About 10 years ago my friend Tami and I were in the basement of my townhouse so that she could visit with my cat Gretchen. My other cat, Mo, was up on the main floor. The two cats had become incompatible, so my husband and I were rotating them every 24 hours, and it was Gretty’s turn to be in the basement (which I would like to point out was a finished and relatively pleasant basement).
Tami was holding Gretty, and she looked at me and said, “You know, this situation with the cats is more about you than it is about them.”
I was flabbergasted. My reply was weak and forgettable—probably something like, “Um, ok, whatever you say.” Then I changed the subject because I did not want to argue with her.
Over the years since that trivial incident, I have crafted sassier comebacks in my head—none particularly worth sharing. I’m not sure why that remark bothered me so much. Now that Tami is gone, having passed away a year ago today, it still lingers in my mind alongside weightier memories.
A woman in my grief group told us how her therapist often asks, “Why do you think that bothers you so much?”
So, I’ve asked myself that question. Why did her comment bother me so much that I still recall it clearly ten years later? The answer is that Tami was at least partly right. When the cats would fight, I couldn’t bear to hear Gretty’s cries—she sounded like she was seeing the very gates to hell. That sound made my bones ache. I did not have the guts to let the cats duke it out and settle their conflict.
A reunion did happen gradually and by accident, as people came over and left the basement door open. For a couple blissful months, the cats coexisted again. And then Mo startled Gretty one day, and the truce was over. Sometimes Gretty would pee on the floor when she was afraid of Mo, so I don’t think the decision to keep the cats apart was entirely about my own neurotic tendencies.
Tami’s remark to me that day echoes as I grieve her loss. Her death haunts me, as the unexpected death of a 54-year old woman is likely to do. I am sad. I feel guilt. Most of all, I am mad. Mad at a long list of people, including her. I hate being mad at someone who I loved and who is no longer on this earth. My anger feels righteous, earned—but as Tami might argue, it really does say more about me than it does about her.
My reactions to her life choices were largely due to my own insecurities and angst. I was afraid we would lose her, and we did, but my fear did nothing to stop that.
A part of me wants to dig through both of our failings, turning them up like soil, letting them sift through my fingers as I try to glean something of use. There will be plenty of time for that later.
For today, I will say that only a friend like Tami can challenge you in that way, and I miss her dearly.
Me and Tami (at right) in our New York City apartment, late 1990 or early 1991. She’s wearing her “winter white” dress, and I think we’re celebrating someone’s birthday or New Year’s Eve.
Rag Doll livin’ in a movie, Hot tramp Daddy’s little cutie.
I can hear my friend Tami singing the song “Rag Doll” as if she were standing right in front of me. Her take was deliciously exaggerated—a cross between Mae West and an old-timey announcer. She loved Aerosmith. Lead singer Steven Tyler was high on her list of celebrity dudes she wanted to shag (the list also included John Cusack and Jeff Daniels).
Tami is gone now. She passed away suddenly on Feb. 23 of this year—just eight weeks ago, as I’m preparing to post this. I’ll never again hear her burst into song, which she did frequently, whenever the lyrics suited the occasion. We will never again sing any of the silly songs we both loved – like “Grab It!” and “Cars That Go Boom” by L’Trimm or “Girlfriend” by Avril Lavigne.
Laid out on my coffee table is an array of pictures of Tami and our close group of friends, taken mostly during our 20s and 30s. They tell the story of a woman who loved cats, often hoisting them high into the air for photos. You see a beautiful woman who looked great in a cowboy hat and once dressed up in a 1960s floor-length pink gown and shiny gold shoes for a small Thanksgiving dinner. A woman who loved going out with her friends. A woman who liked finger puppets, sunglasses, and the beach.
Tami at Coney Island Beach, New York, August 2004.
Because of our age, my friends and I made very few videos together—instead I have albums full of old-school Polaroids and pics developed at the drugstore. A couple weeks after Tami’s passing, I was scrolling through the more recent photos on my computer and happened upon a rare video of her from the weekend my husband and I got married.
Tami and I are cooking in the kitchen; my husband is standing outside on the deck, shooting video of us through the window. We are singing and dancing to “Word Up” by Cameo. Unaware that we’re being filmed, we aren’t playing for the camera. Our motions and voices are low-key and natural. Tami does, indeed, wave her hands in the air like she don’t care. At the end, she lightly slaps her hand on her chest, just below her collarbones. I probably saw Tami do that hundreds of times and never really thought about it. But when I saw it on the video, the familiarity of it made me gasp.
If only I had a few more videos of Tami—moving images full of life and sound and the ease we felt with each other.
Tami holds up my cat Nigel in our NYC apartment, late 1990 or early 1991.
Cat, hat. In French, chat, chapeau. In Spanish, he’s el gato in a sombrero.
I have no idea how or when Tami and I started saying this. It’s from a song in the 1971 Cat in the Hat TV special. One of us would randomly say, “Cat, hat,” and we would finish the rest in unison.
We had lots of running verbal jokes. In college, we relished torturing our friends with a weird game where we turned the lines of a song, any song, into a series of questions and answers.
“Tami, what is it?” “It’s all right” “When?” “Now!”
After a while, someone, usually Tracy, would ask us to knock it off.
“Hey Tami, ask me if we’re going to knock it off?” “Lisa, are we going to knock it off?” “I’m glad you asked, Tami. No!”
Tracy and Tami (at right) dressed up for one of the many concerts we attended during high school, likely the Go-Go’s at Bayfront Center Arena in St. Petersburg, Florida, September 1982.
