My Best Friend's Parents

I only had a couple of occasions to meet either or both of my best friend JB's parents.

The first was after our college graduation ceremony. I barely remember anything about that night. Fragments at best. I had to give a speech before the throng in the Auditorium Theater, so I was stressing about that for half the evening, anxious to get out of Dodge the back half of the evening and on stage the whole time. After the ceremony finally ended after what seemed like 20 hours under searing spotlights, I ran backstage and gave my cap and gown to the first person who'd take them, something my mother has never quite forgiven me for (no picture of her baby boy, the first person in our family to attend college, much less graduate, in his graduation duds).

But I met JB's parents that night. And his sister, VB--the wisest, most at-peace-with-herself person I've ever met--as well. I know I did, because both JB and VB confirm it. But I don't remember it. At all.

Years later, I helped JB move out of the Bucktown apartment he shared with a co-worker to another just a few blocks away. I always offer to help friends move. I'm dumb like that. And JB was my best friend, so of course I'd lift furniture and carry boxes. No problem. (I'd also make him pay by asking him to help me move the following year. I don't think he's forgiven me for that.) Except that I was head over heels for his roommate (not my first romantic miscalculation, and not nearly my last) and their apartment smelled strongly of her scent, Lancome, something JB said he couldn't smell at all. (I was so tuned into this woman's perfume that I once smelled her as she drove past me in her VW Jetta. Really. I can't make up shit that weird.) Neither JB nor I had a driver's license (and we still don't--that would be cute, except it's not), so his dad drove up from the South Side to handle the truck.

So I know I talked to the man. I also know that he asked JB about me. "Is he okay?" Apparently, I looked sick, pale, drained. Probably because I'd been fighting the urge to cry or throw up or both the whole time. Toward the end of the move, the roommate showed up (with her weightlifter boyfriend) and I got out of there as quickly as my feet would carry me. (Trust me--that's damn fast.) So I didn't spend much time talking to JB's dad. Not as much as I should have, anyway. And I don't remember a word of any conversation we had.

I'm ashamed to say that, on both occasions, I was so tightly wrapped in my own dramaramas that I didn't take the opportunity to get to know the people who raised JB, who helped him become the fantastic friend he is, and who dispensed knowledge and wisdom through him from time to time. (My love life, twisted as it could become, needed wiser minds to try to untangle it.) Because I won't get that chance now.

Last week, JB and VB lost both of their parents--Dad to cancer on Saturday, Mom to a heart attack the following Thursday.

I can't wrap my brain around what JB, VB and the rest of the family going through. I can only comprehend a fraction of it. The whole is overwhelming. And saying "I'm there for you however you need me to be" seems woefully inadequate. JB and VB were there for me when my dad passed away. When Gray Cat had to be put to sleep. For every romantic conflagration. (I think that if one, just one, of my situations had worked out in my favor, they'd have been happier for me that I'd have been for myself. And maybe, someday, that can yet happen.)

I know that the family is large and tightly knit, so there is plenty of support at this sad time. And I know they know my heart is with them. I've thought about them constantly this past week. And I wish that I could have seen their mom and dad one last time, if only to tell them how wonderful their children are and how proud they should be for having brought such caring, loving, truly fabulous people into this world--people who've enriched my life more than I can ever properly express.

Somehow, though, I believe they already know.