Subscribe
Subscribe to this site's RSS feed.
-
Wednesday, April 4th, 2007
Things that make me nervous: kids growing up, receding hairlines, Windows Vista.
Yes, I hate change. Even when it’s for the better, or inevitable, I hate it. And that fact became very obvious one night last week.
People who aren’t too cheap to spring for premium cable – or who lucked into getting it for free, like my sister – got to enjoy the TV show Six Feet Under on HBO the first time around.
I only recently fell in love with it through the magic of Bravo. It’s a show about a family raised in their father’s funeral home (a fabulous 1904 house), who must take over the business and cope with their loss and lives after his death. Each episode begins with the death of someone who will be brought to the funeral home for their last hurrah.
In a way, I enjoy catching a show only in reruns or on DVD. Bravo played three episodes a week (and is still playing them starting at 9 p.m. CST on Monday nights), so I got to experience the suspense and splendor of all five seasons in the course of only a few months of Monday-night dedication.
But then came the final episode, far too soon. Even in a show that dealt with death in funny, touching, in-your-face ways, the last few minutes of the last episode caught me off guard. I am not much of a TV/movie cryer, but I could hardly see the TV screen I cried so hard.
Then I could not stop crying. I went to bed and stood over Darwin, sniffing and trying to recover until he woke up and said, “What’s wrong?” I tried to lie and say, “Nothing,” but he knows the sounds of crying in the dark and dragged it out of me. I didn’t want to admit that a mere TV show had triggered such a downpour, but finally I did. And as I cried a fresh wave of tears, I tried to explain out loud what was making me so upset.
SPOILER ALERT:
The show stretched out into the future and showed how all the main characters over the course of the next several years died, one by one by one. The message was clear: change will happen, death will happen. There’s nothing at all you can do to stop either one.
As a person who is terrified of change - has always been terrified of it – this struck me especially hard. I wasn’t crying for the characters on the show – though that was a small part of it, for I loved Claire in particular so fiercely – but for myself and all the people and things I had lost and would lose over the course of time.
As I lay in bed, struggling to make myself stop weeping and go to sleep, I saw my life as a picture through a lens, only here for a shutter click of time. I wanted to cling to it, the way it was right then, that second, and keep it exactly the same forever. I would keep Darwin and the house and the cats and the dog all exactly as they are – freeze their fleeting lives – and I would be happy. It made me see that I am happy.
It’s easy to get weighed down by all the stress, most of which I bring upon myself, and to feel disgruntled and wonder if things might be better if this, if that, if if if if if.
But I realized I would honestly stop everything just as it is. That sounds naive, and some people will probably think, “No you wouldn’t. What about the things you haven’t done yet? What about children? Grandchildren? That book you’re always whining about?”
Yeah, those things would be nice … and I suppose will be nice, since there’s no way to actually stop time.
I think this is why I like taking pictures so much, why I fill up my 1GB memory card every time I go to a family dinner or children’s birthday party. If I can freeze and digitize the moments, they won’t ever fully disappear. I won’t ever forget. The children won’t grow tall, Darwin’s hair won’t thin, Windows Vista will be mortally wounded and slink away to die.
Change will stop, and we will all live forever like the family in Tuck Everlasting, a movie I adore even though it stars Jonathan Jackson.
Yes, I feel slightly ridiculous to be getting so philosophical over a TV show. I am ridiculous. In five years, I will probably feel the same, that my life is perfect and I would hit the pause button there, too.
Maybe that’s what I hate most about change. The way we adapt to it and let the things that came before it go.
I don’t want to let go.
If ever there were a show to get philisophical over, Six Feet Under is it. I adored that show (and that house!) and drove an hour out to my parents’ house every Sunday to watch it because we can’t afford HBO.
When the series ended, I missed the family dearly. Especially Claire, who I sometimes loved, sometimes hated, but nearly always saw glimmers of myself in. That last episode was so completely perfect for the series…. but devastating on so many levels. I cried too ;)
I’m totally not a regular tv watcher, but once I discovered 6FU in I think its 3rd season (only as a result of agreeing to tape it for someone who was frantic about having to miss two weeks while she was in Europe), I watched it religiously – If I missed it on the night an episode was first broadcast, you could be sure that I’d be on hbo.com finding out the times for the next airings.
And yes, that house was gorgeous!! I sometimes watch reruns just to catch details.
(BIG SPOILERS HERE) That last episode definitely was emotionally intense and very powerful. That last bit on how all the main characters ended up dying was brilliant. Ruth’s death was touching, and I loved that it led to Claire’s reuniting with her true love. Keith’s death shocked me, but the tears started welling up when David saw Keith as he was dying. I howled with laughter as Brenda died while Billy still wouldn’t shut up. And I had to keep wiping my eyes as the camera panned over Claire’s lifetime of photographs, then I smiled to see that she had lived to be a very old woman, but then burst into sobs as I realized that she was blind – that this woman who was so visually brilliant could no longer see. ACH! I’m tearing up just thinking about it.
I think I’m going to add some 6FU DVDs, especially the last season, to my birthday wish list…
Oh yes, Leslie, that last moment was the clencher. That Claire, oh that Claire. As Mindy said, I saw myself in her and my sister in her. How could I help that when my sister, too, is a photographer and artiste?
I sobbed through that whole episode and beyond as well. I loved those characters and felt like I was mourning the loss of a good friend or family member. I hate change too, and am always the one who wants every TV relationship to stay the same forever. Not too realistic, eh?
I started watching the reruns on bravo too. The last sequence was a killer for me. When Keith died, it was so sudden, I screamed out loud. I’m glad I was alone or I would have felt darn foolish. I think it is on the HBO website where you can read obituaries for all the characters. Seeing the deaths and reading the obits ties it all up neatly.
Yeah, I went and read the obits. They’re here if anyone’s interested: http://www.hbo.com/sixfeetunder/obituary/episode63.shtml