Day 30: Month of Thankfulness

Day 30: Thankful for my new lease on life with the girls and The Piper after 3 years of #widow life. Everything is a blessing.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) December 1, 2013

Day 29: Month of Thankfulness

Day 29: Thankful for pure puppy joy at the appearance of new squeak toys. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 30, 2013

Day 28: Month of Thankfulness

Day 28: The #widow in me both misses the old Thanksgiving traditions and appreciates the new Thanksgiving traditions. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 30, 2013

Day 27: Month of Thankfulness

Day 27: Thankful for long chats on the phone w/ Dr. Momi. We are each other's touch stones for so very much. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 28, 2013

Day 26: Month of Thankfulness

Day 26: Thankful to have the resources to share blessings with my friends. Drive safe, Holly! #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 27, 2013

Day 25: Month of Thankfulness

Day 25: Thankful the kids were so tired they volunteered to go to bed... before 7:30, giving the adults a nice night off! #LoveOurKids
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 26, 2013

Day 24: Month of Thanksgiving

Day 24: Thankful for the smile on our 12 year old's face as she announced she dropped 11 seconds from her 100 freestyle race!
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 25, 2013

Day 23: Month of Thankfulness

Day 23: Thankful for quiet evenings at home in front of a fire, Sanatra playing, cuddled up to my Piper. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 24, 2013

Day 22: Month of Thanksgiving

Day 22: Thankful, & I can't believe I'm gonna type this, for FB updates which allows frienda to know that yes, I am available to come drink.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 23, 2013

Day 21: Month of Thankfulness

Day 21: Thankful to have girlfriends who enjoy nice dinners out. #GirlsNightOut #MonthOfThanksgiving
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 22, 2013

Day 20: Month of Thankfulness

Day 20: Thankful for the nights when Big Papa is out so tuck-in can go on for 45 minutes instead of the normal 10ish! #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 21, 2013

Day 19: Month of Thankfulness

Day 19: Thankful to have family come visit for Christmas and my 40th birthday this year. Yeah Dr. Momi! #GonnaRockMy40s #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 20, 2013

Take All the Time You Need

Day 18: Month of Thankfulness

Day 18: Thankful for Dollar Store science projects to grow crystals on the kitchen counter with the kids. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 19, 2013

Day 17: Month of Thankfulness

Day 17: Thankful for my furry puppies even if one smells like a giant Frito and the other screams like a pissed off 2 year old girl.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 18, 2013

Day 16: Month of Thankfulness

Day 16: Thankful to have Dr. Mommy to call when family health issues arise. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 17, 2013

Day 15: Month of Thankfulness

Day 15: Thankful to have the 1st time I've "lied" to our girls be during a board game that encourages it & have her be SHOCKED I can do it!
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 16, 2013

Day 14: Month of Thankfulness

Day 14: Thankful for whispered questions"Can I go hug Karen?" outside the bedroom door at 6 in the morning. The answer is yes. Always yes.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 15, 2013

Day 13: Month of Thankfulness

Day 13: Thankful to be graduated from premarital counseling. One of the better investments I was smart enough to make. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 14, 2013

Day 12: Month of Thankfulness

Day 12: Thankful to dance around the livingroom w/ the Piper to old blues while the kids look on eating tacos. We mix genres in this house.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 13, 2013

Day 11: Month of Thankfulness

Day 11: I'm thankful for wake-up make-up nookie. Yeah. I went there. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 12, 2013

Day 10: Month of Thankfulness

Day 10: Thankful to have a man that will sit down and figure shit out with me. #LoveMyPiper
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 11, 2013

Day 9: Month of Thankfulness

Day 9: Thankful to come home covered with one of the best scents in the world... camp/bon fire! #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 10, 2013

Day 8: Month of Thankfulness

Day 8: I'm thankful for the sound of small running feet and muffled giggles in the morning as I lay in bed. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 9, 2013

Day 7: Month of Thankfulness

Ya know what? Fuck you. I'm thankful I can pick up the tab for my kids no matter what they need or want. The day I can't, I'll go get a job.
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 7, 2013

Day 6: Why I Write a Month of Thankfulness

Though I don't spend time complaining on Facebook or Twitter very much (Unless it's funny. Funny complaining gets a free pass.) I started doing the Month of Thankfulness three years ago in 2011. It was a little over a year after Steve died and about three months after my father died. And while I had started to work my way out of the widow fog earlier that summer, my father's death sent me spiraling right back down. I don't know when the toughest time of my grieving was but I can say that after dad died, it got scary for me real fast.

The Month of Thankfulness was a way to get my head out of the circling thoughts that I failed my husband which was why he was dead. Thoughts that life was never going to be worthwhile again and the best I could hope for was that I might be useful at least once more before I, myself, died. I hoped that if I had to think about one positive thing a day, really concentrate on it, for an entire month, I could change the tide in my thoughts. That I might find hope again.

I look back at that first year and I couldn't even manage to think of something every day. Frequently I didn't remember to post. In my zombie haze days would go by without me registering that time had passed. But I also have vivid memories of sitting on the couch, looking around the room, hoping that my eyes might hit on something that would trigger a thankful thought. In the end, I only managed eleven out of thirty days. And I had a nice long string of those days, too. Those posts did work, in a fashion. It got me geared up for Christmas, New Year's Eve, and my birthday the following month. Gave me some momentum to head into the holidays with a bit more verve than I would have otherwise.

The second year I was nervously dating the Piper with his two young girls. I spent a lot of time bouncing between feelings of elation and excitement to feeling like a adulterous whore for cheating on my dead husband. It was a wide spread of emotions that kept me wondering about my sanity in a completely normal-in-an-abnormal-situation way. It was as close to normal as I'd felt since Steve died and it refreshed me, and drained me, in ways I hadn't expected. But I managed to post every day. When I look at those posts, I know what overwhelming whatever I was looking at each particular day. Cause even then, maybe especially then, a day at a time was all I could manage.

This is my third year of posting the Moth of Thankfulness. I'm only a few days in but I can already see a new pattern emerging. I tend to post well after midnight, when the kids are in bed and the Piper is brushing his teeth. The time where I have that rare quiet moment to myself before the pillow whispered I-Love-you's and the bedside light gets turned out. That's the moment I have to look back on my day and think "This is what I want to remember. This is what I don't want to forget." My posts this year are the stupid little daily interactions that occur in a life. Those silly little every day moments that I haven't had since Steve died. That I never thought I'd have again. The sunbeam slipping through the clouds to brighten up the world for a split second before disappearing again. How I revel in these moments.

So I'm going to be that annoying woman who posts what she's thankful about each day. Cause, you see, they all boil down to the same thing:

Day 6: I'm thankful to have a normal life. To, once again, have little things each day that joyfully grab my attention. #WidowThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 6, 2013

Day 5: Month of Thankfulness

Day 5: I'm thankful to have friends who call me at 11 pm to come clean up a dead mouse in their cabnet across town. It's nice to be needed
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 6, 2013

Day 4: Month of Thankfulness

Day 4: I'm thankful to have two new Packer football buddies, even if their ages combined is only half my age. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 5, 2013

Day 3: Month of Thankfulness

Day 3: I am thankful for holding hands while driving with singing children in the back seat. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 4, 2013

Day 2: Month of Thankfulness

Day 2: I am thankful I have neighbors who loan me shovels to break. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 3, 2013

Day 1: Month of Thankfulness

Day 1: I'm thankful for health insurance, which I will once again have starting in January. #MonthOfThankfulness
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) November 2, 2013

On Writing

“You try to tell yourself that you’ve been lucky, most incredibly lucky, and usually that works because it’s true. Sometimes it doesn’t work, that’s all. Then you cry.”

