Alice died the other night. She was my grandmother’s first cousin. She didn’t quite make it to my Laura’s 101, but 99 wasn’t too shabby. Jake came with me to the wake last night. I thought it was a good thing – and it was his decision.

He got emotional and started crying when we went up to the kneeler. Seeing her there…he remembered her. He had met her a bunch of times at my mother’s shop getting her hair done (back in the day she was there once a week). We said goodbye and he cried. It was very sweet.

And before we left a couple hours later, he wanted to go kneel again. We did, he cried again, and I was proud. He knew it would make him emotional and he was not afraid of that. He did not want to run and hide like most men I know. In fact, I thin he was craving the cry a little – and I get that. My little ball of sensitive artist in the making.

I told Jake my favorite Alice story. See, for many years, whenever my Mother and Aunt would go away, they would often leave my Grandma in the house. And they would get Alice to sit with her. I not sure who was keeping whom from burning the place down, but somehow the two old ladies managed to survive.

One such time was when I was in high school. My Mom and Aunt went on a trip to Italy for a week. I was in school, but in the evenings I was with the ladies. We had all kinds of prepared meals in the fridge that I would heat up. They ate like birds, and Alice never “wanted to be trouble.” She’d eat saltines with butter and crazy stuff like that.

But every night…every single night she had a mega bowl of ice cream. Like…mega. I’m talking 4 scoops minimum. My girl loved her sweets. Ice cream and Entertainment Tonight. Good times.

It was a fun, weirdly independent time. I mean, being home with two octogenarians isn’t too far from being home alone. They basically sat on the couch and watched TV and talked loudly to each other in broken Quebec French. I mean, I wasn’t hosting a bachelor party booking the upstairs bedrooms like Las Vegas suites full of strippers. I wasn’t selling blow out of the basement. My boy Adam wasn’t bringing his hoochie-mamas (he had many, I can assure you) over for a good time. Nothing like that.

Good clean fun.

Bye Alice. Say “Hi” to Laura for me.