Missing Mel

It’s what Mel would have wanted. Especially if the vote’s for McCaskill!

When Mel and I moved from our place in Mountain View down to Santa Clara, she decided that she wanted to get DirecTV instead of cable because there was a package available from the sattelite tv provider which would let her watch her football every week. In fact, the package which she ended up getting made every single NFL game being played each week available to her. Of course, for a football fan like Mel this was a very dangerous addiction.

Every Sunday she would get up so that she could catch the early game, and if the Steelers weren’t playing at the time, she would default to switching between random games, usually favoring any AFL teams which were playing.

Personally, I had very little interest or knowledge of american football, but over the years of living with Mel I absorbed a pretty good working knowledge of the sport. Listening at length to Mel’s enthusiastic explications of on-screen goings-on would definitely give one a first-class education in the pigskin arts.

In fact, in the past couple of years I was dumbfounded that it seemed as if Mel wasn’t following football so closely. I think it spoke very well of the metier she chose in that she was so dedicated to it that she was spending very little brainpower on football. Either that or they were working her too hard.

Mel’s favorite team was the Pittsburgh Steelers who in the past several decades had faded from their mid- to late-seventies glory. I vaguely remember in the spring of 1995 I walked by a half-finished building on campus at CMU where there was a “Go Steelers” banner hanging forlornly from the metal framework of the second floor. This was shortly after the Superbowl of that year in which the Steelers had been unceremoniously defeated in their bid for reclaiming some of their past glory. I had absolutely no idea at the time that the Superbowl had just passed, much less that the Steelers were in it or that they had lost. Had I been living with Mel at the time, I highly doubt that that would have happened.

I remember calling Mel as we watched the Steelers play in the Superbowl this year. To show how much of a fan I am, I’ll admit that I can’t remember who they played. Still, there were controversial calls which would cause my phone to buzz with the inevitable indignation from Mel. Likewise, there were plays which were just made for the showcase of the SuperBowl and which also triggered my phone’s vibrate function. I remember calling her after the most excellent Bill Cowher trick play where Hines Ward, who played quarterback in college but was one of the Steelers’ recievers, received a shovel pass and threw it in for a touchdown. I take some small solace in the knowledge that Mel finally watched her beloved Steelers win another Superbowl, even if it was without her heartthrob Kordell Stewart.
I’m probably remembering it all incorrectly, I’ll admit. Mel wouldn’t have, though.

When Mel and I first got together, the album she was obsessively listening to was Laid, by the band James. As was her wont, she would listen to it whenever she could, namely when she was driving. For the longest time she had a portable CD player which she would hook up to her car stereo system via one of those cassette-adapters. In addition to the CD player, she would tote around a couple of CD wallets with all her favourite CDs in them, leaving their cases at home either empty or full of the last batch of CDs which she had been carrying around. Of course, this led to great confusion when one wanted to find a specific CD, but that was Mel.

Considering that it’s now been a month since we’ve been without Mel, I want to share with you that song she loved so much back in 1996.

By the way, I’m not going to have net access this coming week, but I’ll post an update once I’m back.

Last Saturday, August 19th, the folks at SOAR held a memorial for Mel. In preparation for the memorial, the folks at SOAR wanted to put together a video including footage and images of Mel and posted a request for any such materials on their site. Responding to this request I wrote to Jill Vanderkam, the nice lady who was organizing the effort, thanking her and SOAR for what they were doing and included a couple of photos that I had on hand. I was worried that I might have been too late to include anything since I’d only found out about the memorial and the video last Wednesday and was writing to her that evening.
Yesterday I received e-mail from Jill letting me know how the memorial went. Here’s what she said about it (edited to just the relevant content):

Hello Azmeer,

On Saturday, we had a small, but very close group out at the drop zone to honor Melissa. Our intention was to participate in a sunset skydive to honor her, but unfortunately the weather didn’t cooperate with our plans. I think that was her way of reminding us, that we survivors should skydive to celebrate ourselves and for no other reason. So, instead we opted for pizza and champagne. We also had an amazing candlelight vigil where we all shared. We also took some group pictures with a magnificent sunset as our backdrop. It was as if the sky opened up just for us, or should I say Melissa. As the sun was setting, one of our survivor sisters pointed out that one of the clouds looked like a bird, as if it were Melissa soaring. We will truly miss her! She was one amazing woman, who was always supportive, kind, witty and fun! We’re so grateful that she was a part of our lives.

With Warmest Regards,

Jill

Here’s a picture of the sunset…

Thanks Jill, for the kind words and the photo. I really wish I could have been there. Thanks to SOAR as well, because I knew that you guys meant a lot to Mel.

This past weekend, there were two memorials for Mel and the other victims of the crash in Sullivan some three weeks ago. I mentioned the SOAR memorial earlier, but unbeknowest to me there was a memorial held at the Sullivan airport this past Sunday as well, which Jim attended. They mention that balloons were released, each with a message or slogan significant to the divers. I wonder what was in Mel’s balloon?

