Happy Bananaversary.

Dear Reboyfriend,

Well it's that day. Nine years after that pie.

There are so many things I want to ask you. Big things like, I don't know, where the crap are you? And harder questions about what happened to you. Questions that haunt me.

But I have silly questions, too. Like, I've always wondered if you remember that night with the pie the same way I remember it. Sometimes I'd talk about it, and you'd always make some joke and be all inappropriate and poke me in the rib and laugh. (So no, you don't remember it how I remember it, because I get misty eyed when I remember it, and you seem to only remember the juicy stuff, and talk about scoring on me and whatnot, which does not make you misty eyed. Scoring on my fine self should have EVERYONE misty eyed. It's a magical thing, homie).

OK so the night I was staying late with your family at the church the night before your funeral, hugging people and talking about it sucking (oh, wait you were there, you already knew that). While they waited for me to finish my regirlfriendly duties that night, my family got together for banana cream pie at their hotel. When someone brought me back to the hotel, I saw it and it made me cry - but happy tears. The next morning, when Jake gave your life sketch, they got to find out why.

"Jed always had a thing for the ladies. He was a ladies man. I remember one time when Jed was asked to a dance and was not sure how to answer his date, so he called her roommate Kirsten Montague to help him with a creative way to respond. They decided to bake a pie and write a note that said, 'I'll say yes if you give me a piece.' Turns out the only piece Jed received was from Kirsten that night. This sparked a long and very memorable relationship that lasted for years."

--Jake Meng, delivered 8-18-09

It was banana cream, and the rest was history.

I could have lived without the ladies man part, but then again I'm thinking your mom could have lived without the piece part. Jake's straight up, and it comes with the territory. "The Ladies" at large, as a general population, are less awesome than me because they didn't bury you with a lock of their hair and pump the internet full of you, on their whiny blogs. So Kirsten Is Win!

So, although we all know you got action, it was tender and Lifetime-ish, too. Hell, YOU didn't know I stole that salad-dressing-bottle-for-a-rolling-pin idea from the Boxcar Children. You thought I was the cutest thing you'd ever seen. Is that what won you over? Is that why you sat on the ground next to me, up against the wall of your kitchen and you played with my hair until we had ourselves the most G-rated four hours of straight kissing you ever did see? (I want to know where that willpower came from, because I've eaten half a cheesecake in like 48 hours, and it would come in handy right about now). I will admit how funny it is that we thought it was SUCH action back in the day.

I guess nine years is a long time. I don't know, it went pretty fast for me. For anyone reading this, I guess they can have the nutshell version of that fateful September 17th (or the stuff leading up to it), without being told of all the caressing of hair, and the informing me of my immense beauty, and eye gazing that you totally committed that night (doesn't crack people up at funerals as much as the piece thing, though, so I can see where you'd fixate on the makin out). Correct me if I'm wrong, reboyfriend, but I believe it went a little something like this:

Girl sees Boy.

Girl asks Boy to Sadie Hawkins (it was a roommate's boyfriend's roomate kind of thing - but in my defense, Girl didn't know Boy).

Boy goes to Girl's apartment to meet and get to know her.

Boy instead sees Kirsten standing on balcony.

Boy asks around to find which apartment is Kirsten's. [um, next door to "Girl"]

Boy finds apartment, stands in Kirsten's open living room doorway with determination, smiles widely and knowingly at her and stares.

Boy meets Kirsten.

Boy captivates Kirsten. It would have been creepy and weird, but he was frickin' hot and that makes all things less creepy and weird. He could have raided my panty drawer and given me a doll made of my own hair, and I'd have been down with it.

Then Boy left to go cosmic bowling with a bunch of people.

Boy runs into Kirsten a week later, and they talk for 45 minutes.

Boy asks how he should go about "answering" Girl (with a yes) to this Sadie Hawkins thing.

Kirsten suggests giving Girl a pie with a note saying, "I'll say yes, but only if I get a piece."

Boy says he can't make pie! Much feigning of concern.

Kirsten can TOTALLY make pie! Much feigning of surprise, non-feigning of delight.

Yum.

[Background: It's true. I'm all about being loyal to other girls before any guy, but if you have read any stitch of this blog, you might say that Missy took one for the team in the bigger picture here. Plus he made the moves, not me - and Missy didn't even know him. (Missy, you haven't ever commented, but if you're reading, back me up on this one). Nine years ago tonight, he picked me up on his motorcycle. Me and my ratty green JanSport, with nothing in it but a pie plate I snuck from Missy's kitchen for her treat. Nine years ago tomorrow, he dropped me off in the morning, same outfit and an empty Jansport. One year from today would have been our wedding day, marking a precise decade of just plain crazy - all of it bookended with sweetness and joy. Maybe we'd have served banana cream pie at the wedding.]

