Pressing Play on Phantom Pain Relief
A film that helped me see myself in a moment when I really needed to pay attention
HOW ARE YOU FEELING?
Hungry?
Angry?
Grumpy?
Chunky?
Smooth?
On top of the world?
I’M GRATEFUL FOR
Cruise control
Those little individual flossing things
A really good movie cry
It was my only solution to emotional constipation…
24 to 48 hours left.That’s what the hospice nurse told us, but we were sure there was no way. He had just gotten to the house a few hours earlier. He didn’t look any different to mom or I. But on her first visit, the hospice nurse took one look at my dad and called it. Not long now. It was something she saw in his legs.
It was Saturday. My sister was driving back home after coming up to say goodbye. I was supposed to leave the next day. How are you supposed to say goodbye? Plus, my dad was totally non-responsive at this point. Any conversation we’d have would be strictly one sided. What are you supposed to do with all the feelings that start welling up as you get closer to the end?
Imagine feeling pain in a hand you no longer have. Phantom limb pain.
Imagine always felling like your right hand is squeezing tightly into a fight. For hours. For days. Squeezing squeezing squeezing. For years! The hand isn’t actually there, but the feeling remains. And it hurts! Torments you. How do you release pain from something that isn’t there Neuroscientist, V. S. Ramachandran, wanted to help a man with that exact condition.
He built a box with a mirror on its side going down the middle, separating the box in two, and with only one half covered on top. The man put both his arms inside his box, the one without a hand in the covered side, the other hand laid for him to see. From his perspective—with the help of the mirror’s reflection—it looked like two complete arms and hands laying next to each other. Ramachandran had the man make a fist with his hand, hold it, and release. The man watched as his hand went through the motions, while the reflection followed along. For years it felt like the missing hand had beens tuck in a fist with no way to release. But there was something about watching this reflected hand do what he needed to do that helped his brain let go. The pain went away. He was free.
Lynda Barry uses this story to talk about the power of what art can do.
For me, crying is a lot like throwing up. If I need to do it, let’s just go for it. Don’t put it off. For someone who loves procrastinating, I don’t beat around the bush when it comes to barfing. Go get it out of your system so you can start feeling better faster.
That was my attitude with crying that Saturday night. Let’s just dine into the deep end.
When my mom had gone to bed and it was just my dad and I, I pulled my chair next to his bed and put on a movie.
Big Fish from 2003. The first I saw it was in a theater next to my dad. I cried like a baby—like 100 babies duct taped together. I say it’s my favorite movie. I know it’s not the best, but a favorite. I can’t watch it without crying.
The film is about a son who comes home to say goodbye to his dying father. The two were never close and now with one of them at the end of their lives, they’re trying one last time to communicate.
The climax takes place at the father’s death bed between him and his son.
I had seen the movie dozens and dozens of times but it felt like a totally new experience next to my dad. It made it all more real and vivid.
It was like a mirror I was holding up to my dad and I in order to unclench the fist in the pit of my stomach. I held my dad’s hand as I watched. I kept looking from the screen to my dad and back to the screen. This is what I’m going through right now, I thought. It’s no longer just a movie. This is where I’m at. I used to cry for these fictional characters, but now I’m crying for my dad and I.
I didn’t want any emotional constipation so I used Big Fish like a laxative. I don’t know if I’ve ever cried that hard before. I’m surprised I didn’t get dehydrated or pull a muscle.
When the movie ended, I told my dad I loved him. It might have been the strongest, loudest, and clearest delivery of those words that ever came from me to him. The movie gave me courage. It helped me see the moment for what it was. The movie made me want to take it all in. And with heart—at least unclenched for a moment—I was free to pay meet the moment.
And in the morning he was gone.
I watched Big Fish at least once a year. It’s almost like an emotional workout at this point. Grief sneaks into the cracks of all the little moments in life, poking its head out for just a second. It’s nice to give it its own time and space to really come out all at once. And the self talk I gotta do when I first hit play is also probably good for me. You can handle this. You can face. You can survive all the feelings this is going to make you feel. Let’s just go all in.
Comedy Show in McKinney, TX on Oct 19
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Love you like a neighbor,
Taylor Johnson