When I was a kid, I used to be terrified of my friend Jeremiah’s mom, Mary Ann. It originates from a single moment in my childhood when I rung the doorbell to her house to see if Jeremiah could come out and play. I was probably seven or eight years old — maybe younger.
“Jeremiah!” Mary Ann shouted upstairs. “Your friend Jeff is here. Tell him to knock next time and stop ringing the doorbell.”
Yep, that’s it.
That’s all it took.
Fear gripped me.
I stood just outside their front door. I could hear it all. And I was shaking in my Reeboks.
When you’re a kid, your friends’ parents aren’t known by their first name. You know their first name. But that’s not how you refer to them. They are “such and such’s parent.”
And Mary Ann wasn’t Mary Ann to me then. She was Jeremiah’s mom. Jeremiah was my next door neighbor growing up. He lived right across the street from me and was one of my close childhood friends. In 2003, he had a seizure. Soon after, a brain tumor was found. It was malignant. Then the news: terminal brain cancer.
Jeremiah passed away on January 19, 2007. Looking back, that’s the day Jeremiah’s mom turned into Mary Ann for me.
The day he died, Mary Ann learned of a story I’d written about her son. A collection of stories a little more than 120 pages in length originally called “The Court: Jeremiah’s Story.” Later, I would rename it “When the Lights Go Out at 10:16.”
It was about Jeremiah and our childhood together. It was about me, Robbie, and Kevin. The Phenix boys. It was about others who lived outside of Phenix — like Cal and Gary. It was about growing up in Charlotte County, Virginia, in the 1980s and 90s. It was about our friendship and our shenanigans.
Mary Ann called me on my cell phone the night he passed and asked that I print a copy and bring it to her at Jeremiah’s family night in Appomattox. I ran out of printer ink before it was done and had to run out to the store and buy another cartridge.
I punched three holes in the side of my homemade book, placed it in a binder, and brought it with me to family night. I warned her it’s not the greatest thing ever written and there were stories within that she, as a mom, may not want to know.
She said she’d already read it and would read it again and again.
She asked me if I thought she was dumb and didn’t know what happened to Jeremiah’s black Thunderbird car that night in the late 90s.
(I was with Jeremiah the night he totaled his car.)
I said, “Well, I was hoping you didn’t know. We lied like hell.”
She said, “I know you did.”
Today, Mary Ann passed away.
My mom texted me this morning with the news.
So, before I go any further, should any family and friends of Mary Ann read this, I want to send my deepest condolences.
I started this by saying I was terrified of her growing up. I wasn’t kidding. She scared the life out of me. But so did Robbie and Kevin’s dad, Robert, who I think is hilarious as hell now whenever I see him.
Plus, now that I’m a parent, I’m very well aware I probably scare the ever-loving crap out of some of my own children’s friends.
I’ve learned it comes with the territory of being a parent.
You’re not a kid anymore. You’re not just juggling your own life and stressors. You’ve got yours and you inherit each day that which belongs to your spouse and kids. It adds up and sometimes you get a little stressed because of it.
You don’t want to hear the doorbell ding dong dinging when you get home from a long day of work. You want peace. You want quiet.
Today, Mary Ann has that peace and quiet. She gets to see her son Jeremiah who she hasn’t laid eyes on in eighteen years.
Who left the earth way too young.
Too soon for her.
Too soon for us.
Ever since Mary Ann got hold of my phone number and email back in 2007, she’s kept in touch.
Out of the blue, once or twice a year, I’d get an email or a phone call or a text message from her.
It was usually a story about Jeremiah I had written and shared on my blog.
I remember in May 2008, a little over a year since Jeremiah passed and on what would’ve been his birthday, I shared a poem I’d written.
“Thank you,” she emailed me. “Thank you for remembering him. I miss him every day.”
When my dog Motzie passed the day after Thanksgiving this past year, she texted me a photo of her dog Lucy, a beagle.
“Loved your story about Motzie,” the text read. “That will be us when our beagle Lucy’s time comes. So sorry.”
When my cousin Gary died, who was also a good friend of Jeremiah’s, she sent her condolences and asked if we had any VHS tapes of us all together. I told her I wished I did, but we were more the photo generation. That every VHS tape I had with Jeremiah and Gary got chewed up by the VCR two decades ago.
“So sorry Gary is gone too,” she said.
Recently my mom told me Mary Ann wasn’t doing well. That they suspected a brain tumor initially but then learned it was something else entirely.
I called my sister last week and in our conversation I asked if she thought if I called Mary Ann on the phone if she would know it was me. I didn’t know the extent of her situation and didn’t want to confuse her.
“What about a text message?” I asked her.
But I never did send the text. I started to, then erased what I wrote. Then I picked up my phone again and couldn’t come up with the words. They were sympathetic but generic.
In hindsight, I wish I would’ve said what I started to say, “I’m thinking of you.”
It’s oddly easier for me to write something this long than something that short.
And maybe this tribute is fitting in the end. She was honestly one of the most invested readers of this blog since its inception.
“Have you written anything in the last few days?” she texted me at one point last year. “I love your stories. But I think I may have accidentally deleted the email.”
I did today.
It was about you.
Goodbye Mary Ann.
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