New Year’s Day: Sorrow and Joy in the Circle of Life

I learned today that a person very dear to me passed away, and that a new member of the family was born. Both pieces of news – polar opposites on the emotional spectrum – came within the same hour on New Year’s Day, 2010.

First, let me take a moment to say a heartfelt goodbye to an important part of my past. Further down, I’d like to say a warm hello to an important part of my future.

Joan Frances Young, or “Joanie” as I called her, was my childhood best friend’s mother who lived in my home town of Georgetown, MA. She passed away at the age of 78, and if there is justice in this world she’ll be sipping champagne and enjoying a healing massage from the fingertips of angels in whatever sort of heaven she imagined there’d be.

I spent most of my time with Joanie over a 20-year stretch from 1980 to the end of the century, after which I moved to California. But during those years she was as much of a mother to me as my own mom, and in fact she probably saw me more, since I practically lived at her house on Jackman Street.

Her son Christopher and I were not exactly choir boys, and Joanie was hardly a fool. I remember waking up extremely hung over at her house one morning. She knew we were both under the weather, to put it mildly, and I can imagine her eyes twinkling as she banged a roaring vacuum cleaner into the hallway doors outside my room. Her message, I’m sure, was this: there are consequences in life, fellas. Don’t forget it.

More than anyone I knew, it was Joanie I most wanted to make laugh. And I could do it, too. I think I believed that if I could make such a decent and humble woman laugh at my jokes, then perhaps it meant I was a good person. Like maybe she could see something in me that I couldn’t; maybe I had promise.

Joanie was married to Richard “Buddy” Young, an extremely bright guy with acerbic wit. I was equal parts awed and terrified by him. He was a more cerebral version of Archie Bunker, with one-liners that could stop a man in his tracks and make everyone else pee their pants laughing at him. And in many ways Joanie was his Edith, who was dutiful to a fault, but unlike the sitcom Edith, Joanie was never fooled for a minute. Yes, she was loyal and doting. But make no mistake: Joan was no dummy.

I remember sitting in the living room with Joanie one day, her in her corner chair, watching her zip through the New York Times crossword puzzle. It was one of the ways she liked to relax when not working at United Foam and Plastics Technologies, where she worked every day for 30 years, and where was cherished for her loyalty and work ethic. I asked her how she knew all of the random answers to the puzzle, and her eyebrows rose quizzically as she considered the question.

“When you live as long as I have, you pick some things up along the way,” she said, and then laughed in a way that suggested she’d seen a lot, loved a lot, and lost a lot.

That was probably 20 years ago. And no doubt Joanie saw a lot more, loved a lot more, and lost a lot more since then.

But today everyone who knew Joanie realizes they picked some things up along the way from her. To know Joanie was to learn that some people can indeed be selfless and decent when it’s much easier to turn the other cheek. To know Joanie was to have a ham sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk waiting for you on the kitchen counter, and to understand that she made herself happy knowing you weren’t hungry any more.

Giving made her happy. Sacrificing for her family and loving her husband made her whole, and when Buddy passed away many years ago I think Joanie started mentally packing her bags and making reservations to join him in the great hereafter.

I like to think she’s with Buddy right now. He’s drinking a Bud Tall and holding court with a group of newly departed folks, and she’s sitting by his side laughing uncontrollably at the outrageousness of his jokes – even as some goody-goody types are appalled.

Joanie Young. She was truly one of the great ones, and I’ll cherish my memories of her and Buddy forever.

Peace.

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An hour before I heard about Joanie waving the great goodbye, we received news that my wife’s family, my extended family, said a big hello to a new baby girl!

It’s a cute-as-hell name. Are you ready?

Evie Sugar Lafreniere.

It’s Bixie’s sister Ali who had the little cupcake girl on New Year’s Day, and it comes as no small relief, since she was due in late December. Funny to think that her girl was born on the first day of a new decade, though I don’t think it was the FIRST child born in the new decade because I probably would have seen it on CNN or TMZ.

Bixie is over the moon excited to have a new niece, and a new buddy for our son Gus to wrestle around with. It’s hard, though, to live across the country when big news like this happens (Ali lives in New Hampshire).

Ali and her husband Josh (Bones) are in for a wild ride, if our own experience with Gus is any indication. But they’ll do a fantastic job, because they both have a great sense of humor and have been planning for this for many months (nine, for you math wizards out there).

I know Ali won’t skip a beat, since she works with kids and is a natural with babies. Bones, like me, will have a steeper learning curve. My guess is he’ll ask this question a lot: “Am I doing this right?”

I remember constantly asking that of Bixie during the first couple of months of Gus’s life. And what I eventually learned is that you can never do everything right, but as long as you nail the important things you’ll do just fine.

I think Joanie would concur with that sentiment, and I think it’s a fitting way to end this post on an emotionally-charged day. For many people 2010 marks a new beginning, a new chapter, while for others it signals the setting sun on a tumultuous decade.

It’s the circle of life, with the revolving door always in full rotation. And as I look out at the road ahead, the best I can do for myself and my family is to focus on the important things and, with luck, try to do them well.

Everything else will take care of itself.

Happy New Year!