Jan Brown gleefully holds the toilet paper she’d coveted. Photo: Woody Weingarten.
I wished for an instant I was curled up in fetal position, sucking my thumb, in bed at home in San Anselmo.
Instead, I was in Yonkers, a New York City suburb, watching my wife, Nancy Fox, play a concert grand Steinway piano to a nearly empty 300-seat library auditorium following a total publicity failure by the staff.And that misadventure followed a 9-1-1 call for my daughter, Jan Brown, who’d had a diabetic meltdown in a fancy-schmancy deli.
Not quite the 50th birthday celebration for her we’d envisioned.
Toward the rear of the auditorium sat an elderly couple that reminded me of Fred and Ethel Mertz from “I Love Lucy.” My daughter, son, grandson and I scattered around the room, pretending we were part of a mob scene.
“Looks like I’m playing for my family, two new friends and 294 ghosts,” said my wife, a pro.“I was scheduled to play Oscar-winning songs,” Nancy announced, “but if any of you have requests, I’ll play them instead — after I start with the first Academy Award tune, ‘The Continental,’ which has special meeting for me: It was my parents’ song. It was playing the night they met, the same night my father proposed.”
Vigorous applause — robust considering there were only six of us — greeted her finish.
Jan asked for “Sunrise, Sunset,” a mega-sentimental tune from “Fiddler on the Roof,” and the couple followed with requests for Cole Porter songs: “Begin the Beguine” and “Let’s Do It.”
Nancy cheerfully played them — and dozens more.Six people swayed to her hour-long artistry. The ghosts? Well, I couldn’t hear their applause, but I’m positive they gave her a standing ovation, too.
My wife had planned the concert as a surprise gift, intending to dedicate it to Jan. But my disabled daughter had been so excited to see us she’d forgotten to eat breakfast — and then taken her insulin anyway.
Blood sugar tailspin!
The paramedics helped her recover just in time for me to whisk her to the auditorium.
Regrettably, a similar incident occurred days later.Jan’s top birthday wish? No diamonds. No cavier. Just toilet paper that wouldn’t stop up her apartment toilet like the brand she’d been using.
So I drove her to Costco.
But Jan’s blood sugar decided to react badly to meds she’d taken.
Nosedive No. 2!
My daughter eventually got her wish, but the purchase jerked me back to a happier moment in Guasco’s market in San Anselmo.
A day after I’d interviewed Ram Dass, he was in an aisle buying odds and ends. Nancy giggled.“What’s funny?” I asked.
“Well,” she said, pointing to the toilet paper the world-renowned thinker had stuffed under his arm, “that’s the great cosmic equalizer, isn’t it?”
We all chuckled.
Being able to give life’s pitfalls a horselaugh, I’m convinced, is the best medicine.
Heading back home, Nancy and I sailed through airport security. Putting my belt back on, however, it broke. Using one hand to pull my carry-on, the other to keep my
pants from dropping to my knees, I entered every shop that might peddle belts. None stocked anything to fit my size-43 waist.So Nancy and I laughed.
I bought one later, at the other end.
Meanwhile, I also had time to ponder a pair of anecdotes Jan had happily recalled.
“I remember listening — as child lying on a couch in your den — to the tick-tick-tick of your typewriter, and staring at the thousands of books that went up to the ceiling,” she’d said.
“And I remember having the school call home to ask where I was — I was methodically chipping away at ice because there was a dollar frozen in it.”
Her memories moved me.Being a dad can be tough in the best of times. Being the father of a disabled person can be especially difficult, particularly when she lives 2,560 air miles away.
But I don’t plan to trade her in.
Jan’s bright, sensitive and generous with her love and time and money. A caring mom and daughter.
My trip was emotionally draining, mentally draining, physically draining. But worth it. After all, she’ll always be my little girl.
Besides, I was able to bask in her smiles when I bought her some new clothes and a dresser to keep them in.As her great-grandma used to beseech God, “Let her use them in good health.”
