The Other Man-A Love Story- Post by Bill

 I know it's been a while since I've written, just busy with life and work but I've been meaning to write for a while and what I wrote below is straight from my heart, so here it goes.
 Every father dreads the day their daughter will bring home "the other man".  Having two daughters of my own I knew I'd have to go through it, well that day finally happened about 8 years ago with my oldest daughter Emily who is 24 now.  I can still remember when my wife told me "honey Emily is bringing some friends over for dinner" when they showed up immediately I knew what this "friend" was all about, I mean hey I'm a guy too I could see right through him.  His name was Cory and soaking wet he was probably about 100 pounds I thought "Hmm I could cross check this kid right into nowhere and we'd be done!" but he was very polite and I can remember the sparkle in his eyes, it was Emily, one of her girl friends (who Cory was "really" after..yea right) Aimee, Sophie and me.  As we ate I watched him like a hawk but something about him just seemed right, I know he was there to take my baby away but somehow it felt ok, I can't explain why but maybe it was the way he looked at her? The same way I imagined I looked at Aimee when we first met.  He treated her kindly and showed us respect and the sound of his laughter was genuine and immediately contagious, yea you can say I pretty much liked him from the start.  After dinner Emily proclaimed "no dad we are just friends" LOL I told her (and I'm a true believer of this) men and women or in this case boys and girls can NOT be friends.  This did go over so well as you can imagine but guess what? Not too long after that Aimee told me that Emily had confided in her "mom you know that boy Cory? well we aren't just friends anymore" AAAHAA! See a father always knows! As the years went on Cory became part of our family, we had nick names for him of which my favorite was "Hipster Doofus" because of course I came up with it! He went on family vacations with us and even at times when they had their differences or would "break up" somehow he would always still be around? In fact one time when we took a small trip to Palm Springs (the Ozzie's LOVE Palm Springs) I remember walking up and having my coffee in the living room of our hotel room and seeing him walk by and causally say "good morning Bill"...I went in our room and asked "when did Cory get here?" Of course he just drove out on his own and met us there, of course you say I should have been angry but looking back I never really did get angry with him maybe it's because we were so much alike, growing up alone with no family and being on our own as soon as we hit that 18 mark, neither one of us able to finish college but always able to find good steady work, secretly I was rooting for him as the "underdog" and thinking that with Emily by his side he could do anything he set his mind to.  Sure there were ups and downs, fights between him and Emily but somehow  they  always found each other, loved each other and took care of each other.  Cory even lived with us for a few years not having anywhere else to turn and of course Aimee took him in, we took him in like our own, and he was, he was just like the son we never had. He was kind to Sophie and treated her just like a little sister, if anyone in my family would call for help he'd be the first one to show up and would never ask what's in it for him, that's just who Cory was. He would show up to my games and make himself at home in the Locker room with the boys and pass out beers..that's who Cory was everyone he met immediately liked him, like me he had "Kavorka".

There are certain sounds, certain phrases we remember going through life, moments we embed in our minds always there at our beck and call to remember, when Aimee said "I do" the day we got married, the sound my children made when they were born, those are moments forever embedded in my mind that when I want to remember them I can pull them out of a file in my brain, sadly one of those sounds or moments embedded in my mind will be the morning of January 23rd when at roughly 4:30 am I heard the screams, moans and uncontrollable sobbing coming from Emily because sadly that night Cory was in a fatal motorcycle accident and Emily had just found out.  It's one of those moments I don't want to remember believe me, but it's something I still hear almost everyday and replay in my mind.  I just had lunch with him downtown a few weeks before, he texted me and just "wanted to have lunch" he talked me into having a beer with him, we talked, we laughed, he was so happy, so content with life, looking back was he telling me goodbye? He told me how he loved Emily even though they were going through a rough patch again, he told me about work, about his new bike, how he liked to go fast.  I told him "Cory you have to respect that bike it's very powerful" but in true Cory fashion he just laughed and said " I know but I LOVE to go fast".  To say our family was complete devastated by this is putting it mildly, even while writing this on the bus on my way home from work tears flowed down my face and I didn't care who saw them or what they thought.  The business man sitting besides me saw this and probably thought I was nuts, of course this is LA so he didn't ask if I was ok, he just went on as if he'd seen nothing.
 Just like that moment I'll never forget, the sounds of sorrow I'll never be able to erase from my mind I will also never forget Cory, who was like a son to us, I'll never forget those eyes, that contagious laugh and that huge heart he had, even though I'm not really religious, part of me likes to think that Cory is finally back together with his mom, he's looking down on us everyday with those sparkly eyes and that big smile, I hope they God gave him big powerful wings because you know, he loved to go fast.  Cory I love you and will miss you greatly you'll always have a special place in my heart and should "that other man" ever show up again, he'll have some pretty dam big shoes to fill.

