Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(37)

“That’s like Vicodin.”

“Codeine?”

“That’s good.”

“Percocet?”

    “That’s pretty strong. Give me the Percocet and you take the rest. By the way, all of these things make you constipated,” I told him.

Roy pursed his lips to indicate he had bigger problems at the moment, but I knew, as a pharmacological intuit, I had the duty to inform him of all pertinent side effects. I had been prescribing drugs to people for years, and I knew the ethical guidelines that go with said profession. I can tell by someone’s weight, body type, personality, and mood what the right dosage for them will be. I’d known my brother my whole life. He needed a Vicodin.

My dad walked out of the closet he shared with my mom wearing a pair of suspenders strapped to a pair of khakis and a shirt that he couldn’t button all the way. He looked like a giant baby.

“I don’t think so, buddy,” I told him.

“Nothing fits,” he declared.

“Neither does what you’re wearing.”

“What are you two doing in there?” he asked, cocking his head to one side, playfully. “Careful with that stuff. It’s strong.”

Roy elbowed me, like we were twelve. Once I was an adult, I knew I always had the upper hand with my father, simply by virtue of telling the truth.

“It’s Percocet,” I told him. “Do you want one?”

“No, I don’t touch the stuff. But you should take two. I don’t want you to have another one of your hysterical hospital episodes at the funeral.”

I wondered if my father was relieved that my mother was dead. I remember looking at him in those suspenders with his giant belly protruding, thinking, Why on earth did I bother fighting so hard to keep you alive, when my mother was the one worth fighting for? Then I thought about my mother watching us from where she believed she was going, and thought, She’s already laughing at us, and then I was laughing, and then my father, and then Roy.

    My father’s plan for my mother’s funeral was exactly the kind of hijinks we’d all learned to expect from him. The funeral was a long afternoon of avoiding eye contact with anyone Mormon. This was the epitome of our family. We couldn’t even get death right.

After my mom died, my dad acted like my sisters and I were just going to pick up where she left off, as if there had been some indication that we had any of her talent or gift for homemaking. He simply presumed that because we were related to my mother, we could all make a casserole out of matzoh. My sisters would complain about him showing up at their houses demanding a fresh-cooked meal. Nothing is more annoying than someone who can’t cook pretending they can, and none of us can cook, but somehow during that time, my father must have convinced Simone that she had the gift. She got on this recipe kick for a while—because my father was tricking her into making food for him—and she’d talk about cooking as if she had just somehow magically inherited my mother’s culinary skills. She acted like she was the first person who ever roasted a chicken with peaches. Hopefully, the last.



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I grew up with people always telling me that I looked like my mother. When I was a teenager, my mother was old and chubby in my eyes—I loved her, but I didn’t want to look like her. Now that she’s gone, I always look for myself in pictures of her. I want to resemble her now. Probably the same way parents look for themselves in their children. I guess it’s all about whoever is on the other side of the looking glass. Now I want to look like my mother, and—guess what—now that I’m older, I do.

    My mom died a day before I was supposed to start production on my very first TV show, The Chelsea Handler Show. This was a short-lived venture that turned into Chelsea Lately.

While her life was ending, mine felt like it was finally starting to make sense. I had been doing stand-up for years, I had published my first book, and my future had begun. New Jersey represented the past. My life was in Los Angeles now. I wanted the past to be over and the rest of my life to begin.

Keep moving. Keep doing. Keep going.

Weirdly, the relationship between my mother and me strengthened after she died. It was then that I felt her looking over me and after me, way more than what I felt when she was on earth.

Every day before I went onstage for Chelsea Lately, I would stand backstage and look up and imagine this warm, glowing light.

Whenever I got nervous, I would always think of my mother. I’d look up, and welcome her light, and ask her to watch over me, and help me shine. It used to happen when I was performing, but now it happens mostly when I’m skiing, because that is where I’m willing to take almost any risk to get better. When I ski, I sometimes feel my mother’s hand on my shoulder. Sometimes it’s Chet’s hand I feel.

    Slow down, I’ll hear, when I’m gunning down a mountain out of control. Cool it, one of them will say, and sometimes I do. I listen to my mother more now than I ever did when she was standing in front of me.

She knew I was reliable before I did. She knew about my strength before I did. She knew my sister needed extra love, and she knew my father was one big hot mess that she needed to try to shield us from—protecting us in the best way she could. She knew a lot more than I ever gave her credit for knowing. Her strength was quiet. Her determination wasn’t loud or ugly—it was refined. I never knew determination could be quiet. I suppose it depends on who’s got it.