"All That Work For Nothing"
On the death of Matthew Perry. Plus, guys with 'muscle dysmorphia' and the best on-screen depiction of anorexia I've ever seen.
Of all the tasks to do after someone close to you dies, arguably the worst one is calling people to let them know. After several of those calls, I felt a kind of numbness I imagine someone working at a call center feels during a night shift. So I don’t remember most of those calls now. But there is one that stuck with me. It was to my mom’s PSW (personal support worker), who had become a dear friend. After the initial wailing in disbelief, which was so loud I had to hold the phone away from my ear, she calmed down enough to say something so poignant, “all of that work for nothing.”
By ‘work,’ she meant all of the effort she, my mom and I had put into making my disabled mom’s life worth living in an ableist world. For context, my mom had undergone brain surgery a few months before her death. We had a follow-up appointment with the neurosurgeon in which they told us she was recovering perfectly. It had felt, after a rollercoaster of uncertainty, like we had finally reached the cl…