Stop and Smell the Roses

Have you ever done that? Stopped and smelled the roses? Me either! The saying has leverage and I get it…life is to fast and we should slow down enough to smell the roses. But I’m thinking the saying really should be just “Stop and smell the Flowers” because a Rose bush could actually be painful if you’re not careful. Plus there are random flowers everywhere…a rose bush isn’t to easy to come by. A rose bush only offers one scent too. Come on people! Let’s smell ALL flowers if we’re stopping!!! That kind of Silly nonsense I just wrote is reminiscent of conversations I’d have with my cousin Joel while growing up. I think WE were the original beginnings of Seinfeld or Friends. The two of us and our shenanigans throughout life very well had the makings of a successful sitcom. Often we were the three stooges because my cousin Amy was with us too. I’m 2 years younger than Amy and Joel so I was honored to be in their presence most of the time anyway?

Tuesday, February 12th marked the 3rd anniversary of losing one of my life-long friends that also happened to be my cousin, Joel Dixon. I started writing this post Tuesday & here we are Thursday afternoon and I’m still working on it. The past few days I’ve reflected on Joel and our relationship thru the years. The idea was to simply pay tribute to him in a positive way on a day that sucked for many of us. While writing & reminiscing I’ve realized I could write a book, movie, sitcom just from Joel & Dene’ stories. When you add in the rest of the cousins…we’d potentially be talking a showtime “Shameless” kinda thing…with a little less shame (maybe). I caught myself with tears shooting down my face while laughing out loud with nobody in the room. (So does that mean I really laughed out loud if nobody heard it?). I’d stop, regroup, or stop altogether and come back hours later.

It was hard hearing the news he was gone that early morning, but it seems hard this year too because of what I’m going through. I know he would’ve been a great comic relief for me. I thought of him during the wig process, the hair buzz process and even the jokes that could be surrounding reconstruction. Today as the short buzzed hairs have started falling out in droves, he’d maybe change my nickname from Ba-day to Mrs. Clean and of course it would sound hilarious with his tone and annunciation. We’d joke politically incorrect because it was us and were always laughing when together. EVERYONE laughed when Joel was around!

Sooooo, this is the story of two kids born to identical twins amongst a fun loving crazy Dixon Family. We were like two peas in a pod and I cannot remember there ever being a time when we argued or I was mad at him. As you can see by these pics, Joel and I were the youngest of the 2 families so it made sense to be side by side. Apparently in the 2nd pic I must not have wanted to sit for a picture and the older 3 thought that was funny. Joel was probably trying to get me to “chill”.

As we grew up there were so many big memories that we shared & it’s interesting as I reflect upon it now, he was in my life for most of the best memories. Devils Lake muck wars, Tubing & Learning to water ski. We used to tube double – each on a tube and Joel would dive from his to mine. The first time he did it, I thought I was going to die, but felt compelled to grab the flying empty tube and dive on it. YES, all while one of the uncles was driving the boat trying to get us to wipe-out. When it came to skiing, it took 2 summers for me to learn, which was a comedy act in and of itself. My competitiveness at least got me to learn slalom by the end of the same summer.

Special occasions consisted of all of us cousins putting on some type of show. This gem recently resurfaced for a fun flashback. Many of us wrote this “rap” for our Grandmas birthday. I don’t recall who led the way on this, but I’d guess I had a decent role ? (Read it to the tune of “Paul Revere” by Beastie Boys)Holidays and birthdays would also entail Joel and I doing stupid things like sliding down the stairs in sleeping bags, turning my barbies or raggedy Anne dolls into punk-rockers by cutting their hair or writing scars on their faces. Just count us out on any “normal” kid behavior.

One summer I was at their house for a week and they had Atari which was never going to be at my house. I’d play it 24-7 when I was there if I could get away with it! Joel hated my gamer addiction because it gave no attention to him. One day he chose to go to extremes to get my attention. He disappeared to the kitchen, grabbed a fake (I think) knife and ketchup. He put the ketchup covered knife under his armpit and layed on the floor. He yelled…”if you don’t stop playing Atari I’m gonna stab myself”. YES, this sounds crazy, but you must admit also creative and pretty damn funny! It didn’t work…I kept playing.

One of the best (and worst) childhood memories with Joel was me golfing for my first time with him and his 2 friends. I think there were more golf clubs thrown than actually swung to hit a ball! They almost ruined the sport completely for me. What came out of those friendships was something that would last a lifetime…THE nickname and THE word. These two 2 syllable words stayed until the day that he passed and has continued on. Wait for it…he called me Bidet (Ba-day). His friend & family moved into a house that had a Bidet Toilet system. Joel thought it was funny that my name rhymed with Bidet. Especially because it cleaned your booty. CAN YOU SAY BOY! Reminds me of how men still giggle at farts the same as when they were 10. The 2nd word was Crusty! Everything was crusty! “Ewwww, you’re hair looks crusty”, “that girl is crusty”, “my dad is being crusty”, “this car is crusty”. You name it, it was CRUSTY, according to Joel.

As we entered High School, College and adulthood, the time spent together was less, but still as entertaining (to others) and fun each time. During High School my dad had his first heart attack Christmas Eve. This beaut of a picture is from that evening…looks like I didn’t want my picture taken (again) and the hair is just darling?

Right about that time Joel was slowly coming out to his immediate family. You see, he was one of my BFF’s, therefore I knew from about age 13 that he was gay. It took him until I was 23 to actually tell me face to face. Somewhere in that decade he told my Uncle Tom (Dads twin) and I recall my Dad’s classic line “Dene’…you need to talk to Joel, because he thinks he’s gay”. I Immediately start laughing and stated “Dad, he doesn’t THINK he’s gay, he IS gay”. With a roll of my eyes I end the conversation with “what’d you think…I was going to talk him out of it?!?!” I’m sure there was a “whatever dad” somewhere in there too. I didn’t care if Joel was straight, gay, crooked, or all of the above, he’s the same dude to me regardless.

If we fast forward to when Joel finally told me in person, there’s a bit of comedic spin to that as well. I’m in Phoenix staying at his place during a work conference almost straight out of College. We go out for drinks one night and in the most serious of tones and look on his face he says “Dene’, Jon isn’t just my roommate, he’s my boyfriend”, I respond with “IT’S ABOUT TIME! I was gonna kick your ass if you went the entire weekend pretending!” Joel laughed and cried simultaneously and replied with “I love you Ba-day! Now can you go back and tell Grandma (and the rest of the family)”. It was hilarious!

As adults we had many fun moments together doing a lot of the same things we did as children. One of our all time favorite things to do was being at the lake in a boat. In our youth it was Devils Lake, as adults, Apple Valley. The roles flipped from us being on the tubes behind the boat to in the boat pulling the kids on the tube. We went from receiving the Christmas gifts at family holiday parties to hosting the Family Holiday parties. As my dad & Uncle Tom always said…we were like Mutt & Jeff. Whatever that meant! To us we were more siblings. We always said that since our dads had the same DNA we were more siblings than cousins. Also joked that our dads were mixed up as babies. Doubtful, but funny!

Well, 3 days later I finally make it through this post. My cousin was a great cousin, brother, son, dad, uncle, partner, friend & all around good dude!

Happy Valentines Day cuz❤️