—  On Writing - Stephen King 

4 birthdays, 51 Years, and Thousands of Miles

Maggie: He's dead and I'm alive.

Jim: That's what I'd keep in mind.

- "Election Night, Part 2" - The Newsroom


Steve's first birthday after his death, I went to Venice, Italy. It was the last vacation Steve and I had planned, with hotel and plane tickets already booked and bought. His birthday was a mere two months after his death. Terrified if I stayed home I would harm myself, knowing Steve would want me to enjoy life and move forward, believing I needed to at least try and move forward even if I was still widow-fogged most days - I changed his ticket over to a friend and away we went anyway.

That trip I can only see in my memory as snapshots through a haze. I know I was hysterical. Not always in the funny sense but in the "unmanageable emotional excess" sense. Everything was, emotionally, to the extreme. I laughed inappropriately, I cried unstoppably, I fell down stairs, I forgot things, I couldn't figure out how to get into buildings. I sat in quiet moments trying to imagine what we'd have been doing at that moment in that place then I tried to go do all those things. I failed. It wasn't the success or failure that was important, and I knew it. It was the trying that mattered. But I didn't do it alone and we muddled through, hysterical laughter and all. In the end, going to Venice was the best decision I could have made. I'm proud of myself for having braved moving forward through my pain.

The following year I wanted to leave the country again. It felt right in my soul, to travel back to Italy. And, honestly, I couldn't think of anywhere else to spend the time. So I asked my remaining friends if they'd like to go but the time away and expense made it impossible. My father had died that summer and as Steve's birthday approached, I felt trapped in a pressure cooker. Only in a total panic, a month before Steve's birthday, was I able to make the commando decision to travel alone when I booked my trip to Florence, Italy.

I had never gone on vacation alone before, let alone in a foreign country. But I gave myself over to the experience and enjoyed my travels in ways I could never have imagined. I walked the city streets from 8 am to well after midnight. I explored museums, estates, and gardens the like that are only available in Europe. I drank copious amounts of red wine, ate miles of fresh pasta, learned to drink cappuccino only in the mornings and espresso only after dinner. In Florence, I found my strength again. And, being Florence, I found beauty again. The pure joy of finding strength and beauty refreshed my soul.

The third time his birthday rolled around Steve would have been fifty, a landmark year. A month later would have been our tenth wedding anniversary. I chose to move my annual Steve's-dead-travel-to-Italy-trip back a month, and booked myself to visit Rome. This time I was able to book months ahead and, though would have enjoyed traveling with a companion, didn't flinch at the idea of traveling alone.

But a complication arose between booking the trip and leaving. I met the Piper. And though I was constantly battling feelings that I was a adulteress whore for "cheating" on my dead husband, it was becoming clear to me I was in love. My trip was marked by visiting Roman ruins, and running back to the hotel to Skype. Visiting the Vatican, and running back to the hotel to Skype. Drinking from the aqueducts, eating gelato, visiting museums,  resisting the urge to jump into Trevi Fountain, and running back to the hotel to Skype.

I went to dinner the night of my wedding anniversary, looking over Rome's city lights, and came to peace with removing my wedding band from my hand. And when I returned home from my trip, I had someone special waiting for me. I was ready.

This is the fourth birthday of Steve's since his death. I'm not in Italy. I'm not going to Italy next month. I'm not traveling again until my honeymoon in May, when I'll be traveling with the Piper. We'll be traveling to Spain when we go.

But last night, because the night before an event is when I'm at my weakest, my Piper did something beautiful. After we tucked the girls in bed, he turned down the lights and presented me with a cupcake lit with a birthday candle. He suggested I make a wish for Steve, blow, and then share a special Steve memory. One of my favorites. And that's what we did. Together. I spoke of Steve, our life and love. And my piper sat with a smile absorbing every word.

I'm not in Italy this year. And instead of eating alone at a fancy restaurant, I'll be running kids to swim practice and fitting meals in between trips. I'll be checking homework and reminding everyone to do their chores. I will be yelling at dogs to quit chewing each other's faces off and trying to fold laundry. It will be pure mayhem. And I will love very minute of it.

Today my husband would have been fifty-one. Today I am thirty-nine. Today is so completely different than yesterday.

Happy birthday, my love.

"September 11, 2009" from Steve

Steve posted this on Facebook on September 11, 2009. I've written about what 9/11 was like for me. The following account is told from a good friend of his that, sweetly enough, still e-mails me football quips. Since I no longer have to my Stevie to keep me informed, it's an important thread that has kept me tethered. I believe those who've seen some of the worse that life has to offer understand the importance of all these little threads that lift us up. Thank you, St. Ides, for staying.

September 11, 2009

I've saved this email, from a good friend of mine, who witnessed the events of 9-11 first hand. He sent this out that evening. I've taken his name out, because I have not asked his permission to post this. Someday I'll write about how I felt that day... talking to Karen in Virgina, and talking to my Mom who watched it on TV and could smell the smoke for days in our house in Queens. But for now I leave you with words I could not have written any better or more poignantly.

This is a graphic account of what my friend saw, and is not for the timid...

>>

It was fuct up.... here's an attempt to recount it, just because it was so fuct up and maybe it will make me feel a little better if I get this shit out... warning, this shit is not for the squeamish, but it's exactly how things happened for me.

I came out of the subway at about 9:05, with a rush of people coming towards the subway, which was totally unusual.. however, I just thought "oh, some other subway line is probably fuct up"... until someone said the Trade Center was on fire.. then someone said a plane hit it... I looked up,and there was insane amounts of smoke, but it was blowing towards the east(away from me... more towards the Seaport actually)... I walked around City Hall Park, get a better view, and saw a fucking hole in the side of one of the towers with flames spewing out. All I could think was "wow, that's pretty fucked up, but no big deal, they'll put it out..." Then I heard that a second plane had hit the other tower, and that it was most likely a terrorist attack... you've got to keep in mind this is only talk among people in the midst of it, at this point even the radios had no clue.

I stood outside City Hall Park for about half an hour while I tried to decide if I should go in to my actual office building. It was at this time that I saw my first "victim" who was a middle-aged overweight woman, whose face was covered in blood. She walked alone, seemed totally fucking dazed, and didn't even look at anybody, just walked straight ahead. After being there for about 45 minutes, I noticed that NOBODY was going in that direction except for emergency vehicles, cops, and dudes with black windbreakers with the yellow letters "FBI" in the back,

I headed north on Broadway, following the herd. About 8 blocks later, there is this other rumbling sound, and people start talking about a 3rd plane hitting... Then someone with a radio says one of the towers collapses... No fucking way I figure, not collapse totally,maybe just the burnt floors tipped over... And I keep walking.. Eventually, I pass Canal Street, and Spring Street, the two next stops on my train, and the people there say ALL train activity is suspended. So I'm pretty much stuck..I turn around, find a good place to watch, and look up... It was so fucking unbelievably odd to look up and see only ONE of the twin towers. And you knew it wasn't because of the angle, because the grey-smoke-covered blue sky filled the space where the second tower belonged. I watched. And wondered why there wasn't any sort of water trying to put it out. Helicopter hoses,plane drops, super-duper-powered hoses from the ground. Fuck, you would think some technology today would be able to reach a fire at that height.But they couldn't.... Debris fell from the building... Paper bits flickered out like snow.Pieces of what I could only imagine as chunks of floor and ceiling fell away from the building as it burned.. heavy, but fluttering once it fell.. and then there was the debris that didn't flutter... the debris that as it was falling, you saw it had arms and legs... the kind of debris that when it fell, the whole crowd that was looking upward screamed and gasped and said"Oh my God!"... I saw at least 3 people jump/fall from the burning building...

