When Connie and I first started dating, it quickly became clear to me that, as a single mom, she was very protective of her then-nine-year-old son, Gib. It wasn’t until Connie and I had been seeing each other for a couple of months that she was even willing to introduce me to him. It was a beautiful moment. I pulled up to Connie’s house, jumped out of the car, and Gib was already running toward me from the house. He threw his arms around me for a hug. It was apparent to me that Connie must have said a few nice words about this guy she was seeing. Connie later told me that she told Gib I was someone important to her.
Gib and I became fast friends. I’m sure it was awkward for him at the time. He already had a dad, so he eventually decided he would call me Dada. And that’s been my name ever since . . . except when he made me a grandpa three times. Now I’m Pop Pop.
When Connie and I got married on April 4, 1992, Gib was a big part of the ceremony. He made a speech. It was a three-ring ceremony, so he got a ring to wear as well. It was the perfect way to celebrate our new, blended family. When Connie and I were on our honeymoon in Hawaii, she was offered a starring role in a movie that was filming in Budapest, Hungary. The shoot schedule was four weeks. Two days after we got back, she left for work. That meant Gib and I would be home alone together for a month.
While it seemed like a terrific opportunity for some Dada-son bonding, I also found it to be intimidating at first. Instant-Dad would now also be driving carpool and trying to help with homework. Gib, who was ten at this point, was a math whiz and even at that age he could solve a Rubik’s Cube in minutes. I did my best. He laughed a lot.
The first weekend we were by ourselves together, Gib asked if we could go to Raging Waters outside of Los Angeles. It was the second week of April and still pretty chilly in Southern California. We arrived to find very few people at the water park and the attendants wearing parkas. Two hours and forty-five tube rides later, I was suffering from what felt like hypothermia. When Gib saw that I had turned blue, he agreed to leave. We drove home with our seat heaters on, listening to “Bohemian Rhapsody” at full volume.
At some point, Gib and I decided that we needed to make a movie every week to send off to his mom in Budapest. My favorite was when we dressed up as Wayne and Garth from Wayne’s World, complete with wigs. I was Wayne. We pretended we were live on TV and even rewrote the theme song to serve our purposes: Connie’s World . . . Connie’s World. Party time. Excellent! Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth.
Twenty-seven years later, during the taping of our seventh PBS special, Gib performed with me on stage and I replayed that clip. The audience loved it. Prima was born when Gib was thirteen, so he became a “third parent” as we raised Prima. At times during family meetings, he would act as Prima’s legal counsel and try to ameliorate her situation or her sentence for breaking the family contract. She paid him in chore hours.
When I was suffering mightily during my cancer journey, both of my kids were by my side during surgery, chemo, recovery, healing, all of it. Today I get to perform with them all over North America on the concert stage. Gib, playing music and performing comedy; Prima, dancing jazz and modern. Connie, as producer and director, somehow makes sense of it all and turns it into a PBS event.
I cherish the times when we work on a project together as a family. It’s a powerful combination of creativity and purpose. And whether it’s cancer or a tsunami, my family are warriors. And when a family member is in trouble, we are in the fight together.