SUMMER 2020
WOLFIE CALLS LATE IN the afternoon and says he wants to come by the house to play with Bubba. He arrives with his girlfriend, Andraia, whom I adore, but not as much as Henry—a large, fluffy, white cat who is in love with her—does. He says both of them have had a long, taxing day at their respective jobs and that they want to relax away from their screens.
“Are you going to stay for dinner?” I ask.
“No, we’re just going to hang out,” he says.
“I’ll make something,” I say.
“You don’t have to,” he says.
Two hours later, we are eating dinner. I knew they were going to stay when Wolfie said they were going to hang out. “We’re just going to hang out” meant they had nothing planned for later on. Those two words—“hang out”—are code for the rest of the day and night is open. These days, of course, nothing is open and no one is going anywhere, but I knew from Wolfie’s tone that he wanted to be home, where his mom would fix dinner and he could snuggle with his cats.
For dinner, since I didn’t have much in the refrigerator, I made tuna melts. I mixed the tuna with a couple of hard-boiled eggs, a delicious and underappreciated combination in my opinion, and layered on a few slices of provolone although pepper jack would have been my first choice if I had had any available.
The sandwiches are devoured.
As we eat, I catch up with Andraia, who is brilliant, curious, and fascinating to speak with, though I understand only half of what she says about her work. In addition to occasional modeling jobs, she is a software engineer at one of the large computer companies. I love that she is a young woman who leads with her brain. In college, she majored in computer science after getting the programming bug as a young girl. At ten years old, she tells me, she wanted to make a Backstreet Boys website and she read the page code.
“You read the page code and just understood it?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says.
“I love it,” I say. “I don’t even know where to find the page code.”
Wolfie is quiet and content to listen to Andraia and me chat until I mention spending the weekend at our beach house. With an impish smile, he leans forward and says he might go on eBay and look for replacements for the computer games he lost in what is known in our house as the “flood.” The flood happened almost fifteen years ago. A leak in my bathroom dripped into the playroom directly beneath it and ruined Wolfie’s collection of computer games. They had to be thrown out. I am amused by his enduring distress and laugh.
“It’s not funny,” he says. “Those were sacred games.”
I look at him with raised eyebrows. “Sacred?”
“I had a Sega Genesis. Also a Saturn console, which was rare. And a Sega Pico, which was this kids’ learning center that was really cool. And more. Everything got destroyed.”
“Sorry,” I say, then I cringe as I picture that scene.
“How come the flood got so bad?” Andraia asks.
“I didn’t hear the drip,” I say.
Now it is Wolfie’s turn to look at me with raised eyebrows. “For three years?”
* * *
I will neither confirm nor deny.
My problem is not whether I can hear. It’s what I hear and what I don’t hear. For much of my life, I have only heard the criticism I levied against myself when I looked in the mirror. I confirmed it when I got on the scale. The details changed, as did the number on the scale, but the message was always the same: you need fixing. Which I translated as “you need to lose ten pounds.”
I was telling myself other things, like Go see Mom and Dad and Follow your passion and later Check in on Ed, and I was fortunate to have heard those things. But so many other things were drowned out by You need to lose ten pounds. And the truth was that those ten pounds or whatever number happened to come up that day represented all the other issues and insecurities I wasn’t tending to.
Here’s the deal. When you carry around a heavy bag of emotions and don’t deal with them, you eventually become that heavy bag. Likewise, when all you tell yourself is that you are fat and have to lose weight, you never hear other people say that you are nice, funny, smart, generous, and kind—all the things that make a person truly beautiful.
It was there. I just couldn’t hear it. That you-got-to-lose-ten-pounds voice made me tone deaf to everything else. Not only couldn’t I hear myself think, but I also couldn’t hear anything or anyone else, including all the people who came up to me over the years and said such nice things about me. Imagine such a blessing and not being able to hear it. Like missing Mozart. Or a bottle of champagne popping and baby’s laughter.
For me, it was easier and more believable to hear the negative. The voices in my head confirmed everything I said to myself when I missed the number on the scale even when the facts and the entire world said otherwise.
