Bob Becklund died today. Shortly after eight his granddaughter Emma called his loving ex-wife Theresa, with the news. Theresa emailed Jadyne immediately. We knew within the hour.
Bob and Theresa were our next door neighbors on Dutton Avenue in Santa Rosa for many of the twenty-six years that we called Roseland “home.” They moved into what was a weed-infested lot with a decrepit house in front of which was an old Chevrolet, in such bad shape that when Bob called for a tow truck to take it away. parts of the Chevy fell off the hitch, covering Dutton Avenue with an axle, tires, and a transmission. Bob and Theresa turned the weed patch into a much more friendly and accessible weed patch. I gave him my broken Lawn Boy mower, and true to form he was able to repair it, then motivated by having a working power mower, dug up weeds in the back yard, planted grass, and invited me and Jadyne over for the inaugural “first cutting.” It might have been the last cutting, too, as the weeds were stronger than Bob’s will, and the mower went into retirement. The house was a different story. They remodeled it and made it possible to actually live in, to play ragtime piano in, and for Bob, a history instructor at the College of Marin, a place to work.
Bob and Theresa were the original “odd couple”, living proof that in some marriages age is irrelevant. At one point the four of us spanned four decades. Bob was fifty, I was forty, Jadyne was thirty-nine, and Theresa, twenty-five years younger than Bob, was twenty-four.
The May-December marriage eventually broke down, but the feelings between the two of them didn’t. Theresa wasn’t at his side when he passed, but he knew that she had returned in spirit. He squeezed her hand in the last days, as she reminded him how much she loved him. She passed to him our feelings, too, and he was able to recognize and understand the great respect and affection we had for him.
Here they are in happier times:
Bob, John, Theresa, and a mysterious gift certificate for egg rolls.
Both Bob and Theresa were kind and thoughtful beyond description. When Teeny died they were there for us, when our golden retriever was put to sleep Theresa built a little remembrance altar in our back yard with a candle on it, a final resting place for the ashes. Theresa’s sister Taffy was our most valued employee, a woman who was equally skilled at classical piano and violin. We hosted a compound, a family with Bob, Theresa, Taffy, Jadyne, and me.
Thirty-six years ago I wanted to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. I bought Jadyne several gifts, tickets to see the Lettermen at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, dinner reservations at the Tonga room in the Fairmont, and Bob and Theresa managed to procure what they thought was a limo, but was really a big Pontiac, and drove us down and back. Bob wore a tux. Theresa dressed to the nines, and the four of us headed to SF while Jadyne opened the anniversary gifts. I don’t know what Bob and Theresa did in San Francisco while we were celebrating, but they were the ones to offer this evening to us.
In an earlier blog post I wrote,
“Bob and Theresa were those rare Roseland residents and neighbors who spoke English as their native language. (After visiting Bob yesterday it’s hard to imagine getting by today without a command of Spanish). They were dear friends, and although we marveled that they could stay together we never questioned their affection for each other. Upon hearing an argument between me and Jadyne Bob once said, “I would be heartbroken if I ever heard Theresa talk to me the way you and Jadyne talked to each other.” Perhaps. But hearbreak followed. Theresa fancied herself an itinerant lesbian folksinger and took off for Europe on Bob’s credit card. Heartbreak followed heartbreak, and the two of them divorced. Theresa remarried and moved to Mendocino. Bob met Katie, and they continue to live together next to the house we lived in for twenty-six years.
We last saw Theresa ten years ago when we visited her in Mendocino. She opened a gift shop, which has since gone out of business.
Bob is eighty-four now. He and Katie still live next door to the house that we lived in for so many years. Angela lives there, too. She’s Bob’s full-time caregiver. We asked them about the neighbors, the current denizens of 1524 Dutton Avenue. He said, noise, violence, and drugs. It’s awful. Two years ago a Santa Rosa SWAT team escorted Bob and Katie out of their house as they trained submachine guns on a resident. A couple of days ago Bob overheard a scantily-clad neighbor offering to fuck another neighbor for $50.
Bob is a little forgetful. He didn’t remember the time he and Theresa took us to San Francisco. In fact, he couldn’t even remember Theresa. He said to Katie “…that woman I was married to a long time ago.” We didn’t know if he had forgotten or that he was just playing along. In either case, we were reminded of the passage of time and the changes that inevitably accompany it.
February, 2020. Bob and Katie at the Parkland Café
Katie left Bob sometime last year. His kids didn’t want to care for him in his dying days. His granddaughter Emma did. Theresa came back. R.I.P. Bob. We love you.