The Newest Angel In the Ethers

AUGUST 2016–Traveling home for the funeral of my childhood best friend's father forces me into a nostalgia bubble that is as impenetrable as the needled, silken casing of a bagworm. There's no escaping the barrage of memories that flood my mind and heart.

As I ride in the cab to the airport to begin my AUS > MCI trek, a short film replays in my mind's eye  my adventures with Gina, several of which feature Gina's quiet and unassuming father, Jim Rogers. They are some of the most memorable moments of my childhood and adolescence.

With apricot/macadamia scones in tow (because my girlfriend bakes for every occasion), I head home to engage in one of my least favorite activities, mourning, yet also one of my most favorite activities, connecting with people I love. It's an interesting dichotomy of feelings–dread and excitement–though a combination of feelings that I am going to face a lot in my lifetime since I come from such a large family and am blessed with an incredible number of very good friends.

As I, and a seeming one million other travelers, stand in the security checkpoint line of the airport, I worry about the impressive collection of fingernail weaponry in my purse, including a sharp metal nail file, cuticle cutters and nail clippers, yet neither the TSA officials nor their high-tech x-ray equipment, notice the arsenal. Nor are they at all interested in the liquid hand sanitizer that I've been whining about having gone undetected for nearly a decade now.

Instead, I'm pulled out of line for my carefully wrapped bag of scones.

A very focused and serious TSA official walks me to an area away from the rest of the crowd. Wielding his explosive trace detection wand like he's on the front lines of the war on baked goods, he begins his exploratory mission. He wands every individually wrapped apricot scone with the same caution with which one handles dynamite.

After I shift my body weight at least a dozen times on my shoeless feet, I finally roll my eyes and pointedly ask if it is the powdered sugar that is making him take such great interest in my scones (as if I've somehow impregnated my own purse with Anthrax disguised as confectioner's sugar).

The TSA official, not break stride with his incredibly thorough wanding, announces emphatically and in an extremely militant tone, as he peers cautiously into my once neatly packed gift bag, "Miss. Something about these pastries looked dangerous to my x-ray technician; therefore I am doing my job and carrying out a secondary investigation."

I give an involuntary snort as I imagine this guy watching too many Law & Order episodes. Or maybe he is one of the millions of Americans who think everyone out to steal some slice of their freedom.

I know. I know. Terrorists. He's doing his job to save everyone from the elusive female terrorist who has disguised her box cutter by encasing it in dough.

As I become aware of the cold tile beneath my bare toes, I spin off into thoughts of how insane it is that my scones are being dismantled for the sake of national security. And what's with the permanent no shoes policy?! If they can see the entire skeletal system of all the people willing to walk through the God-only-really-knows-what-this-machine-is-actually-doing-to-my-body scanner, why can't they see inside a shoe?

I decide the situation is in serious need of some levity, so I insert some of my own attitude into the dialog.

"Well, your wand must have some incredibly magical powers to so easily penetrate several layers of saran wrap and heavy-duty ziplock plastic. I won't even begin to wonder why you guys have never once in 8 years confiscated the more-than-4-ounce bottle of hand sanitizer that I keep in my purse solely for the purpose of seeing if I can break some sort of Guinness Book of World Records streak for the longest-standing undetectable airport security breach."

He thinks I'm kidding, cheerlessly chuckles, and bundles the dozen scones he's now pawed to death back in their bag, which he ever so gently tucks back into my oversized purse.

Handing me my purse, he declares as though he is my military commanding officer, "Ma'am, you are free to go. Enjoy your flight."

I smirk at him and sarcastically quip, "I liked you better when you referred to me as "Miss."

With the enthusiasm of Clark Griswold bidding Mr. Shirley's corporate entourage "happy holidays" as they file past him in the "Kiss my ass. Kiss his ass" scene in Christmas Vacation, I ask my TSA friend if he'd like a scone for his troubles.

He ignores me, pivots on one foot and with a seeming skip in his step, makes his way to his next uber important task in the mission of protecting us all from the looming threats of air travel.

A man with very white feet, both of which sport significantly large bunions, raises his hand in irritation when my overly enthusiastic TSA friend points to his bag. I watch the man grunt as he follows his bag, which is cradled in the arms of a man who will likely make him late for his flight.

