July, 2014

Dennis and Sanna Jean

Thursday, July 24th, 2014

Dennis died two months ago. He is Joyce’s son and Susan’s brother and Linda’s brother. He left behind a trove of brilliance and independence and because I knew him for a short time because of Joyce and Susan, I understand, in my way, his ability to inspire love in the people he loved and inspire despair in the people he loved but it was primarily an abundance of sexy independence that he left in his wake, so as a result or a reaction to his passing a caravan is forming to drive his truck and camper to his mother’s compound near La Paz because that is the way people who live like Dennis behave and the reason people who love men like Dennis react - artists and renegades and lovers - they form a caravan through the desert mountains and create an earthly wake where once a man surfed his way through a life that jiggered and danced because he was present - he could not be ignored, he will not be ignored, ever, because he was Dennis and he is Joyce’s son and Susan’s brother and Linda’s brother and his life matters more than even he could have imagined.

Sanna Jean died two and a half years ago. Today is her birthday, her 80th birthday. She is my mother and Susan’s mother and Randy’s mother. On the day she was born her head fit in a teacup and her body inside a shoe box, with room to spare. Mother grew up and out of that teacup and shoe box and lived a life with nary a dull moment. Her emerald eyes and ruby hair shimmered in the light, shimmered in the dark. She was a force of nurture and nature. She loved profoundly and desperately. People were drawn to her, desirous to twirl in her orbit. Her life matters more than she ever imagined.