Minutes later, the antenna at the top of the tower started to shake a bit, and the top part crumbled. And the bottom part fell beneath it.I'm sure you saw this on the TV many times over, but seeing it really happen, hearing the loud boom, and watching people break down and cry is just beyond words... At that point, it was a question of "How do we get home?" and "Will there be more attacks?" and the rumors in the streets were ridiculous. Some people said a third plane was on its way, some said the Pentagon was hit too(that one turned out to be true), some said the White House was hit, some said the Sears Tower in Chicago was hit... Some said that some Palestinian group took blame for the hit... I took everything with a grain of salt, but there was no doubt two planes going into both Towers was a terrorist act. And who knew what else could potentially be next...

Subways were still shut down. I walked several miles to 34th street,where I could potentially get an express bus back home. After waiting for an hour,it was obvious those shits weren't coming. I made my way over to the Abbey Tavern, had a bacon burger, watched the latest news, and waited for subway service to be restored. Oh yeah, I had a few pints of Guinness too. Took the 4 train from 42nd (that's another several blocks of walking) to125th, where I got the 6 and made it home by about 6:45pm. At this point, I have no fucking clue what kind of shape my office building is in, if and when I have work again. I imagine there won't be work tomorrow. And from some of the shit I have seen on TV, it looks like my building might be out of business for some time. (Hard to tell exactly where they are in some camera shots, but I think I saw my building and its windows blown out.) So I don't think I'll be making it to lunch the rest of this week...

How are people at AmFar? I'm sure they saw a lot of this too.... Anyways, thanks for the concern, and pass along the "I'm okay" message to any peeps at DL that care. Feel free to pass along the whole message, but it might not appeal to some people.

laters yo

"Holocaust Museum" from Steve

Steve had wanted to visit the National Holocaust Museum for as long as I could remember. I'd been only once before, with my mother and younger brother. Both are people who understand that I have a tendency to take things in straight to my heart with hurt so deep and hard that I frequently can't function for long periods of time afterwards. True to my own history, I couldn't speak for three days after we left.

I was terrified to walk back into that building with my husband. He was the only person who could convince me to even think of facing that horror again. The man who I felt safest with in the world, grabbed my hand and promised not to let go. And he never did. 

Eventually, he wrote the following. He did it to show he hurt, too. To show there exists things that change the way we view our world forever. It's one of the traits I loved most about him.

When we left the Holocaust Museum, we headed straight through the gardens to the art museum. Where we quietly sat on benches staring at some of my favorite artist, holding hands, saying nothing. We both hurt. Together. And we healed together, as well.

September 1, 2009

The saddest place I’ve ever been was the Murrah building in Oklahoma City. Even after visiting ground zero of September 11, nothing has ever affected me more profoundly than the Murrah building, and this is for two reasons. First, the fence around the building was covered with children’s toys, the toys that belonged to Tim McVeigh’s victims. It was a stunning visual reminder of the horrific reality of McVeigh’s crime. Second, the people of Oklahoma City were not prepared for this violence. When I was growing up in New York, we were shown maps of Manhattan with concentric circles expanding from the Empire State Building. The circles represented the blast zone of a thermonuclear weapon and the Empire State Building was always labeled “Ground Zero” because this was where the Soviets would drop the bomb. I lived in the third circle, named “three to five miles”. New Yorkers have always prepared for ground zero; the good people of Oklahoma City had not. They thought they were safe, and that their kids were safe. That still breaks my heart.

I expected my visit to the National Holocaust Museum to challenge my experience in OKC , but it didn’t. The museum is profoundly sad, yet still manages to celebrate the lives and the spirits of those who perished during the Holocaust. Today we throw the numbers around like snowballs: 6 million Jews, 5 million non Jews. The numbers are so large that they defy any tangible meaning. But go to the museum and look at the photographs. See the faces. Read the stories. You’ll see that somehow those numbers begin to take on meaning, a horrible horrible meaning.

To those who think it is appropriate to carry posters of President Obama with a Hitler mustache to a Health Care Town Hall meeting, I challenge you to visit this museum to see who the Nazis really were. To those who think it appropriate to refer to the conservative right and their bloviated pitchmen as Nazis, I challenge you to visit the museum. “Feminazi”, “Soup Nazi”. We trivialize the memory of those who gave their lives as victims of, or as soldiers ensuring the defeat of Adolf Hitler and his tyranny when we use the term Nazi so loosely. One take away from my visit was this: The closest thing to Nazism in our culture is those who shout “Look, that one is a Nazi”. It is a disgrace I am guilty of, and I will never make that mistake again.

When I was 17 I believed in George Orwell’s philosophy that all war was wrong. My dad was a soldier in World War II, and although I loved my father I did not respect his decision to be a soldier. I believed he was fighting for a governmental ideology, sold to an ignorant mass as patriotism. I thought he was a pawn. About that time, PBS first showed the films of the liberation of the concentration camps. If you’ve never seen them then nothing I could write will ever prepare you for them. We watched it together, me and my dad, and when they were done through my tears I said to him “I am sooooo proud of you”. That’s what my dad did when he was 22 years old.

I kept thinking of that moment at the Holocaust museum. I’m still so very proud.

Spouse Bereavement Leave (Initiative to Amend the FMLA)

Spouse Bereavement Leave (Initiative to Amend the FMLA)

I was "lucky" when my husband, Steve, died in that I didn't work. If I had, I would have been given the mandated three days bereavement leave before being expected to return to work. If I had any vacation time, my supervisors may have been gracious enough to allow me to use it at that time. Once all my vacation time and three days bereavement were used up, they could demand my return to work or fire me with cause. And a firing with cause? That can keep a person from being granted unemployment benefits.

What about FMLA? It's set up so a worker can take up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave, without losing his or her job. But only for the following instances:

• for the birth and care of a newborn child
• for placement with the employee of a child for adoption or foster care;
• to care for an immediate family member with a serious health condition;
• to take medical leave because of a serious health condition; or
• to care for an injured service member in the family

Notice what isn't in there? No additional bereavement time for death of a spouse or a child. 

Steve died out of state. It took four days for his body to be returned to Richmond, Va.Would I have been expected to work some of those days so I could attend his funeral? What about the three days his body was in Richmond, Va and I was making funeral arrangements? Arrangements for friends and family to come in for their last goodbyes? What about the two days of viewing and the funeral itself? Would I have had to return to the office the day after my husband's funeral? The day OF his funeral?

I don't know how much time is enough time before someone can reasonably be expected back at work. I DO know three days aren't enough. Not everyone can afford to take twelve weeks of unpaid time off from work when the catastrophic happens. But they should have the right to do so.

A petition is underway to have Congress amend FMLA to include the death of a spouse. To allow widow/ers to take twelve weeks unpaid leave without losing their jobs. I don't know that twelve weeks is enough time. But it's what we're asking. Please sign the petition and send letters to your delegates. God forbid you or any you know have need of this amendment. Please help put it in place in case you do.

 Sign Petition

The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers

"...if what happened to her happened to you, you'd kill yourself for the rest of your life. You would sit in the middle of a room and cry forever."

- The Newsroom "The First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the Lawyers"

"Arnold and the Cherubs" from Steve

I've been going through Steve's writings recently. I always loved hearing stories about growing up in New York, about his childhood, his coming of age. Those stories that are different than my own but somehow ring true to a part of me and my stories. Because, in the end, we are all just a collection of stories of our own making.

It's rare we get a chance to go back to those youthful moments that help form who we become and the people that shared those times with us. Steve was given one of those rare and precious chances. And while I had heard these stories from him before, I love reading this version of those stories. Because they had changed, just as he had.

I'm glad he got that rare chance to revisit his past. I'm glad he knew I was his biggest fan. I'm glad he got to play with the band again. I'm glad to have shared the journey with him.