Thankful in this moment for my propensity to arrive everywhere early, I glance over at the TSA pre-check line and notice that it is significantly longer than the four regular passenger lines. This confounds me. I shake my head, place my earbuds into my ear holes and head to my gate, smushed scones and all.

On my flight home, I am seated next to a woman who also grew up in Kansas City and is headed home after visiting her daughter in her new college apartment. For some reason we begin to talk about Black Hand Strawman, a documentary film about the very hefty history of organized crime in Kansas City.

She schools me on the current mafia dons of Kansas City. On the death of KC mob boss Nick Civella when I was just a junior in high school, the Cammisano family took over control of the organization in America's heartland, but apparently even that has changed, and I dare not utter over the inter webs whom she has identified as acting as the current head of the mob family.

Many people don't realize that Northeast Kansas City (where both my mom and dad's families immigrated and built their lives) was home to prominent mafia families. The Irish and Italians "owned" that area of Kansas City when my mom and dad were courting at 15 and 16 years old, and though the Irish/Italian mix became more diluted as I grew up, the legacy of those two cultures lives on in Kansas City, Missouri to this day.

I've always been fascinated that the city where I was born and my identity was formed was home to some of the most influential organized crime families in the country; the Italian mafia was dominant, but the Irish had their hand in the as well (I'll be able to report more about it in March after I take the gangster tour with my childhood best friend, Gina, to which this blog post is dedicated).

My mom actually taught CCD to several of the children of one of the Italian mob's head honchos in the '70s, so I always thought I had a pretty good protective bubble around me. Very few people I know are aware of Kansas City's incredibly close ties with the mob, so the subject makes for some fun conversations. Me and the lady seated next to me explore the topic for a solid two hours.

As I exit the plane, I am painfully aware that my left nipple is being awkwardly pinched beneath a God-forsaken breast pasty my girlfriend talked me into wearing in lieu of a strapless bra. She convinced me that silicone that is essentially epoxied to the areola of my breast is much less cumbersome than a bra. I don't think that whoever first made this "less cumbersome" assertion took into account the effect of having flower-shaped latex glued to both boobs for a full 15 hours of business meetings and travel. All I know is that the inventor who created such an incredibly uncomfortable design must have been male.

I see my sweet Mom waving at me from behind the glass that separates the public and disembarkment areas of the airport. I make my way to her, bend forward, hug her, then hold her close so I can covertly reach beneath my sleeveless blouse and pull off the pasties that feel like vice-grips on my areolas. When I toss them in the trash, Mom does a double-take, then grins sideways indicating that she doesn't even want to ask. I coyly smile back at her and ask where my father is.

He is apparently doing his drive-around-the-loading-zone-a-zillion-times-until-he's-pissed routine. By the time Mom and I get to him (which is way faster than usual since I didn't check a bag), he exhaustedly announces that he has circled the entire terminal road 25 times, his voice trailing off and sounding a bit like Old Man Parker from A Christmas Story,  cussing like a fiend while attempting to fix the smoking furnace.

Dad calms down soon after, but not before he blasts full speed through deep puddles accumulating from the rain hammering the  car. We are in flash-flood territory. I hold my arms crossed tightly against my chest, being breast-commando and all, and pray that we don't hydroplane.

Customarily, on the way home from these airport runs I'm audience to some of the most mind-boggling conversations between my parents. This trip is less perplexing. I presume it is because the reason for my trip is a somber one. The only odd interchange follows when out of the blue my mother blurts into the silence:

"Did you know your dad and I went to Boys Town this summer, Née?"

My eyes get huge, though no one can see them in the backseat. My only reference for Boys Town is the south-of-the-border establishment in Tijuana, Mexico where horrid things occur between seemingly self-loathing females and donkeys (so I've heard).

After moments of silence, as I do my best to cancel-cancel-cancel the visual in my mind, Mom turns to the backseat and laughs as she sees my confused look. "Your dad played football there when he was young. It's Father Flannigan's home for orphans and wayward boys."

I smile an affirming smile while still doing everything possible to erase the disturbing images flashing through my brain. Mom's clarification helps; I begin to imagine a Norman Rockwell scene of young boys innocently passing the pigskin instead of an audience of gross perverted dudes exploiting two respectively different types of asses.

