I’m not afraid of dying. I don’t know why, but I’m not. I’ve often said, I’m more afraid of living than of dying. The thought of living 40 years beyond retirement frightens me to the core. I’ve never been a good saver. Conversely, I’ve been an EXCELLENT spender.  As my mom would say often after I moved to Los Angeles, “If you spent as much time looking for a job as you did rollerblading, you’d be a millionaire.” And she was right. The nine months of rollerblading I enjoyed after first moving to Venice beach in 1996, broke me. But my legs looked GREAT!

Apparently, as the end of our lives draw near we all experience some fear of dying. If my mom feared death in those final days, she didn’t really show it. She would often say, “I’m gonna miss you when I go up there.” Which always melted my heart, because she seemed sure that there really was an “up there” to go to. That was encouraging. As a woman who wasn’t particularly religious in her life, this gave me some sort of solace that she had faith that there was something else after she left this place. And it helped to give me a little faith, too. There was no question she was going to a really nice somewhere. A place where we’d all meet again one day for a picnic. Everyone who stopped by in those last days was invited to my mom’s “picnic.” Oh how I hope there’s a picnic to go to. I’m about as good of a believer as I am a saver. I want so much to believe. Maybe when it’s my time to die, I’ll be planning my own picnic, too.

In the pamphlet, “A Time To Live,” Hospice Nurse Barbara Karnes writes, “When it comes time to die, we are all going to be afraid to some degree. Because few people talk about dying or tell us what its like to die, we don’t know what to expect. There comes a time when you’ll wonder “Am I going to die today? Is today the day?” If you can ask that question, then you are probably not going to die that day. The day you die, you won’t ask and you won’t care.”

My mom didn’t seem to care. In fact, she was getting antsy toward then end when she WASN’T dying. When the hospice nurse arrived on her last morning she took my mom’s blood pressure.

MY MOM TO HOSPICE NURSE: How was my blood pressure this morning?

NURSE: It was perfect!

MY MOM: Shit.

She was ready to go. And she didn’t know why the man at the end of her bed wasn’t taking her.

“Are you ever going to get out of your pajamas,” my mom asked me as I sat next to her bedside folding sheets that had just come out of the dryer.

For the first time in six days I realized that, indeed, I was still in my pajamas.  I hadn’t showered, washed my hair, changed my clothes or put on even the minimum of make-up over the past week.  I’m not sure if I brushed my teeth.  I didn’t even realize there was a “me” to take care of.  My mind was solely on my mom. Plus, my pajamas were comfortable, frankly.  If I wasn’t going out, what was the point of getting dressed?  And who was my mom to talk?  She was in her pajamas, too.  It was the start of a 2-week long pajama party and I, for one, wasn’t ready to give up the attire.

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My mom taught me about love.  She taught me about generosity.  She taught me to respect my elders, my teachers, my friends and those less fortunate.  She taught me to treat people the way that I would want to be treated, and to never bully or tease.  She taught me to walk, to put sponge rollers in my hair and how to shine my patent leather shoes with Vaseline for church on Sundays.

But the one thing my mom never taught me about was boys.  I don’t know why, but I never learned the boy basics.  It was Debbie Brewington who gave me “the sex talk,” behind the garage in her backyard when I was seven.  My mom never once mentioned it to me.  I learned about my period in hygiene class.  Hygiene class.  Do schools even have hygiene class anymore?  Had my mom just once sat me down and said, “Lisa, if you want a boy, sit back and let him come to you,” my life would have been totally different.  I would have married Billy Pepper and had 3 kids by the time I was 22.

Ahhhh…Billy Pepper.  From an early age, I was a boy chaser.  Poor Billy Pepper was my first victim circa grade 4.  He had red, curly hair and a mole on his cheek.  I thought he was the cutest thing I had ever laid my eyes on.  He was a tap dancer (that should have been my first clue). I did everything in my power to get Billy Pepper’s attention.  I’d sit next to him, draw pictures of him in art class, gaze at him longingly from across the crowded classroom, let him hit me with the ball in gym class during dodge ball.  He never once looked my way.  But that didn’t stop me.  I had zero concept of “hard to get.”  My motto was “if at first I don’t succeed, mow him over with a tractor.”

We would have square dancing on Friday in gym class.  One week – rather than have our teacher pair us up – the teacher let girls pick boys.  Oh man, this was my chance!  I pushed my way to the front of the line so that no one else would get their hands on my hot little Ginger before I could.  When Mrs. Sybeck called my name, I could hear the angels sing.  In slow motion, I walked toward Billy Pepper, reached out my hand as we were formally taught to do when offering a dance to someone in square dancing.  Billy looked at my hand, turned on his toes, and do-si-do’d right out of there.  In front of the whole class, I was rejected by Billy Pepper.  It was the first of many humiliations I’d receive in my lifetime at the hands of a boy.  Unfortunately, not the last from Billy.

Yes, I went back for more.  (See:  “If at first I don’t succeed…” above).

It was the end of the year in fourth grade.  Autograph books were popular at the time.  The little rectangular books with their pages folded into triangular origami shapes were our Twitter, our Facebook and our Instagram rolled into one.  I handed my book to Billy Pepper and asked him to sign it.  He asked if he could bring it home and give it back to me the next day.  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!?  You mean, my autograph book would travel back to BILLY PEPPER’S HOUSE with him tonight?  Sit on his dining room table?  Maybe be opened on the floor in front of his TV?  Perhaps he’d take it to…I can’t even go there…BED with him and tuck it under his pillow as he fell asleep?  Oh this was just too much for me to handle.  “Of course!” I said.  “Just bring it back to school tomorrow.”  I skipped away with love in my eyes and hearts rolling down my sleeves.

I could barely sleep that night.  Sugar plum, unicorned, white and pink glitter dreams filled my head.  I laid there on my back, staring at my Bobby Sherman posters on the wall, certain that Billy Pepper was laying on his back thinking of me and thinking about the message of love he was going to pen to me.  Perhaps he’d write my name, “Lisa” with a heart above the i.  Or he’d put the interlocking TLA at the bottom of the page for “True Love Always.”  Or he’d put his school picture inside the book, with a secret message written to me on the back.  The anticipation was so sweet. I never wanted the wondering to end.

The following day, we were sitting in the auditorium. Billy Pepper was in the row behind me.  He tapped me on the shoulder and passed my autograph book to me.  I didn’t want to read it in front of him so I tucked it in my school bag and brought it home to read that night.  After dinner that evening, I prepared for the unveiling ceremony by going into my bedroom, closing the door, putting on some music – The Partridge Family, of course – sitting on my bed and pulling the autograph book out of my school bag.

“I think I love you, so what am I so afraid of?  I’m afraid that I’m not sure of a love there is no cure for…” David Cassidy crooned as I held my future in my hands.  I opened the autograph book to the last folded page, flipped the fold back to reveal Billy’s handwriting.  The first thing I saw was a little stick figure of a guy smoking a cigarette.  Okay.  That’s cute…I guess.  Then I read the message.  “To a stupid kid with no sense.  Ha ha ha.  Billy Pepper”.

Now I know why they call it a Crush.  That’s exactly what it did to me.  And it wasn’t until 40 years later – when I saw his name listed as a member of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles – that I finally got over it.

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