Anyway Reboyfriend, back to you.

The night you told me you needed my help with a pie, you know, because you would be lost without me and didn't know about cookbooks, Autumn met Nate. The night I SAVED your ass by HELPING you make that pie, and you kissed me...Nate kissed Autumn. September 17th would always get me and Autumn into that reminiscent mode. She let me text first this time.

She said she found a pic of me and her the other day, an old one from that Fall, where she and I smiled innocently. Autumn laughed about our two naive smiling faces. "No idea what the hell was about to hit them," I said. We looked so excited about our lives, with these bright, endless futures and the stomp coming up, and these cute boys we'd met. Hers was from Colorado, and greatly enjoyed baseball. Mine was from Idaho, and greatly enjoyed to lift up his sunglasses and romantically lean in but then smash his face into mine for the ugliest most unromantic kiss ever. Kind of like how as little girls we would mash Ken and Barbie's faces together so hard that they'd dent inward (my Barbies were passionate, either that or my childhood idea of kissing ended up being your adult idea of being a smartass, so I clearly found my soulmate). And I'd squeal and pretend I was indignant and demand a romantic kiss that was not gross or open-mouthed.

I wonder if you took my picture right now, what the "Me" nine years from now would say to Autumn about it.

Jed, I was always good to you. I never once disrespected or betrayed you. There was that time I married someone else, but that had to happen. You had places to go and I had things to learn. What amazes me is that when I came looking for you again, you were right where I'd left you three years earlier. You told me that first night at dinner, that you wanted children, but that you had just been waiting for the right person to have them with. When you said that, you pointed your hand to me.

We didn't have an agreement. We never said "If you wait for me, then I'll come for you." Tracy Chapman said that, and we just stole it from her. But at the end of all this, you waited for me. And I came for you. We each lived a lot of life during that break, and came a long way personally. But you said you never really let go. You held a part of yourself for me only, a place that nobody else was able to claim. I want to thank you for that. I settled back into it quite comfortably.

I have a lot of life ahead of me without you, Jed. I will play guitars and violins and develop my own film in darkrooms, speak French to native Tahitians and nail the GRE so some academic institution will allow me to expand my mind. I think I'm supposed to write a book. I think I'm supposed to get another dog. I would like to think I could name him Floyd. Maybe someday. In several years, I will have done a lot.

But through all of it, I will be thinking of you. So many of my goals, I achieved with your voice in my ears as I set the goal. This will continue, but the success will be shared with you, set aside in its own place inside me that belongs to you. I'm so sad you won't be here to share in the successes you inspire.

I am not sure if you miss me like I miss you. But if you do, I'm a little glad. I am going to die too, someday. It reminds me of the note Juno wrote to Jennifer Garner. If you're down, Jed, I'm down. Wherever you are, let's meet up when I get there. Everyone keeps saying I'll find love again, but I don't know what chump deserves to live his life in the shadow of what we built, or what's so empty about a life that is lived for the new experiences that will fill it, not the next man who will. I know 2,500 weekends = a lot, I am only able to wrap my mind around what 27 years feels like. I won't be so arrogant as to say that in time, I won't change. That my heart and mind won't change. I know we just buried you a month ago. Every widow in the history of time who ended up remarrying, felt this way after a month. But the point is that I feel this way right now, and that's what I am telling you. I'm telling you that I'm down with the holding on thing, if you are.

Maybe that's unhealthy. It's probably unrealistic and certainly it's ambitious. Who cares. It's our bananaversary. I can say what I feel right now.

Today, I received a card from my grandma, sent to my office. It was encouraging. It said that I do have the strength to do this. Included was a small insert, a poem, that I pinned to the wall of my cubicle. It summed up how you always said you felt about death. I know it's what you would like to see from me. Let me tell you, though, Mingo. It's much easier said than done. Either way, it is a good reminder.

Thanks, babe, for rewarding me with ten sweet kisses for every obnoxious one. Here's to more of those sometime. Happy nine-year.

Yours only,

Regirlfriend.

When I must leave you

For a little while,

Please go on bravely

With a gallant smile.

And for my sake and in my name

Live on and do all things the same –

Spend not your life in empty days

But fill each waking hour

In useful ways –

Reach out your hand

In comfort and in cheer.

And I in turn will comfort you

And hold you near.

-Helen Steiner Rice