We talk about Jim Rogers and his sweet character. We reminisce about how patient and understanding he always was, even as my little sister Julie tap danced on the hood of his car to songs from Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. No, Jim. That wasn't hail damage. It was the shuffle-heel-toe dents my little sister made as she flaked off the first layer of paint on your always-pristine Nova. Why  damp the sound of her new metal-toed tap shoes on the concrete driveway when she could get the full audio effect  of metal clinking on metal. It was in fact entertaining, and she was so damn adorable that Jim Rogers would tell this story with a big grin and deep belly laughter for the rest of his life, or anytime he saw my precious sister, which was often since we lived only three houses up the hill.

Funerals bring with them a strange dichotomous energy. No one likes them, though everyone attends them. Preparing to attend a celebration-of-life ceremony brings forth all sorts of nostalgia. For my parents, it sets the stage for informing the four of us kids that they are working with a funeral planner and have recently decided that a few interesting and non-traditional things will take place at the time of their deaths; interesting things such as both of my parents being buried in pine boxes that my father will build with his own hands. He finds traditional caskets to be too high-priced and, frankly, ridiculous in their ornateness, so he plans to save us kids some money by building his own.

You can imagine how this news is met by his four children. We roll our eyes and pray that he is joking, all four of us doing our best to shrug off this insanity. When we realize that he is serious (partly because Mom isn't laughing the way she typically does when Dad is trying to be funny, but mostly because of Dad's strange emphasis on how important it is to him that we honor his request). Not that odd requests are out of character for my father (he cuts his own hair because he does a better job than a barber), but it's morbid and I can't for the life of me imagine my precious mother (who has had to put up with this man since she was 16 years old) lying in a pine box after she decides to head on down the road to her next adventure.

We attempt to put an end to this insane conversation by assuring them both that we will be just fine with whatever expenses their funerals entail, but Dad is adamant. He actually has a slight smirk on his face now as he rounds out his instructions. I'm beginning to think Dad is setting us up for one final joke so he'll get the last laugh before leaving this planet, and this makes me want to punch him.

Julie decides the only way that we will agree to this insanity is if we have a photo of Dad building the pine box caskets so we can display it for all to see during their respective funerals. This way, we don't have to explain to the thousands of people in attendance that their children aren't actually cheapskates, but that pauper's pine boxes are in fact the final wish of our crazy father--so much so that he built them himself!

The next day at Jim's funeral, Mom and I get to the church just as my high school basketball coach is ducking out of the rosary to head to yet another funeral. This is one of those moments when my body smiles, but also sinks into sadness at the realization that, as the years pass, I'll be attending several more of these damn things. To help me ease the weight of this awareness, I think of funerals as mini reunions. This moment is no exception; I hug Coach Campbell, and pray he doesn't still want to kill me for missing that 3-point shot in the fourth quarter of the state basketball finals. His genuine smile reassures me. 

Coach Campbell hugs my mom, tells me to be safe traveling back to Austin, and leaves us with a "See you soon, Joycie," to which I look at Mom with a "what the?" glance. No one calls my mom "Joycie" but my father.

Mom gives me that Joycie eye flutter, pursed-lips sideways glance I've seen my entire life, while confidently uttering, "Uh-huh" and winks at me. She then pinches my arm while biting her tongue in true Rellihan fashion.

I laugh. She smiles. I grab her arm as we walk side by side in our black dresses into a parish where all my life my mom has had the notoriety and fanbase of a celebrity.

The realization that I will be attending more and more of these occasions as the years pass is supported when I walk into the church sanctuary to see every Italian from Northeast Kansas City in attendance at Jim Rogers' funeral. I mentally catalog their names, falling into a sort of iambic tetrameter cadence that echoes my love of Dr. Seuss. Into my mind pops a variation of a tongue-twister I've relished repeating since I was a little girl, secretly wishing that I was Italiano so I too could have a poetic last name.. I go down the rows of pews and recite under my breath the names of the families I recognize as if I'm reading an excerpt of "Green Eggs and Ham."

"Mortalarro. Bonadonna. Nigro. Agro. Passentino. Vigliaturo. Scacceleti. Lascola. Geriputo. Bianando. Saputo. Gimmaro. Rinella. Caronia. Nastasio. Distefano. Scavuzzo. Serrone. Occhipinto. Circo. Lammano..."

