Still Just a Geek, page 10
“Uhh . . .”
“If you’d rather not, we can—”
“No! No! I was just . . . making sure I understood you correctly,” I said. “Of course I’d be happy to do publicity for this show! Anything you want; all you have to do is ask and I am there.”
“Great! We’ll be in touch.” She shook my hand, and walked back down the hallway.
I stood there alone, next to photos of Johnny Carson and Ed McMahon. “You know, this is weird, weird, wacky stuff,” I said, in my best Johnny voice. “Things are really looking up.”
“Yes they are, sir!!” I said, in my best Ed voice. “Looking up sir! Hiiii-oooh!”*
6
Balance*
I am not a religious person. I’m not quite an atheist, but I’m certainly not a theist, either. Friends describe me as an agnostic Taoist, whatever that means. I prefer to apply philosophies, rather than follow a leader, and I’m always coming back to the Tao Te Ching and the teachings of the Buddha. If I had the patience, I suppose I’d be a Buddhist.*
Though I’m a bit of a skeptic, I do believe that the Universe (whatever that means to you) seeks something that I call the Balance. Each time I suffer a setback, or think I can’t sink any lower, I remind myself, The Universe seeks Balance, Wil. For whatever low you’re feeling now, there will be an equal high. Just wait for it. This belief sustained me throughout the years of struggling and the very difficult trials I faced throughout 2001.*
As I was flying high on the resurgence of popularity and visibility Weakest Link and my website brought me, the Balance struck: my eighty-four-year-old great-aunt, who had always been the foundation of our family, who loved more unconditionally than anyone I’ve ever known, suffered a stroke and slipped into a coma. She never regained consciousness, and four days later she died, on November 9, just two days after my wedding anniversary. Her loss sent shock waves through my family. I was devastated.
09 NOVEMBER 2001
LOSS
My Aunt Val had a stroke on Monday, and she died around 10:30 this morning.
I was just going to keep this to myself, but I want everyone in the world to know what an amazing, wonderful, loving, kind, thoughtful, selfless person she was. No person, anywhere, at any time in my life ever loved me as unconditionally as she did. She was truly the matriarch in my family and, as the initial shock of her loss is wearing off, the growing sadness and emptiness is consuming me.
While she was struggling to survive on Tuesday and was mostly unconscious, I held her hand and Anne told her that it was our anniversary on . . . she squeezed my hand and when I told her that I loved her and that I’d miss her if she had to go, she turned her head to me and she smiled and squeezed my hand, hard. It was the first time she’d been really responsive to us. I felt like she knew we were there and I felt like she was telling me goodbye and that she loved me. For that, I am eternally grateful.
Do not ever take anyone for granted, for even one minute. If there’s someone in your family who you love, pick up the phone and call them, right now, to tell them.
I love you, Aunt Val.
A few days before her memorial service, my mom called me.
“I just spoke with Ray [Aunt Val’s son],” she said. “We’ll be having a small memorial at his house for Aunt Val, and he wanted me to tell you that you’re welcome to speak at it if you’d like.”
“What would I say?” I asked.
“Whatever you want to, honey,” she said. “Do you feel like saying anything?”
“Yeah, I do,” I told her, “but I don’t want to just say, ‘Me too.’”
“I know how you feel . . .” She trailed off.
“Mom?”
“Sorry. Hold on.” Her voice caught, and I could hear her put the phone down while she cried. Alone in my living room, I cried with her.
“Sorry,” she said. “I keep thinking I can talk about her, but I just miss her so much.”
I nodded my head, as tears streamed down my face.
“Me too, Mom,” I said. “I’ll think of something.”
“I know you will. I’ll see you Saturday. I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom.”
I hung up the phone and just sat there, unable to move, and thought about Aunt Val. I remembered all the cool things we did together and what an amazing woman she was. I remembered how tangible her love was, how forgiving and patient and tolerant she was, and I couldn’t help but feel happiness. Those two opposing emotions, the joy and sorrow I felt at once, made it impossible for me to write anything for her service. All my words felt like trite clichés, and I gave up.
The morning for the service came, and I had nothing to say. I didn’t want to miss an opportunity to remember Aunt Val, so in a last-ditch effort to find inspiration, I looked through one of my many bookshelves, where I hoped I would find something to break the mental logjam.
On the third shelf from the bottom, tucked in between The Tao Te Ching and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I saw The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. Aunt Val had given it to me about two years earlier. I remembered how much she loved it, and I looked through it to see if I could find something that was appropriate.
At her service, I crammed into a room that was filled with family members and other loved ones. I laughed and cried with several generations of family, as they recalled what exactly she’d meant to them.
When it was my turn to speak, I said, “About a week ago, I told my mom that I wanted to remember Aunt Val today, but I didn’t want to just say, ‘me, too.’
“It’s been really hard for me to come up with something to say, because even though I miss her terribly, all my memories of her are joyful, so when I think of her, I feel profoundly saddened by her loss, but overjoyed at her memory.
