Tom Wolfe
Joan raised me since I was eleven months old. She was my stepmother, but that title doesn't seem right. She's the first mother I remember. She's as much a part of who I am as anyone. She encouraged my acting, my writing, whatever I tried, and she laughed at my idiotic humor. She was funny, sometimes too frank, sometimes refreshingly honest, and she stood up for herself and others. Sometimes she got a fight wrong (who doesn't?), and held onto resentment too long (who doesn't?). But she worked as hard as anyone to be a good person, to grow, all the way through her last years. How many people can say that? And she was a good person. In my mind, I can go back a few years and hear that awful National Lampoon Christmas Vacation theme song, which she played on my voice mail through many Decembers. I miss that now. I can see her crack a smile as she's cutting a deck of UNO cards, a cigarette jutting upward from her mouth. I miss that too. There's so much to miss. It could play out in my mind like an endless film. I didn't see her this past year and I regret that. There's always another day until there isn't. But I loved her. When we spoke, she told me she loved me and it meant everything before I'd forget and return to work and some things that matter and a lot that didn't. I love her and miss her.