A memory tsunami crashes in on me! We went everywhere with the Rogers girls when we weren't attending our own huge Irish family gatherings. Their beautiful Italian mother, Deva, would drag us all to Don Bosco, and everywhere in the north end and Columbus Park. We ate pasta (though the Kansas City Italians pronounce it "basta") and wished we could wear cornicellos, the small golden amulets that for some reason, like "basta" for pasta, the Italians of Kansas City called gorneys.

In Italian gatherings, everybody greeted us with kisses, either hard on the cheeks or right smack on the lips, just like in my own family. Being with the Italians felt like home; it felt like family. And as I sit talking to the woman who was once the youngest cousin of my childhood best friend, it all comes swooping back into my memory as if it were yesterday.

Dawn looks the exact same as she did as a little girl, just taller. If I squint I can see her at six years old. My sister Julie and I reminisce with Dawn, hearing things that happened decades ago for the first time from her 6-year-old perspective versus our then teenage perspective. Just talking to Dawn pulls the past into the present. It feels surreal, yet beautiful. I realize the circle of life is really an amazingly beautiful thing, even though saying goodbye to people I love leaves me feeling more like I'm embracing a triangle.

I know almost every person in the church, and it feels like a microcosm of the entire universe; my universe. Gina was like a sister to me growing up. So much so that we had her on our family membership to the YMCA. I think she still might be on that membership!

Gina gives the most beautiful and spot-on eulogy about her dad, a humble man who put family first over anything and everything, whose quiet nature was one of strength and faith. I am proud of my friend for being able to make it through this painful moment and paying tribute to her father with such elegance and grace. And equally touched that my high school friend Gary (her brother-in-law) stands supportively at her side, knowing that this is a huge and emotional undertaking for Jim Rogers' eldest daughter. Word on the street is that Gary has been at everyone's side since Jim began to decline in health. This touches me as if not more than Gina's words, and I cry at the gorgeous and palpable love in this sanctuary.

During the reflection after communion, I sit in prayer and think of Jim Rogers. Everything my dear friend Gina has shared in her eulogy is true and real, and brings back the gentle character of a man who quietly affected us all in big and small ways.

I can see Jim standing somewhere in his next adventure, and I feel with certainty that when my own time comes to leave the planet, he will be there with the rest of those I love who have gone before me, standing with his steadfast and certain smile, ready to greet me with open arms. I'll hear once again, "Hey girl. You look great. How you been?" as if somebody's Italian accent has rubbed off on his Irish and made him sound like an Italian James Dean.

When I meet him again, I know we will laugh hard together about Julie's tap dancing on the hood of his car, and a host of other things that occurred when 5 young girls played together, and he will tell me that even though he didn't believe in gay marriage, he always wanted to see me happy and in love

I smile with tears running down my cheeks and hold my little sister's hand in mine. I feel like a little girl again as every memory of Jim my mind can conjure flashes before my closed eyes. It really feels like another angel has been added to the heavenly host, and that there is one more good guy on my side watching over and protecting and guiding me and everyone he loves on this crazy adventure called life. I look forward to one day (far in the future) seeing Jim Rogers again.

As I hear Fr. Toronto begin to speak, I bow my head. "Thank you, Jim. Thank you and Deva for bringing your precious family into my world. Your daughter helped fortify all of my best qualities.

I stand and wipe the tears from my face. Julie squeezes my hand, and I feel someone from the Day family behind me put their hand on my shoulder in solidarity and comfort as Mom pulls me close to her. I look toward the front of the church to the pews nearest the alter to see my childhood best friend and the beautiful family she and my friend Vince have created, and I'm amazed at the way life unfolds. The song Gina and I wrote when we were little girls comes into my head and makes me smile as I begin singing it to myself. I remember how much Gina and I used to argue about what chord I should be playing on my guitar. This makes me silently giggle. To this day, Mom swears we never once made it through every verse of that song due to our bickering.

As memories fade and I come back to the present, I make the sign of the cross and turn to hug the tear-soaked faces of those around me who remind me that I'm one of the most blessed people in the world.

In the vestibule after Mass, Dad turns to Julie, Jerrod and me and says, "Why don't you kids grab your brother and head out to the lake house. Your mom and I will be there later tonight and we can sit around and do what you all love to do most–retalk."

This is Dad's way of pointing out that every time the four of us kids get together, we bring up the same stories-of-old and laugh incessantly. We can do this for hours upon hours. Ask my sisters-in-law. They often want to shove forks in their ears, or at least  take 3-hour walks around the city to escape yet one more of our re-talk sessions.

