It’s Blake’s birthday.<\/p>\n
I think he was born on the day I got engaged.\u00c2\u00a0 We drove to Tarzana Medical Center and looked at him through the window, trying to pick him out amongst the newborns.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember exiting the hospital and feeling that I was beginning a new life.\u00c2\u00a0 But that was half a decade before my wife moved out, my father died and Wendy’s child expired.<\/p>\n
Funny how the death of the patriarch fucks up the family.\u00c2\u00a0 My father was the correction factor.\u00c2\u00a0 He was the arbitrator, the judge.\u00c2\u00a0 If the balance was upset, he cried foul.\u00c2\u00a0 I need him now.<\/p>\n
I’m in a snit with my sister.\u00c2\u00a0 She sent me an e-mail that I thought was out of line and I responded.\u00c2\u00a0 With vehemence.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s hard to grow up in a female-dominated family.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, my father earned the money, but my mother called the shots.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m sick of worrying about having my dick cut off.\u00c2\u00a0 But with enough psychotherapy under my belt, I can finally stand up for myself.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s still a surprise to the remaining members of the family.\u00c2\u00a0 They expect me to still go along.\u00c2\u00a0 The same way they bought me a ticket for the ballet, as if I’d be interested.<\/p>\n
Oh, I finally stood up and said I wouldn’t go.\u00c2\u00a0 But when my father took me somewhere else for those two and a half hours, I felt guilty.\u00c2\u00a0 Like I’d upset the apple cart, like I’d done something wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 And whenever I got that horrible feeling thereafter, I caved.\u00c2\u00a0 But it got to the point where this solution no longer worked.\u00c2\u00a0 And after just about falling off the edge, I started to make a stand.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when the trouble really began.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m trying to act like a man, where there’s no room for someone playing that role.<\/p>\n
I have sympathy for my sister.\u00c2\u00a0 Her husband lost his job.\u00c2\u00a0 She always seems to be married to men with work issues.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that my job history is so stellar.\u00c2\u00a0 If I was depending on my family to be supportive of my journey, my search, I was sorely mistaken.\u00c2\u00a0 It was only when I stopped worrying what they thought that I started to break through.\u00c2\u00a0 And now that I’ve got some status, it’s got them wondering.\u00c2\u00a0 How did this HAPPEN?\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t play by their rules, I should be under their thumb.<\/p>\n
But I’m not.<\/p>\n
And in order to stay free, I’ve got to continue to make stand.<\/p>\n
Which is why I haven’t caved.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I have to be a man.<\/p>\n
We got to Moun of Tunis early.\u00c2\u00a0 And walked over to Guitar Center and looked at the prints in the concrete.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody else was looking, but to think that all of these stars had appeared there got my heart a-thumping.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, this is my religion.<\/p>\n
And even though the entrance was shrouded in darkness, the store was open.\u00c2\u00a0 So we went in.\u00c2\u00a0 And eventually found ourselves in the back room, where the rare guitars reside.<\/p>\n
Behind a pane of glass was a Stratocaster worth $65,000.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out it was the color that made it so valuable.\u00c2\u00a0 A kind of reddish-orange that hasn’t been employed in over forty years.<\/p>\n
And there was a Gibson SJ, just like mine, but a decade older, worth over $2,000.\u00c2\u00a0 But mine…\u00c2\u00a0 The finish is imperfect.\u00c2\u00a0 Because my mother left it in the crawl space, on the dirt, in the moistness, because it was taking up space.\u00c2\u00a0 Mold crept in.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out it’s worth $1,700 in pristine condition.\u00c2\u00a0 But it’s not.<\/p>\n
