When Brian was around ten years of age, his big brother, Ron, bought him a wok for his birthday.  At that time, my cooking skills were okay, but I was always in a rush.  When I got home from work, I usually cooked something requiring little preparation, like hamburgers, steak or oven-fried chicken.  After sitting in the office and typing all day, I needed some interaction with my peers.  So, I often ate, rinsed the dishes and went on a hike with the Sierra Club, or called a friend for a game of tennis.  Sometimes I took Brian out to a Chinese restaurant. 

Once he had the wok, Brian wanted to do some cooking.  I suggested that he find a recipe he liked in one of our cookbooks and meet me after work at the Vons market in Santa Monica where we lived, so we could buy the ingredients we needed for his cooking project.  Pretty soon he was preparing wonderful Chinese appetizers and all types of dishes almost every week.

When I had an occasional date, I asked him to entertain the fellow while I put on the finishing touches to my makeup. I would appear, finally ready to go, and Brian was offering my date the delicious appetizers he created.

I just watched a movie called Indian Summer with Alan Arkin who plays Unca Lou, headmaster of a summer sleepover camp.  Memories of Brian and the Jameson Ranch suddenly came back to me.  I believe that the Jameson Ranch Camp was a very important part of Brian’s life, his appreciation of nature, fishing, his love of animals, and the person he became. 

Many years ago there was a camp I had read about located in New York.  It became a fantasy of mine that someday I would send my children there.  This fantasy dwindled when we moved to California.  Ron went to Camp Fox, a boy scouts camp that he enjoyed; he proudly brought home abalone he had caught.  Lindy went to a girl scouts camp that she hated, as the cook served terrible food like half-raw eggs.  Poor Lindy, I didn’t believe her when she wrote to me, but when I picked her up I saw that she lost at least five or ten pounds during the few weeks she spent there which she could not afford to lose. 

When I sought a summer camp for Brian, I discovered Jameson Ranch and Brian, who had never before been away from home, loved that camp.  Up in Glennville, California he got to hike, fish, ride horses, feed the animals, eat home-baked apple pies, fix fences, climb rocks, socialize with nice kids, sleep in a sleeping bag under the stars and mail me letters about his needing a new toothbrush or how he missed his big brother Ron and sister Lindy.  Brian went to this camp, usually for a two to four week period for at least three or four summers and his dad, my ex-husband who had no time at all to spend with Brian, paid for summer camp. 

I drove him there, of course.  The drive was about three and a half hours each way.  I especially remember the one summer when he was getting into trouble after we moved to Orange County, with his new friends in Irvine out of loneliness and desperation.  Brian was then about thirteen and he knew he was messing up, but the kids in our immediate neighborhood were all cutting classes and Brian did whatever it took to fit in and have friends while I was at work.  

But now he was really so happy for the opportunity to get away from the bad influences he had all around in Irvine.  He spent four weeks living in the country enjoying nature every moment.  

The four weeks went by very fast and Brian knew I was going to spend seven hours in the car to pick him up and drive us home.  When I got there, however, he realized that he simply did not want to come home.  At camp there was only fun, adventure and friendship.  At home, there were kids with no ambition, just anger at runaway fathers and people like his friend’s mother, a lady who tried to commit suicide.  So he called his dad on the phone and Bill agreed to pay for two more weeks.  Then I drove home alone and returned two weeks later, actually very glad that my son Brian was in a place where he felt safe and happy.

Our wedding album is on my wall. I now share a room that has my memories attached above my head as I try to sleep. I sit and stare at them every night. I see how you looked deep into my eyes. Past the shape, the color. So deep you searched. So scared you looked. Was I as true as you? Were my intentions the same as the words I spoke? 

Listening to every word I spoke. Listening to the sound of my voice. Watching my eyes sparkle every time I looked at you. Watching my every move knowing my soul was being given to you and yours being given to me. 

Then suddenly we looked at each other knowing it would be forever. We knew the vows we spoke bound us for life. They were sacred words, merging our souls into one. Knowing unconditional love was to last a lifetime. 

To have and to hold.... For better or worse....For richer or poorer......In sickness and health ......

Thats the way it was! That's the way it is.

I remember very clearly coming home from my first day at Kindergarten and tearfully asking my mother, “Mom, why did you name me Fannie?”  She responded, “I didn’t name you Fannie.  I told the nurse, "Maybe Fannie.”  No one ever called me Fannie, except that teacher who insisted it was on my birth certificate.  My name was Faye and I liked my name.

Bill shows no interest in helping me choose our third child‘s name.  So, I take out many books from the library hunting for an appropriate name for my baby and I decide to name him Marlon Jay, like Marlon Brando one of my favorite actors.  At age thirty-five I give birth to my third child.  Then, in the hospital after he is born, the nurse brings me my child.  I look at my second son, this little pixie boy, this precious doll-child and I cannot call my baby Marlon Jay.  He is Brian Jay.

Brian has the scent of delicious tea and honey.  I hold him in my arms and ask the nurse what lotion or powder they have applied to give him this wonderful aroma.  He smells better than most flowers.  “Nothing,” she replies.  “That is his natural scent.” 

So now I had three wonderful children; Ronny was thirteen, Lindy was ten and Brian newborn.  My older children loved Brian.  All three have always loved and delighted in one another. 

