Hi. I’m Matt. I would have liked to be there today, but I live in Austria, it’s super far, and I know Deb would understand. But it would be nice to see all of you, give Caleb’s family, my Mom and John some healing hugs, and have some of these fresh cookies that Caleb mentioned in the invitation.
I didn’t see my West Coast relatives very much since my parents left San Francisco and raised us far away in Boston. As far as family went, it felt like everyone was in San Francisco except for us. All our cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. I saw them here and there. Maybe six or seven visits before I became a teenager.
Minus Grandpa John’s 80th birthday party in La Jolla, I never saw Deb or Caleb because they lived in Seattle, not San Francisco, and we never went there, and they never came to Boston. I knew they existed solely because I talked to them on the phone every Christmas (yes, we were Jews that celebrated Christmas) and on my birthday, and they sent me birthday cards and presents too. So I had a good warm feeling about these people because they did get in touch when it mattered. I just didn’t see them, or really know them.
This changed when I moved to San Francisco in my early 20s. Some of my customers were in Seattle and I went up there a few times every year and spent the night at Deb’s house.
I remember the first time I visited very clearly. I got in my Avis rental car and drove to her house near the Montlake bridge. She came outside to meet me, looking a little nervous, and when I came in to give her a hug, she said “Oh! We’re hugging! That’s good!”
From there, we went into her kitchen, right off the driveway, and talked for an hour, sort of awkwardly. She made me an herbal tea, and when I asked if I could sit down, or look around the house, it suddenly dawned on her that yes, this is what people do! First they hug. Check. Then they look around the house! Then they sit down in the living room! Got it!
On the couch, Deb asked me a million questions. Why was I visiting? What the heck did I do for a living? What things did I like to eat? Did I want to go shopping with her and get those things? What sorts of restaurants did I like? Did I want to take a walk around the neighborhood? She was quirky for sure. A thought would enter her mind, or a question she wanted to ask me, and she would literally freeze, talk to herself for a second, give herself permission to change the subject, and off we’d go in a different direction. The thing is. I honestly like weird people. And she fit the bill. And the best part was that she was absolutely, genuinely 100% happy to have me there. That felt great.
And so this is how things went, for a few years between 1994 and 1998 or so. I would visit. Sometimes I’d stay with her. Other times I’d be in a hotel maybe. But we’d always spend time together.
Later, in the 2000s, I stopped travelling for work, but when Deb visited San Francisco she made sure to take the time to see me in Oakland, talk with my wife Alison, and take walks, mostly around Berkeley, and have tea together.
Deb and I had some things in common back then. Politics. And anger about politics. I was big into Dennis Kucinich. Ralph Nader. Green party stuff. I decided to quit my job and be a teacher in an urban public school for mostly idealistic political reasons, and Deb loved talking to me about the topics that tormented me. Fair trade, the flaws of measuring America’s progress via gross domestic product, the institutional racism of underfunded urban schools. We were on the same page, Deb and I, in feeling angry and helpless towards an unfair and unjust world.
Of course we were both full of contradictions, hypocrisy, and privilege, and we were both, I think, depressed, not just because of global politics, but just because that’s who we were.
For me, somewhere around 2007, the clouds began to part, which was critical not just for me, but for my own family, which had just started with the birth of my son, and daughter a year later. I was deep in my kids’ lives now, running after them, finding preschools, taking them to parks.
And meanwhile, up in Seattle, Deb had been blessed with the same sort of thing just a little before mine. Pete and Bobby and Caleb and Kate giving Deb something to help her clouds part too, I’m sure. Less angry and helpless now. Turning towards the simple appreciation of seeing your child (in my case) or your grandchild (in hers) learn to stack blocks, with your help, one by one, on the rug in the living room. What a gift for us both.
I did not get to say goodbye. But I’m doing that now, with you. Bye Deb. I appreciated you. Thanks for the birthday cards and phone calls when I was growing up, and all the questions you asked me when I first visited you, sitting on your couch. I really felt special sitting there, because I could feel just how much you wanted to get to know me. Your sister’s son, about the same age as your own son, and a connection back to this thing called family that, as it turns out, is so important to all of us.