A strange birthday

[ominous synth music playing]

When my grandparents watched Stranger Things, I went to my room.

I lived with them in Jacksonville, Florida, for the summer of 2019, while interning at the local newspaper. Most nights, we watched Jeopardy! and read together in the living room. But when they turned on Stranger Things, I retreated — I was too chicken to watch it. Down the hall, I tried to tune out the scary synth music.

[emotional synth music playing]

Months later, after I had moved back to Kentucky for my senior year of college, Gram and Pop watched two Stranger Things episodes — season two, episodes six and seven. Then Pop went to sleep in their bedroom, and Gram, less than a week post-surgery, stayed in the living room to sleep in a recliner.

It was November 7, 2019. By the next morning, Pop had died in his sleep.

[eerie, delicate music playing]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, I finally got brave enough to watch Stranger Things with my family. I loved it, of course.

Since Pop died, Gram had mentioned a few times that she wanted to catch up on the show. So when she came to stay with us for a while in May, we opened Netflix and started going through season two episode by episode — Gram couldn’t remember for sure what episode she had last watched.

Finally I thought to check her Netflix account. I opened the app on her iPad and clicked Steve, my grandpa’s profile, and confirmed they had watched through season two, episode seven. But Gram didn’t remember anything about it — perhaps, many Stranger Things fans would say, she blocked out El’s visit to her sister Kali because it was such a bad episode. (Personally, I neither love it nor hate it.) We decided to back up to episode six to refresh Gram’s memory.

The next night, when we watched the finale of season two, Gram absolutely loved it. As the credits played on the TV in our living room, Gram said, “Oh, I wish Pop could have seen that episode.”

I cried immediately.

In the last six months, I had thought often about all the things Pop would miss — graduations, weddings, great-grandchildren, every one of his birthdays after 67. Just a few days before, Gram was there for my virtual graduation from college, but Pop, of course, wasn’t.

I had not yet thought about Pop missing the ending of season two of Stranger Things. Or season three, which we finished just a few days later in May 2020, or season four, whose last two episodes release today, on what should be Pop’s 70th birthday.

[tense music intensifies]

Tonight, we will once again gather with Gram in our Bowling Green living room to watch Stranger Things. We will be sad because, inevitably, some of our favorite characters will die. We will be sadder because Pop won’t be there to watch with us. But we will also eat ice cream to celebrate Pop’s birthday. As Pop always said, ice cream fills in the cracks.

If I could go back to the summer of 2019, before I could imagine losing Pop so soon or living through a global pandemic, I would sit next to Pop on the couch and tell him to press play on Stranger Things. I can imagine his laugh when Steve — who shares Pop’s name and redeemed himself to become one of my favorite characters — tells Dustin that he uses Farah Fawcett hair spray. I can imagine his delight at every ’80s rock song. I can imagine having to nudge him awake, even though I don’t understand how anyone can sleep through such a high-stress show. (Gram drifted off, just last week, during season four, episode two.)

If I could go back, I would watch every second with Pop, scary or not.