This time, though, our conversations are actually new ones that entail disclosures that make my mother blush and inspire my parents to consider heading home from the lake early: the shenanigans at the wild keg party Jerrod had during our parents' 25th anniversary trip to Ireland; the times Julie and I got roofied (we were adults when this happened, but it was the first time Mom had heard our full stories); and the monumental secret of the Playboy magazines that my brother and his friends suspended on a rope in a waterproof bag in the sewer at the bottom of our hilllg. We argue about who is the real "black sheep" child of the family, the lesbian or the only one of the four of us who didn't receive the St. Mary's Medallion in high school.

Another conversation that I don't think can be classified as "re-talk" is a trip down memory lane to the days all four of us (separately) had the pleasure of standing freezing and wet outside various Catholic parishes around Kansas City selling candy bars to raise money for St. Jude Children's Hospital with our neighbor Mike Lacascio.

Sell "with" Mike? Yeah, right. We sold them for Mike while he stood visiting with the priests and parishioners departing the church after Mass. None of us sounds happy that Mom volunteered us for those frigid winter Sunday mornings (still wondering why we never sold candy bars in the spring or summer months)! We stood shivering in the sleet with ungloved hands (because have you ever tried to make change for a dollar with mittens on?) and make money for some children's hospital in another state, praying that someone would buy the entire box of candy bars we held in our bitter cold hands, because like a boss managing low-level mob soldiers, Mike promised us that if we sold an entire box, we could sit in the car and warm up—but only for a few minutes before grabbing another chock full box of bars from the trunk to peddle at the next Mass. It was a three- to five-hour nightmare from our youth that all four of us shared.

As we remember those days and share our martyrdom for St. Jude, Mom laughs and tries to defend the experience by stating, "Well, wasn't it any fun at all? You got a candy bar out of the deal each time, didn't you?"

This optimistic argument from our mother goes over about as well as the inane and infuriating messages Donald Trump spews from his Twitter account.

All four of us lean forward in our chairs and unleash a resounding rebuttal, a chorus of adult voices venting our childhood frustrations.

"A candy bar? We wish! At least a candy bar would have been something! I froze my ass off for that guy Mass after Mass, and I don't think he ever said 'Thank you'!"

"He never gave us a damn thing except hot chocolate we had to share from the same Stanley thermos lid that he drank from! Gross!"

"Mom, you whored us out! Selling candy bars for St. Jude's was like punishment for some horrible thing I had no idea I did!"

"I had to rush home and sit in a scalding hot bath just to get my core body temperature up from dangerous lows after shivering in sleet for four hours!"

We commiserate and Mom and Dad laugh as we recall the feeling we all experienced every time Mom would nonchalantly inform us (I don't think we were ever asked) that we would be selling candy bars with Mike Lacascio the next day. It was not a pretty scene. Too bad no one had a camera on us when we got the news about our imminent candy duty. I'm sure our reactions would have gone viral if YouTube and smart phones had been around back then; small bodies going limp and falling to the ground, and dispirited voices murmuring in a half cry, "Nooooooooo!! Mom, whyyyyyy?!"

I could melt down just thinking about it. It was so much my least favorite thing to do that I entertained the idea of stabbing myself to death with the Don Quixote envelope opener that sat perched on Mom's desk, right beside her accordion coupon file. One would think that at least for me, the extroverted, willing-to-talk-to-any-stranger kid, it would have been a fun venture. But I hated it. It was a fate far worse than death by envelope opener.

When Julie and I got older and handed down our Lacascio candy-selling obligation to Jerrod and Jason, I remember my brothers being a bit more subtle in their despair. Upon hearing what parish they would have to travel to the next day in Mike's beat up Oldsmobile (and Mom usually conveyed this information with far too much enthusiasm, as if we were headed to Disney World or something), my brothers would simply sigh really hard and walk dejectedly to their rooms with nothing more than a "Dang it, Mom!"

Their response was so muted that I figured their experiences with Mike Lacascio weren't as bad as ours, or that he must not have made them drink from the same thermos mug, or something, but during our conversation at the lake house the night after Jim Rogers' funeral, I find out otherwise. My brothers were just as befuddled as we were by our mother's incessant need to volunteer us for St. Jude candy bar duty, and Mike did in fact still have that exact same Stanley thermos and still passed that same dirty lid to the boys. The only reason any of us reluctantly drank from it was hope in the slightest chance that the scalding liquid would warm our frigid bodies.

