my week of personal spooks

my yearly scheduled grief in mid-october, with a little extra spice 🕊️🍂🤎

thomas cole - the voyage of life old age, 1842

october is a month of spooks. as soon as the first chilly breeze of the month flies through the air, spooky orange, purple, and black decorations appear on lawns and seasonal candy gets stocked to the top of high, endless grocery shelves. it’s whimsical. it’s frightening.

but this particular week in mid-october is an extra special frightening one full of personal spooks. today is tuesday october 14th. another october 14 to live and try to push through normally. i feel each minute slipping through my hands as the clock ticks the day away second by second. at least this year the weather in los angeles matches my mood: severe thunderstorms under dark, stormy, and grey landscapes. there are far worse things in life than hearing rain patter against our flimsy windows in our apartment. i make it even better by lighting a small candle, making a cup of tea and putting on a spotify playlist.

three years ago today, my mom died and my world permanently changed.

the dread hit me late last night as i tried to coherently gather my thoughts for this piece. i’d been stalling for weeks, the title stuck in my drafts when my friend jokingly said it at work: “wow, october is your month of personal spooks.” i’ve known this day was coming all year. it’s not like the day ever changes. instead, i woke up early this morning, meditated and got some thoughts out. i’m not sure how collected they are, but, for now, i’m just letting them be what they are.

i woke up today and the only thing i wanted to do was call my grandmother, kitty. it’s what i would do every year on this day: send off a morning ring and order her a fresh bouquet for delivery on doordash.

when i was six or seven, i committed her home and cell phone numbers to memory. both were 949 zip codes, and i enjoyed the infinite wisdom of memorizing her phone number and being able to ring her on my own to hear her cute, raspy voice on the other end of the line. 949 is still an area code i delight in seeing pop up on my screen, even though, of course, i know no one calling could be her. this morning, i realized that most of the numbers i memorized as a kid, now belong to dead people.

this is the first year i don’t have the option to talk with my grandma on october 14th. even though we lost the connective tissue that was my mom, we were still able to reflect on the loss of the same person – for one, a child and for the other, a mother. despite the fact that our mourning was different, it brought me a sense of melancholic solace and always connected us on a deeper level. she continuously reminded me how much she loved me and my sister. to add to this week, friday marks the six month anniversary since my grandmother passed. being unable to unpack any of this mourning with her feels like it’s going to destroy me.

the other thought that greeted me at the top of the morning was a vision of thomas cole’s painting, the voyage of life: old age. it derives from a painting series of the same name. when i saw the quarter for the first time at the national gallery of art while visiting my sister at university in dc in 2021, i was shell-shocked by the golden-framed foursome. the paintings reside in an octagonal room with teal walls, and upon stepping in, the viewer feels surrounded by the life of the man portrayed. thomas cole tells the story of a voyager through four stages of his life: childhood, youth, manhood, and old age. the details of the vegetation and light source are immaculate, and each period presents a novel, exciting, or perilous atmosphere. but like i said, i specifically thought of old age, not of the vivid colors from the first three. old age depicts the old man led by his angel towards an emergent, heavenly light. the waters are dark and calm, the man enthusiastically accepts his arrival to immortal life, having lived a full life.

cole’s interpretation of the end of life conjures a juxtaposition of feelings for me: delight if that is metaphorically what greeted my grandmother, who passed unexpectedly at 86, and an agonizing ache for my mom who, after years of an autoimmune disease and a lot of anticipatory grief, passed at 59. i have a complicated relationship with depictions of death in old age. death is supposed to greet you in old age, and for the lucky, it does. but you never know how long a life someone will get to live, or why. a short life has nothing to do with a person’s morality or impact, it’s just the luck of the draw, the luck of genetics, the luck of a freak accident occurring or not. today, i let the joy for my grandma’s long life meld with the anguish for my mom’s short one. those are the two main women in my life that made me the person i am today.

