Musical Memories

I recently got a new car and still have the free trial of satellite radio. During my commute, I like to flip between channels 7, 8 and 9: the seventies, eighties and nineties channels. I love how I can go from American Pie to Gin and Juice in one car ride.

One of my new goals with this blog is to start recording some of my childhood memories. And music brings back such powerful memories. The last two nights, on my commute home, I've heard Billy Joel songs.

I was never a huge fan of Billy Joel growing up, but his music was really popular in the early 80s. I'd never decide to listen to his music now, but the 80s channel played two songs I couldn't switch off.

Me, circa a really long time ago.

The first was Uptown Girl. Back in the ancient days of my youth, I attended a summer camp for young teens. Every day we went on a different field trip, from the movies to the beach. And every other week, we went on a camping trip. It was perfect. I made some great friends there, had some of my first crushes, and met the first guy I would "go with."

Side note: He now owns an amazing photography studio in L.A. I won't embarrass him here, some of my readers will know who I'm talking about. (And if need a photographer recommendation in the Los Angeles area, please send me a message on my facebook page. He and his wife are truly fantastic.)

Anyway, on one of these camping trips, we had a talent show, and this boy did a lip sync performance to Uptown Girl. I was the girl, and sat in the camp's big bus, wearing cool Ray Bans or knock-off Vuarnets or something, and there was some big reveal where the bus pulled up and I was sitting at the open window. I don't remember exactly. But I felt pretty damn cool.

The other was The Longest Time, which has this 1950s doo-wop feel. My dad loved this song, and at the time my dad, my brother, and I were all taking music lessons. Billy played piano, I played flute, and even my dad had picked up the clarinet he played when he was younger. We all had the same music teacher, and at my dad's request, Mr. B wrote the parts for all three of us to play The Longest Time together.

Honestly, I don't think we ever really nailed it as a trio. As far as I can remember, we played the thing just a couple times all together, and I'm pretty sure no one ever made a recording of it. But I remember the effort, and I would bet that hand written sheet music is still in the piano bench at my parents' house.

Ten

Today is the tenth anniversary of my brother's death. Ten years. It seems like some kind of accounting error, but then I do the math: Moe is almost 5, Jeff and I are coming up on 7 years of marriage. It all adds up.

I haven't been very emotional about this anniversary in the past: three years, six years, eight--I didn't think too much of it. I thought more about his birthday than about the day he died. But ten years is a long time. It's not that I miss him any more or less today. But he has missed so much.

I realized the other day that Jeff and I met exactly 22 days after my brother died. I don't know why I never thought to count before. In my mind, Bill's death is a clear transition point from the first part of my life to the second. The first part included growing up, going to school, and starting life in general. It started on March 2, 1973 and ended on March 24, 2002. I think of this time as my childhood, even though I was 29 when Bill died and had been fully employed or in graduate school and living on my own since college.

The second part of my life started on April 15, 2002, the day I started my new job at a startup called Danger. I was sitting on the floor on a conference call, my first meeting, and Jeff walked in and the second part of my life began. I'm not sure if the timing is coincidental. It's not that I think I needed my brother to die to move on with life. It's not like he died and suddenly I knew what was important in life. I had already planned to start this job, and I had always wanted to get married and have a family. But I was certainly in a different frame of mind when I returned home after the funeral.

Moe (whose real name starts with a W and I'm sure everyone already knows) is named after my brother, William, though he always went by Billy, and later, Bill. When I was pregnant with Moe, I really wanted a girl, in part because I wanted to avoid the issue of naming my child after my brother. When I found out I was having a boy, I never wanted to name him William, even though the name has become popular again, though these days it is usually shortened to Will or Liam.

I just couldn't imagine calling another child Billy. How could I be angry at Billy? "Billy, you are in time out!" How could I put my dead brother in time out? And I certainly didn't want to be reminded of my brother every time I said my child's name, or worse, stop associating the name with my brother because someone else now inhabited it.

