Post by Deleted on Nov 26, 2013 19:47:58 GMT
jonathan karl kaplan ,
full name: Jonathan Karl Kaplan.
nicknames: Jon, Jonny, Kap.
age: 23.
birthday: December 12th.
education: High school diploma.
occupation: Musician.
sexual orientation: Heterosexual.
marital status: Single.
current city: New York, NY.
hometown: Detroit, MI.
parents: Christoph & Isla Kaplan.
siblings: Claudia Kaplan.
pets: Rollins, pug.
other: N/A.
You know how, when someone dies, everyone latches on to their best quality? Someone could be the biggest bitch, a liar, a serial fraud, probably even a murderer, but hey, they had a "promising future", were "popular", and "will be sorely missed" as soon as they kick the bucket. You're never more popular than when you're dead.
When my mom killed herself I was nineteen, and my then seventeen year old sister found her. Claudia became a total mute for the next two months, and it fell to me to give a heartfelt eulogy... if you know me at all, you'll know that talking about my feelings doesn't come naturally. It doesn't come at all. I struggled, trying to come up with my mom's euphemisms. She was very young, only 40 when she died, whereas my father was 56 at the time. Even as a kid she struck me as a tragedy. I don't have any warm memories of Isla, she was never very warm. More stiff. She tried to be warm, or at least to give the impression of being warm - it was never very convincing, the big smiles and the "oh I love you children so much!". Which isn't to say that she didn't love us, just that her love was a very cold love.
It doesn't need to be spelled out that she wasn't a happy woman. I think she'd fallen for a passionate older man, thinking his passion for academia would somehow transfer to her. It never did. My dad loved her, but if her love was cold his was airy, insubstantial - pointless. It never evidenced itself in any clear way, other than the fact he'd married her. Less than two years later I was born, effectively anchoring her into this (for all intents and purposes) loveless marriage. She spent her twenties idling around a house that was always falling apart, with a nightmare daughter and zombie son. I've always been considered quiet, but as a kid it was received as intense. Much less "oh, Jonny Kaplan's a quiet boy, he likes to read and keep to himself", and much more "... Jonny hasn't said a word to me or anyone since class began, and that was six months ago." That kind of intensity from a child tends to freak people out a lot more than it does even coming from an adult, but I think it's that intensity that my mom appreciated. She knew that behind that eerily calm exterior I was drowning, because she was too.
Bonding over shared emotional instability is a pretty unique type of bonding. Though it was never visible - she didn't hug me more, and in fact spent less time with me than my sister - Claudia always suspected that our mom and I were two of a kind, and that she was an odd fit. It made her act up a lot more, which unfortunately only alienated her from my mother's fleeting affections all the more. It's a cliche comparison but they were fire and ice, my sister letting her emotions run wild and my mom keeping an iron hold on her own. It wasn't until it looked like I'd be going to college that the cracks really started to show... she cried a lot, I remember her always crying, or looking like she'd just been in tears. She spoke even less. She slept whole days away, not even getting up when my sister was screaming at her to, and seldom eating. Though I couldn't afford to take up my university offer, I moved to New York and six months later she was dead.
It's a weird thing to be at your mom's funeral, speaking fondly of her awkwardness when it came to any and all types of affection. It polarised me with the rest of the attendees, who had obviously expected me to share heart-warming anecdotes, and to talk about her academic brilliance. But I never saw that side of her. I've read some of her articles and been impressed, but it doesn't read like the Isla I knew, it doesn't read like my mom. It feels a bit intrusive. Other people might think she was selfish to kill herself, especially when it was so likely to be Claudia who found her. Maybe it was. But as much as I anchored her into a life she didn't want, I like to think that I knew her better than anyone else did, and vice versa. I get why she did it all too well.
LEX, NEW YAHK, STEPHEN JAMES