"Life will fuck with your head but life will give you chances at redemption right until the glorious end."- Stephen DeRose

August 3, 2009

In 1981, when I was 18 years old, the United States had a population of 229 million people, and there was a 5.8% chance that you would be a victim of a violent crime. The median household income in 1981 was a little over $19,000.00 per year while unemployment sat at 7.9%. As the year started, a first class postage stamp cost 15 cents but by year’s end that number would jump to 17 cents. In 1981 the Oakland Raiders defeated the Philadelphia Eagles 21 – 10 in the Super Bowl, and the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the New York Yankees 4 – 2 in the World Series. The Boston Celtics ruled the NBA while the New York Islanders were in the midst of their dynasty. In 1981 the record of the year was “Sailing” by Christopher Cross, while the best picture was awarded to “Ordinary People”. A new form of television entertainment debuted in 1981 called “Music Television” or “MTV” which played videos: recorded visual performances that sometimes went along with the lyrics of the song. In 1981 Sandra Day O’Connor became the first woman to be nominated to, and subsequently serve on the Supreme Court of the United States. IBM introduced its PC in 1981 which ran an operating system called DOS, written by a small Seattle based Software Company called Microsoft. In 1981, AIDS, which would become the scourge of a generation, was first identified. In 1981 Ronald Wilson Reagan was sworn in as the 40th president of the US and if you were 18 years old in 1981 that prospect scared the shit out of you.

In 1981, with their world and the music of their generation making less and less sense, a group of NYU pre-med students got together with some of their friends and formed a band dedicated to the music of the 1960s. For one seemingly endless summer, Arnold and the Cherubs from Commack New York met, practiced, drank, and reasonably replicated the music of The Doors, Steppenwolf, and The Animals amongst others. The band featured the amazing Lenny Stote on bass, guitar, keyboards, pretty much anything that made a musical sound, and lead vocals. Mark Garobedian, from Commack by way of the Chemistry lab at NYU was the drummer extraordinaire. Tim Salenger, a lanky rich kid who seemed to be able to channel Ray Manzarak, played a genuine Farfisa Organ attached to a rotating Leslie speaker set. On rhythm guitar, piano and vocals was Rich Perez, a brilliant musician, vocalist and songwriter who loved (in order) The Beatles, chicks, beer, and tacos. Rounding out the group on lead guitar and vocals was a stocky foul mouth from Long Island City, NY named Steve DeRose, who sang and played a Montoya Les Paul copy through an Electro-Harmonix Muff Fuzz and a Sun amp. I was poor and from the streets. My band mates were not.

The spring and summer of 1981 was my time. I so desperately wanted out of Long Island City and I so much wanted to be a musician. I saw the band from Commack as a gateway into the world I wanted to be a part of. Every week I would travel out to “the island” (as we city folk called Nassau and Suffolk counties) and lived my dream: we were a really good rock band. We had girls hanging with us. We’d go to the clubs in Huntington as a band, and drink and socialize as a band. We’d watch other bands play: I remember a night at club called The Salty Dog watching a favorite band called Kivetski, who billed themselves as “New York’s Number One Sixties Band”. Mark Garobedian and I were up front when the lead singer reached down and shook our hands. Mark repaid this kind gesture with a two handed stroking maneuver extending from his crotch. I extended my hands, palms up and pointing in the general direction of Mark’s gesture as if to say “Look at the size of THIS”. Kivetski was the band we modeled ourselves on: we were “New York’s Number Two Sixties Band”.

We were all 18 and 19 years old and life hadn’t fucked with our heads quite yet. I still believed that I could be a rock star; I was still so innocent and naive. The Cherubs gave me the first glimpse of the lifestyle, and I’m not talking about sex or drugs or even money. I’m talking about being part of something. We grew together, and the band became the fulcrum of our shared experience. When we showed up at a bar or club, it was us, we, Arnold and the Cherubs, and the bars of Huntington New York were ours. And when one of us had an idea… One night, after several hours of drinking at Huntington’s “Artful Dodger”, Lenny Stote stood up all wild eyed and suggested “Hey, you want to go see Billy Joel’s house?” This seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea, so we all piled into Lenny’s car, and all I can tell you about that car was it was really small. We were five young drunk adults crammed into a car that could uncomfortably seat four, and we were headed down the back roads of the northern shore of Long Island at some ungodly speed. Lenny was barely making the curves, and Mark was on my lap in the back seat and we were screaming. Wait, let me explain that. Mark was on my lap because there were two others crammed into the back seat with us, and we were screaming because we honestly thought we were about to die. The funny thing is I wasn’t really afraid, but I wanted to make sure my soul was at peace so I decided to tell Mark that I loved him. Or rather, screamed it at the top of my lungs. Mark screamed back “I love you too!”

Souls in order? Check.

When we got to Billy Joel’s house we stood in awe staring at... an 8 to 10 foot wall. Somewhere on the other side was a house and we conjectured who Billy might have in there with him (the names Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon were tossed around. Hey, it was 1981). It was then I noticed that Rich Perez was a few feet to my right peeing on Billy Joel’s wall. I glanced away from Rich, where about 30 feet down wind stood Lenny Stote, peeing on the far left end of the wall. Surprisingly I quickly over came my personal pee shyness, took a position to the left of Rich and began making a giant “S” on my section. Tim and Mark quickly figured out what was happening and filled the gap between where I stood and where Lenny was finishing up. And this became the night that Arnold and the Cherubs, my band, pissed on Billy Joel’s wall.

The summer of 1981 was the first time I truly fell in love. I met Linda Michos in the spring at NYU, and at age 22 from East Meadow New York she was everything I wanted in a girlfriend: funny, beautiful, suburban, and blessed with the singing voice of an angel. Oh, I should mention that she was completely uninterested in dating me, and by dating I mean... well, you figure it out. She once had a relationship with Mark’s brother Michael, and was involved with a guy who really didn’t seem all that interested in her. But none of that should have mattered because I was involved with someone who I had been dating for over a year. Lin and I hung out together at school, a lot, and became close friends. When my girlfriend left to spend the summer in France and Lin’s boyfriend left her to move out west, we grew closer still. Although we saw each other every weekend, we never grew closer than a stolen kiss once after the sunset at Jones Beach (queue the song “One Summer Night” here).

The band practiced throughout the summer and by the end of August we were ready to gig. We set up an audition at Genie’s Pub, a bar that was located in a strip mall on Jericho Turnpike, and took the stage to play 5 songs. I remember several things about that day. First, the pub had a real sound system and we never sounded better. We also had never played through a real sound system. Go figure. Second, I had caught a cold and was not in good voice. When we played “Hang on Sloopy”, and I got to the second line “…and everybody yeah tries to put my Sloopy down”, my voice totally cracked on “everybody”. Third, Linda wasn’t there much to my dismay. My one shot to use my status as a rock star to impress her was gone, but I was sure there would be others. Fourth, from the stage I was flirting with some of the girls in the audience when it occurred to me that (a) they probably have boyfriends, (b) their boyfriends might be the jealous type like I was, and (c) this bar is pretty nasty: I’ll probably lose. After that I stuck to my playlist. The audition was a success and the pub wanted to hire us, but it was nearly September and although I wasn’t aware of it, the season was changing before my eyes.

