Tales of My Cubawan, VIII: The Ember Falls Road Trip
Hi there! For those who don’t know, this is the continuing story of how I met and lost my adoptive son a few years ago.
Some of these stories involve discussion of drug use and addiction, depression and mental health issues caused by abuse, and death by overdose.
Consider thyselves warned and thanks for hearing his story 💞🐻
Welcome back or welcome if this is your first time reading! This is the story of me and my late adoptive son, if you’re late to the party. Now, I want to tell the story of us going to Nummirock festival together, but I think before I do that, I want to share one of my all-time favorite memories, which was of taking him to see my favorite band, Ember Falls, during their album release show with Ikinä up in Tampere. It was a fun night, but the ending is the best part.
In one of the earlier installments—the one about sleeping on the floor—I mentioned that after hanging out with Otso once until the wee hours of the morning, I had gotten all of 2 hours of sleep and then went to Tampere to interview a band. That band was Ember Falls and the interview was for the release of their sophomore album. But I think that was in maybe December 2021, when the album came out. The shows didn’t start until early 2022, which is why I remember us making the trip—accompanied by my pal, Sipsi—during the snow. I remember the trip there largely because Sipsi took a bunch of really awful selfies of us being absolute goobers.
Ember Falls, unfortunately, disbanded some time ago, but you can read a very rushed farewell article that one of the Musicalypse journalists and I wrote when we found out they were calling it quits, if you’re curious about how much I love them and why.
This was always my favorite song, even though they have better ones. Somehow, it always just got me right in the feels and inspiration in one swift blow:
Since they were electronic melodic metal, I hoped Otso would like them, and he did. In fact, he praised their whole package for being cohesive across look and sound, calling them the future of metal. But admittedly, it was their opener, Ikinä, that really won his heart. He even stood kinda next to one of the vocalists at one point during Ember Falls’ set and made eye contact with her a few times and was all sorts of squeee about it. Ikinä’s always been a bit too amelodic for me, even if I really appreciate what they do, so I was delighted to have introduced him to something he was so enthusiastic about. Sipsi bought us all commemorative shirts and Otso chose the Ikinä shirt with the electric unicorn… he wore it regularly and I think it was his favorite shirt.
If you’re curious about the show itself, you can read the live report here.
I also remember that we went out to O’Connell’s afterwards. I did my university degree in Tampere, and O’Connell’s is the Irish Pub that was the local hangout for the English department. We went with some of my local friends and I remember something that I always found extremely cute, which was that he went into Best Boy Mode.
Best Boy Mode was one of the most heartwarming things he did, and it might be because of Best Boy Mode that I believe that he loved me all along, despite his efforts to convince me otherwise towards the end. Best Boy Mode activated when he cared deeply about not making me look bad in front of anyone he deemed was important to me.
For the outgoing, friendly, goober of a kid that he was, he had quite good sense of when he should be quiet and respectful, to the point where he actually became quite shy. He was very dedicated to making sure that no one thought it was weird of me to want to look after him, so he would straight-up be on his best behavior.
But he was also like his mamabear and liked to be liked for who he was. So he’d drop a cheeky little joke into the conversation once in a while. One that would absolutely toe the line of what’s appropriate, in a way that always managed to crack everyone up. He had a good instinct for his audience.
He was also the photographer for the Sean Michaels photo Sipsi and I often used to take together when we were out and up to no good.
My favorite part of that night, however, was driving home.
First of all, we made one stop on the way at a roadside place (couldn’t remember why), which I largely remember due to Otso misspelling “cock” in the snow and being completely unaware, and then laughing at himself quite heartily.
The butt was me, obviously
He and Sipsi had had a few drinks and Sipsi was more or less passed out drunk by the time the blizzard started. It was snowing so hard that I was a bit tense driving back, and to be clear, I grew up in Canada, so it takes a hefty blizzard to make me uncomfortable while driving.
But, sitting behind me in the back seat, he held my hand, arm awkwardly twisted behind me, the whole way home, rubbing my hand to reassure me. In turn, I felt that nothing on this planet, not even Mother Nature herself, could possibly stop me from getting my cub home safely after the show. This was my cub and he was most precious to me, and it would take a helluva lot more than a blizzard to stop me from making sure he was safe and warm and secure.
To this day, I still rub my hand in that same place whenever I get tense driving and it makes me calm and brings forth a smile, as I remember him keeping me safe in the only way he knew how.
Thanks again for hearing his story. Stay balanced, my friends 💞🐻
READ MORE: I also wrote a fair bit of fiction inspired by my cub. The Bear Forge was written about our meeting, its sequel, The Broken Anvil, is about our estrangement, and the finale, Everstrong, is a poshumous letter written from him to his mamabear.
Note: the latter two are only available to paid Substack subscribers.
I See You was inspired by a F(r)iction prompt, “unseen.” Elegy for a Lost Soul was written after he doubled-down on the path of destruction for the final time.
