Josh

 

My husband's best friend of 37 years, Josh, died a week ago, very unexpectedly and abruptly.  We had his service today, with military honors, and I was going to speak on Charles's behalf at the celebration of life afterwards, as I did not want to do so at the actual service itself.  That never happened, because no one made a move to do so before we left and quite frankly, I was not going to bug his family about it because it was not about me anyways.  I am going to put it here, however, so my husband can come back and look at these words whenever he needs to.

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Laura.  My husband is Charles, Josh's best friend of 37 years.  When we got the news that Josh had passed away, Holly asked me if Charles would want to speak.  He said no, but asked me to do so for him.  I agreed, and then promptly panicked.  What am I supposed to say about a man like Josh that is not going to come out as trite, canned, and overused?  Being the self respecting Xiennial that I am, I turned to the internet for ideas, specifically social media.  Here are a list of words that various people used to describe him:

Friend.

Shit-eating grin.

Good man.

Hard working.

Stubborn.

Fun.

Family.

Softy.

There was one word, however, that was in nearly every post that I scoured about him.  

Love.

Josh loved completely, with his whole heart.  I got to witness 19 out of 37 years of his and Charles's friendship.  Most people do not have this kind of friendship.  They were truly more like brothers.  As Holly said, they probably talked to each other more than they did to me or Holly.  After Josh died, Charles told me he estimated that they talked to each other about once a week.  When I told Holly this, her response was exactly what mine was. "Once a week?  More like daily."

Because Charles loved me, so did Josh.  He accepted me without question, because I made his boy happy.  I am not going to tell stories about their shenanigans.  Mostly because some were *just* this side of legal, plus I am not sure what Timmy and Peggy know or don't know and I am NOT going to be the one to tell them.

Brendan, JJ, and Libby...you kids were his life.  I remember every year after fair, your dad would start grumbling about how "we're not getting any animals again next year".  And every year, I told Charles I wanted to put money down on how many cows, goats, sheep, pigs you were going to get.  He did this because he knew it would benefit you.  Every thing he did was for your benefit.  Even when you would fight with him, he wanted the best for you and was fighting with you to get it for you because he wanted you to succeed.  And I think that he did a pretty phenomenal job of it.

I will say, this world will never be the same without Josh in it.  But we sure can make it a better place if we all loved like he did.  We'll miss you beyond words.  Don't worry, Josh, I'll take care of him for you.

Pigs

 I have to get up ridiculously early to take Charlie to the bus stop for her school.  And by ridiculously early, I mean probably a normal working person's time but I hate mornings as much as Marjorie Taylor Greene hates being educated on, well, anything, so I better get put in a damn fine nursing home because of this.  Charlie at times will attempt to engage me in conversation and at these times I fully understand why some animals eat their young.  

She got on this kick for a few weeks about asking me to make up a story for her.  I started off strong with a story about a girl who discovered she has the power to stop time and to make changes, but unfortunately for every change she made, something horrible happened.  Like for instance, she stopped the eggs from rolling off the table when she was with her grandmother, but then her brother broke his arm because of it.  I soon realized, in my sleep deprived haze, that the caffeine had not kicked in quite enough for me to be able to write an ending for this story, so I somehow abruptly changed the story to frogs who grow thumbs and end up taking over the world.  This, however, was too fantastical for Charlie (though I maintain that should frogs ever grow opposable thumbs they would be unstoppable) so I soon settled on the Three Little Pigs.

My version.

And here it is, in it's entirety.  Enjoy.

The Three Little Pigs

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs who went out to make their way in the world.

The first little pig came upon a man selling straw, so he got a bunch at a fantastic discount and built himself a house out of straw.

The second little pig came upon a man selling sticks, so he also got a bunch at a fantastic discount and built his house out of sticks.

The third little pig, recognizing that the price of lumber was reaching uncut cocaine levels, decided to buy some bricks and built his house out of bricks.

So along came the housing inspector, and he gets to the first pig's house.  He says, "Are you MAD, man?  This house is a veritable fire hazard!  Plus, it's not very good for the environment as this thing will be a NIGHTMARE to heat in the winter and cool in the summer."

The first little pig scoffs, "Come on, man, I don't need big government coming into my home and telling me what is right for me and my future piglets. Plus, climate change is a hoax and less than 1% of people in straw houses die from fires.  This house is fine and I'm not changing anything." So off the housing inspector goes.

He soon got to the second little pig's house.  He says, "Are YOU also MAD, man?  This house has zero sound proofing.  You will be able to hear everything and anything outside of it."

The second little pig also scoffs, "Freedom of speech, man.  People should be allowed to say whatever they want, where ever they want, without repercussion or any kind of responsibility for the events that may follow their misinformation.  This house is fine and I'm not changing anything."

The housing inspector then came upon the third little pig's house.  He says, "Wise choice here, my man.  Lumber is at uncut cocaine prices, but bricks are a solid alternative.  Fire resistant AND sound proof AND good at keeping warm or cool air in as you need it." 

