Welcome to XZV Morning News. I’m your host, Kathy Carson. Our top story today involves a fire on Clark Street – the first fire in the area since Elena’s father died. The fire decimated three buildings. Local residents say that the bar, Roadhouse 66, will be sorely missed. When asked for a comment, Elena said that she could remember fires in Chicago before her father died, and that she would discuss them with him. This time, she pulled out her phone to make the call before remembering that the number had been disconnected. More on this story as news develops.
A pharmacist in Edgewater today filled Elena’s first penicillin prescription since her father died. Her roommate Abby said that in the past, Elena had called her father to talk about being sick before going to the doctor, since he helped with her medical bills. This time, she paid out of pocket. Elena has no comment on this story at this time.
After the break, our special report: do you call your parents enough? Jenna Farmer has an answer that might surprise you.
Welcome back. Do you call your parents enough? According to recent surveys, twenty-somethings put off calling their parents more than any other age group. Jenna Farmer investigated this for XZV.
It’s a common refrain among young people: “Can I call you back?” This is, in fact, what Elena said to her father a week before he died. But, like many young people, Elena did not call him back the next day, or even the day after that. In fact, on the day she found out about his death, she’d scheduled time to leave work early and call him.
Experts cite the millennial need to always be connected as a reason, ironically, for this disconnection from their parents. Millennials’ parents or grandparents are more likely than their peers to not have Twitter or Facebook, which can make connecting with them difficult. They expect to be able to communicate via text, and when that communication isn’t an option, they often stop communicating altogether.
What causes this phenomenon? Elena cites hyper-focus on her job and friends group. She says those are things he would have been proud of her for doing, but that she still wishes she’d made more time to talk with him and visit him.
Elena has yet to call her mother for the first time since her father died.
Thank you, Jenna. And now, let’s go to Naomi for the weather. How’s it looking, Naomi?
Thanks, Kathy. Cloudy with a chance of sunshine is the story for fall in Chicago, but today we’re looking at our first snow of the season. That’s right, a cold front will bring the first snow since Elena’s father died. Don’t look for a lot of accumulation – the ground will be warm enough to melt most of the snow. We just had the first Daylight Savings since Elena’s father died, so remember to wake up earlier and get some sunshine in before you go to work! Sunset is now happening before 4:30 PM. In the next week, expect lows in the 20s, the coldest it’s been since Elena’s father died. Back to you, Kathy.
Thanks, Naomi. Traffic on the Eisenhower is rough today, with delays as far back as Mannheim. Elena’s father always said Mannheim was a choke point, along with Cicero. As you’re driving past Cicero on your way into the city today, remember that Elena’s father once hit a home run that ended up right on the highway, back when he was a high schooler.
Lakeshore Drive is clear north of the Oak Avenue Beach, which Elena’s father always said was too full of tourists to go past. Reports are coming in of a delay on the Belmont exit of Lakeshore, where Elena and her father once spent three hours in a traffic jam caused by the Chicago Pride Parade.
After the break: what proportion of young LGBT people are out to their parents? A Pew survey says not as many as you’d think.
Welcome back. It is common in LGBT circles to encourage coming out to your parents. A recent survey done by the Pew Research Center, however, says that only forty percent of people ages eighteen to thirty who identify as LGBT have informed their loved ones of their orientation. Elena never told her father she’s gay; she intended to do so at her next visit, since she was financially independent. We asked Dr. Atkinson of Illinois Masonic why so many young men and women keep their orientation private. She replied that for many people, discussing sexual orientation can be a matter of great fear and concern. Not all young people are willing to be open to their parents, fearing financial retribution or simple emotional repudiation. Elena could not be reached for comment.
That’s all we have for today, folks. As always, we at XZV Morning News wish you a happy and healthy day.
Tags: elena palmer, family, grief, lgbt, loss
oh, this gnaws at the heart. Elena, I’m sorry.
This was really funny, until it wasn’t. Deep breaths. Some days it feels exactly like this.
Oof. Yup, and I’m sorry.
I had a really double-whammy as I was dropping off to my brief sleep last night: I suddenly had an image of my father, who was still alive at the time, walking up to hug me after my partner’s memorial, where I gave the eulogy. He was sad and supportive, of course, but also proud of me for doing that thing that seemed impossible before I started. It’s hard to think of anything I wouldn’t give to see either of them again.
