Undisputed_ How to Become the World Champion in 1,372 Easy Steps - Chris Jericho [140]
“I love you, Mommy,” I said with tears streaming down my face as I turned and ran through the hall, and out the front door of the hospital as fast as I could until I couldn’t run anymore. It was minus-30 outside but the weather didn’t feel as cold as my heart. I felt like a coward for running away and I was ashamed for leaving my mom before she died.
But I also felt a strange peace, because in some weird way, I was fulfilling my mom’s last wish.
Two nights later, on December 4, 2005, I was driving home from a Fozzy gig in Jacksonville and got the call that Loretta Vivian Irvine had passed away peacefully in Connie’s arms.
She was sixty-two years old.
Next up was the lovely task of making the arrangements for my mom’s funeral. I’m sure I speak on behalf of everybody who’s ever had to deal with this when I say it’s a horrible experience. Jess and I met with the funeral director and faced a rash of irrelevant questions about my mom’s burial that I had never even thought of before. What kind of headstone? What kind of inscription? What kind of flowers? What kind of plot? What kind of receptacle?
Receptacle? It could’ve been a coffee can from Ralph’s at that point. I wasn’t ready for all of this, I was still reeling over the death of my mother! Then, after an hour of having my nose rubbed in her passing, the son of a bitch funeral director asked me how I was going to pay for everything! Geez man, can you at least give me a few fucking days to grieve before you present me with a bill?
Two days before the funeral I tracked down the phone number for my mom’s ex-boyfriend Danny, the man responsible for her injury. I had been harboring a deep desire to murder him for fifteen years, and I might’ve actually done it on the day of her accident if it wasn’t for the attentive cop who saw the killer in my eyes and warned me not to. But now that she was gone I wanted Danny to know and invite him to the funeral.
I called him and left a message: “My mom died last week and her last few years were a nightmare. I hope you feel good about yourself. If you have any balls at all and want to face me, you’ll come to her funeral.”
He never showed.
The service was a beautiful send-off for a beautiful woman.
I arranged for her favorite songs to be played, including “Amazing Grace” by Elvis and “Let it Be” by the Beatles, which I chose because my mom had always supported my obsession with the band and had bought me all of their albums by the time I was ten. I still think of her whenever Sir Paul sings in “Get Back,” “Sweet Loretta Modern* thought she was a woman …” For her eulogy I just wanted to tell some funny stories about the woman who raised me.
I talked about the time when I was seven and Star Wars had just been released. My friend Scott Shippam took a bunch of kids to see it for his birthday party but didn’t invite me. When my mom found out and saw how upset I was, she took me to the same theater to see it and bought me a Luke Skywalker and a Chewbacca action figure to boot.
I told a story about how my mom went away for the weekend when I was in high school and I decided to have a party. It started with a few friends, but in true high school tradition it got out of control quickly. There ended up being 212 people in my house (I know this because I kept a list); all I needed was Wyatt and Gary and it would’ve been Weird Science.
The bash started at noon and ended at midnight when I called the cops on my own party, after I saw a guy I’d never met before eating ice cream in my mom’s bed.
“Wanna bite, dude?” he said with a toothy grin.
I shoved the scoop up his chute and chased everyone else out instantly, but the house was a disaster and Kelly LeBrock wasn’t there to clean it up. I passed out with my house a DMZ and my mom due home at 6 p.m. sharp the next day, and when I awoke at 2 p.m., my work was cut out for me. Luckily, a few of my girlfriends (as in chums of the female