by Lupo Secco
I am a long-time fan of the American musician Warren Zevon, a brilliant and witty singer-songwriter. As regular readers will have observed, I have something of a thing for alliteration and verbal rhythm and the perfect example I can think of is plumb in the middle of Zevon’s iconic Werewolves of London: Little old lady got mutilated late last night…
He also appeals to my mordant side. In 2000 he recorded, Life’ll Kill Ya, shot through with the dark humour that rides with me daily, starting this song about death with the words, You’ve got an invalid haircut/and it hurts when you smile.
In 2002, Zevon was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a lung cancer. He died the following year. In a last interview with David Letterman, he was asked if he knew something about life and death, and the late great Zevon said, ‘Enjoy every sandwich.’ This is life as ritual.
At The Robin there has been a passing of someone close to us all. I have written before about how this place is family. My own family is fractured. I have a wonderful extended family that I see from time to time, and two beautiful daughters whom I adore.
My father died a year ago, but I had been estranged from both my parents for 20 years, and I only found out from a cousin. These things are difficult, and families are important. I have lived in this area for two decades now but landed here at The Robin relatively recently, when my life was in the wind. And I found myself adopted by a new family.
I now have this pub family, a father figure, a new daughter and my pub sister, who I love greatly. She has lost her love, and it has hit us all. It is time for ritual and the paying of respect.
There will be a funeral, which we all will attend, as members of her pub family. A wake will follow. These are part of the pageant of life and death, a common procession to aid everyone in marking a moment, saying goodbye and letting go.
But there are also smaller, personal rituals that are every bit as important and poignant as the bigger occasions. A day or so ago, a regular customer (and friend of Lil Sis’s husband) came in, sat at the chair at the end and ordered two Cokes and a half of Boltmaker.
He had the Cokes in a pint glass and the Boltmaker remained untouched, Behind the bar, my Pub Daughter checked to see if there was anything wrong with the beer.
He replied that it was for his friend. After a while he got up to leave, saying, ‘Well, he won’t be coming in tonight.’
My Pub Daughter told me how sad this was, and I told her it wasn’t sad. She is young and told me I was cold. Everyone has their way of marking the passing of someone and time lost, and there is no one way of doing it.
Ritual grows more important as we age, be it religious or private and internal. That last half-pint of Boltmaker for his friend wasn’t sad at all. It was beautiful.
And so this family from the tavern will gather together to put our figurative arms round Lil Sis and help her say goodbye.
I am trying to find my own ritual for a passing, also. Today, the house in which I brought up my beloved daughters is sold and a whole piece of my life falls away, taking memories and pieces of my history and scattering them forever. I find myself very sad about it, but there is a process to go through and a renewal to find.
And there needs to be a way of siting this point, an action of both remembrance and looking forward. There is a magical moment in the Pixar film Inside Out, when, in order to escape, Riley has to let go of her favourite toy to be free. Anyone who does not well up at that scene has a heart of stone. It is a perfect metaphor.
Just as Lil Sis will do, I also have to let go. I have lost something profound to me, but we all have to move on, or life’ll kill you.
This Sunday, Lil Sis will be back, front of house.
And tomorrow, I will be back in the kitchen.
