For those of you who are following along with my collection of memories, which will in the near future be turned into a book, as a testament to Deb and as a lasting gift for my daughters, I'd like to expand more on the special relationship she had with my uncle Ron.
I alluded to it in Memory #18 and our weekly trips to clean out the detritus left behind in his Palm Springs home. Detritus, by the way, is an excellent 6 point word for those readers with a niche fascination in etymology.
My uncle was not an easy man to get along with; cantankerous, opinionated, stubborn, and unfiltered. In other words, he was a New Yorker. In more specific words, he was from the Bronx.
Though I loved Ronnie, and not just because he brought us expensive Hanukkah/birthday gifts, he had a special ability to infuriate me like no other. Resulting in toe-to-toe shouting matches. Often causing me to scurry through the medicine cabinet in search of something from the Benzodine family of all-purpose sedation.
Deb, however, was a master at verbal ju-jitsu.
She knew, perhaps because of her midwestern roots, that the best way to deal with a crazy, hot headed Gothamite -- the only gay man in Palm Springs with no sense of design, our little inside joke -- was to react in a cool, calm manner that always served to de-escalate the tension.
Moreover, for reasons I still don't get, she genuinely liked my uncle. And was much more generous with her love for him, than anyone in his blood family could ever be.
When it was time to relocate him to an assisted living home in LA, she did all the research and hunted down facilities that he could afford and would accept him with all his infirmities.
When he needed to visit a doctor, in her pre-cancer time, she shuffled her schedule to shuttle him all around LA to his cadre of various specialists.
And when it came time to help clean out his house and the unimaginable collection of rubbish he had bought for himself, she, without any hesitation, accompanied me on those exhausting one day round trip escapades.
Painful as those trips were, they were also filled with laughter. Particularly when we uncovered:
* 23 electrical power strips
* 5 staple guns
* 17 packets, still unopened, of drill bits (it should be noted that like my father he was unusually handy)
* Measuring cups, up the ying yang, enough to outfit the kitchens of 3 restaurants
* Reams and reams of 8 &1/2 X 11 paper. It was as if Dunder Mifflin had opened a west coast warehouse
* And more dust bunnies than you could shake a Shop Vac at
It took us four solid months of back and forthing to get the tiny 1200 square foot house ready for renovations. Four months and Deb never uttered a word of complaint.
Ever.
Her patience with my uncle Ron, honed after 30 years of marriage to me, reminds me of an old Jaguar tagline: Grace, Pace, Space.
Except for that one time...
While returning home from Cedar Sinai Medical center to see his Pulmonologist/Cardiologist/Oncologist/Proctologist/Left Sinusologist my uncle spotted a building specifically labeled Women's Health Center.
Innocuous right? Until he made the mistake letting a little misogynistic rhetoric slip past his tongue.
"Look at that, a whole building dedicated to women's health issues, why do they need a whole building for woman's issues, that's ridiculous."
Deb, a pink hat rally attendee, mother of two daughters, one of four sisters and a lifelong vocal feminist, was not having any of that. Had there been a Richter Scale for verbal tectonic eruptions, this would have registered a solid 8.5 to 9.5.
I would repeat some of the choice and colorful language she used, but this is, for most part, a family friendly blog.
Suffice it to say, that moment of pent up feistiness finally seeing the light of day, makes me smile.
Also, I miss them both.
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