June 3rd: Cousin Mike Knows

6 months after Dad died, I went to Los Angeles for the very first reading of my play (which at that point was just a single scene). The reading hosted by cousin Mike, with a group of phenomenal actors/writers who also came with their own scripts. We passed out scripts, assigned roles for all of them, read the scripts – and then there was feedback. Nervewracking. These people worked in television, as writers, and this was my first script.

I stayed at Mike’s. I was still in a daze of grief but I was also embroiled in this weird epistolary romance with someone who turned out to be a sociopath – he wrote me 323 emails in three months – I’m not making that number up or exaggerating. I tallied it up after it was all over, because I needed perspective. 323 emails in three months. Picture the level of involvement. Picture how often you would have to email someone to make it to that number in three months. Basically my phone buzzed with texts throughout the day. And it was wild because I had had a crush on him when I was 13, because he was in a TV movie I LOVED back then. Old-timers will know exactly who I am talking about, and it won’t be hard to figure out, but I never named him here, at least not what was going on personally between us. I now know that I had attracted him to me, drawn him to me, was susceptible to him because I was so vulnerable and cracked and grief-struck. He sensed it out. He was also a cheerleader in me writing the script. He bought me the scriptwriting software Final Draft – by surprise. I could not BELIEVE it. And then he GHOSTED ME. I STILL have the Final Draft he bought me – from years ago – every time I use it I send a thanks to that sociopath.

We met for the first time during this trip to Los Angeles. And it was … weird. I eventually realized that my cousin Mike – so successful in the entertainment industry – might have been why the sociopath pursued me so hard. He wanted to get close to someone who could potentially give him a boost. And I was the “way in.” Like … I’m that cynical. But at the time, I didn’t know he was about to ghost me, but I was a mess during that trip for so many reasons (and probably in what I now know is a hypo-manic state, or maybe even the dreaded mixed state. Wild swerves from exhilaration to despair.)

So I was a mess. Missing Dad. My script-reading went so well that at one point one of the other writers – with lengthy writing credits in the professional world – demanded of me, in a tone of awe, “Wait. Who are you? I’ve never heard of you. You’re just VISITING?” HUGE confidence booster. Throughout the reading, sociopath was texting me, so excited to hear how it was going. Two days later, he vanished and I never heard from him again. I kind of wrote about all this here. It was right after I came back.

Anyway. It had only been 6 months since Dad died. The first birthday. Anniversaries are hard. I came into the kitchen on June 3rd and cousin Mike and his wife Lisa and the three kids were all gathered there with looks of expectation on their faces. The kids were so excited because they wanted to see my surprise. A box was on the counter. Mike said, “Just want to give you something …” and he opened the box and there was …

I hadn’t said to Mike, “It’s Dad’s birthday”. Mike just remembered and knew – it being the first anniversary – I would be thinking of Dad.

Mike remembered. And Lisa didn’t make it. They had to order it. It took planning. To say I was “touched” doesn’t even begin to describe how I felt.

So we cut the cake and ate it together and celebrated Dad’s birthday and it was overwhelming and I am overwhelmed just now writing this.

Cousins. They’re the best. They remember. I need to remember when others are in the same situation. And I felt comforted and supported, the floor underneath my feet.