My younger son became Chef Brian, a beloved seafood chef--almost Marlon--like the great marlin and swordfish he prepared at the restaurant.  If I had known he‘d become a seafood expert, would I have named him Marlon?  No, definitely no!  He was and forever is my precious, beautiful, loving and brilliant son, Brian.

There is one precious incident that I shall always remember. I was in the bathroom when little Brian, about four or five, burst into the room and proclaimed, “Mom, I loooovvve you!”  I was so overwhelmed by this proclamation of love, that I automatically responded “Brian, I love the sweat on the tip of your nose!”  Brian had such a perfect little nose.  From that time on, every time he got sweaty, he would find me, so I could kiss the tip of his nose.

Time passed very quickly.  Pretty soon Brian was twelve, sister Lindy twenty-two and away at college in Santa Barbara.  Big brother, Ron, was twenty-five, busy working in a dental lab, dating and going to school at night.  Still, with the love and attention of his big brother, a few good friends and me his mom, Brian managed to thrive nevertheless.

We still lived in Santa Monica in a cozy two-bedroom apartment right above the carport.  I could look out the kitchen window or the patio and see a colorful, angled view of the alleyway with a long row of assorted buildings and carports that got smaller and smaller out into the distance like a colorful oil painting.   

I had been working at various companies as a secretary.  Two of the companies went out of business, so I ran around on interviews and found another job.  Brian’s Junior High was just a couple of blocks away.  When I arrived home, he was usually playing with the principal’s son next door or riding his bike with one of his friends.  One particular day after work I decided to bake potatoes, make creamed spinach and broil some lamb chops.  At that time I really had no interest in fancy cooking after working all day.  Lamb chops were quick and easy and I loved the aroma as well as chewing the crisp meat around the bone.  

Thin as a rail that kid was, but he sure loved to eat, when he wasn’t too busy.  The doorbell rang.  It was my son.  He no longer had that little pixie boy look.  Now tall and lanky, Brian stood there with his sweet handsome face, small cookie ears, silky brown hair and big brown eyes.  He carried a little black shorthaired dog in his arms.

“Mom, I found this little lost dog.  I don’t want her to get run over by a car.  I promise to look for her owner.  Can I just keep her for a couple of days?” 

I tried the usual excuses.  “We live in an apartment.  The Dog needs a yard.”

“I’m looking for the owners, mom.  I promise.”

“Okay,” I said, “but please really ask around.  It’s just not fair to that little animal to keep her locked up here when I’m at work and you’re in school.”

“I promise, Mom.”  “C’mon, Tippy,” Brian kissed Tippy tenderly on the head and her ear and said.  “Let’s go play ball.”  “See mom, she’s got a little white spot on the tip on her right foot.”  I could already see the two of them bathed in a blanket of love.  Brian just had too much love in his heart and it needed to go somewhere. 

Two days became two months.  I never needed to remind him to feed her or walk her.  He was just in heaven with his new friend.  Then Tippy got a terrible case of fleas, and we took her to a grooming place.  Nothing worked for more than a day, and every afternoon Brian was in the shower giving her a flea bath; he loved her unconditionally.  He walked her every morning and then went to school while I went to work.  Tippy had the run of our apartment as well as the patio over the carport at 947 16th Street in Santa Monica.

Then one day, there was a knock on my door.  There stood a neighbor I had never met before.  He complained that our dog cried all morning and kept him awake.  I didn’t ask, but assumed that this man had a night job and so I decided to take Tippy to the animal shelter, where surely someone would find her and give her a good home with a yard.  Brian did not argue with me about my decision.  He actually accepted it much better than I did.  I wept the entire weekend in fear that the dog would be put to sleep.  I wonder now if Brian had grown a shell around him, as I had when I was young, to insulate himself from the pain of losing a loved one.

At my Saturday afternoon tennis lesson in Pacific Palisades, I tearfully told Louise, my tennis teacher, of my predicament.  It just happened that, like one more miracle, Louise knew an elderly couple from her church who were looking for a dog.  Louise found their telephone number, called me with it later, and I phoned the couple on Sunday making arrangements to bring them the dog on Monday after work.  So, Monday on my lunch hour, I was now working at UCLA as Secretary II in Speech Pathology, I rushed to the animal shelter, retrieved the dog, brought her home and rushed back to work.  I got back to work a little bit late and my employer, Dr. Baltaxe, was quite annoyed at me.  I should have told her what was happening.

After work I drove to a lovely small home on a grassy cul-de-sac in Pacific Palisades and delivered Tippy.  Mrs. Wylie, somewhere between 65 and 70 years of age, restrung pearls and other beads for jewelry stores and there were threads all over the carpet.  Her husband was lying on a hospital bed, and I realized that he was totally blind.  He gently touched the dog on the head and asked “What color is she?”  His wife told him that Tippy was black.  The Wylies thanked me for the dog and said that, since they had no children, Tippy would be wonderful company.

Shortly afterwards I heard from Louise that the gentleman died and his wife was so glad she had Tippy as a companion.  Four or five years later I decided to call Mrs. Wylie and ask her if I could come and visit Tippy.  Of course she said “Yes, certainly.”  I drove down the coast to Pacific Palisades and was disappointed at first to see that Tippy had gained so much weight, but surprised and happy to see that she remembered me.  She showered me with kisses, just as Brian had once done to her.