I missed out on so much. One night shortly after Ed and I were married, I was jerked awake from a deep sleep by noise—music being played over and over again outside the bedroom door. I was annoyed. I didn’t even hear the catchy melody. Instead, the voice in my head said, He has to do that now? When I have to get up early in the morning for work?
I tried rolling over and shutting my eyes tighter. I put the pillow over my head. I could still hear the music—ba-ba . . . ba-ba-ba-ba. Finally, I got up, walked across the dark room, and opened the door, where I found my husband sitting on the floor in front of his mini synthesizer, a knot of elbows and knees and long brown hair hovering over a keyboard.
He looked up at me with a sheepish grin. Our cat Edgar was snuggled in his lap. Edgar looked up at me, too. Both of them knew I was pissed.
“Sorry,” Ed said.
“You have to do that here?” I asked. “Right outside the bedroom door?”
He shrugged. Like he couldn’t help it.
“Please stop,” I said as lovingly as possible. “I beg you to stop. I have to get up at five in the morning.”
As I shut the door and got back into bed, I heard Ed say, “Love you,” then the music started back up again, though only for a minute or so as he eventually got up from the floor and worked the rest of the night in his music room down the hall.
It was a good thing that Ed didn’t listen to me. That song is now instantly recognizable as “Jump.” It came out on the band’s 1984 album and was Van Halen’s first and only number one song. We have laughed about this for years.
* * *
I began learning how to listen when I first heard the music Wolfie was writing. It was the summer of 2015, and Wolfie was on tour with Van Halen. This was his third and final tour with the band. Eager to visit him, I met up with them back East, and one afternoon Wolfie asked if I wanted to hear something he was working on. He was casual about it. He didn’t say he was writing songs. He didn’t describe it as new music of his own. He said it was “some stuff I’m working on.”
He was humble, uncertain, and guarded, which is normal for him, but as an expert in Wolfie-speak, I knew that, in addition to rehearsals, video games, and his girlfriend, this “stuff” must be important to him.
“They’re rough, not even fully developed demos,” he cautioned, as we settled into the back of the tour bus.
I was speechless after the first song, which he had titled “Epiphany.” Halfway through the second song, “Resolve,” I was trying to keep it together and not doing a very good job of it. The back of my throat was swollen and achy and ready to burst, because that’s where I was stuffing all the emotion.
“One more?” he asked.
I nodded.
That’s when the dam burst. The third song was titled “Distance,” a slow, moody ballad that began with a simple drumbeat and a guitar strum. After the song continued like that for a few seconds, I heard Wolfie’s voice. He was humming. I looked over at him. He was watching me for a reaction.
“I don’t have the words yet,” he said.
“I still almost hear them,” I said, shutting my eyes and letting the music into me. “It’s like I can almost hear the words.”
And then I did. The chorus kicked in and I heard Wolfie singing.
No matter what the distance is, I will be with you
No matter what the distance is, you’ll be okay
Without attempting to wipe the tears from my eyes, I hugged Wolfie and listened to the rest of the track with him in my arms. At the time, we did not know that Ed was going to get so sick. We were still three years from hearing that the cancer had spread. But Wolfie, having toured and recorded with Van Halen since 2007, had already been through a lot with his dad, and whether or not he knew it, he was preparing himself for the next inevitable stage, and he was doing a much better job of it than I was. I could not have been prouder.
When I saw Ed backstage at the arena later that day, I literally pulled him away from wherever he was headed to and asked if he had heard Wolfie’s music.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Can you believe it?” I said.
His eyes lit up in the way they did whenever he talked about Wolfie, and he wiped away a tear.
“I know,” he said. “He’s amazing.”
* * *
Even in the early, raw, unfinished state of Wolfie’s music, I heard so much of what we had talked about over the years, what Wolfie and his dad had talked about, what the three of us had discussed when we got together, and what all of us individually had thought or were thinking and were too frightened to say. I heard Wolfie’s talent and his emotions, his sensitivity and his passion, and . . . his love.
“How do you do it?” I asked.
“Like Dad,” he said. “I listen for the music.”