I watched the Tigers beat the Rangers tonight. Three days before my sister died, my wife, three daughters and I were at Jacobs Field in Cleveland to watch the Tigers beat the Indians. It’s been a magical season so far, yet now I cannot watch them play without thinking of Missy. Growing up all over the country, we spent the summers of our youth listening to Ernie Harwell and Paul Karay (sp?) call Tiger games on WJR. We could get the games on our dad’s AM radio at night. The voice of Ernie Harwell remains as familiar to me to this day as that of my own father. I still remember those commercials for Marathon (Best in the long run…Marathon), the Ballpark Franks ads and Ernie Harwell calling home runs with his sweet sounding “LOOOOOONG gone.” We would listen to those games gathered around dad’s backyard fire pit.

On April 7, 1984 Missy, a friend of mine and I took in a game between the Tigers and White Sox at what is now known as “Old” Comiskey Park. It was bitterly cold with a light but steady rain and winds that swirled through what had become a decrepit stadium. But we saw Jack Morris hurl a no hitter that day. The three of us had snuck into prime seats directly behind home plate as the game neared its end as very few home town fans chose to stay until the final out. As Morris greeted his catcher after the final out was made, Missy, my friend (also named Jim) and I were caught on camera in the background. For a season or two, the three of could be seen clearly in that same footage as it played as part of NBC Sportsworld’s introduction. It was indeed an exciting moment…at least for Jim and I. As the players left the field, I turned to my little sister…then 16…and said “Wow Missy!! How about that?! We just saw a no hitter. Whattaya think?!”

Missy’s response? “Yeah…it was kind of boring…” I keep thinking about that. I miss my sister.

This is Bob:

Bob’s my resident furry thing who sheds like crazy, throws up on my sheets, and demands attention at seven in the morning when sane people have the sense to be asleep. I should also note that I am allergic to cats, of which Bob is a fine representative.

So you might ask, “Why do you have a cat when they shed like crazy, throw up on your sheets, and demand attention when people should be asleep? Not to mention the small issue of you being allergic to them, too.”

This is a very good question.

Back when Mel and I moved into our first place together, we discovered that our neighbors had cats. We also discovered they had a dog which they kept chained up in their back yard, causing it to bark incessantly at odd hours, but that’s another story. There were three cats which haunted our place, but the boldest of the three came up to us when we moved in, keeping a safe distance and being appropriately skittish, but it was a fine welcome for the both of us as both Mel and I love cats. That bold kitty was Bob, whose daring made us think that she was of the male persuasion resulting in her name. We later found out at the vet that she was a girl, but the name stuck.

We soon started to put food out for Bob, and when I say “we” I mean Mel. Well, that’s the way it started, anyway. Soon enough it was as much my responsibility to feed Bob as not. And despite my protestations and my allergies, Bob was soon progressively given access to first the entryway, then the living room couch, then the entire living room, and eventually she had the run of the place.
When we moved out of the place in Mountain View, we wondered what to do about the cats. I haven’t described how badly the neighbors neglected their pets beyond chaining up their dog, but needless to say we spent a lot of money on vet bills taking care of Bob, her sister, and her mama. When it came time to go, we decided that Bob would come with us. It was touch and go as to whether we would take Sister Cat with us, but we finally decided that my allergies couldn’t take both her and Bob.

Bob survived the move, despite being traumatized by it to the point of licking a strip of skin on her belly completely bare of any fur. Because the strip was so well-defined and clean, Mel and I entertained the possibility that every night someone was sneaking into the back, where Bob had her bed, and shaving that one small strip of fur off just to spite us (and Bob). In our defence, it was a couple of weeks before we actually witnessed Bob licking that spot clean.

From that point on, Bob was without a doubt our cat. She adapted quite well to an all-indoors lifestyle once we moved up here to San Francisco as my place doesn’t really afford her any opportunity for outside roaming. And when Mel finally moved out; first down to Palo Alto to work for Stanford and then out to Florida to work on the Betty Castor campaign; she said that she wouldn’t be able to take care of Bob because she couldn’t really promise that she had a place which would allow pets, not to mention the odd hours and hectic pace of life working on the campaigns.  So of course it made complete sense to leave Bob in my care.
So I became a single parent, and from then on Mel would constantly ask after Bob each time we talked.

Until earlier this year when she got Eggbert. This is a picture of her which Mel sent to me and Uge:

As should already be obvious, Mel really loved and adored cats, especially the ones she brought home. Eggbert is now in Texas with Beth, Mel’s sister, and Bob’s right now sitting in my lap purring up a storm. This past winter when Mel came out to visit, I played around with the camera on her phone, taking some pictures of Bob. Mel loved them, and used one of them as the background image on her phone so that she would get to see Bob every time she opened it up to make a call.

SOAR has done a wonderful thing. They’ve established the Fearless Spirit Fund in honor of Mel’s memory. They have a couple of pages put up as well, one with some photos of Mel and one describing Mel’s involvement with Operation Freefall. I think the thing everyone remembers is Mel’s passion for skydiving despite her regurgitative response to her initial encounter with freefall. I think vomit is universal.

In any case, if you wish to contribute to the Fearless Spirit Fund, here are the instructions from the SOAR page:

Please mail a check or money order to:

SOAR
817-A Viriginia Drive
Orlando, FL 32803

Please make the check payable to SOAR and in the memo section write:

Fearless Spirit Fund

SOAR is also having a Memorial Celebration this Saturday, August 19th at Skydive City, where Mel did her second Operation Freefall jump this past April. I wish I could be there with them.

It’s been two weeks since Mel was killed.