In September of 1981, Lenny Stote’s father passed away unexpectedly. Lenny, the most talent musician I have ever played with, could no longer devote his time to the band. He was heading to the State University of New York in Fredonia, just outside of Buffalo. A few weeks after Lenny’s dad died, Rich Perez’s father passed away. Rich was devastated. Mark Garobedian was transferring to Colgate University and would no longer be across from me in Chemistry lab at NYU. I said goodbye to my drummer, who I knew someday would be a terrific doctor. Tim Salenger was Mark’s friend and I don’t remember what happened with him. I imagine Tim went back to Northern Jersey, to his life and school, and continued on his path to surely become something great. And sometime around the first week of September, just a few days before my 19th birthday Linda Michos told me she was heading west to reconnect with her boyfriend. For the first time in my life I understood what heartbreak was. We decided to have one official date before she left, so I put on these ridiculous white shoes that belonged to my brother Vinnie and took her to see Kansas play at the Palladium Theater in New York City. It was her first concert ever. Afterwards we went to the Burger King on Queens Blvd, next to the Golden-Q Billiard Emporium, and had dinner in my dad’s blue Chevy Malibu. Lin took her sneakers off and put her feet up on the dashboard, and we laughed as her feet fogged up a little section of the windshield. I drove her home to East Meadow, and for the second time in our relationship we stole one last kiss, this time in a schoolyard playground around the corner from her house. And then Linda was gone. Several days later on my birthday I waited for a phone call that never came. My mom, who was always more perceptive than I ever gave her credit for, came up to me at one point and whispered “You didn’t get what you wanted for your birthday, did you?” 19 would be the last birthday party my parents ever threw for me.

I stayed friends with Rich Perez for a while, and we gigged together as a duet, but I was terribly jealous of him. Rich was such a good songwriter, and such a good singer, and he was so handsome: Rich had girls lining up to be with him. I let my jealousy ruin our friendship. I wish I could find him and tell him how sorry I am about that, and how brilliant I thought he was. I’ve looked for Rich online, but there are so many Richard Perez’s out there. I have yet to find him.

Tim Salenger disappeared from my life too. I remember hanging out at Tim’s place in New Jersey, swimming in his in-ground swimming pool, and listening to this new band he and his friends were into called U-2. I remember thinking “this is the first new band I’ve heard that I like”. You know that night at the “Salty Dog” that I wrote about earlier? Later that evening I overheard Tim say to Mark “Watching these guys play makes me realize how good Steve is”. I never told anyone that story, but I’ll tell you now that it made my night and then some. Tim was a good guy and although we were never close, I wish I could tell him how much I appreciated him letting me into his world for that brief summer.

Lenny Stote in about every way was the most amazing musician I have known. He was brilliant and over the top funny. Once at a restaurant called “Chicago’s”, the band sat drinking much beer and eating much deep dish pizza when Lenny noticed that someone’s (I think Tim’s) beer mug was a little low. In a booming medieval voice, he boldly announced “NO EMPTY GLASSES AT LENNY’S TABLE”, and proceeded to pound his fist on said table. This percussive downward blow sent two full pitchers of beer skyward, soaking the four other band members and several tables around us, and Lenny sat there smiling, admiring what he had done. A few weeks ago I found a Lenny Stote on FaceBook and sent him a private message, but I never received a reply. I always wanted to be close friends with Lenny, but I’m not sure he knew that. I miss Lenny, and wish I could thank him as well and tell him what the summer of 1981 with the band meant to me. Really, I think I’d just like to have one more beer at Lenny’s table.

Linda Michos returned to New York after things didn’t go so well out west with her boyfriend. She called one afternoon to tell me she was home and I was so happy. We got together that weekend, and for the next year and a half dated as friends. But Lin never fell in love with me, and I never fell out of love with her. There were no more stolen kisses to be had. One evening as we sat outside her home in my father’s blue Malibu, I told her I couldn’t see her any more. It just hurt too damn much. We both cried, and then Lin was gone for good. For me, it was the first time I had walked away from someone I didn’t want to walk away from, and that was when I learned no matter how much you love someone it doesn’t matter one bit. You can’t make somebody feel something that they don’t. That changed me, and not in a good way: life had finally fucked with my head. Twenty seven years have passed since that night, and the feelings I had for Linda are a part of a distant memory and no longer of any relevance. But if I ever met Lin again, I’d say to her “You know, I got two good songs out of you!” It was a private joke we had between us and I’ll bet you she’d still remember that.

I guess by now you’re probably wondering why I’ve written this. About a year ago I was searching online for my old band mates when I found Dr. Mark Garobedian who had a Pediatric practice in South Hampton, NY. If you knew Mark you’d know that he was built to be a Pediatrician. I was so happy that he had made it. But two weeks ago I decided to search again, and this time I found something new about Mark: his practice was now located in Mechanicsville, VA which is about 20 minutes from where I live. I was flabbergasted. There was a number listed, and the next day I called my old drummer. Within 20 minutes he returned my call and we laughed and talked and we couldn’t believe that 28 years later we were living about 10 miles from each other: Mark had moved his family to Virginia earlier this year and he seemed genuinely ecstatic to hear from me. About the third thing he said to me was “That band had potential!” I couldn’t agree more. But the best part? About five minutes into the conversation Mark asked “Do you still play?” and I said “just for my family and myself”. So Mark goes “Well, I know this guitarist up near DC and we should get together and play” and since we spoke, every time I hear a song on the radio all I am thinking is “We could play that”.

It’s interesting to look back at those days from the perspective of time. Time can be a great teacher if you choose to be its student. I’ve always remembered the days after the summer of 1981 as the time when I dropped out of college, began drinking, and lived a lie that I never really spoke of until after the passing of my Mother. Now, I see those days as great formative years, almost cliché in most respects: the story of a teenager, his rock and roll band, and a summer love that ended as most do: with a goodbye. Today, I am married to the most perfect woman imaginable. She is bright and beautiful, and has fulfilled me in every way. And my wife, who knew Dave Matthews and once upon a time shoved him into the water fountain on the downtown mall in Charlottesville, says I am the best guitarist she’s ever heard. My dreams of being a rock star are fulfilled as well: I get to be a rock star for my audience of one, usually when she comes out of the shower and she’s putting her makeup on.

It’s easy to get caught up in one’s past. I hear that this happens all the time to guys my age. Usually they go out, get a hot young girl and a convertible and that takes care of it. So what am I supposed to do? I already have a hot young wife and a convertible. The trick is not to get caught up in your past, the trick is to see where you’ve been, look at where you are, and imagine where you want to be. And that never changes, no matter what age you are. I love where I am and how I got here, and I can’t wait to carry on this wondrous adventure, now no longer alone, with the woman of my dreams.

One night very soon Mark and I are planning to get together to (as he put it) “…eat some pasta, drink some Chianti and laugh our asses off”. I can’t tell you how excited I am to see him. I miss my old friends, all of them, who shepherded me through the 18th and 19th years of my life. And although it seemed so chaotic and traumatic back when, now through the looking glass of time and perspective those days seem so wonderfully ordinary. And one day soon don’t be surprised if my drummer and I are playing somewhere at a bar or street corner near you. We were supposed to revolutionize rock and roll, you know? Life will fuck with your head but life will give you chances at redemption right until the glorious end.

Or am I being naive?

Ghosts That We Knew - Mumford & Sons

So give me hope in the darkness that I will see the light
'Cause oh that gave me such a fright
But I will hold as long as you like
Just promise me we'll be alright

Holy Sonnet XX: Death, Be Not Proud

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;

For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow

Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.

Thou'art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy'or charms can make us sleep as well

And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

 - John Donne

"Moon Landing" from Steve

Steve, like most IT guys, loved science. Loved science-fiction, too. Don't get me started on his obsession with asking pilots if they ever saw UFO's while flying planes. Got to a point I was scared to have us sit in an airport too long for fear he'd go pestering all the incoming pilots. But he'd send me all sorts of articles to read or burst out in normal conversation with some weird pieces of arcane information. He could hold a piece of information in his head in ways that perplex me to this day. He was a walking encyclopedia. He was constantly teaching me things.

But what I enjoyed most was when the information coincided with stories from his past. His childhood. Steve didn't need the nightly newsman to tell him it was the 40th anniversary of walking on the moon. He had written this earlier in the week and waited to post it. Just one of those pieces of arcane information in his head waiting to burst out at the appropriate time.