And in discussion with the clerk we found out Eric Clapton’s Blackie was out front.<\/p>\n
And there it was.\u00c2\u00a0 In a twirling plastic tube.\u00c2\u00a0 The placard said it was the only guitar Eric used from 1970 until some time in the eighties.\u00c2\u00a0 It was all worn down.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a modern relic.\u00c2\u00a0 Something akin to what they find underground in Jerusalem.\u00c2\u00a0 I looked at it and started hearing music.\u00c2\u00a0 All the notes that had been played not only on "Layla", but when I’d seen Clapton live.<\/p>\n
That music had kept me alive.\u00c2\u00a0 It was my solace.\u00c2\u00a0 The only thing that got me through.\u00c2\u00a0 When the four walls were closing in.<\/p>\n
But I couldn’t stand and admire this museum piece forever, for now it was time for the assignation, for dinner, up the block.<\/p>\n
It was a large party.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only the birthday boy, freshly twenty, but his mother and stepfather.\u00c2\u00a0 And his stepsister.\u00c2\u00a0 And stepgrandmother.\u00c2\u00a0 And his Aunt Wendy and Uncle Fred and their two children.\u00c2\u00a0 And me and Felice.\u00c2\u00a0 And my mother, his grandmother.\u00c2\u00a0 We took up two tables.\u00c2\u00a0 The Hatfields and the McCoys.<\/p>\n
When Wendy found herself at my table, she got up and left.<\/p>\n
My father would have blown a gasket.\u00c2\u00a0 Would have flipped out.\u00c2\u00a0 Would have employed his legendary scorched earth policy that would leave my mother and Wendy, the youngest, in tears.\u00c2\u00a0 Jill would run off.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’d sit there, shell-shocked.<\/p>\n
I’m trying to no longer be shell-shocked.\u00c2\u00a0 I tried to act like nothing was wrong.\u00c2\u00a0 I conversed with the younger generation.<\/p>\n
And ultimately, Wendy warmed up.\u00c2\u00a0 But my older sister, she sat far away, she was ice-cold.<\/p>\n
I’d give an inch.\u00c2\u00a0 But my family wants blood.\u00c2\u00a0 They not only don’t want excuses, they want to pull up the chart of my behavior in the coming years.\u00c2\u00a0 I need to be held accountable.\u00c2\u00a0 Why?<\/p>\n
Part of me wants to balance it out.\u00c2\u00a0 Compare my maladies to theirs.\u00c2\u00a0 Proving that however bad they think THEY’VE had it, what I’ve been through, what I’m saddled with, is MUCH worse.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s what landed me in therapy to begin with.\u00c2\u00a0 Trying to prove to the shrink why I was different, why my life just couldn’t work.<\/p>\n
But now it DOES work.\u00c2\u00a0 And, like I said, THAT’S my problem.\u00c2\u00a0 How DARE I go gallivanting all over the world?\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just not fair.\u00c2\u00a0 I must pay.\u00c2\u00a0 Literally.<\/p>\n
Finally the evening drew to a close.\u00c2\u00a0 The bill was paid, the assembled multitude arose, and started walking towards the exit.<\/p>\n
I brought up the rear.\u00c2\u00a0 With my mother.<\/p>\n
My mother can barely walk.<\/p>\n
Oh, her mind is fine, barely two weeks from her eightieth birthday, but her body, it’s failing her.\u00c2\u00a0 Not on the inside.\u00c2\u00a0 Her vital signs are good, but her balance, her legs, they’re off.<\/p>\n
She says it’s like walking with two wooden legs.\u00c2\u00a0 And it looks like it.\u00c2\u00a0 She holds her cane in her hand and swings her limbs forward, stiffly, tentatively.\u00c2\u00a0 And slowly makes progress.<\/p>\n
And in the hallway, the ten foot long carpeted entryway, my mother fell.<\/p>\n
She didn’t collapse.\u00c2\u00a0 And she didn’t slip.\u00c2\u00a0 She kind of just tipped over.\u00c2\u00a0 As if her left foot had slid on some grease on the floor.<\/p>\n
She was face down in the darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 Protesting her completeness, her health.<\/p>\n