The third little pig goes, "Yeah, I'm not a fucking moron like my brothers.  I understand that laws and regulations exist for the greater social good and that not everything is a conspiracy to take away my rights and freedoms, which only exist because of the responsibilities that go along with them. I'm a pig, not a sheep for cripe's sake."

So of course, the Three Little Pigs could not be the Three Little Pigs without the Big Bad Wolf.  In this story, the Wolf's name just happens to be Consequences For Actions, but we will call him BBW for short.

He gets to the first pig's house and goes, "Little pig, little pig, let me in!" and the pig goes "Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!" BBW goes, "Oh, come on, like your punk ass could grow any hairs on your chin.  Plus, all I need to do is to light this place on fire, and you either come out or I have a lovely roasted pork dinner.  Both solid wins in my case."  So BBW lit the pig's house on fire, and, well, I'll spare you the deets but let's just say that BBW made a run to the store for some BBQ sauce.

BBW then gets to the second little pig's house and goes "Little pig, little pig, let me in!" and the pig goes "Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!" BBW goes, "Oh, come on, like your punk ass could grow any hairs on your chin any better than your brother."  So BBW starts to hold Black Lives Matter rallies as well as Slut Walks and March for our Lives in front of the house.  Then, when that did not work, he started to pound on the door and say "We are trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty!"  When the pig attempted to leave to move elsewhere, BBW snatched him up like white women do to pumpkin spice lattes and turned him into brunch, complete with mimosas.

BBW goes to the third pig's house.  He knocks on the door and goes, "Little pig, little pig, let me in!" and the pig goes "Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!"  BBW says, "Like you could grown any hairs on your chin, like your brothers" but the third little pig did not suffer from fragile masculinity so he was unperturbed by the taunting.  He went about his day, while the BBW tried everything he could to get the pig out of his house.  He even tried to go down the chimney, which really just resulted in him getting stuck and embarrassingly having to have the Fire Department come rescue him and led to some interesting "Florida Wolf" headlines.  BBW eventually gave up and left the pig be.

So the third little pig lived happily ever after to the end of his natural life.  When he died, the butcher came and made bacon out of him.

Moral of the story? Live a good life by not being an ignorant asshole, and even after death you will make people happy.

My Venmo for therapy is included in my bio.

Winning

 So because 2020 had to fuck us up the left nostril one last time on its way out, Charles's knee replacement got rescheduled to January because of the fucking pandemic.  Because of course we couldn't have it done in a year in which we had already met our deductible.  Of course.

The surgery went well for him, thankfully.  It is pretty sad that he is now walking better, even with a walker and after having a surgeon drill into his leg and shave bone down and give him a new knee and only being a few days post-op.  The doctor was all like "he should have had this done years ago, it was pretty fucked up in there with significant bone damage from them grinding" and I was all like, "yeah, I know, but insurance sucks and didn't want to do it on a 40 year old man so here we are" and then the doctor was like "well because he's a 42 year old man he is gonna swell a shit ton and probably try to over-do it because he's gonna think he's all rough and tough with his afro puff so just keep an eye on him.  Oh, but if he doesn't move the knee he's gonna fuck it up so there's that.  No pressure, though."

I *might* have paraphrased that.  I do wish doctors talked like that though.  They'd be a lot more relatable.  I'm sure you are shocked to know that I talk to my clients like that.

So because this was a major surgery, he was supposed to stay the night to get pain meds under control, watch for blood clots, etc. (hence why it was cancelled due to COVID...they needed the beds).  The little girls, who are the product of two incredibly anxious parents, were incredibly anxious about this surgery (shocking).  They do NOT like it when either of us are gone from the house overnight, so they weren't too keen on him staying there (plus, the whole no children visiting thing...).  Luckily, we live in modern society and FaceTime exists, so he was able to talk to the girls before they had to go to bed.

Now, we always have had a bedtime routine for the children and were pretty strict about it from the get-go.  This has served our family well through the years, despite some people not agreeing or understanding why no, I am not going to force my kid to stay up until sunset in the summer when she is used to going to bed at 7:30. I'm also pretty good at evading their attempts to prolong the inevitable slumber awaiting them. This has endured for all three of them until they decided that they were too old for us to tuck into bed.  We are 2/3 of the way done with bedtime routine, Charlie still liking us to tuck her in and go through all the little rituals that have evolved over the years.

One thing that she and Charles somehow started was this "I won!" thing as they race up the stairs.  Well, I am sure you can imagine how quickly Charles would go up the stairs, considering that he needed a new fucking knee...but who actually got up there first didn't matter so much as who said "I won!" first.  And of course, there's all the trash talking that Charlie can do during various competitions with her family members, and her father gives it right back because my family argues for sport. 

 "I won!"  

"Yeah, you did, second place." 

"Did you have a worst part of the day today?" (We ask for the best and worst parts of her day.)

"Yeah, that you didn't win."

And so on and so on.  Every.Single.Night.

So the girls wanted their good nights with their father, partly because of tradition, partly because of worry.  They both had a chance to chat with him for a bit, and we were getting ready to get off of FaceTime when Charlie came running in from the other room.

"Dad! One last thing!"

"What's that?"

"I won!"

Well played, Charlie.  Well played.