“As recently as this morning, I didn’t have anything to say, until I happened upon this.”
I held up the book. Its paper jacket was falling apart, and it was barely bigger than my hand.
“This is The Prophet, and Aunt Val gave it to me a few years ago, when I was struggling with something or other. I have to admit, I never took the time to read it until this morning, but within this tiny little book, I found the perfect words to express how I feel about Aunt Val, and what I’ve learned from her loss. This is titled, ‘Joy and Sorrow’:
Then a woman said, ‘Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.’ And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Aunt Val was my delight. Dancing Barefoot is dedicated to her memory.*
This is a story I wrote in Dancing Barefoot, about saying goodbye to her house, the house that meant so much to me as a child:
It’s been almost a year since Aunt Val died. Though we were all promised that her house would remain in the family, it has been sold, and there are many things to be picked up and moved out.
My dad has asked me to help him pick up a china cabinet that is intended for my mother. I wonder why he didn’t have my younger, stronger brother help out, but I don’t ask. I’m always happy when my dad wants to do things together.
We ride in comfortable silence. I’m lost in thought, wondering what I could talk to my dad about: baseball? the kids? my family? work? We end up talking about them all and the drive passes very quickly.
As we drive down Aunt Val’s street, it hits me: this is it. I will never make this drive, this drive that I’ve made since I was in a car seat, again. I’ve been asked to help my dad move furniture, but I’m really here to say goodbye to this house that’s been part of my life since I was a child.
A tremendous sadness consumes me as we back into the driveway.
I exchange polite hellos with Aunt Val’s daughter, who is responsible for the sale of the house, and walk inside.
It’s the first time I’ve been here since her death. The house feels cold and empty. The furniture is gone, the walls are mostly bare, and Aunt Val’s warmth and love is missing.
Certain things remain strangely untouched: her bookcase, filled to overflowing with pictures of the family. Children’s artwork . . . some of it mine . . . still dominates the side of the living room, the recliners where my great-grandparents spent the last ten years of their lives opposite. I remember sitting in my papa’s chair while Aunt Val sat next to me, watching Love Boat and Fantasy Island, thrilled that I was staying up past my bedtime, watching shows intended for grown-ups, putting one over on my parents who would often drop my siblings and me off for the weekend.
I loved those weekends. When we spent time with Aunt Val we were loved. We were the center of the universe and though she was well into her seventies, she would play with us, walk with us to the corner store to get snacks, let us stay up late. It was wonderful.
In the living room, the table where Aunt Val would put the artificial tree at Christmas is gone, though its footprints still mark the carpet. In my mind, I put it back, fill the space beneath it with gifts, warm the air with the laughter and love of the entire family gathered around it, singing songs and sipping cider.
I blink and the room is empty again. The warm light of memory is replaced with the harsh sunlight of the fading afternoon. Aunt Val’s dog Missy noses at my hand, asking to go outside.
I lead her toward the patio doors. Aunt Val’s dining room table, where the adults would sit at reunions and holiday meals, is still there, covered in paperwork and trash. Her daughter’s ashtray overflows. It’s a little obscene.
When I was little, Aunt Val would always sit at the card table—the kids table—with us, and when I was fourteen or so I was moved to the adult’s table. The next year I begged to be granted a spot with her at the kids table again.
Missy is impatient. She urges me through the kitchen. I look at the cabinet where my great-grandparents kept their Sugar Corn Pops cereal. Regardless of the time of day my brother and sister and I would arrive at her house, we were always hungry for cereal.
Aunt Val was always happy to oblige.
This cabinet, which I couldn’t even reach, which held much mystery and wonder, is now empty, and at my eye level. I am sad that my own children will never get to look up at its closed door and proclaim themselves starving with a hunger that can only be cured by a trip to the Honeycomb Hideout.
The kitchen counters are littered with dishes and glasses. Notes written in Aunt Val’s handwriting still cling to the refrigerator, surrounded by my cousin Josh’s schoolwork.
They say that when a house is passed over by a tornado, it can do strange things to the things inside. They say that sometimes a whole room can be destroyed and the table will still be set, candlesticks standing, untouched by the violence of the storm. As I look at the refrigerator, unchanged in nearly a year, I wonder why some things have been left alone, while others have been completely dismantled. It’s like a halfhearted attempt has been made to honor her memory.
I walk onto the patio. Missy runs after a bird and disappears around the corner of the house, leaving me alone.
I stand there, knowing that it will be for the last time. I see the backyard through the eyes of a child, a teenager, an adult, a parent. I look at Aunt Val’s pool and remember when I was so small, riding around it on a Big Wheel seemed to take all day. I remember playing with my cool trash compactor monster in the shallow end, before I was big enough to brave the deep end and its mysteries, with my older cousins. I remember being unable to successfully complete a flip off the diving board and reflexively rub my lower back.
I look at the slide, and the sobs which have been threatening since I walked into the house begin.