Tami would sit on the floor in the hallway of our dorm, talking to her mom or sister on the pay phone (another throwback!), and I would make it my mission to do a goofy dance for her until she cracked up.
One day when we were broke and bored, we spent hours going through a fashion magazine, making snarky comments about the content of every single page. I cut out a chart from the magazine that explained the different types of hepatitis and stuck it on her refrigerator door—just cuz.
I wonder what she had on her refrigerator in her last months. I hope there was something there that made her smile.
Tami at the (Big Green) Eggfest in Waldorf, Maryland, May 2012.
Do you really want to wake up next to Ramone? “Why you jump ze bed so quickly on zis morning? Last night you were like wild beast. You must give yourself again to Ramone.”
This is from a comic strip called “Think Twice!” by cartoonist Lynda Barry. For years, Tami and I would recite it fairly regularly, complete with a corny French accent for Ramone.
We met around the age of 11 or 12. We were both late bloomers. For a few years, we were glorious dorks together. We loved the soap opera The Guiding Light and wrote many poems and spoofs about the characters on the show.
Tami would sketch a boy she named Junior, who was always getting into trouble and calling on his mom to rescue him. During our early high school years, I would beg her to draw new Juniors for me, and his predicaments grew more elaborate over time. After her passing, I unearthed a folder full of Juniors and the other artwork Tami would pass to me in class.
Tami lovin’ on my cat Gretchen in my kitchen in Gaithersburg, Maryland, October 2008.
We ended up becoming high school cheerleaders. We left those dorky little girls behind. But we never forgot. Well into our 20s, after a few drinks, we might recollect how miserable it had been to be so far behind all the other girls.
We both majored in creative writing at college. Tami was a Hemingway gal, and I was Team Fitzgerald. We both read and re-read Ann Beattie’s “Chilly Scenes of Winter,” Lorrie Moore’s “Anagrams,” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Edible Woman.”
Not long ago I sent her the illustrated book “Hyperbole and a Half” by Allie Brosh because it reminded me so much of our Lynda Barry fangirl days. I only wish we had gotten the chance to sit down and read our favorite parts to each other.
Terre, me, and Tami at Terre’s wedding in New Jersey, June 1995.
One of the delights of life is eating with friends; second to that is talking about eating. And, for an unsurpassed double whammy, there is talking about eating while you are eating with friends.
Laurie Colwin wrote this in her foreword to “Home Cooking,” a book of cozy essays and recipes. Tami and I both adored “Home Cooking” and its follow up, “More Home Cooking.”
Many of the cookbooks on my shelf were purchased because Tami owned them first. Or because she picked up a yellowed 1970 copy of “The All New Fannie Farmer Boston Cooking School Cookbook” as a gift for me.
Tami was a whiz at cooking dishes all along the spectrum from simple to fancy. Terre recently reminded me how Tami introduced our group to Supremes de Volaille Printanier (chicken breasts with asparagus and carrots) from page 26 of The New York Times 60-Minute Gourmet cookbook.
Her macaroni & cheese was outstanding. And not only did Tami make great meals, but you could always assign her dessert for Thanksgiving or dinner parties, and she would produce something amazing. Her lemon cake—with white icing, not lemon or cream cheese—was one of Stacey’s favorites.
Stacey and Tami in St. Petersburg, Florida, June 2011.
One of her prized skills was being able to tell exactly what size container was needed for any given amount of leftovers. Whenever I’m not sure if I should go with the larger or smaller container, I channel Tami’s supreme confidence in this realm.
Cooking with Tami was always fun. You might even get into a heated argument with her and Fred over whether a squirrel climbed up the side of the building and took a bite out of the chocolate cake that was cooling on the windowsill.
Speaking of squirrels, not so long ago Tami regularly carried a “nut sack” with her so that she could feed the squirrels in the park as she walked to the subway station. She swore some of those squirrels knew her and waited for her.
I don’t doubt it.
Tami with Fred at his birthday celebration in NYC, February 1992.
How much more can I take, Before I go crazy, oh yeah, Crazy, oh yeah, How much more heartache, Before I go crazy, oh yeah, Crazy, oh yeah
Tami and I were drawn to the Go-Go’s song “How Much More” in our senior year of high school because we were both going through a case of unrequited love. We bonded over how unfair it was that the boys we were infatuated with were unavailable.
To this day, I cannot hear “Total Eclipse of the Heart” without thinking of Tami playing it over and over after a bad break-up during freshman year of college.
For decades, we told each other everything about the crushes, hook-ups, and loves in our lives. We made up ridiculous nicknames for them and offered scathing re-evaluations of those who didn’t recognize what dazzling creatures we were.
Tami, Victor, Geoff, and me at the Frederick, Maryland, restaurant Volt, September 2009.
In our 40s and early 50s, Tami was in a long-term relationship with my brother-in-law, which meant we got to see each other often, but it also made our penchant for sharing everything a bit awkward.
I feel honored and blessed to have shared so many moments with Tami over the course of four decades. Every decision, every milestone in my life was poured out to her in great detail. She was a best friend, a chosen sister, a steady presence—even when we were physically or emotionally distant.
Sadly, the last time I saw Tami in person was three years before her passing. We didn’t talk much on the phone anymore or text. But she was always in my heart and on my mind.
And she always will be.
Tami at the Eggfest in Waldorf, Maryland, May 2012.
Bittersweet Nugget 