July 20, 2009

I was 6 years old when we landed on the moon 40 years ago today.

My parents let me stay up late that night to watch Neil Armstrong take his historic steps, and to me that was as big a deal as the steps themselves. I want to say it was about 10:15 at night when it happened and even at 6 I knew it was a big deal, but at that age could I fully grasp what exactly was going on?

There were clues. My dad fought in World War II, and had seen it all or so it seemed, but he too paused on a work night to watch the TV in the living room with the rest of his sons. I noticed that. Mom kept telling me that I would always remember that day, and that I would tell my children about it. She was half right: I have no children, so I'm telling all of you. My grandmother, Bombina, was terrified. She was convinced that the moon would fall from the sky if they landed on it. "Vinny, why do they HAVE to go???" she would plead with my father.

The picture wasn't very good but that didn't bother me. The only thing that ever play well on that TV were cartoons so who cared. It was 1969. I was used to bad pictures on TV. Disturbing images of helicopters and soldiers broadcast like a blurry surrealistic nightmare. Maybe I didn't comprehend it all, but somehow I knew enough. I know this because it didn't escape me that the ship was called the Eagle, or that it landed in a place called the Sea of Tranquility. I knew the future when I saw it, and I saw hope in my family's eyes that night.

1969 was the year I became aware. I was aware of the Mets, and found a hero in George Thomas Seaver. I knew who Joe Namath was, and I knew who Willis Reed was. I knew what Viet Nam was and I knew my oldest brother was a soldier. I knew grandma Bombi had nothing to worry about, the moon was going to stay right where it was. And I knew that Neil and Buzz stood in the confines of the Sea of Tranquility 250,000 miles away and it all made perfect sense.

36 Months (Three Years)

... 36 Questions I'd Like To Ask...

1. When you got on bended knee and said "I've waited for you my whole life," what followed that? Everything becomes a blank for me except the internal dialog of "ohmygawd, ohmygawd, ohmygawd."
2. What was the conversation you had with my father when you called to ask him permission to marry me? Dad's gone now too, so I can't ask him.
3. What ever happened to that baseball card you used to carry around in your wallet?
4. What was your favorite memory of your father?
5. How old were you when your father died? I always say 20 because I can't remember your exact age.
6. What was your father's funeral like? I can't separate that story from all the shenanigans of other family funerals. I wish you'd been here to tell me about it again when my father died.
7. How did your mother react to being a widow? I never asked. It simply never occurred to me. I feel horrible I never asked her or you about that time in her life.
8. What was your favorite memory of your mother?
9. Who was it that as a toddler, tried to push your mother out of the second story window she was washing?
10. What was your earliest memory?
11. Who was your first kiss and what was that moment like?
12. Where else did you want to travel, besides Italy, in the whole wide world?
13. Did I wake you up every night when I crawled into bed and kissed the scar on your back? You always made a happy little squeak but I never knew if you were conscious of it.
14. Did it ever annoy you that when I couldn't sleep I'd drape my body over yours and then fidget for an hour before finally nodding off?
15. What is the sauce recipe? I can't remember all the parts any more and can't find where we may have written it down.
16. Should I have asked to come see your band practice? I thought I'd be in the way so I always stayed home.
17. Where is the Italian restaurant we went to after you asked me to marry you? I've looked and looked and can't find it.
18. Where did you buy Frosty Paws for the dog? I've run out and can't find them anywhere.
19. Is that extra guitar in the shed the old crappy one my father gave you or one from your childhood?
20. Why is it we never went bike riding together? It's not like we didn't have enough bikes.
21. Where are all our old e-mails from when we were dating? I know you saved them somewhere.
22. What was your favorite book?
23. What was your favorite movie? I can list several but don't know which topped the list.
    
24. What was your favorite song?
25. What was your favorite trip you took with your cousin Frank?
26. What was your favorite trip we ever took?
27. What did you do with all love notes I'd put in your lunches, especially the ones with the count down to our wedding? I know you saved them but I still haven't found the hiding spot.
28. Do you regret not spending more time with your family, the way I do?
29. Would you have thought me a nag if I had badgered you in to seeing a doctor? I always believed it was better to have less time together and be happy than to have more time together and be miserable. Now I wonder if that was a bad decision on my part.
30. What was your biggest regret in life?
31. What was your biggest joy in life?
32. If there was one thing you could do over, the same or differently, what would have it been?
33. Was there anything I kept that you would have wanted to be given to someone after you died?
34. Did you send me all those double rainbows every time I stepped outside to cry that first week after you died or was that just the over-imagination of a traumatized mind?
35.  Did I do it all the way you would have wanted?
36. Can you see me, and if so, are you proud of me? 

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“Oh, I miss so many things… I miss his voice. I miss his voice telling me he loves me”

-  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

From Where You Are - Lifehouse

I miss the years that were erased
I miss the way the sunshine would light up your face
I miss all the little things
I never thought that they'd mean everything to me
Yeah I miss you
And I wish you were here

"Father's Day" - from Steve

Doc was one of Steve's closest friends not in the family. Being Italian, a friend not in the family quickly becomes family. Doc was what I would call  "a brother from another mother". In light of this father's day posting maybe it should be "a brother from another father".

When Steve died, I mistakenly phoned Doc after midnight. I had no idea of the time, being entirely out of my mind with shock and grief. All I felt was a desperation to get a hold of those who loved Steve and was loved by Steve. I can't imagine waking from a deep sleep to take that call. But Mike took that call, stayed calm and made some additional calls on my behalf. He stood tall exactly where Steve would have for him had the tables been reversed.

About a year later, Mike came to Richmond for work. He took me out to one of Steve's favorite restaurants. A place Steve and I always took out of town visitors or to celebrate special occasions. And while we spoke of Steve now and again, mostly we spoke of mundane every day topics. We were both trying to stand tall in Steve's place for each other, making an awkward mess of it in the process.

I haven't seen or heard from Doc since that dinner. I sent him the lucite encased Super Bowl ticket which Steve saved these many years. While I had heard the stories written below many times, I knew Steve would have wanted Mike to have the heft of those shared memories. Something to hold in hand of the times they shared with pride.

I wish I could do that for each and every person Steve held dear in his life.

June 19, 2010

June 20th is my best friend not named Karen’s birthday. When I was in High School and for many years thereafter Mike Lozano and I shared many an adventure as we grew from 14 year old boys into the first incarnations of the men we are today.

Mike and I met in sophomore year at Archbishop Molloy, in the fall of 1977. I don’t know how we avoided each other for freshman year, we were on the same academic track, but needless to say when we finally met we became good friends. Mike was always a little smarter than me. He worked a little harder and got better grades. I was more of the “disassociated artist’ type. I never studied, never worked, and got passing grades much to my parent’s consternation (they had this “valedictorian or bust” attitude that I still don’t quite get. Once, my dad beat the snot out me for bringing home an 86 average)

Our friendship however really took off in college when we both discovered bars. This was more of a bad thing for me than Mike, who as I mentioned was always a little smarter than me. Doc as we now called him knew when to party and knew when to study. I on the other hand (who Doc now called “Wildman”) knew absolutely nothing about when to study. All the time was a good time to party, and being at NYU in the heart of Greenwich Village during the post-punk new wave era was probably not the most conducive environment for focusing on my academics. By 1983 I dropped out.

Doc finished Syracuse University in 2.5 years (OK, he was A LOT smarter than me), took a half a semester off, and started Mt. Sinai medical school while I had gotten some steady work in various mailrooms around the city. We still partied and drank, and for several years I was proud to subsidize our good times. Doc became an ER Doctor and married a beautiful woman named Tania, who I might add is smarter than the two of us (Tania went to Yale and is an Endocrinologist). For a while they lived in New York but eventually they moved to Tampa where they live today.

