December, 2012
Thank you very, very much to everyone who’s written right here, sent cards, invited, called, emailed, etc. I thought I might be ready to respond, leave the house, lose the anger. Thought.
The Wellness Community puts on a wonderfully elegant, unique, cancer fundraiser each December. A tour of the inside of a few of the magnificent, Christmased-up houses in Agoura. Agoura is not a poor town. It neighbors Malibu and Calabasas. Lots of wealth, movie stars, millionaires. Each December, Phyl used to volunteer and take tickets at the movie star’s house,
All the people are absolutely terrific, both the volunteers and the many, many tourtakers who spend lots of money to help people like phyl fight this thing. Ann asked me to take phyl’s place, but I didn’t want to speak, so they gave me what someone called booty duty, handing out booties so the magnificent houses these special folks shared wouldn’t be damaged by the traffic of hundreds of tourtakers. A liitle job, buy happy to help, after not leaving the house.for three weeks, except for phyl’s memorial.
I was situated outside the front door of an absolutely gorgeous 3000 sq ft mansion. Our house would fit into the front yard. They’d planted 150 pointsettias. There were zillions of Christmas lights, giant candy canes, huge, wooden, nutcracker figures. Just the special iron front doubledoors and archway reached higher than the roof of our house. I could peek in and see the winding staircase, the paintings on the walls, and an unbelievable Christmas tree. A professional was singing only Christmas songs, Dean Martin-style. Nearly every one of the hundreds of folks who came up the walkway were smiling, polite, and thanked me. I tried to smile. I actually felt ok.
It started to rain, which phyl loved and doesn’t happen much here, and I got a bit sad. The singer did “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, the Pretenders version of which, my drama class did for many winter holiday programs. “Through the years, we all will be together, if the fates allow,” and I started to cry. Then, for whatever incomprehensible reason, the Christmas singer followed it with Elvis’ Fools Rush In, and I was bawling. .i was thinking the hand-carved bench on which I was sitting was worth more than our 190,000 mile, peeling paint Camry, presently surrounded here by these folks’ new SUVs and Benzes. What kind of shmuck could afford to give his wife only a really beat-up house, into which, she was always embarrassed to invite her friends. My smile was weenie and forced. I tried not to show it, but I was quite jealous of these people, resented every guy’s wife, disliked every grandparent’s kid, and wondered why each of these nice people over 64 didn’t die instead of phyl.
The singer came outside, and we were talking. A really nice man. The hostess thanked him. A really nice lady. He told her, “I do it every year. I’m happy to do it, because I’m a cancer survivor for 11 years. And still going strong.”
What came out of my mouth was, “That’s wonderful”. What came into my head was “Phyl had 14 months; fuck you, asshole.”
Guess I’m not ready yet. Still a little bitter.
