I wrote a blog on Saturday about how owning a
Le Creuset Dutch oven was my dreamiest of Christmas dreams. I might as well have been writing about wanting a Benz, the thing seemed so far out of my reach. And I wrote it because it was really just a funny little scenario going through my head---the family members of
Le Creuset employees going, “Oh great, another fucking pot,”----while I so covet the things.
Four days later---four days later!--- it arrived and an actual smile rose on my face as I lifted the heavy package from the front porch. I made my first meal in it that very night and it was tastier than anything I'd ever made because it was born in a red cast iron castle.
So, how did this come to be?
Well, allow me to introduce you Spewers to Rob, who is known by everyone in his life---his family, his friends, his clients---as Bob. Only my mom and thus all of her daughters and husband ever called him Rob. Even back in seventh grade when my mom and Rob first met, everyone called him Bob. I’m not quite sure why she christened him Rob, only that she did and then the friendship lasted for the rest of her life.
Rob has shown up occasionally in the comments section here, usually expressing a loving sentiment about my mom or a smart-ass witticism. Take this comment he wrote the day I was going in for my colonoscopy: “...I hope by the time you read this it will all be over and you'll be pronounced a perfect asshole.” He also sends me private “Gotcha!” e-mails every time I make a spelling or grammatical error on here and, with my mom gone, he is the first person I would consult for guidance in this area. (Actually, he probably doesn’t “Gotcha” me
every time which my self-esteem appreciates.) But I work to keep a close eye on errors in large part to stay off his Grammar Nazi radar so you can attribute at least my hearty effort to post mistake-free entries, to Rob.
And you can definitely attribute every single “fuck” I’ve ever written on here to him too. Every fucking one. Growing up, Rob was like an uncle to my sisters and me and in addition to visiting often he was also my first real pen pal. And though I was probably not even 10 years old, though I was but a young and innocent fawn just awakening to the workings of our planet, Rob never shied away from dropping an f-bomb on me if the situation warranted it. (“Ah, fuck your sisters if they’re being mean to you.”) The swearing---in person he could do it in Donald Duck’s voice!--- along with his owning this Mickey Mouse phone
cemented him as the coolest guy ever.
I also somehow knew that he had written at least one novel in the years my mom had known him (though I think he totals more than this now) which made him the first real writer I knew and this of course upped my appraisal of him. ”Whoa, a novel,” sweet young Lola thought. “The guy wrote a fucking novel.”
Not only were his letters great---and typed!---but sometimes he even sent us packs of
Garbage Pail Kids, the collecting of which I lived for at the time. One afternoon, delivered in a fantastic cardboard tube addressed specifically to Cherie and me, this arrived.
And now he was a God.
He also would often include funny little poems in his letters, poems which I can still recite to this day.
Little Miss Muffet
sat on her tuffet
eating her curds and whey.
Along came a spider
who sat down beside her
and she ate him too.
And also this:
Mr. Antiselli
had a pimple on his belly.
His wife cut it off
and made it into jelly.
I suppose I stored his writing tone somewhere in my brain without realizing it--- the irreverence and humor and of course all the fucks. In many ways, his tone and my trying to emulate it became part of the foundation of my writing style.
It was also this sense of humor that my mom, a woman born to laugh, loved about him. Rob’s story of their meeting goes like this: He was a year older than she when this cute redhead walked into his math class and because my mom was such a fox, he assumed she was stuck up. When the teacher sat her beside him in the classroom, in part so she would set a good example, Rob assumed my mom would never talk to him. The two ended up laughing their asses off for the rest of that school year, throughout high school and into adulthood. They dated briefly just after high school but the relationship was destined to be a friendship. They saw each other through years of new partners, counseled each other through hardships and, even during a large span of years when they lost touch, always kept a place open in their hearts for one another.
It’s a friendship I love hearing (and I think Rob likes telling me) about, especially since her passing. The stories of this time are magic for me. If I could go back to any moment in her history, I would position myself behind some tree and just watch her walk home from school. How did she walk? Did she carry her books or was a bag slung over her shoulder? What was her throaty laugh like then? Every time Rob paints a picture of my mom as a teenager or a twenty-something, he is giving me the gift of getting to know her then. So, though we’ve been in touch through e-mail for over 10 years, I think our correspondence means more to both of us now. I am his connection to her and he is my connection to a version of her I didn’t know, one which gives me an opportunity to understand her even more than I could when she was here.
