Famous Last Words…and all that comes after
“Your memory will carry on…”

Aside from a birthday countdown to my big 3–0, the last blog post I typed on my dusty Blogspot account was a farewell to My Chemical Romance in March of 2013, just after their abrupt breakup. I just reread it today because, oh yes, the pop punk-screamo-alt-rock kings of My Chem are sliding in at the 20-nine-scene buzzer with a reunion show. Half the community claims they saw it coming (hello, Danger Days was set in 2019), while the other half is navigating between ‘nbd’ and ‘asdfggjjkll’. My last post wasn’t as cringeworthy as I’d remembered. I was truly heartbroken but coherent enough to find it silly. Justifiable but perhaps a tad dramatic. I was pushing 30 and an overloaded mother-of-four still trying to be the mom I thought I needed to be. Everything to everyone, celebrate everything with a party and invite all the relatives, most of the neighbors (not that one), and what the heck the kids’ whole class too. I was tired but content, burying myself in my motherly duties while avoiding the elephant in the room. The pain that sat just under my rib cage or hovered over me like a rain cloud. My father passed away October 1st, 2005. I reference it here and I referenced it in my last post, because that pain will forever be tied to MCR. Exactly 51 weeks after his passing My Chemical Romance dropped their single Welcome to the Black Parade. In a time when I needed it most there was this man, strung up and screaming about death and all its beauty and grotesque glory. Death was it, it was all I wanted to talk about. I inhaled every word he sang. From 2007–2008 I was able to experience their music live in conjunction with the therapy I finally sought to recover from my buried trauma. Later, the band would boycott my home state and then go on to breakup. Life went on.
Years later, in 2017, my then twelve year old daughter was venturing into an emo phase of her own. When she asked if she could borrow my MCR cd, I asked which one. She shrugged, so I dragged out all my old merch and buried her in it. She was in a transitional phase of her own after switching schools and seeking therapy. It was in her therapist’s office one morning when I offhandedly mentioned that she was born nine months before my father passed away. Her therapist thanked me for sharing that information because, unbeknownst to me, even quiet grief can imprint on an infant. The problem with avoiding grief is that it radiates and impacts everything you do.
“Grief is love with no place to go…”
Recently frontman Gerard Way opened up about My Chemical Romance being therapy for him. PTSD from the events of 9–11 had lead him to create and carry out what became one of the most iconic bands in recent musical history. It came as no surprise, MCR was therapy for a lot of us. As I read through that article I recognized my own growth, no longer the daughter of grief but the girl who can label it as nonlinear and welcome, and the woman not afraid to sit with it from time to time. Recognizing death as a transition as opposed to an end was a huge discovery on my part and I owe at least a portion of that knowledge to the ethos of My Chemical Romance and the heart and soul of Gerard Way.
As my daughter made her way through her emo phase and I pulled MCR out of the darkness like a skeleton tucked away in a closet, we both began to branch out and appreciate the pieces that made up the whole. Mikey Way had a killer project called Electric Century that was a post-MCR highlight, he is also one of a handful that inspired my daughter to pick up a bass. Ray Toro put out an incredibly solid album, radiating exactly the kind of hopeful rock and roll energy you’d expect from him. He was, after all, a guitar legend in real-time. Gerard put out a glam-pop album complete with 70’s television showcase style music videos before recoiling from the music industry to rejoin the comic world from which he came.

The man I was most taken aback by was Frank Iero. Band after band, album after album Frank continues to solidify his staying power in punk rock with his authenticity, loud music, and relatable lyrics. My daughter and I attended three Frank Iero shows this year alone and I even had the chance to speak the gratitude I never got to back in the day. When I told Frank how much he meant to my daughter and that she never had the opportunity to see MCR, she interjected by telling him she was “a fetus” at the time. He chuckled at that, all the while never letting on that she’d soon have the chance.

Yesterday was Halloween. It was 14 years, 30 days since my father passed. I carry my grief better these days. Yesterday was also my birthday. It also happened to be Frank Iero’s birthday and the day of the big reunion announcement. I’m not sure I need MCR anymore, but I know for damn sure I still want them.
As I coasted into California a few weeks back I had been listening to Danger Days on loop. I’m not sure why I put it on. I still can’t hear the beginning of The Kids From Yesterday without choking up. The older I get the more I can appreciate the opening line:
“Now this could be the last of all the rides we take…”

It very well could be, so hold on tight and don’t look back.
