Why I Am A Goth.

For those of you just joining us, I should tell you that I am a very odd Goth: I have an enormous issue with death. Not as in I sleep in a coffin and worship Osiris. I mean I have full-blown panic attacks when I have neurotic, obsessive thoughts that I may cease to be. That, plus my propensity for utterly disastrous relationships, has kept many therapists in oil changes and orthodontist's bills over the years. Judaism doesn't really talk much about the afterlife-- it concentrates on how to live a good life and be a decent human whilst on earth, so no help there. And my parents, when I was growing up, well...I asked my Dad when I was five-ish if he believed there was a heaven. He said no. Thanks, Dad. Robin's daughter's teeth look great.

So tonight, when my aunt called to tell me about a dream she had, and prefaced it with, "Well, I don't want to worry you, but..," I just braced myself. My mother, my aunt, and their mother have always had a bit of something extra about them. My mother has told me that on several occasions, when something bad is about to happen, her mother will appear to her. This would be my grandmother, who died in 2000.

At any rate, my aunt dreamt that she was in bed early one morning, and her phone rang. When she answered it, it was her mother-- whom we all inexplicably called Mother-- on the phone. My aunt, who is at all times unfailingly polite, said, "Hello, Mother. How are you?" As opposed to me, of course, who would have had a reaction of which Wes Craven would be proud. Mother replied that she was very well, but she had something important to discuss. Could she come over?

At this point, of course, all I could think was, "She's dead. Dream or no, she has to call and ask permission to appear? What kind of cut-rate Afterlife Special did she get?" My aunt, however, agreed, and decided in her dream that if her mother-- her dead mother, may I remind you-- was coming over, perhaps she should put on pants.

Mother showed up and, herself impeccably mannered, rang the bell instead of merely walking through the wall as I'd always hoped spirits could do. My aunt invited her in, and they sat down. Small talk apparently ensued because some things, dead or not, never change. Soon, however, Mother got to the point.

"I don't want to alarm you," she said to my aunt, and as that's how my aunt had begun this tale to me, I just braced myself. Sure enough, she continued with, "But I wanted to make sure you know that no one lives forever." It was somewhere around this point that I started to cry enormously. One of those times I'm quite glad most Bluetooth headsets aren't worth the plastic in which they're packaged.

"I know that," replied my aunt.

"I'm not trying to imply anything," said Mother. "I just wanted to make sure you really do know that."

"I do."

And then, because apparently, I wasn't crying quite hard enough yet, Mother said, "But I also wanted you to know that whatever you read, it's not really that bad. You'll be with your friends, and it's really quite a happy place."

I believe my aunt said she told Mother she was glad to hear it, but by this time, I was apparently trying to expel my lungs through my sinuses while still making appropriate, "My, isn't that interesting!" noises, so I'm sure I missed something in there. Mother went on to reiterate that she wasn't trying to alarm my aunt, but that she did want her to know these things.

And then, revealing whence cometh my impeccable Gothic pedigree, she said, "I'm not trying to imply something's going to happen to you now, but you are the older sister. I want you to tell all of this to your sister. I want you to make sure she knows, and that she knows I told you to tell her. It's natural, being older, that you may leave first. It's important that you both know these things."

My aunt, instead of going completely mad and waking up shrieking like Fruma Sarah in Fiddler On The Roof, assured Mother that she would pass along the information, and thanked Mother again. It was at this point I began to wonder if Robin was still awake and if she wouldn't mind moving up our appointment to, oh, now. My aunt, on the other hand, laughed and said to me, "Well, I'm not saying anything's going to happen to me right now, but Mother did insist I tell your mother." Yeah. Cos she's a kidder like that, Mother is. Barrel of laughs. "I, your dead mother, have come from beyond merely to say that now that you're getting to be ancient, you should probably prepare your sister that you may kick it one day soon. Oh, is that the time? Must be going! Sleep well!"

Unsurprisingly, of course, after this tale of "Whoa!", my aunt chatted with me a bit about getting together for dinner, and how work was going for me, and if I could find a nice elephant figurine at the store for her. I think. Much of the rest of the conversation is a surreal blur. But as soon as we were off, I called Mom.

I'm sure I was more coherent than I recall, but it felt as if she picked up the phone and I immediately degenerated into, "Gah! Aunt! Dream! Mother! Death!"

Mom, of course, was fairly sanguine about the entire dream, which my aunt, being still a dutiful daughter, had already relayed. "She's turning eighty in a couple of weeks," Mom said. "That's all this is about."

She's probably right. Oh, of course. Not to mention my aunt's on some new medication that could be giving her odd and vivid dreams. She's never been a great sleeper, either. Or perhaps she had something wild, like chicken or a nice glass of milk, before bed. None of that is the point, however. The point is that my aunt-- the aunt who dreamed that her estranged husband would die on his birthday just before he, you know, died on his birthday-- had a dream in which the family harbinger of doom, her own mother, came back and said, "Now, I don't want to worry you, but...."

So the next time someone asks me why I'm a Goth, I'm not going to tell them about the aesthetic, about the music, about the velvet and the lace and the pretty boys and the corsets and the glitter and the dark. No. I'm going to say, "I'm a Goth because by G-d, I have a family tradition to uphold."

And because someone's got to pay the orthodontist.