Episode 2 of Festivale. Starring Mike Gregorek as Thompson’s Falls resident filmmaker and video store employee.

starring

CHRIS MATHIEU   MATTHEW C HARTMAN   KAREN LANGE

SEASON FINALE!

Technical difficulties abound between Chris Mathieu & Rose Hemingway.

Where was she last night?

Thirty-one years ago, my aunt (his sister) graduated from high school around the time I was born. Everyone was at the hospital with my mom. She came into the kitchen in her cap and gown. He looked at her and said: “Where you goin’?”

Last week, my aunt (his wife) told my ten year-old cousin: “There isn’t anything to say.” She was right and wrong.

She was right because what can you say? What is there to say that could possibly encapsulate an entire life? The unexpectedness? The sad? What can you say that expresses how you feel, how she feels, how you want her to feel? Nothing. There is nothing to say.

I went looking for a song or a poem or something to tell the world how I feel. But there is no such thing. It has not been written. It has not been written because I do not know how I feel.

We were not closer than average. We did not share any specific magical moments. He did not pick me up when I was down. I never, he never, we never. But he was there. And now he is not.

In a big family you cannot be close to everyone. Age, circumstance, busyness, life, these things get in the way. But absence is stronger in a big family. If a small puzzle has a lost piece, a new shape is made. The hole is almost artistic. The group readjusts. But in a large puzzle, the tiny hole upsets the entire work. Like one fork slightly askew at the head table.

My uncle worked on a Psychic’s house/office. When she got the bill she told him: “I didn’t know it was going to be this much.” He said: “Well you’re the psychic.”

I put his picture on the fridge when I got home. The dead never look like the living and I want to remember the living. He was there and now he is not. But I want him to be there.

I do not need anything from him, I do not want anything from him, I just want him to be here. And he is not. I want to be able to call him. I want to be able to see him. To hear about what he is doing. To hear about him cursing in front of my grandmother (as only he was allowed to do) and her laughing at it. I want to hear the sarcastic thing he said. And I want to hear him tell it as only he could. Because that is where he and I intersect.

He loved, was loved, and was funny as hell. What more could you want in this life?

We gathered. We fed each other. We ate dutifully. We said supportive things to each other and cried and hugged. It was not enough. But these are the things you do in the face of unexpected tragedy. These are the things you do to remember what was and forget what will be.

Hundreds of people at the viewing. Overwhelming the church. Line out the door. A life that touched many. Hundreds of people. What could they say?

I have been to enough funerals in my life. I think we all have. When someone your age dies in high school you almost skip it. Your mind glosses over it in the moment because the tragedy is too great. You spend the rest of your life dealing with it because it was too much to take in the moment.

But we weren’t prepared. We weren’t even thinking about it. Health problems? Maybe. But they were sorted, right? They were. The shock gives way to crushing sadness. Thoughts pop into your head. You cry for no reason. I just want to hold my son.

I want to tell my uncle how much he means to me. How much just having him around means. But I can’t. And I won’t do it for anyone who’s still around because we would all just get uncomfortable. We are Catholics, after all.

He and I were so much the same. That is what I know now. Not in what we did or what we liked to do but how we saw it. How we took it in and processed it.

He was allowed to curse in front of my grandmother because when he did it, it was funny. He was funny. He walked into a room and it was funny. He shook your hand and it was funny.

There is a hole in the puzzle we did not think we would lose. We know right where it is. And we will not get it back.

My aunt (his wife) told my ten year-old cousin: “There isn’t anything to say.”

She was right and wrong.

[obituary]

Who’s Lucille?

starring Chris Mathieu & Rose Hemingway
written and directed by Patrick Flynn

Rose Hemingway and Chris Mathieu star in our new series about a couple spending some time apart.