So I stopped at a Jack in the Box on the way here, and the girl behind the counter said, "Hiya! Are you having an awesome day?" Not, "How are you doing today?" No. "Are you having an awesome day?" Which is pretty shitty because it puts the onus on me to disagree with her, like if I'm not having an "awesome day," suddenly I'm the negative one. Usually when people ask how I'm doing, the real answer is I'm doing shitty, but I can't say I'm doing shitty, because I don't even have a good reason to be doing shitty. So if I say, "I'm doing shitty," then they say, "Why? What's wrong?" And I have to be like, "I don't know, all of it?" So instead, when people ask me how I'm doing, I usually say, "I am doing so great." But when this girl at the Jack in the Box asked me if I was having an awesome day, I thought, well, today I'm actually allowed to feel shitty, today I have a good reason, so I said to her, "Well, my mom died." And she immediately burst into tears. So now *I* have to comfort *her*, which is annoying, and meanwhile, there's a line of people forming behind me, who are all giving me these real judgy looks because I made the Jack in the Box girl cry. And she's bawling, and she's saying, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," and I'm like, "It's fine, it's fine. I mean, it's not fine, but, you know, it's... fine. And I would like to order a Double Jack Meal, and I've kinda got somewhere to be, so maybe less with the crying and more with the frying, huh?" And the girl apologizes, again, and she offers me a free churro with my meal. And as I'm leaving, I think, "I just got a free churro because my mom died." No one ever tells you when your mom dies, you get a free churro. I'm not gonna stand up here and pretend I ever understood how to please that woman, even though so much of my life has been wasted in vain attempts to figure it out. But I keep going back to that moment in the ICU when she looked at me, and...I-C-U. "I... see... you." Jesus Christ, we were in the intensive care unit. She was just reading a sign. My mom died and all I got was this free churro. You know the shittiest thing about all of this? Is when that stranger behind the counter gave me that free churro, that small act of kindness showed more compassion than my mother gave me her entire goddamn life. Like, how hard is it to do something nice for a person? This woman at the Jack in the Box didn't even know me. I'm your son! All I had was you!. We understood each other in a way, me and my mom and my dad. As screwed up as we all were, we did understand each other. My mother, she knew what it's like to feel your entire life like you're drowning with the exception of these moments, these very rare, brief instances, in which you suddenly remember... you can swim. But then again, mostly not. Mostly you're drowning. She understood that, too. And she recognized that I understood it. And Dad. All three of us were drowning, and we didn't know how to save each other, but there was an understanding that we were all drowning together. You know what it's like? It's like that show "Becker," you know, with Ted Danson? I watched the entire run of that show, hoping that it would get better, and it never did. It had all the right pieces, but it just... It couldn't put them together. And when it got cancelled, I was really bummed out, not because I liked the show, but because I knew it could be so much better, and now it never would be. And that's what losing a parent is like. It's like "Becker." Suddenly, you realize you'll never have the good relationship you wanted, and as long as they were alive, even though you'd never admit it, part of you - the stupidest goddamn part of you - was still holding on to that chance. And you didn't even realize it until that chance went away. "My mother is dead, and everything is worse now." Because now I know I will never have a mother who looks at me from across a room and says, "BoJack Horseman, I see you." But I guess it's good to know. It's good to know that there is nobody looking out for me, that there never was, and there never will be. No, it's good to know that I am the only one that I can depend on. And I know that now, and it's good. It's good that I know that. So... it's good my mother is dead. Well, no point beating a dead horse. Beatrice Horseman was born in 1938, and she died in 2018, and I have no idea...what she wanted. Unless she just wanted what we all want... to be seen.





Is this Funeral Parlor B?

Specials

Season 1