Why I didn't see Nightmare before Christmas in 3D

As a few of you may know my Mother passed away on November third. For roughly five months she had been battling throat cancer and it was actually eighty five percent gone. It was actually a fast moving pneumonia and being septic that took her in just a few hours when she had seemed relatively healthy just a short while before. She had not even lost her voice during the cancer treatment.

Well, the night before November second and even early the morning of November second she had made plans to go see Nightmare before Christmas 3D with me. I had seen Nightmare before Christmas in the theatre back in nineteen ninety three when I had just turned twelve years old. It was also the film I watched that kept me awake when I had my kidney infection two years ago. I had asked her if she was sure she was well enough to go but she had said yes, that she just wanted to go out. She was tired of being cooped up and just wanted to go out. She was going to send my stepfather to buy the new two disc version of the Nightmare before Christmas soundtrack at Best Buy that afternoon and then she was going to use the left over pot roast we had to make beef stew, with extra potatoes because she knew I liked potatoes. She had made all these wonderful plans particularly for me. And we were going to do it all after her radiation treatment on November second. She had come into my room that night so I could rub her back and stroke her hair, as she liked. She told my stepfather, early that morning not to wake her until later, the radiation wasn't until one. Then I saw her get up and leave. I didn't say anything. I shut my eyes and went back to sleep, believing that when she got home we would go see Nightmare before Christmas. I physically cannot see 3D because of optic atrophy but it would have just been a pleasure to see it again in the theatre. My mother never came home again. The next morning she was dead.

She had given me one last Holiday with her, Halloween, when we carved pumpkins and roasted the seeds. If anyone knows the exact method of roasting pumpkin seeds please tell me. All I recall is that you boil them first (I am not sure for how long) and then you roast them (I am not sure at what temperature or for how long.) She always did it, I wasn't the cook.

Well, I now have the Nightmare before Christmas special edition soundtrack, but only after her death. I don't know if it's thinking of her doing it but I actually kind of like all the cover songs though Fiona Apple's version of Sally's song does sound as if she's singing in a bored monotone. And I really didn't care for the She Wants Revenge version of Kidnap the Sandy Claws but it's starting to grow on me. And I love the demo version of This is Halloween because it sounds like Jack Skellington is singing along with it.

Nightmare before Christmas and Halloween have both become more important to me than they already were. And I want the world to know my mother. I want the world to know who she was and what sort of person she was. Her name was Marguerite Ellen Richard. And now there's a hole in my heart because she is not there. Her favourite song in Nightmare before Christmas was What's This because, by her opinion, it was the most up beat song in the film. Her favourite character in Corpse Bride was Scraps.

Back in nineteen ninety four when the Nightmare before Christmas toys were scarce she actually made a head for a Sally doll that I came upon missing it's head. She used exactly the right colour yarn for the hair, a pillow case with her skin tone, a sock, a tennis ball, and red and black markers and she actually came out looking very authentic. She ordered me the Nightmare before Christmas toys from a catalogue when they were hard to come by. One of the last things she said to me was that I probably would not have liked Nightmare before Christmas as much as I did if it was as popular in nineteen ninety three as it is now because I liked things that were my own and private and to myself. It was just my way. I don't really think that was my reason, I loved the haunting music by Danny Elfman, the naive, outsider protagonist, the surreal landscapes, the quirky humour, but I hurt right now and I miss her.

She wasn't just my mother. She was my best friend. And she knew more about me than anyone else in the world so now I am very much alone. She was only forty two. Now I am in Upstate New York, at my Grandfather's house, and far away from any theatre that was showing Nightmare before Christmas in 3D and now I am far away from everything I love.

The last time I went into New York City with my mother we saw the Lestat musical back in April and she liked the character Armand. Her name for him was 'The loony one.'

Eventually I did see Nightmare before Christmas 3D, about two weeks after my mother passed away. It was a little painful.

The following is something I wrote around midnight the night she passed away. It's not the best quality.

The life of a flower
by Amanda Pike

A flower's life is always too short.
It blooms and withers within a season.
And maybe there is no rhyme
And perhaps there is no reason
And maybe it's Destiny's treason.

But for all the spoils, for what it's worth,
One blossom can alter the entire Earth.
For what has been can always be seen
In hearts where lost flowers bloom supreme
From gardens once savage and wild
To loving dreams, dear and mild.

Seasons rise and seasons fall
But one thing is remembered after all
That things never known are revealed in the end.
She came to me and she said I was her best friend
But then I see she was my dearest friend instead.