There was another reason I didn't want to have a boy or name him William. I was worried about the expectations that would be put on this new baby, the proverbial shoes he would have to fill. I was worried that people, especially my parents, would put too much significance on the fact that my first child was a boy. Moe's uncle died, but he deserved a clean start, just like any baby. I was thankful that when Moe was born, he looked just like his father. I didn't want there to be any doubt that my son was not sent here not to be a replacement for my brother.

It doesn't take a psychology degree to figure out that although I thought I was worried about my parents' expectations, I was actually worried about my own. I don't know why I'm only just figuring this out. Now that I have almost 5 years of parenting under my belt, I can see that no parent, mine included, would ever think that one child could take the place of another. Even if we tried our hardest to fit a child into a certain mold or set of expectations, kids have a way of being whoever they are going to be. Of course, we have some influence, but in the end, if you kid is going to be shy, or gay, or even (here it comes) autistic, it is ultimately up to them. Or at the very least not up to us.

Moe may be Jeff's little clone, but sometimes I look at him and see a little bit of my brother. My parents say they don't see it. But there is something in his smile, in his small teeth with tiny gaps, that reminds me of my brother. I see it especially when Moe is in the bath, and his curls have temporarily become straight. His fair skin and pink cheeks are exactly like Bill's when he was a little boy. Despite my initial fears, I am thankful for this resemblance, however slight. It's nice to think that something of my brother is still here in a genetic connection that means that, no matter what, we are still family.

A Salute to Lieutenant

Our family dog was named BJ. She was an adorable mixed breed puppy who turned into an ugly dog. We loved her fiercely.

After I left for college, BJ was my brother Billy's constant companion. When she grew old and died, as dogs do, we were sad but old enough to understand. My mom, who was tired of barking and messes and the general inconveniences of owning a dog, swore she'd never have another.

When Billy's brain tumor returned, and aggressive surgery left him with extreme left-side weakness, he had to move home. He was in his early twenties. When "for a while" turned into "long term," he was understandably depressed. He asked for a dog.

There were rules: no puppies, already housebroken, not too big. Something like a beagle, we agreed. My brother, now motivated to get out of bed in the morning, would surf the internet researching dogs. In January 2000, Superbowl weekend, we drove to Beagles & Buddies dog rescue.

The four of us wandered the premises, greeted by the many dogs playing in the yard. I fell instantly in love with Beauty, an elegant fox hound who followed me our entire visit. Shiloh the puppy, was still recovering from injuries sustained at birth, and would not be available for many months. We asked to see the back kennels.

Billy spotted Lieutenant right away. Louie, as we would come to call him, is a "lemon" beagle mix, with light brown markings on white fur. He was young but not a puppy, playful and energetic, but jumped up on a bench to sit with Billy when he needed a rest. Louie came home with us that afternoon.

Lou, as is common with rescue dogs, had some behavior issues. It took many weeks to get him to do his business in the dog run rather than on the grass. Several times, he sprinted out the front door and we almost lost him. He was incredibly affectionate, but could turn aggressive toward visitors, though he never once even curled a lip to a member of our immediate family.

Louie stayed with Billy for the next two years, as my brother slowly descended further into his illness. Lou was the first dog my father ever allowed on a piece of furniture, and to this day, nine years after my brother's death, Lou still naps on Billy's bed.

Louie's aggressive tendencies are now gone. When I visit, if I'm the first awake in the morning, I sit on the floor with Lou cuddled in my lap. I always notice how his spots go all the way to his skin. He creeps slowly like a hunter when a tablecloth brushes his back. When you open the back door for him, he dashes out, sprinting counter-clockwise around the pool, before going to his designated potty spot. He still cheats sometimes and goes on the grass. Louie's elbows are calloused from chasing lizards up the side of the house. Sometimes he catches them. He pounces like a puppy when chasing a ball.

