NOTABLE WORKS REVIEW: Welcome to the Black Parade
NOTABLE WORKS
REVIEW: Welcome to the Black Parade
Song/Poem by My Chemical Romance (musical group)
Reviewed by Kevin Kennel
Trigger Warning: This review addresses mental illness and trauma.
“Welcome to the Black Parade” is about death, memory, and transcendence as one grieves his life in a hospital. It’s about a character known as “The Patient” who is dying and, as he does, remembers his most precious memory of his father and how his father asked him to defeat his demons. As The Patient descends into the afterlife, shadowy figures of “The Black Parade” come for him.
The Patient is a metaphor for us and our afterlife journey. While the Black Parade represents death and mourning intertwining with the Patient’s fondest memory. The work explores grief, our fear of mortality, as well as embracing hope and the power of memory.
The work resonates with me because I spent 14 years caring for my dad after he suffered a brain injury. A few days before his death, I had an overwhelming urge to listen to the song since I felt anticipatory grief because of his being in and out of the hospital for the last 2 weeks of his life.
I feel the work contributes to the HWA Mental Health Initiative objectives because grief is something we all eventually experience. The despair, sadness, and identity crisis we endure because of grief turns our worlds upside down as we must face our lives without someone we love in it.
“Welcome to the Black Parade” stands out to me as a notable piece of writing since it helped me admit that I lied to myself at first about having the strength to carry on without my dad. It helped me see I was struggling and only went through the motions of being myself as an introverted horror fan and writer. But with time and more honesty about my experience, I embrace the declaration that we carry on and find strength as life slowly grows around grief.
Kevin Kennel is a horror writer from Michigan and a member of the HWA. He has several short stories in various forms of development and some of his favorite authors are Gwendolyn Kiste, Eric LaRocca & Grady Hendrix. When not writing, Kevin is either working at his local library, watching a horror film, or tending to his disabled mother.
To read an online transcript of the song/poem, click HERE
https://genius.com/My-chemical-romance-welcome-to-the-black-parade-lyrics