She started saying it was the carpet.\u00c2\u00a0 But the carpet was perfectly flat, it had no bubbles, it hadn’t moved an inch.<\/p>\n
And she couldn’t get up.<\/p>\n
Her legs were limp.\u00c2\u00a0 Finally, I believe it was my nephew Andrew, or maybe Jill’s husband Tom,\u00c2\u00a0 who lifted her up from under her arms and stood her up.\u00c2\u00a0 And held onto her jacket as she ambled the last few steps out into the air.<\/p>\n
I haven’t recovered.<\/p>\n
The last time my mother fell, she said she was fine, she just needed ice.\u00c2\u00a0 But a trip to the hospital and x-rays detailed a broken foot.<\/p>\n
That was August.<\/p>\n
At that time Wendy told me she’d slipped in Minnesota and had told no one.\u00c2\u00a0 Only the sound and the hole in the wall revealed her crumbling descent.<\/p>\n
I kept on asking my mother to check, to MAKE SURE she was okay.\u00c2\u00a0 After all, her father, while getting out of the family car after his seventieth birthday party, had fallen on his head and died.<\/p>\n
I’d seen the whole thing.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that episode back in the sixties, but tonight’s event.\u00c2\u00a0 Just a slight twist, and my mother’s cabeza would have hit first.\u00c2\u00a0 And THEN what?<\/p>\n
And what’s going on in her home in Connecticut?<\/p>\n
Is it a matter of getting a walker?\u00c2\u00a0 Or a wheelchair?<\/p>\n
She’s not too proud, just a stoic.\u00c2\u00a0 She believes she’s fine, that such measures are unnecessary.<\/p>\n
I’ve learned that it’s a badge of maturity to ask for help.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, I’m missing a body part as a result of living the life of my mother, the stoic.\u00c2\u00a0 If only I’d gone to the hospital sooner, within twenty four hours, the outcome would have been different.\u00c2\u00a0 But sheer will should get you through.\u00c2\u00a0 No malady is too much.\u00c2\u00a0 Mind over matter.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to be tough.<\/p>\n
And that’s what my family is.\u00c2\u00a0 Tough.<\/p>\n
So I’ve got to be tough too.<\/p>\n
And that doesn’t feel good.<\/p>\n
And after we all parted ways, I’m driving Felice’s Lexus down La Brea, in a state.\u00c2\u00a0 SOMETIME my mother is gonna die, but hopefully not sooner rather than later.\u00c2\u00a0 And if it’s sooner, it’s two against one.\u00c2\u00a0 My father had me as executor of the estate, figuring I was the only one who knew what was right, what to do.\u00c2\u00a0 He told me, face to face, a week before he died, to NEVER sell any real property.<\/p>\n
In the ensuing year, my mother made the three kids co-executors and blew out pieces of land my father had owned for decades, waiting for them to appreciate, and was then stunned that the taxes were such that she would have been better off holding on to them.<\/p>\n
All is gone except this strip center, in Branford, Connecticut, that my mother lives on.\u00c2\u00a0 I know as soon as she goes, my younger sister is going to want to liquidate it, get her cash.<\/p>\n
But cash slips through your fingers.\u00c2\u00a0 Managing a property from thousands of miles away isn’t easy, but it’s worth it.\u00c2\u00a0 Real property doesn’t disappear.<\/p>\n
My mother told me she’d spoken to my older sister, that she was on my team, that worst case scenario, we’d buy Wendy out.<\/p>\n
But if all this came down today, I’m on a team of one.<\/p>\n
And when that property goes, so does my father.\u00c2\u00a0 It will be the end of an era.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything he slaved for, his desire to provide for the family, all remnants will be gone.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like his lessons will evaporate.<\/p>\n
Thank god he’s dead.<\/p>\n
But if he were alive, all of this would never be going on.<\/p>\n
He’d set it straight between Jill and me.\u00c2\u00a0 He wouldn’t put up with my mother’s cavalier attitude towards her condition.<\/p>\n
I want to make it right, but the deeper I get, the worse off I am.<\/p>\n
Happy Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n
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