In summer of last year, I took my stepkids, Ryan and Nolan, to spend the day with Aunt Val. The three of us sat with her on the patio, eating hot dogs she’d grilled for us, drinking punch she’d made. The kids talked eagerly with her about their plans for the rest of the summer and the upcoming school year. I watched her listen to them, the same way she’d listened to me say the same things twenty years earlier, happy that they were getting to share in her unconditional love the way I had.
We went swimming, Nolan and Ryan both doing cannonballs and flips, Aunt Val always giving them an approving, “Good for you, kiddo!” after each trick.
God, I can hear her voice as I write this.
When they grew tired of diving board tricks, they took to the slide, going headfirst, on their backs, on their knees.
Ryan was sitting at the top of the slide, waiting for Nolan to get out of the landing area, when he screamed and raced into the water. I immediately knew something was wrong, and rushed to the water’s edge to meet him.
I got him out and saw that he’d been stung by a wasp.
I dried his tears, patched him up with baking soda and some Tylenol, and prepared to spend the rest of the afternoon inside, watching TV.
Aunt Val wouldn’t hear any of that. She picked up a broom and some Raid, and marched out to the nest of angry wasps, which we now knew was just beneath the upper edge of the slide. The wasps were pretty pissed and beginning to swarm, but I couldn’t stop my eighty-four-year-old great-aunt from wiping them out so the kids could continue to play.
I look at the slide, and remember how scared I was that she’d get stung and would go into shock. I remember how much fun the kids had with her.
I recall a thought I had back then, watching her battle with those wasps: Aunt Val isn’t going to be with us forever. Someday I’m going to stand here and she’ll be gone and I’ll cry.
So I cry. I miss her. I miss her. I miss her. I miss her. It’s not fair that she died. It’s not fair at all. I miss her. She was in perfect health one day and the next she was gone. It’s not fair and I miss her and I have to say goodbye to this house and that’s not fair either.
The finality of her loss takes hold and refuses to let go. I cry until my sides hurt and my throat is dry. My cheeks are soaked, my nose is running. It’s fitting that as I bid farewell to the house and person who played such an important part in my childhood, I sob like a child.
After several minutes, I pull myself together, take a hard look at the backyard, run my hand along the slide.
“Goodbye,” I say.
I walk back into the house, and I help my dad load the china cabinet into the car. It is heavy and cuts into my hands as I lift it. I’m nervous about dropping it.
Aunt Val’s daughter comes out of the house. I want to scream at her for selling off this enormous part of my childhood, but I don’t. I continue tying down the cabinet, tell her goodbye and get into the car.
We pull out of the driveway and drive down the street for the last time.
I speak effusively with my dad on the way home. I talk about the kids. I talk about work. I talk about the Dodgers, and I ask lots of questions about when I was a kid. I want to cherish this time with him, make the most of it. I don’t want to waste any of the time we have together.
When we get to their house with the china cabinet, my mom asks me how it was being at Aunt Val’s house.
“Tough,” I say.
She understands.
We unload the china cabinet. My dad hugs me tightly and thanks me for helping him. I tell them that I love them and I drive home, silent and alone.
Act III
XXXXXXXXX XXXXXXX XX XXX XXXX XX XXXXX
XXXX XXXXX XXXXXX XXXXX XXX XXXXX XX XXX
XXX XXXX XXXX
XXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXX XXX XXXX XXXXXX XX XXXXX
—THE BEATLES, “BLACKBIRD”*
XXX XXXX XXX XXX XXX XXXX XXX XXXXX XXXX XXX XXXXXX XXX
XX XXX XXXX XXX XXXX XX XXX XXX XXXXXX XXX XXXXXXXX XXX
—PINK FLOYD, “TIME”*
7
A Sort of Homecoming
When I worked on Star Trek, I always struggled to fit in with the adults around me. It was easy to relate to them professionally, but on a personal level, no matter how hard I tried, I was still a kid and they were still adults. I often thought that Wesley Crusher could have been a much richer and more interesting character if the writers had taken advantage of that very real turmoil that existed within me, and used it to add some humanity to Wesley in between the nanite making and polarity reversing . . . but I guess it was more fun (and easier) to write for the android. I can’t say that I blame them.*
For whatever reason, I was never able to entirely lose that teenage angst, and whenever I attended a Star Trek event, or saw one of the cast members, I immediately felt like I was sixteen again. Because of that feeling—and, if I was willing to be truly, fearlessly honest with myself, the fact that I hadn’t done very much with my career since leaving the show—I avoided Star Trek events (and that inevitable feeling of shame and angst that accompanied them) for years. Of course there were exceptions, but they were few and far between.*
A couple of days after Weakest Link, I was presented with an opportunity to share the stage with the Big Three of The Next Generation: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, and Brent Spiner.* The event was called the Galaxy Ball. Robert Beltran, the actor who played Chakotay on Voyager, hosts it each year to benefit the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles, Doctors Without Borders, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and some other worthwhile charities. When I received the invitation, that familiar anxiety and apprehension sprung up immediately.
“What will I talk about? What have I done? How can I face them?” The Voice of Self-Doubt was relentless.