Complete devastation, on my end as well as, it seems, yours. <3
Oh, Elena. This is uncanny and soulful and sad. My condolences on the loss of your father. My dad died in May and even though I hadn’t been in touch with him for years, I still find myself thinking in these patterns. Please be kind to yourself and know that we’re all thinking warm thoughts for you.
Just emailed my dad in lieu of hugging him, as he is en route to Brazil for a business trip and is out of hug range.
I’m so sorry for your loss, thank you for sharing this beautiful awful thing with us.
Thank you for sharing with us – this is an extremely accurate representation of the first year after losing a parent. I’ve been there. Take care of yourself, or let others take care of you.
The loss is palpable here. Elena, I’m so sorry. Beautiful piece.
Ahh, Elena. Grief is such a weird, selfish animal, and you’ve really done a lovely job of highlighting how it shifts in and pervades just everything. I’m sorry about your father. You are a beautiful writer.
Thank you so much for sharing this. My dad died two weeks ago and it seems selfish to say but seeing this is comforting, it makes me feel a little less crazy for feeling just like this.
Oh t_rexarms, I am so sorry. Please take care of yourself and give yourself much, much space to feel absolutely anything you need to feel.
Elena, this was beautiful and heart-wrenching, and I am so sorry about your father. Thank you for sharing.
There’s a good chance that at the one-month mark, you’ll think “That’s one month without them, and then soon it’ll be a season without them, and then after that is a year, and then a decade …” and you’ll see all those little first milestones in your future like a row of grim dominoes, and you will FUCKING HATE your calendar. And then later you’ll be furious that there aren’t more of them to knock over and that you have to wait so long between them.
At the very least, the crazy you feel is something that other people who’ve lost someone important totally, utterly get, so as long as you’re talking to them, you’ll never be truly alone.
Six months tomorrow since Mum died. I felt every word of this in my viscera.
This is so beautiful and captures grief so well. Thank you for sharing.
I still keep thinking my mom is going to visit me at work like she always used to. Five and a half months. Remembering she’s gone is like missing a step on a staircase.
<3
I’m so, so sorry for your loss, Elena. This is such a well done and wrenching piece.
I'm so, so sorry for your loss, Elena. This is such a well done and wrenching piece.
Lovely take on grief and loss. The unexpected ways that it hits you are the hardest, coming upon those little connections that are no longer there.
My dad’s thing was aircraft, loved all kinds and whenever I flew wanted to know the type of airplane. On the flight home for his funeral this hit me really hard, realizing that question would not be waiting for me. Six years on, checking the safety card for the aircraft type is a quiet ritual that helps keep my father close. Elena, I hope the hardest parts become the gentlest reminders for you also.
oh
Jesus fucking Christ I need a strong drink and a lie down.
Ooof. Thank you Elena.
Oh my gosh this was beautiful. I’m sorry. You’re an amazing writer.
This so astutely captures all the details about how much you miss him in your everyday. I’m so sorry 🙁
This so astutely captures all the details about how much you miss him in your everyday. I'm so sorry 🙁
it is this exactly.
This is so sad, and so familiar-yet-not. (My best friend died a few years ago–it is necessarily different from losing a parent, I must think, but still hard.)
Every time I find myself getting irritated at my parents lately, I also manage to heap guilt on top of that irritation for not appreciating them 100% while they’re around.
This is the first thing Blunderbusst has read since her mom died that absolutely, positively, perfectly captured her exact grief response.
My god.
Thank you.
It’s weird that I am now a person this has happened to. My dad committed suicide two days ago. I’m staying with family at my grandma’s where he spent a lot of his youth and there are so many ghosts. It doesn’t make sense that this is a world without him. And time will pass and he won’t be here.
My mom died at the end of June, and I still have to remind myself every single damn day that she’s gone. I’ll be going about my life, doing something completely mundane, and the fact of her death will just pop back into the forefront of my mind as if I’d somehow forgotten it.
The only other time I’ve experienced this kind of disconnect is when I was laid off from a longtime job — I came home and sobbed for a while and then fell asleep. When I woke up I was a little groggy until I remembered what had happened. I had to tell myself, “I just lost my job. This is a real thing that happened to me.”
But then I got my shit together and found a great new job and carried on. The absence of my mom is not something that can be fixed or overcome, and the unfairness of it just punches me in the gut sometimes.
Thank you for sharing this piece, and I’m so sorry for your loss.