that mixture might sound like a cathartic revelation, but it just leaves me with more questions than answers. namely: does it ever get easier? each year, i’ve expect the next period of grieving to be more seamless. like in that entire year of waiting for the day to come upon me again, i’ve miraculously discovered a treasure chest, a jump bag full of therapy instruments and grieving tools to stitch up all my open wounds. but that’s not the case. three years in, there are some days where the grief leaves me on autopilot, my body moving but my mind absent. both losses accumulate to the unbearable weight on my chest today.

as i wrote, and scrapped, and rewrote just to toil again on the last few sentences of this piece, my partner kevin pointed out that there’s a poignancy in my inability to wrap up an essay on grief. because grief has no end, no timeline. there is no right way to incorporate all my love and mourning into a brief conclusion. my mom and grandma kitty, though not physically here, live on through me. october, which in the last three years has become a more important month for me, is also the most important month for baseball, it’s the playoffs. my mom lives on through our home team, the team that she worked with for a decade, the los angeles dodgers. her life was very linked to the dodgers, and now, the month that i reflect on her the most is shared with baseball’s most important period. for the lack of poetic justice that existed in her long illness and short life, what a beautifully poetic way to remember her.

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pieces of media on grief

one of the best practices i’ve established to aid in understanding and processing my grief is consuming moving media in different forms. they exist mainly as films, tv shows (some series, some episodes), books, songs, and even a podcast that came as a recommendation from my dad.

sometimes, i seek out programming to make me feel a certain way, see my first (and still only) watch of charlotte wells’ directoral debut, aftersun. other times, it hits you out of nowhere when you go to see the new studio ghibli feature in theaters and get thrown into themes of death in the first few minutes. most of the time, nostalgia and mourning on screen grabs me unexpectedly. one of my favorite beats of this is the shop’s last day scene in you’ve got mail. but i’m generally a lachrymose girl, i cry in most movies.

as i built out these lists, i knew i would inevitably forget things. i knew there would be films and shows and books that have shaken me but i just couldn’t remember when the time came. i also have many blind spots. i don’t claim to have sapience on grief, oh boy, i wish. you’ll realize the lists are full of fairly newer media, especially in the books category. there are a plethora of books i want to (and know i should) read on death, grief, and mourning, that i remain unable to pick up. on earth we’re briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong and my half-read copy of intermezzo by sally rooney both sit at my bedside gathering dust. the time will come, and i’m sure when i read them, i’ll be able to digest and metabolize them however i see fit.

i hope you enjoy the lists, and please let me know if you have any additions for them ♡

films

• coco (2017)

• the farewell (2019)

• interstellar (2014)

• my old ass (2024)

• marcel the shell with shoes on (2021)

• up (2009)

• asteroid city (2023)

• the iron claw (2023)

• about time (2013)

• aftersun (2022)

• phantom thread (2017)

• the boy & the heron (2023)

• you’ve got mail (1998) — specifically the shop’s last day scene

television

• fleabag

• shrinking

• the midnight gospel

• wandavision

• long story short

• scrubs — especially the episode ‘my screw up’

• the bear’s dead mom club & grey’s anatomy dead dad club episodes

books

• crying in h mart by michelle zauner

• stay true by hua hsu

• the year of magical thinking by joan didion

• tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow by gabrielle zevin

• the seven husbands of evelyn hugo by taylor jenkins reid

songs

• hallelujah - haim

• the long & winding road & in my life - the beatles

• oceanic feeling - lorde

• fourth of july - sufjan stevens

• walking in the wind - one direction

• bridge over troubled water - simon & garfunkel

• for good - wicked

• and a whole spotify playlist here, or scannable above

podcast

• all there is with anderson cooper

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hi friends! thank you for being here for another post on grief. it’s been a weird & wild three years with more death seeming to follow me. i appreciate you more than i can ever articulate! 💌

if you want further reading on the subjects of grief, love, or mourning , here are some of my other favorite pieces:

"everybody knows it is impossible for me to forget you"

I Think I Thought I Saw You Try

good (anticipatory) grief

how does one revive a dying thing?

x, your pal al