]I miss you like crazy,
ever since you went away
every hour of every day Natalie Cole. by Glass, Goffin, Masser
It’s five years without Phyllis. There’s only sad.
I doubt I cried when Phyl was here. Phyl used to complain that I had no feelings. We’d go to something like ‘Marley and Me’; she’d be bawling, and I’d say, “Phyl, it’s a DOG.” “You have no feelings.” The movie, ‘The Piano’; “B-o-r-i-n-g”. “You have no feelings.” QVC; “OMG, Jeanne Bice died”, “”So you can stop buying that stuff?” “You have no feelings.” Looking back, she was right.
Since, though, I hide it, but cry a ton. Grandbabies’ births are beyond bittersweet. Mother-son or grandmother-grandkid scenes in anything. Any sappiest, ubermaudlin, cheesiest, oversentimentalized ad pap extant. Vacation travel, life insurance, Indian casino, Viagra, medical lawsuit, cancer adverts. Any happy ending. I often cry when I just see a couple our age.
There is one particular moment that encompasses it all. And my life. In nothing less prepubescent than Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. A single instant during the song, ‘Something There’. It’s in the movie, stage, and animated versions, but the latter does it best/worst for me. The most beautiful girl in the town, the book-obsessed, library-loving Belle sacrifices her future for her family and town to live away from the hometown she loves with the Beast, a hideous, uncouth asshole with no empathy. “True, he’s no Prince Charming.”
She slowly humanizes him with kindness. In ‘Something There’, both sing individual thought bubbles of budding feelings. Sitting at dinner, at one point, he lifts his soup, slurps directly from the bowl, realizes he’s screwed up, and glances up, expecting her disapproval. She shrugs, drops her spoon, and slurps from her own bowl. It’s so Phyllis, it’s overwhelming. Every time, i cry. Every fucking time. Watched multiple times, with Phinnie, with Paige, even alone. So very many instances that evoke Phyl, yet somehow, none are real as that moment.
Mybeauty, you reveled in life like no-one else, though it certainly was a bazillion miles from what you deserved. For me, you were life. In that, I cannot believe my good fortune. Corny, but there will never be another you, because that good isn’t possible. Your stunning beauty, especially within, and that’s sayin’ somethin’ to certainly the most gorgeous girl ever. Hundreds of friends and a ton of family; everybody loved you. Both your empathy and passion were beyond. Pets, reading, bullying, needlepoint, flood channel, lgbt, student govt, holocaust, hospital volunteering, ahs drama, libraries, full-time at chs and phms, and your very best work, motherhood. You’d have been the greatest grandmother ever. Your humanity; your compassion; especially that motherhood: all transcendent. Without your love, it isn’t life. I miss you like crazy.
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