SavageTimes

This morning, I awoke to news that Alan Rickman had passed away.

Ealier in the week, I had broken the news to my kids abou David Bowie, not really expecting any kind of reaction, because they usually have no interest in my “old people” music or “old people entertainers.”

However, my son surprised me by being a closet-Bowie fan and being about as upset as a 15 year old boy will admit to being about this sort of thing.  Or, anything.  He said, and I do quote exactly, “Yeah, I’m really upset. I really like him.  Especially ‘The Man Who Sold the World.’ When are we eating?” The reason I know he was definitely truly upset was because he asked about dinner after he stated his emotions.  If you have a teenage son, you will understand this.  If you don’t…trust me.  It’s a huge emotional give, putting food AFTER emotions.  I was worried about him.  Thankfully, his appetite didn’t appear to be affected.

So, this morning, when I read about Alan Rickman, I was immediately concerned for my daughter.  If her brother was so highly emotive about David Bowie, I feared my daughter’s reaction regarding Alan Rickman.  She was a huge Harry Potter movie fan.  And, she also feels everything.  EVERYTHING.  Someone is always saying something/looking at her weird/making her happy/making her sad/everything in between.

It doesn’t take much for the end of the world to be imminent for 12 year old girls.

How would she take Professor Snape dying?  I had no idea.  My son surprises me constantly.  My daughter often scares me.

However, morning was not the way to go for sharing, since she wasn’t exactly a morning person under the best circumstances.  When I was a kid, my sister would burn holes into my soul with a single glance over her cereal bowl.  My daughter had inherited that skill and taken it up a notch.

This morning, after having to literally rip the covers off of her in order to get her to wake up, I pushed her French Toast in front of her and then studied my emails intently so as to avoid her devil glare and jutted out lip on which she could land aircraft carriers.

Suddenly, she cried out, “No.  No!  Noooooo!  I can’t!  I.Just.Can’t!”

I looked up and said, “Sweety?”

But she is gone, running to her room and slamming the door.  Then the heaving sobs begin.

Shit, I think.  She found out about Professor Snape.

I debate just going about my business and hoping it will pass.  It’s worked before.  Well, OK, not really.  But I am nothing if not an eternal optimist.

Maybe she just needs a hug, I tell myself

Tentatively, as if approaching a rabid dragon’s lair, I knock on her door and enter.  “Sweety?” I say.  “What happened?”

“Ohmygodican’teventellyouyouwon’tunderstandidon’tevengetwhyyoudon’talreadyknowohmygodican’tdoitanymorei.Just.Can’t.Do.It.”

“Oh, sweeety,” I said. “I’m so sorry you’re feeling this way.” Right now is crucial: she let me in, but if I mistake what we’re talking about, peace will not reign. Even though I am certain a friend texted her about Professor Snape, she needs to tell me for herself.  With a pre-teen girl, “assume” means “Assume a defensive position because you are about to die.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

There is a long pause and then she growls out something that sounded like “blue blooded mewling.”

OMG, I think.  It’s definitely Alan Rickman.  He was a knight, wasn’t he?  At least British.  There’s the blue blood.  The mewling?  I don’t really understand.  Perhaps some new lingo that she and her friends made up.  It happens all the time, slang flashes in and out of existence as they develop private jokes between them.  She comes home and tries them out on me and her brother, until we explain to her what she is REALLY saying.

Still.  She needs to say the words.

“So awful,” she mutters.  And then something that sounds like “The mounds are blueing and blueing and blueing!”

“Oh, sweety,” I say.  My go-to in all situations anymore.  “I’m sorry.  Come on, let’s go eat, and we’ll talk about it.”

“Nooooooo!” she cries, raising her hands to ward me off as if I am the livinng embodiment of the pox.  “I can’t bare it!”

“Oh, sweety.”  I have no idea what she is talking about, and time is ticking.  It’s time to make a move and hope for the best. I move closer, try to wrap my arms around her shoulders.  “He would want you to eat.”

Bam.

Her head lifts.  Eyes like dark emeralds turn my veins ice cold.  “You aren’t LIStening,” she snarls.  “You don’t UNderSTAND.”

“No,” I say with what I hope is conviction and yet humility.  “But I’d like to.”

Then I pray to Hera, Athena, Bast, Freya, the Virgin Mary, and generally any female spiritual entity that might be listening and take compassion on me.

Luck was with me: my daughter heaved a deep sigh, scoots backwards, and looked up at me with tears glimmering in the corner of her eyes.

“It’s your chewing,” she says.

“Oh, sweet–wait.  What?”

“Your. Chewing.”  My daughter blinks up at me.  “I didn’t want to tell you.  But I can’t stand the sound of it today.”

“My–wait.  You didn’t get a text from Marisa?”

She stares at me.  “Why would Marisa text me NOW?”

“I–well, I thought it was bad news.  Like, homework.  Or a test.  Or–I don’t know.  You said you couldn’t bare it.  You said you couldn’t go on.”

She stares some more.  “Could you go on if a gorilla was eating bones next to you?”

“Bones–.”  I was eating eggs.  Like every morning.

“It’s what you sounded like.  I kept waiting for you to shed your skin and show your gorilla self.”

I take a deep breath. “OK,” I say.  “Well, I’m done.  So you come in and eat, and I’ll go get dressed.”

Another deep sigh is unleashed from the ancient weariness within her 12 year old chest.  “OK,” she says.

Later, when I do tell her about Alan Rickman, she has a moment of silence before informing me that he was also the bad guy in ‘Die Hard’ and he did a lot of other thing, YOU KNOW, besides just Harry Potter.  Then she scrambles for her phone to text her bestie the latest.

No sighs.  No cries of “I can’t bare it!”  Somewhere, I am certain, Alan Rickman is not only giving her a thumbs up for her performance, but totally understanding that he just doesn’t rank with gorillas disguised as mothers eating bones for breakfast.