When Wolfie was a little boy, I would take him out on the Van Halen tour every so often so he could spend time with his dad, and Ed would bring him onstage for a father-son duet. I think it was Ed’s favorite part of the show, and Wolfie loved it—the novelty, the crowd, and, most of all, making his dad happy. I prayed he wouldn’t go into music. It was and is such a rough business. People are so judgmental. And with his last name, everything was going to be even harder. Every note he played would be compared to his dad’s music.
As he got older, I resigned myself to the fact that he didn’t have a choice. Besides an abundance of natural talent, Wolfie also had the gift of hearing music in his head or in the air or wherever those ideas come from. Ed gave him permission not only to listen to it but also to follow it. He encouraged him to play and write. Ed was aware of the influence music could have on people through its ability to convey emotions—happiness, sadness, joy, excitement, the thrill of being alive in the moment. He knew it could change lives. It had changed his.
I don’t think anything changed Ed’s life more than playing alongside Wolfie on three Van Halen tours. That is until he heard Wolfie’s own music.
Listening made me feel the same way. But Wolfie didn’t let me hear the demos of his songs again until 2018. This time they had lyrics. Though they were still being produced, they were more polished and put together. Wolfie wrote all the songs, both the music and the words, and he played every instrument. I was so deeply moved after hearing what he was able to express in those songs—thoughts about love, depression, regret—that I sat and stared at him, shaking my head in awe.
Later that night, I sent him a text praising everything he had done as a musician, sharing the concerns I had always had about his going into music, but finally explaining that it was his gifts as a songwriter that had helped me to understand the depths of his artistry and that, even more important, those songs had given me insight into him as a young man and I loved what I heard.
“Thank you for letting me listen,” I said. “I love you.”
* * *
Wolfie was ready to release his album in 2018 and go on tour, but after Ed learned his cancer had spread, he put everything on hold to spend time with his dad. He used the time to tinker and fine-tune, and every so often I heard an updated version of one of his songs. One day he mentioned that Ed’s favorite was “Think It Over.” I was jealous. I wanted a copy of the songs for myself so I could listen often enough to have my own favorite.
I didn’t really need to have a favorite. But as his proud mama, I did need a copy of those songs. All of them.
“Fine,” he said. “The next time you come over to my house, I’ll upload them onto your phone.”
I went over to Wolfie’s house the same day Ed showed up and all of us shared the spinach and crab dip I had left over from The Kelly Clarkson Show. I got there first and gave Wolfie my phone while I prepared the dip and arranged the crackers and crudités on a plate. I was eager to get his music downloaded. He was excited for me to sit down and listen to his songs. But he had an unexpected change of heart about putting them on my phone.
“Can you just listen to them here?” he said. “You can come over whenever you want.”
“It’s just for me,” I said. “I’ve been asking for months.”
“But—”
“I promise I won’t play them for anyone.” I started to cry.
“Oh my God, Mom,” he said. “I didn’t think you’d be like this.”
He walked across the kitchen and hugged me.
“I’ll give you the songs,” he said.
When Ed opened the front door and walked into the house, Wolfie had finished downloading all the songs and was showing me where on my phone I could find them. At my request, he was also playing his album on his home speakers. The music was loud, the way our family likes our rock and roll. Ed cocked his head to the side and listened. His eyes sparkled with pride. His smile was even brighter. I looked up from my phone and matched his grin.
“Hiya,” I said. “He just downloaded his songs onto my phone.”
“Nice,” he said, with an approving nod.
Then he spotted the bowl of spinach and crab dip and the crackers on the table, and said, “Hey, what’s that?”
“It’s delicious,” I said.
* * *
Months after Ed and I talked in George Lopez’s car on Thanksgiving, I thought of an Italian proverb that said from listening comes wisdom and from speaking, repentance. That explained the way I felt about that conversation. When Ed shared the kinship and closeness he still had for me, and the love he still felt, adding that he hoped it didn’t sound weird or awkward, it had more of an impact on me than I knew at the time. I felt good about the things I was able to tell him, too, and after we went back inside, I thought that was it, conversation finished, feelings shared, all good. But I kept thinking about it, and still do.