We all laugh and find the silver lining of gratitude that at least our baby brother Jason got our puppy Annie out of the deal.

After my brother calls our father multiple times one fateful Sunday morning, finally crying into the phone as he proclaims that someone is going to eat the puppy if he doesn't rescue her and bring her home, Dad caves and gives his 9-year-old son permission to bring the dog to live with us under one condition: that Jason take care of her.

Jason agrees, emphatically declares to all of us that Annie is "his dog," while Mom can probably count on one hand how many times he actually fed or bathed Annie. He loved that dog though, and that dog loved him.

I'll never forget the blue racquetball Jason affixed to a cross that marked Annie's burial spot in the backyard after she died. That ball is likely the very reason Jason was a decent high school quarterback. When Annie was alive, Jason would throw that ball for hours, and Annie would retrieve it tirelessly.

After a few beers and dinner, Mom and Dad leave to head back to Independence to sleep in their own bed, but not before we take a series of family photos to commemorate the night. The four of us kids stay behind and continue re-talking. At 12:35 AM, my sister drops me off at our childhood home, driving off before I realize that I have left the keys to the house in my other purse. I case the joint, hoping there's an unlocked door or window, all the while feeling like I'm a teenager trying to sneak back into the house after curfew.

Mom and dad are asleep. Neither one of them is answering their texts, and I'm pretty sure ringing the doorbell to wake two people long overdue for Miracle Ear would be futile.

I realize that I may end up sleeping on the porch.

I find a long branch that has fallen from the tree in the backyard (a tree that was planted sometime after my youth, because it wasn't there when I used to mow that damn tiny hill that felt like Mt. Vesuvius to my little body struggling against gravity behind the mower).

The branch is leaning up against the chain-link fence. Something tells me to grab it and tap lightly on my parents' window, and call ever so softly, "Mom."

I tap out an annoying duh-duh-duh-duh-duh, duh-duh. To no avail.

I pound with the larger end of the stick a couple of times. I change back to the thin end after hearing a cracking sound on the glass.

I bang harder with the skinnier end, eight times. Standing there silent, hoping to see the window shade next to Mom's side of the bed crack open to allow her to see her oldest daughter waving in the night to be let in.

Still, nothing.

As I begin to walk around to the front of the house, the office window shade suddenly flies open, and all I can think about is the fact that dad's gun rack is on the wall next to that window.

"Oh shit" I bellow, as I duck to the grass on my hands and knees, ready to body roll if I hear breaking glass.

Hunched over on the ground, with my right hand outstretched toward the window as if to plead “Don’t shoot!”, I am frozen in terror.

After a few seconds, I look to the window and see the shade draw shut just as fast as it flew open. Something tells me to run, so I leap forward as if launching a 100-meter sprint from my starting blocks. Once I clear the corner of that side of the house, I walk to the front door with my heart beating out of my chest. When I arrive, I see my half naked father opening the screen door with a face that indicates that he has been awoken from a very deep sleep. Instead of thanking him, I blurt suspiciously, “Did you point a gun at me?!

“No,” Dad utters calmly and matter-of-factly as he turns from me in his “tighty whities” and heads sleepily down the hall to his and Mom’s bedroom.

I smile as I feel the awkwardly familiar pang of teenager-home-too-late-but-parent-too-tired-to-give-a-damn feeling I’d felt on a few occasions several decades ago. As I hear the door to Mom and Dad’s room close, I smile again as I imagine the sleepy conversation that is likely ensuing between Mom and Dad about their grown child trying to sneak back into the house.

Here's to Gina, my childhood best friend, with whom some of the most life-affecting and memorable adventures took place when I was a little girl and teenager, and whose unending friendship helps keep me anchored and grounded in the beautiful relevance of my past, while also encouraging me to take flight and experience the heights of life's adventure. I know she, like my own family, is always there to welcome me home.

Rest in peace, Jim. Your light and your spirit live on in the solid character of your three beautiful daughters, and we'll never stop sharing memories of your laughter as we retell the stories of our childhood, including that of a precious tow-headed little girl whose favorite dance stage was the hood of your car.