I wish I could tell you all of the stories and adventures we shared, but I can’t. One of the conditions of sobriety is to walk away from the people, places, and things that you knew when you drank and most of my stories about Doc start off “So one night Doc and I were out drinking…”. I can’t tell those stories any more, but there is one story I can tell...

Doc is one of the most decisive, intelligent people you will ever meet, but when it came to picking his favorite football team he couldn’t. I always thought he was a Jets fan, but when he moved to Tampa he became a Bucs fan, and when I questioned this his reply was something along the lines of “I really don’t have a favorite football team”.

Hmmm.

So I told him about the Green Bay Packers. Here’s a football team that was made for the Doc. They have a rich history. They are successful. They are owned by the people of Green Bay. Green Bay is about as different from New York City as different can be. Within days Doc was coming back to me with facts that I didn’t know (did I mention he’s somewhere between a little and a lot smarter than me?) “Did you know that if the team gets sold, all of the proceeds have to go to the local American Legion Post??” he gleefully exclaimed in one phone call. It didn’t hurt that we had Brett Favre on the team, and this was 1995 Brett Favre, so Doc became a Packers fan.

And the next year they went to the Super Bowl and so did we.

When the Packers made it to Super Bowl XXXI Doc immediately called and said “We’re going”.

“But I can’t afford it” I said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll pay for it” said Doc.
“But I’ll never be able to pay you back”.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ve got it” said Doc
“I have to pay you back”.
“Don’t worry, I’ve got it. It’s my way of saying thanks” said Doc, at this point getting annoyed. “Look, I’ve always wanted to be able to do this for my friends”, and that I understood. We came from the same place, me and the Doc, and he had made it out.

Doc took me to the Super Bowl in New Orleans and we watched Brett Favre win his only championship. That was a dream come true, and I have the ticket stub to prove it.

If I’ve never said thank you as I should have for that adventure then please allow me to do it now.

Thank you Mike.

A lot has changed since that day in 1996. I started changing my drinking habits, and Doc went on with his life. We grown apart over time and distance, but never so far that one can’t pick up the phone any day and call the other. Oh, and when I got married Doc and his family were there. He and Tania and their children Jackie and Vickie (who is my godchild) made the trip to Vegas. Jackie and Vickie stood as our flower girls and bowled with us in celebration that afternoon.

There’s a lot for me to think about today. I thought about writing about my Dad, but I think about him enough, and he knows how much I love him even if he did beat the snot out of me for bringing home an 86 average. Also? I’m tired of reflecting on the dead for now. This world is for the living. Here’s to the Doc, husband, father, and my friend always. Happy Fathers Day!

PS…
I can’t post this without wishing a happy Fathers Day to Miguel Lozano, Sr., who is Doc’s dad and was always a second dad to me. Mr. Lozano is a typical Puerto Rican man: he is strong and proud and of few words. When I met Mr. Lozano in 1977 our conversations would go like this:

Steve: Hi Mr. Lozano.
Mr. Lozano: >

It was the strangest noise I’d ever heard. In the first three years I knew him, the only actual words he ever said to me were this one time when he said: “Move your car”. I had no idea why he wanted me to move my car, nor did I think there was anything wrong with where I parked it, but I was ready to move it to the cemetery out back just so he wouldn’t have to see it ever again. I don’t think I ever moved so fast in my life. Anyway, three years of this goes on and one day we are sitting on his living room couch together watching a Mets game and all of a sudden I hear this voice go “Jorgensen.” I looked around wondering where it had came from but I really had no idea. Then I heard “Jorgensen. He’s good. Strong”

It was Mr. Lozano.

I looked around again to see who he was speaking to, but there was no one around. Then it dawned on me: he was talking to me. I remember thinking “Holy crap, he wants to have a conversation. Now what”? You know those old western movies, the way the Indians would talk? That was me. “Yes. Jorgensen. Good. Strong. Power hitter”.

It was Mr. Lozano’s way of letting me know I passed the test.

Happy Fathers day Dad. Give Mom and big hug and kiss from her wayward son.

Don't FUCK with WIDOWS...

I saw a version of this on Facebook but it didn't feel exactly right. It had a happy robin-egg blue background and not enough swearing. I like my version better. More black. More swearing.

Here's the thing... as I creep up on the three year mark of Steve's death, I realize more and more how much was burned away from me as I struggled to find the will to continue living. In other words, the amount of fucks I give about any given anything, has been drastically reduced. And the amount of fucks I gave before Steve died was fairly limited to start with.

And having survived that pain, there's not much more the world, or anyone in it, can do to make me blink.

But the people and experiences I love? I love them all with more depth and breadth than I ever imagined possible. Surviving widowhood has burned me down to a more concentrated self. I know who I am. I know what I love.

That's right. I'm a widow. And I know how to bury people.

A Clash of Kings

"There are ghosts everywhere," Ser Jorah said softly. "We carry them with us wherever we go."

A Clash of Kings - George R.R. Martin

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

“As much as I want him to, (he) is never coming back. And I thought I couldn’t live without him, but now I know I can. I think that would make (him) proud, which is all I ever wanted.”

— Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close 

#WidowHeartMender

Received my very first "I made this at school for you" for Mother's Day from the smallest munchkin. #WidowHeartMender
— Kiki Marcus (@KikiMarcus) May 7, 2013

All Those Precious Rings

When Steve asked me to marry him, he proudly put a one point something carat diamond on my left hand, kneeling in Rockefeller Center on Christmas Eve. I was facing away from Steve looking at the tree and the ice skaters when he got on bended knee. After he called my name and gently tugged on the corner of my coat, I turned to face him. I thought he had slipped and fallen. I started to kneel on that cold pavement to help him to his feet when I realized he hadn't fallen to his knee... he was on bended knee.

The only part I can remember of what he said that night was "I've waited for you my entire life..." After that all I hear in my memory is the inner dialog of "ohmygawd. ohmygawd. ohmygawd."

We chose simple, plain, gold wedding bands. I'd heard horror stories of wedding bands slipping off in the ocean, never to be seen again. If that ever happened to us I wanted to only mourn the emotional loss of the ring, not the financial.

I wore those rings up until about six months ago.

When Steve died, I put his pinky ring, which he received as a gift for his confirmation and wore every day of his life, along with his wedding band on a chain with a cross, which he also received for his confirmation and wore every day of his life. It was a rather large clump of metal to bang between my breasts. Kinda made my chest feel like some sort of jingly bongo drum set. After a week I took the cross off the necklace, along with the pinky ring, leaving just his wedding band to bounce over my heart.

And that's where it stayed until about seven months ago, when I started dating. Even after I started dating I wore it more often than not. Even now I'll still swing it over my neck for no apparent reason except I like the comfort of the weight.

For Christmas in 2011, my second set of holidays without Steve but my first set of holidays without my father, I had best gift I could have received. I was invited to New York to spend Christmas with my in-laws. I spent a few days alone in the city (and if you need to ask which city, get a life. There's only one city in New York referred to as THE city) visiting some of our favorite spots before heading up to join the family. I tried to take a picture or two of places that meant something to us. I stayed at the same hotel we stayed at during our last visit. I visited the house he grew up in, his cousin kept me company via text the entire time, dropped in on Sister Flora who has been such a God send to the family.

And I did a bit of shopping.