A Special Tribute about Love and Family- Post by Aimee

 

"Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs.

The ones you accept for who they are. The ones you would do anything to see smile,

and who you love no matter what"

Unknown

 

One day when Emily was sixteen years old she brought a friend home for dinner. I was setting the table when in walked a semi awkward teenage boy with green eyes and a charming smile. This is my friend, Cory. She said. After dinner Bill drove him home and I asked if he liked her, was he her boyfriend. No, mom! We are just friends. I few days later Emily pulls me aside and says, mom, remember when you asked me if Cory liked me?  Well he does and I like him. Just like that in that very instant Cory became a member of our family. He became a permanent fixture on our sofa, at our dinner table and eventually on vacations and holidays. We all fell in love with him. He made us laugh, He was wonderful with Sophie, He helped around the house and sometimes he made us cry.

They were kids, I expected them to date for a year or so but this was a deep and lasting love and the longer Emily and Cory were together the more Bill and I became to regard him as another one of our children.

He had suffered loss in his short life and would often come to me for 'mommy advice'. He and Emily were my 'Frog and Toad' as I called them. I picked him up after he was fired from a job, I made him soup when he was sick and we told him we believed in him.

Before we knew it Cory was at every family birthday, all the holidays and came on vacation with us several times. Bill would walk out to the pool in Palm Springs and come back to the room saying, When did Cory get here?

One year in Palm Springs my mom had this idea to buy a Panini Press. Now my mom gets the name of everything mixed up and soon there were shouts of, who wants a Ka-ba-she?!?

Cory and my mom began making sandwiches for everyone, Ham and Cheese, Turkey and Swiss, Three Cheese. Day after day Ka-ba-she's were flying out of the kitchen until one of the last days when there was no more bread, or lunch meat....Then Cory started making Ka-ba-shes from bagels filled with guacamole and hot dogs, not good. It was on this same trip that we learned a little tid bit about our boy, he was terrified of cotton balls. He tried to convince us that he wasn't scared but actually allergic to cotton balls touching his skin. That was all Emily had to hear she was off and running chasing him all over with cotton balls as he yelled and screamed. My mom, sister, Cory and Emily were laughing hysterically and decided to call me into the room stating that there was an emergency. I walked in to find the three of them laughing at Cory crouching in the corner to get away from the cotton ball. I asked what was going on and Cory says, I am allergic to cotton...look hives!!! Trying to hold back a laugh all I could reply was, Oh honey, no that's not possible.

A couple of years ago Cory was jumped on his way home from the beach. He was stabbed in the arm and hit over the head. He made it to a friends house and called for help. Emily was up at school at the time and called us to help him. Early the next morning after he had been released from the E.R. I went to pick him up. I brought him home and put him in our bed. When Bill got home from work and started into the bedroom I told him to be quite because our boy was sleeping in the bed. The look on Bill's face was priceless. He was one of our kids and we wanted to take care of him.

Frog and Toad had ups and downs, they are young it's to be expected, but no matter what they always found their way back to each other. Most of the time I wasn't aware of them seeing each other during their times apart but I always kept in touch with Cory and he would tell me. We checked in with each other, he and I, and I always told him to be a good guy, make good choices and that I loved him.

Cory was in a fatal motorcycle accident three weeks ago and I still can't believe I'll never see him sitting on my couch again. I'll never see that mischievous grin again or see him run screaming from a cotton ball. Emily is heartbroken and Sophie just keeps saying, he was my friend.

No parent is ever prepared to lose a child. It goes against all we learn is natural but the loss of a child in a family of choice puts me in a type of no man's land. Am I mourning too  much? Too little? Do I have the right to feel sad and to feel this sense of loss? I am a mother who thankfully still  has her children but has lost one all the same.

I love you Cory and I am so grateful and lucky to have had you in my life and family for the past eight years.