Lieutenant is old, at least 13 but we suspect older, his beagle's puppy-face and bounding nature betraying his true age. He was recently affected with a strange loss of balance, and although mostly recovered, we are reminded that he is not going to live forever. His death, when it comes, will be significant. He is one of the few things we still have that my brother also loved, and we are scared to lose that connection. My dad will take it the hardest.

We will be sad, but we are old enough to understand.

This week's RemembeRED prompt was to write about a time something terrible happened, but looking back, it brought something wonderful.

Doughnuts

I knew the date was coming up, the worst kind of anniversary. I wanted to write something worthy of my only brother, gone 9 years yesterday. I was having trouble, lacking inspiration. So imagine my utter shock when I checked this week's writing prompt and found this:

His favorite. The food my family eats to celebrate his birthday. The very thing we leave at his grave when we visit on special occasions.

Bill loved all kinds of doughnuts, old fashioned, cake, or raised, plain or adorned. I love a nice jelly or lemon-filled, but we agreed that the true test of a doughnut maker is the basic glazed.

We grew up in the San Fernando Valley, where Winchell's reigned supreme, and theirs were the standard against which all others were compared. Bill was also a fan of Krispy Kreme, in part because of the free half-dozen you got whenever the Dodger's pitched a shutout. I don't know what my brother thought of Dunkin' Donuts, but they remind me of the walk from my apartment to school in New Haven, cold days warmed by coffee with plenty of cream and sugar.

Near my house, we have Stan's. I was late discovering Stan's, but am glad I did. Stan has the most gloriously dense glazed doughnuts. They are legend around here, with lines out the door on weekend mornings. I'm sorry Bill never got to try one.

A few years ago, Psycho Donuts opened with some controversy near our little downtown. The decor is retro-cult slasher movie, complete with padded room and cashiers in white nurses uniforms who hand you a square of bubble wrap when you walk in. Protesters claimed it made light of mental illness, with menu items like "Cereal Killer" (topped with Crunchberries) and "Glazed and Confused." Granted, they don't have an "Autism Fritter" or a "Stimming Cruller" but I'm not that easily offended.

I don't usually eat a doughnut on this day, preferring to celebrate Bill's birthday in November. But when I found out that Psycho doughnuts has a "cocktail" doughnut, I decided to make an exception. I bought a strawberry margarita doughnut, filled with tequila cream, topped with fresh strawberry icing, freeze-dried strawberries, and coarse margarita salt.

I may not have found the perfect words with which to toast my brother, but I'm pretty sure I've found the perfect doughnut. Cheers.

Forever Linked

I could never have imagined that events so seemingly unrelated would be forever linked in my mind. There are four events, two then two more, that, although separated by time and distance, are such strong reminders of each other that I cannot think of one without thinking of the others.

The first two took place in 1994. I was a senior in college, living in a small cottage in Berkeley, my parents and brother in the San Fernando Valley. My roommate and I had ignored an early morning phone call, but when it rang again I picked up. It was my mom, telling me about an earthquake. It was big, she said, lots of damage, but they were okay. I turned on the TV to see the ruins caused by what we learned to be the Northridge quake, my roommate unable to reach her mom who lived in that very same city. It took at least a half hour before we noticed the blinking light on the answering machine: a message from her mom, also safe, who had been our first early morning caller.

Some days later, I received another phone call. This time, the news was of my brother’s first seizure, the starting gun to what turned out to be a long race against the brain tumor that would eventually kill him.

Years later, my brother still alive but bedridden and only sometimes lucid, I was living in a different place and with a different roommate, but we received another early morning call. This one started “turn on the TV,” which we did, just as a plane crashed into the second twin tower. Shortly after that, I went down to visit my family, and realized that my brother, so worldly yet a believer in the goodness of people, had no knowledge of those events. The understanding that there was no longer a need to let him in on significant world events had a profound effect on me.

