My life was really thrown together with Bob's one afternoon in, I think, Connecticut. It was at one of the very early meetings of the Children's Music Network, and we were electing a steering committee for the organization. We were outdoors, under a willow tree. Someone stood up and said, "Here are the names we've come up with." All the names were women, maybe a dozen in all. All were terrific leaders, and there is no doubt that women sing more to and with children than men. But so did we. Bob looked at me, and I at him. "I want to be on the committee," he said. "So do I," I heard myself say.
After that he became not just the great songwriter that I admired shyly from PMN [People's Music Network] to PMN, but, increasingly, a brother. For the last decade, I've been with him four or five weekends a year. His generosity is astounding. He gave a Casio keyboard to my daughter Hannah, who was just learning to play, on the condition that when she outgrew it she would give it to another young learner. At CMN fund-raising auctions he routinely buys an old stocking cap of mine for an outrageous sum--then mails it back to me.
E-mail has really worked for us. My work day usually begins when I turn on the computer and read a column about children by Bob. So far there have been over 400 of them.
Most of them are merely brilliant, but some are life-changing. Then he usually writes me a note. I reply. Some days there have been as many as 15 messages back and forth. We sign them, "love," and I truly love Bob. And now that he has become the (superb) editor-in-chief of CMN's magazine, "Pass It On!" to which I contribute interviews, I find that he even comes up with loving ways to nag me.
MS has taken away some things we could have shared. I remember taking a slow, happy walk with Bob down the sun-splashed road from the pond to the dining hall during a spring PMN weekend. I bet we would have hiked a lot more. And it's harder for him to visit me now. Two birthdays ago he drove from Amherst to my house in Maine to surprise me. He had trouble getting home, and he doesn't attempt that drive anymore.
Still, MS has given us some new ways to share. Bob turns out to be great at letting you help him. Somehow, work can turn into fun. Nearly 50 people helped him move into his new house. Kids were sliding down makeshift banisters, adults were fussing in every room, things were being cheerfully hauled by legions of friends. Last December Hannah and I went to visit Bob in Amherst. One of our jobs was to load and unload Suzie--Bob's motorized chair--into and out of our van. Suzie is a wonderful chair with some serious weight issues. Bob patiently taught us how to fold her and encouraged us as we both risked hernias hoisting her up. We were actually laughing. Later, he and I spent about two hours trying to put a shade up on his bedroom window. It should have been about a ten-minute operation. I would have been using, well, blue language under almost any other circumstance, but Bob was so encouraging and shared with me such a divine sense of the absurdity of the situation--it was a blast.
What more can I say? I love Bob as a brother, a friend, a mentor, an artist, a soul-mate.
The joy and richness he has added to my life cannot be measured. I know that we'll keep finding new ways to enjoy and support and share each other.