I stopped in to Tiffany & Co., where Steve bought my first piece of jewelry not related to our marriage. It was a Christmas gift that I still wear on my right hand thumb to this day. Now Steve gave me many sparkly jewels over the years, and each means something different to me. But there was something special about receiving that little blue box with the white bow. So on the 23rd of December in 2011, I walked into Tiffany's completely out of my mind thinking I'd be able to see anything, let alone buy something. And yet, the first counter I walked up to, I found exactly what I didn't even know I was looking for. It's two rings, one in yellow gold, one in white gold, intertwined so they can't be separated but still swing freely of each other. I knew I needed it for that day in future when I was ready to take my wedding band and engagement ring off, but didn't want an empty finger. I wanted a ring that would hold some meaning while I transitioned from married to widowed. A ring that I could, even later, move to another finger and still like it. What better than a ring that looks like two entwined wedding bands?

I know the exact day I took off my wedding band. I was in Rome for what would have been our tenth wedding anniversary. At dinner on our anniversary, overlooking the Forum Boarium, Steve's ring in my hand, letting the necklace slip through my fingers like flowing water, it occurred to me to place my band on the chain along with his. The rings naturally fell in together forming a smaller circle inside a larger circle. And all the sudden, it made sense to me. I slipped the necklace over my head, took my new double band ring I had been wearing on my right hand in the meanwhile, and placed it on my newly naked left ring finger. When I walked out of that restaurant I felt a little emptier. I felt a little lighter. I felt a little giddy. I was ready for something new.

By March of this year, I had moved that double band back to my right hand and was wearing a big chunky thing on the middle finger of my left hand. I even went back to New York to experience the city not immersed in memories but to help show them off, give vision to the words I'd been speaking. I even managed a picture, which says more than all these words put together can say.

Cause you see, a little over a week ago, I got a surprise parade just for me. An entire bagpipe band marched down my street. Two of the most amazing, heart-stealing, little girls held signs expressing love. My piper got on bended knee in my front yard and asked me to marry him.

And as Doug placed the one carat blue sapphire ring on my left ring finger... I replied with a resounding yes.

Fate Can Eat Me

Fate, you fickle bitch, you made me fearless when you took everything from me... but we're good now.

Life Is but a Dream

"There's no drum roll or trumpet that goes off when you make the biggest decisions in your life. Sometimes you don't even know that you've made 'em."

- "Beyonce: Life Is but a Dream"

Love and Other Drugs

"But there are good things. You have to understand that you're still yourself. You're still there and life goes on and life is beautiful."

- "Love and Other Drugs"

One Fewer Steve DeRose on Facebook

(Written by Steve on Facebook three and a half years ago.)

All the Steve DeRoses on Facebook - September 8, 2009

If you search for Steve DeRose on Facebook, there are 17 of us and clearly I am the most handsome although the one in Cincinnati is cute enough to be gay. There’s a Steve DeRose leaning against a wooden fence with his significant other that seems nice, but his friends look a little creepy. I swear I saw one of them on last night’s episode of “Gangland”.

Steve DeRose from Washington DC is on Facebook, and if you Bing or Google Steve DeRose he comes up. He’s one of the inventors of xml and he’s a brilliant computer guy. Like me. I’ve often wondered if any old friends ever look for me and find him. I wonder if they think “Jeeeeesus, Steve lost a ton of weight”. He also has the derose.net domain, but I have stevederose.com. One of these days I’m going to do something with that darn domain.

There’s a Steven DeRose in Ft. Wayne, IN where my wife’s grandfather lives. If I ever meet my grandfatherinlaw I wonder if that will freak him out. I’d say “Hi Grandpa Kendall, I’m Steve DeRose” and he’d say “No you’re not!”. Then I’d show him my driver’s license and he’d go “Jeeeeesus, you’ve put on a ton of weight”. Hmm, better not go to Ft. Wayne.

Steve DeRoses are global: There’s one in London and one in France, and there’s one in Ontario and one studying at ITI Guglielmo Marconi in Italy. And then there’s one Steve DeRose whose facebook picture is his eyeball. Steve DeRoses are a creative artistic lot.

Stephen DeRose from Medford Oregon spells his name exactly like I do: StePHen. However I’m certain we have nothing in common. He looks a little like a meth dealer and I look like… what exactly the hell do I look like? Many years ago my best friend in High School said I looked like a smiling tomato so I’ll go with that. Except now I look like a smiling tomato with a goatee and a balding head. Come to think of it, I did look like a smiling tomato, as opposed to my best friend in High School who looked like the Puerto Rican version of Mark Spitz, only chubbier.

--------------------------------------------------------

I did something last month I never thought I'd do when Steve died. I had his Facebook account deleted.

I had been contemplating it for over a year. After the first year mark passed, I was the only person posting on his wall. I was the only person still tagging him in pictures. It was like I was the only person still remembering him.

I know that isn't true. I know many people still thought about him. Maybe even often. But they weren't sharing it with me. And after a year where his name wasn't mentioned during holiday phone calls (which rarely even took place on the holiday), where no one called me on the day of our wedding anniversary, his birthday, or the one year marking of his death, I was tired of walking around thinking about him alone. I wanted people to call me on those landmark days. I needed them to say his name and share some memories with me. Hopefully ones I had never heard before. I was tired of feeling like I was alone in grieving his absence. Alone in being his memory-keeper.

So, it was a year after Steve died when I first started thinking about deleting his Facebook page.

I didn't want to be hasty, though. I didn't want to make an irreversible decision as a knee-jerk emotional reaction. I started talking to friends and asking for their thoughts. I received a range of comments from "People grieve differently" to "They just don't know what to say to you" to "You're too sensitive."

I understood all of it. People DO grieve differently. I've learned that just by talking to other widows. People DON'T know what to say to me. The smart ones fessed up they don't know what to say but most people walked away thinking I have plenty of other support, not realizing that everyone else around me was thinking and doing the exact same as them. And, yes, I WAS too sensitive. I felt as though my skin had been flayed off and every passing breeze was torture. It didn't help that my father died just after the one year anniversary of Steve's death, throwing me back into the depths of depression.

But there was one thing no one had the courage to say to me. The one thing I secretly knew anyway. That mostly, people had moved on and weren't thinking of Steve very often. It was right, and normal, and the way life progresses. Doesn't mean it wasn't difficult to know that while everyone else could go about their lives, I was still struggling to get through each day without the man I married next to me.

I kept his Facebook page up for another year and a half. I checked his page every day, posted on his page occasionally, tagged him in pictures regularly. Because, though it pained me to see no one else doing those things, I still needed to do them.

Something changed for me this past year as the holidays approached. I started getting angry. Not at Steve. At the people in my life. At the people in Steve's life. At all the people who had been uncomfortable in my presence because they didn't know what to say. At the people who thought I was an interesting freak show to watch up close and personal. At the people who saw my weakness and tried to take advantage of me. At myself. Myself, for bending over backwards trying to help them feel comfortable when it should have been the other way around. Myself, for not having the strength to tell the freak show watchers and advantage takers takers to fuck off; instead just walking away from them and hoping they'd disappear. Myself, for wanting to stretch out my time with a dead man by hearing about him from the mouths of others.

That's when I stopped, took stock, and realized: I'm not alone. Steve is imbedded in my very being. I can quit hoping people will share memories of Steve with me, cause I have my own to keep me company. And I will share those memories freely cause I no longer care if people are uncomfortable. And I will tell indiscreet people to fuck off cause my strength has returned to me. I can let go of checking Steve's Facebook page every day cause I carry him with me everywhere I go.

And that's the day I decided to delete his Facebook page. But not before checking, one last time, that I had downloaded his page in it's entirety. I'm angry, not stupid.

(P.S. For those looking for information about memorializing a Facebook account, I wrote a post about it here: Memorializing a Facebook Account.)

Mrs. Harris

Jean:  I didn't know who I was, and it didn't seem to matter.

Joel:  It mattered to you, didn't it?

Jean:  I was a person sitting in an empty chair, Joel. I can't describe it any better.

- "Mrs. Harris"