In early March, to celebrate my birthday, I went to New York to visit a friend. That was the first time I saw the empty space at Ground Zero. My parents called me to cut my trip short as they believed the end was near for my brother. It turned out those weren’t his last days, though he died toward the end of the month.

An earthquake, a seizure, and a terrorist attack all reported to me through phone calls. But I was there for the last event, sitting on my brother’s bed as his breathing slowed. It stopped, and then the whole world shifted.

Written as part of The Red Dress Club, a community of writers. This week's prompt was to write a piece that begins with the line, "I could never have imagined" and ends with the line, "Then the whole world shifted."

Some of his favorite things

Today would have been, should have been, my brother's 34th birthday. He is not here to celebrate, so we celebrate for him. So today, I'm sharing with you a list of some of his favorite things. Listen, eat, remember and celebrate him today.

First and foremost, Bill truly loved his friends and family. So please, think of him today and if you want to share, feel free to leave a comment here with some of your favorite Billy memories or something to add to the list.

Billy's Favorite Things

 Doughnuts

 

Baseball 

His dog, Lieutenant

His Mazda Miata (this isn't his, but one very similar)

Red Hot Chili Peppers

It isn't baseball season (and he would have been crushed that the Giant's won the world series this year), but go ahead and have a doughnut this year. You can work off the calories tomorrow.

One Final Mix Tape

This month, for From Left To Write, we read a memoir called The Kids Are All Right. This book is not the same as the movie that recently came out by the same name; rather, it is a memoir written by four siblings. In it, the siblings, in rotating chapters, tell the story of their early childhoods, through the deaths of both parents, and into their adult lives.

If you've read other posts for From Left To Write, you know that we don't do book reviews, but instead write posts inspired by the book we've read. This book inspired me over and over, touching on topics from parenting style to legal guardianship for your children, eighties music and fashion to the importance of family wherever you can find it. But ultimately, this book is about siblings, and this book reminded me over and over of my relationship with my brother. He was my one and only sibling, and he died in 2002.

I don't write about Billy very much on this blog, but he is in my thoughts daily. His absence in my life is painful, but his presence is powerful, especially in the little things. I remember once, as kids, talking about our favorite time. Mine was 11:11. He said his was 12:34. I smile whenever I catch "his time" on the clock.

My brother and I shared a sense of humor, and an unspoken connection. It has become family lore that we were unbeatable at Pictionary. We both went to Cal, and enjoyed many Berkeley dinners together on mom and dad, as the deal was that they would pay if we went out together (a tradition I hope to pass along to my kids someday). And we shared similar taste in music.

The Kids Are All Right is filled with mentions of the mix tapes they made. If you visit the incredibly cool website for the book, you can watch some iconic seventies and eighties music videos and hear the iTunes playlist they set up. There, the authors comment, "While writing this memoir, we realized just how important music has been in our lives – so many of our memories involved specific songs."

My brother and I were almost four years apart, but despite our age difference we got along really well, especially as we got older. One thing we shared in common was our music. Our tastes were slightly different. My favorites were Depeche Mode, The Smiths, and The Cure. He loved the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rage Against the Machine, and Smashing Pumpkins. But we had a lot of overlap, and there was a lot of music that we listened to together. Some of our favorites were James, Oingo Boingo and Barenaked Ladies. Like the siblings in the book, we made mix tapes for each other, or copied CDs to tape whenever one of us bought something we thought the other would appreciate.

After my brother passed away, I made him one final "mix tape." I actually bought a CD burner so I could make this for the funeral. We brought it and played it as people were arriving for the service. Making the CD was something to do to get through the first few days of grief, but I know he would have appreciated the mix.

The photo above is me, my brother and my grandfather, Pop Pop Dave, on a Southern California beach around 1979-80.

I was given the book, The Kids Are All Right, by the publisher free of charge and with no obligation. The opinions expressed here are my own.