A Collection of Dead Things

Looking at dead things, tearing skulls off dead animal corpses, the joy of experimenting with the best methods to clean said dead thing. A dead seal washed up at my dad’s beach. He called me and asked what he should do. “Well, poke it with a stick. Obviously,” I said. “I think I will do that,” he replied. “Call you back.” 

For a few weeks that seal lay on the beach, so I headed up there to bear witness to the ‘Dead Seal café’. We kayaked from the ocean to get a better look at all the birds taking turns, feasting at the café. It was all quite civilized. The ravens with a few crows, then the eagles, then eventually the rapacious turkey vultures. About a week later, once they all had their fill, I kayaked in to retrieve the skull, a lone turkey vulture watching me. I twisted the skull until it severed and kayaked back to bury the skull in the earth to allow for bugs and critters to clean off the rest of the brain matter and gooey bits. A few months later, I went back to retrieve it, but the skull was sitting patiently, exactly in the same spot that I left it. Eerie. Perhaps it was the work of my dad’s resident raccoons, he lovingly named Eenie, Meenie, and Mrs. McFeenie. 

My father taught me that death was something to look at directly.

My dad loved everything. Everyone. And everyone who met him loved him. He was everyone’s favourite art teacher in the high school in Hong Kong where I, too, attended. Being Mr. Nugent’s daughter was an honour to me, and it became a huge part of my identity. Tim Nugent’s daughter. That’s really the biggest way I can truly express how much I loved my father. 

All these memories used to tug at my heartstrings and make me cry and miss him so much. Every time someone I know dies or is diagnosed with cancer, I am heartbroken.