It allowed me to see that our twenty-year marriage didn’t fail as much as it evolved into a friendship, then into a different form of love. I already knew this. But hearing it from Ed felt good in the moment and even better as time went on.
The next time I saw Ed was in the hospital. It was January 2020 and he was recovering from a procedure on his back. When I walked into his room, he was in his underwear, brushing his teeth. He looked pretty good for someone who had cancer in his lungs and brain and wherever else it had spread. A large white bandage covered the spot on his back where he had had surgery a few days earlier. He was bobbing his head to Wolfie’s music, which was playing on a couple of Ed’s speakers at a volume atypical for hospitals.
“Pretty good,” I said.
“It’s fucking amazing,” he said.
* * *
Now, six months later, life has changed. We are locked down in our homes, we see only those in our pods, and we wear masks if we go outside. I am being told that we might tape Kids Baking Championship later this summer. Ordinarily, that would trigger panic followed by a diet followed by anxiety. But my own work—and my work with Angie—is helping me to manage those voices in my head that are always telling me to lose ten pounds, be better, and fix myself.
I hear those voices, I acknowledge them, I try to figure out what they want, then I put them in the Trash Room, the Past Room, or some other storage bin. In their place, I hear different voices, more positive voices, kinder and more loving voices. It has an effect. The worries and insecurities I would typically have about being in front of the camera get put in their place, and I am able to focus on how much fun it will be to hang out with my friend Duff and laugh with all the remarkable kid bakers on the show.
Ditto with my own kid. When Wolfie updates me about Ed, I am not filtering the information through my own mental cacophony. Instead, I am present for him and more able to understand that he speaks in code, telling me what he thinks I need to know about Ed and also what he needs me to know as his mom. The two are not the same thing. It is amazing what I can hear with a clear head. It’s like driving with a clean windshield.
I only wish I had been able to do this sooner. I think about the arguments I had with my mother and that one showdown at the beach house years ago. When she asked why I didn’t want to talk and be closer, I think what she really meant was why won’t you open up to me and let me open up to you. I couldn’t—not with her. There was just too much gunk. Just because she was ready to open up didn’t mean I was ready. I didn’t have that skill set—not yet.
I wish it had been otherwise. I see other mothers and daughters with tight relationships, and I wonder how my life and my mom’s life would have been different if we’d been that way, too. We were so alike in so many ways. She ate her emotions. She was always on a diet. She didn’t fully come into her own until later in life. It makes me sad for what could have been, but maybe it’s just the way it was supposed to be.
It took Ed and me until this past Thanksgiving to talk and hear what was really in each other’s hearts. I wish we had done that ten years earlier. It is a bright, shiny moment amid what is turning out to be a truly weird and terrible year. But Ed and I trade texts. Even though this damn Covid has me nervous about going to see him, I promise to drop by, that is if I ever go anyplace but the grocery store.
Strangely enough, I have been hearing the intro to Van Halen’s song “Women in Love” in my head. Though Ed wrote it before we met, the intro has been a favorite of mine since I first heard it. Backstage at shows, while he was tuning his guitars and warming up his fingers, I always asked him to play it. I didn’t have to say anything more than “Please play it,” and he knew exactly what I wanted to hear. Occasionally, he snuck it into one of his solos and turned to me on the side of the stage with a playful glint in his eyes to see if I was listening.
I am determined to make more good memories by listening to the good stuff. To that end, the best advice comes from my kid. One day I ask Wolfie about writing the lyrics to his songs. I am impressed by the sensitivity and depth of the subjects he has tackled. When I was his age, I struggled to express my emotions. Just getting a handle on them was a challenge. Even now, at my age, I am still learning. Wolfie explains that melody comes before words, but while he is writing, he is coming up with what he calls mouth shapes—“Words and phrases that feel good in my mouth,” he tells me.
“Instead of trying to shoehorn a bunch of words into a song because I’ve written them down in my notebook, I listen for words that sound good and feel good.”
“You listen for a feel?” I ask.
“You can hear when something sounds right.”
I get it. And that’s how I finally learned how to listen.