Alison’s last words
And the pain of an absent family
By David Baker
Posted Sept. 26, 2024
Two different publications in two different countries each had stories with the same theme last week.
In the Daily Mirror, a mass-circulation tabloid in Britain, the headline on a full page story two days after Alison died:“Mariah’s heartbreak.”
And then the American supermarket magazine National Examiner in its issue dated September 23 ran a double-page spread with this on its front cover:
This follows People Magazine’s story announcing the death of Mariah mother and sister on the same day. The story quoted Mariah as saying she wanted privacy.
Isn’t that what everyone does when they want privacy - run to the media, in this case, with a story about how you are “heartbroken” partly over the death of the “ex-sister” you hadn’t had any contact with in 30 years?
But it’s what Mariah did. Because for this self-absorbed woman it’s always all about Mariah.
***
Last month, one of Alison’s sons told me in a FB Messenger message that the family wanted Alison’s possessions. “And please be sure everything, phone, papers etc, is still there,” he wrote.
Last week, after packing all this into five 38-liter plastic totes I went back to that Messenger thread.
Where it said “ This person is not available on Messenger.”
That usually means the person seeing the message has been blocked.
Then I sent a text to the last cell phone number I have for him. There has been no response.
I will keep these items until the tenancy on Alison’s apartment expires at the end of October. At that point I believe I can reasonably consider it abandoned property and will dispose of it accordingly.
*****
Last month, the judge in Morgan Carey’s defamation lawsuit against Mariah Carey over statements about him in her memoir issued an order that depositions of both parties are to be completed by the end of January, and that a ’note of issue’ - a document stating the the plaintiff is ready for trial - must be filed by the end of February.
In the book, Mariah Carey claimed that in the 1980s Morgan Carey supplied illegal drugs while working in New York City nightclubs, and said that he had “…been in the system’ suggesting that he had been sent to prison.
Morgan has denied both claims.
The judge scheduled a ‘compliance conference’ for Feb. 25, 2025.
***
Sorting though and packing up Alison clothes and other possessions last week I found this note.
For those viewing this on small screens it says: “The only thing worse than losing a partner is losing your children.”
There’s nothing in it that shows when it was written or the name of the ‘partner’ she refers to, but the absence of her offspring in her life was clearly causing her pain. She once said to me, “You’re the only family I have.”
So sad.
*******
It’s now clear that after after nine years with Alison, I will never know what happened to her remains and when - or even if - there will be any kind of memorial service for her. The last time I saw her was shortly after she passed away. A funeral director moved her from her bed into a body bag. He zipped it up - and she was gone.
So I’m left with memories of a friend who, despite the pain she could never escape, was an extremely intelligent and sensitive soul, nothing like the image of a hapless drug addict that the public - and her family members - have of her.
As I told her one evening just before she became unable to communicate: There will always be a place in my heart for her. She will never be forgotten. I told her that I loved her. And in a barely audible whisper she said, “I love you.”
Those were her last words. By the next morning she had become totally unresponsive and did not speak again before she died.
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