-Routing

When Alberto’s noise-canceling headphones stopped canceling noise this summer, I did not snap a photo before parting with them.

Ditto recent replacement of the toilet that played a not-so-minor role in the last morning of his life.

But this router?

This effing router?

It’s a piece of him that’s been both a source of frustration and a thing I just can’t seem to replace.

Six months after Alberto’s death, I tried replacing it: the installation literally broke my cable Internet and left two of my techiest friends stumped.

That new router was shoved back into its box, thrown in Alberto’s closet and the old one has been doing a shit job ever since.

Today, my frustration over the shit wireless actually canceled out my fear of Router Disaster Part Two. Because really, in the four years since that fiasco, I’ve managed to get a new ISP, perform two software updates and add RAM—all without Alberto and without breaking anything.

So, today I did the thing I was dreading.

I replaced the router.

(Again.)

Installation wasn’t half as smooth or simple as the box promised, but all the equipment is actually talking to one another. And none of my devices are saying the dirty buffering word.

I may have gleefully dropped the old router in the trash chute.

And canceled my plans tonight so I could stay in and write about technology.

Although—as you’re well aware—this post has not been at all about technology.

"When we die, we are only stories in the minds of others." — Jim Harrison

"When we die, we are only stories in the minds of others." 

— Jim Harrison

"When I first started reading your blog, my best friend and soulmate had just died. You words made me..."

“When I first started reading your blog, my best friend and soulmate had just died. You words made me feel less alone in my grief. I’m now finding myself in a lonely place again (it’s that time of year), so I just ordered “Splitting the Difference: A Heart-Shaped Memoir” on amazon. Thank you for all your words and for somehow making me feel less lonely.”

- — Erin, Florida (erinjets)