Suzuki and so much more...

My mom's best friend (along with apparently a gazillion other people's best friend) passed away this weekend. It is totally surreal and earth shattering to me at the same time. Unfortunately I do not have my mom's way with words to be able to beautifully express how Janet's death is making me feel, but I'm going to try anyway because something has got to cure this crying.

It makes me think of sitting in her house (the old one....near West Hartford Center) with my looooong braid hanging down my back and playing the piano. We'd sit together on the bench and the dogs would be snuffling around in the living room. My mom would be pretending to read, but she would be quietly humming the correct notes for the wrong ones that I played. Janet would be smiling and redirecting my fingers to the right position. She always gave me a candy after I was done, and she let you me tons of stickers onto my Suzuki Method Books. My parents still have them (stickers and all) and I have taken to playing them when I'm at home. It's embarrassing that I was a better piano player at age 6 than I am now at 27, but it still makes me smile to play and see the hilarious notes she made on the pages. Sometimes she gave songs lyrics (always funny ones), and sometimes she would just write you a note like, "Beautiful." I remember thinking how hilarious it would be to cross out her one direction for a song, I think it said something like "smooth and pretty" and write in "UGLY." She laughed when she came across my change.

I remember some Jewish holiday - the one with the meat and the delicious onions. Is that the same one where you find the matzah? We used to go to Janet's house and there would be people and dogs and when I say dogs, I mean her two white fluffy bichons and then her friend Bob's golden mix and then the Irish Wolfhounds which were enormous. I remember the wolfhound puppy eating some food off the table (it was so tall, can you blame it?), and I remember always sitting at the children's table. Sometimes I think even Janet's daughters had to sit there with us even though they were a fair bit older than us. Such amazing food, and yes, as my mom pointed out - inevitably a dessert with maple syrup or chocolate or some god-awful amount of sugar.

She would screen her calls on the answering machine, but sometimes if it sounded important she would run to pick it up. I think that's how my mom learned to loudly identify herself when calling so that Janet wouldn't just let it ring. She always had random foreign students renting rooms in the house. There was just always a warm, buzzing feeling in there. She knew how to make everyone feel welcome.

I'm not sure how my mom is going to get by without her sarcastic and just as foul-mouthed and witty counterpart to blab to nonstop on the telephone. Who will forward us emails about dogs and jokes and music? Who will share my love of dog kisses to the same level? Sometimes I think it's hard to comprehend what a big void someone can leave when they aren't around any more. Janet has left a black hole.