Two years gone.

I started this way back on July 1st of 2008...

You look back on life and the funny thing is what sticks with you. Memory is ever fascinating, you block out the bad stuff; the past takes on a rosy tint, a wonderful glow, free of the suffering or trauma that existed when it was the present.

It’s a highlight film, memory’s prism. The best moments are there for you; those magical times, those magical people who made an indelible mark. In memory they are fixed and should you grow out of touch, those people remain forever unchanged.

I had to be about 12 when I first met Jackie. It would have had to have been around 1972, the year when Flo, Jackie and Laurie became a part of my life. Over the next four or five years, their gravity would draw me in and ultimately people whose orbits would intersect mine repeatedly over the years.

Jackie, the eldest daughter of a very sweet woman my father was dating (Flo) a mere two years older than me, those two years insignificant now, proving to be an insurmountable chasm impeding the victory of my overactive hormones. Larger than life, she was that unobtainable girl I crushed on.

Her sister Laurie, a year younger than me was Jackie’s complete opposite.

Two girls bought up in the same house who couldn’t have been more different than night and day. Where Jackie was light, Laurie was dark; while Jackie was carefree, Laurie was very serious; Jackie supple and catlike, Laurie voluptuous and curvy. It was sometimes so hard to believe that they were cut of the same cloth, even more that they were sisters.

As a teenage boy though, the sisters were ever fascinating to me. As a boy on the cusp of being a teenager and an only child to boot, it was a bit of an adjustment being exposed to this household of women. It was like being a kid in a candy store with two very beautiful girls around my own age in close proximity. Laurie wound up being what I consider my first girlfriend. It was a short infatuation for both of us but, we remained friends ever after.

All of us would go out with our parents and have a wonderful time. I saw Gilbert and Sullivan plays because of Flo. I remember going to see Ben Vereen in Pippin on Broadway and seeing Gigi and the Desert Song as well. Also, I can recall dinners at La Crepe and the Hawaii Kai - vaguely mind you but, with fondness nonetheless.

It was through Flo and her family I wound up meeting a wonderful group of people. People who would become important to me throughout my years as a teenager. and being exposed to a lot of things I would have otherwise missed out on and been a lesser person for it.

There was Flo, Jackie and Laurie - we wound up spending a lot of time together for a period.

Jackie passed away while she was still in her forties from cancer. It was heartbreaking but a reminder that there is a clock ticking on all of us but we simply don’t know when that alarm will go off.

I can’t imagine how difficult it was for Flo to go through losing her daughter that way. I know it weighed on her quite heavily and even today she feels its effects.

Jackie wound up getting married to a very nice man and they had a good marriage together. It had to be hard on him too but he has since remarried.

I have two or three memories though that stand out...

One was going to the Sprain Brook pool (which was relatively new at the time) and watching the two sisters have a knock down drag out fight. I mean it was brutal! As a boy with no sisters it was a revelation because I had never seen girls fight like this but the two sisters really went at it with each other which included bags swinging and blows landing.

The other memory I have was picking up Jackie from some performance or waitressing job along with a friend of mine. Honestly, I am still not quite sure how that wound up happening. I know I had a car at the time but it was out of the ordinary for me to be giving rides to Jackie but it might have been at a time when I was in the process of painting a mural in Flo’s bedroom.

My friend was along and Jackie was in the back seat and there was some animated discussion going on and she commented loudly in response to something, “Well fuck me!”

I know my friend and I were both taken aback because we simply didn’t know how to react. I mean it’s probably a laughable commentary on our skills as predators. I think we both blushed.