When she died, Rob was the first one at the wake, sitting there---clearly broken---staring at her closed coffin. I hadn’t seen him in 12 years and left the reception line to sit next to him for a minute. I can’t remember what we said---what could we have said?---but I knew, undoubtedly, that his grief was as deep as mine. Though I haven’t been the most consistent pen pal he still checks in at least once a month and wrote me notes on my mom's birthday and the anniversary of her death. He also asks about my dad’s health and is always wondering how my sisters are holding up, how I’m holding up.
And he sent me a fucking cherry red porcelain-finished cast iron
Le Creuset Dutch oven (which is much better than an
Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle). (Though he did say that my choosing a red one made me seem kind of whorish.)
“Yes, Virginia, I read the Spew and found that you want a red
Le Creuset,” he wrote to me. “Aha...time to bring joy and cheerfulness to one who deserves much of it...”
Can you take it?
I could hardly take it.
In fact, when I told Dan about it I cried because the thoughtfulness and kindness and beauty of doing something like this just overwhelmed me. (I could almost hear him retching while reading the similarly-worded note of thanks that I wrote in response.) “Joy and cheerfulness”---man, did he bring ‘em. It’s not just that I have a shiny red new toy (but I do! I do!) it’s the whole gesture which just shook me. (Rob, I admit to having a "which" versus "that" problem. Help me.)
But seriously, can you take it?
Now, because I respect his desire to preserve the illusion of his being a cynical prick, I must mention that he insisted that I understand that it “is most assuredly NOT a Christmas present.” He loathes the exchanging of Christmas gifts and says that he has everything he needs “so I wind up getting meaningless crap that I make a point of throwing out disdainfully in front of the giver.” When I asked him if he wanted the complimentary red tea kettle that came with the Dutch oven, feeling a little greedy at this point, he answered only, “I need a red tea kettle like I need a second asshole.” (Can you imagine how much fun it was for little mischievous me to get these kinds of letters as a kid?)
Guys, I almost still can’t take it.
It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever done for me. There I was just rambling about my kitchenware lust without even a thought---
I swear, not even a thought----that anyone would read it with anything other than a sense of humor; and there he was reading it with a sense of tenderness and altruism. (It almost made me feel bad for making fun of the
Jordan Marsh ladies.) (Almost.)
We’ve exchanged a few notes since---he says it’s just a fucking pot and I’ve told him that it’s so much more than just a pot.
See, of course this is a hard time of year. Of course it is. I know people expect the pain of losing my mom to have waned but the truth is that it hasn’t and is even more pronounced in the midst of this season...especially since my mom was practically, as Dan said it, Mrs. Claus. She is Christmas for me. Even as I got older---and this is something I am only recognizing now---the entire month was always about moving one day closer to my returning to her, to my returning home. If “home is where your mom is,” I must admit that I'm a woman lost. So I was getting cynical about the season. $52 billion spent on Thanksgiving weekend---what the fuck is wrong with this country? The song “It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” felt like it was taunting me. “Oh is it? The most wonderful, huh? The MOST FUCKING WONDERFUL? I call bullshit on you, holiday radio!” (You see Rob’s influence, right?)
But---and I’m sorry, Rob---despite his declaration that this gift did not come carrying even an iota of seasonal cheer, that’s exactly what it brought me. Holiday fucking spirit. My mom would have loved this story. She would have loved to have done this for someone and she would love that Rob---that guy from her math class all those years ago, the guy with whom she road around all night on the Staten Island Ferry at 18 years old---did this for her daughter. And so through this gift, through Rob’s generosity, I feel loved and I feel her. And fuck me for even writing the following
Lifetime movie line---but it helped me feel Christmas. (Vomit, vomit, vomit.) The rest of the season will still be difficult, I’m sure of it. But it’s already better because of this red Dutch oven and the reminder it brought of what's real about this season---the love that connects us all even when we're not all here.
Rob, I am quite certain that this entry is error-laden (and I expect a list of my mistakes) but I wanted to get it up as quickly as I could because I am just so grateful. For the Dutch oven. For the Garbage Pail Kids. For showing me that the word “fuck” could be a tool of this writing trade---a trade which I’d always hoped, in large part due to our letter-writing---to pursue. For the stories of my mom. For the friend you were to her. For loving her laugh as I did. For reminding me that if you can get past the onslaught of Advertising and Assholes (I smell a carol) there really can be Divinity in giving and receiving and in this whole season, something my mom was always in touch with. The gift you gave, hiding in that red Dutch oven, was a glimpse of the realization that someday I'll settle a bit more into the idea that even just remembering her means going home for the holidays.
Thank you for that.
God (GiG) bless us, every one. Especially you, you old fucker.
