Entry Eleven: Red-Rover Days, Boardwalk Nights, & The Ones Who Believed It Was “Just My Luck”…
He wasn’t just my cousin.
He was my first Best Guy Friend.
We grew up in the early ‘90s–broke but happy, sunburned and sugar-fueled, running around with scraped knees and wild imaginations. Every day felt like a summer movie montage: Red Rover. Freeze tag. Pool club. Boardwalk nights. Fireworks. Bike rides.
Back when playing indoors wasn’t an option. Your parents kicked you out of the house and told you to come back for dinner. We drank water from the garden hose and god forbid the faucet. Ran to Grandma’s for a snack because she lived around the corner and even right next door at one point. She always had special treats for each of her grandchildren.
Probably tucked away in some Country Crock tub–the Puerto Rican version of Tupperware.
Also, in Bobby's case, he walked. I don’t remember him learning how to ride a bike, to my fucking affliction. He gave no effort or umphhh in his step. My brother and I would be riding at a mile an hour following him through the back roads, from Willis avenue to Main street, when we needed to hit up Mike’s or Nicasia’s Deli.
Torture, really.
We’d race to the comic book store with quarters we found between couch cushions and reap from my father’s five gallon coin savings jar. We memorized Mortal Kombat fatalities. We rewound VHS tapes in car shaped rewinders and cassettes with pencils. We had long, passionate debates about which Power Ranger was the best (it was obviously the Pink fucking Ranger).
Both he and my brother are just idiots and didn’t recognize a bad bitch – even after she kicked both their asses in all their imagination-play-glory right in our grandparents front yard.
Bobby let me tag along when he hung out with his older, cooler friends. The ones who had starter mustaches and smelled like the knock off version of CK ONE cologne.
I was “The Cousin,” and he made sure I belonged.
There’s a bittersweetness being back in the town where it all started. When I walk the old streets daily and reflect on life–what it was, to how it is now….
Please know I keep the memories of us growing up close to my heart. From the pictures of you dressed up as Ralph Kramden from The Honeymooners, because your dream of becoming a bus driver was your only vision for ten years.
To the family get-togethers at our grandparent’s backyard pool parties. The overflowing plates filled with delicious homemade Puerto Rican cooking.
The aunts and uncles grabbing all the kids – anyone and everyone who can possibly stand to start boogie-oogie-ing to the Electric Slide, because THAT is our family song. Our American flag waving proudly in the background at every single event… Thank you, Uncle Michael Jimenez. The Spaniard flag was raised proudly next to it.
And then – life, life’d.
I had my children young.
My life flipped from Ninetendo to sippy cups, from sleepovers to survival mode.
While he was still in Jersey, living life, I was elbow-deep in shitty diapers and exorcist style spit-up sessions, chasing a future I wasn’t remotely ready for.
Florida. Marriage. Rhode Island. Another marriage. Back to Florida. And eventually–back to fucking Jersey.
Just in time for it to be too late…
Because cancer doesn’t wait.
It doesn’t care about comic book nostalgia or second chances.
It doesn’t care that we had plans. Or that we banked on growing old and gray and still laugh about summer memories.
Well Bob, let me tell you about my gray hairs– they are growing in as if I poured Miracle Grow all over the crown of my head, as well as my pelvic bone. The last time I counted, there are twenty-three grey cooter hairs. Bro- the struggle is no joke and ya girl is frightened to her core to get a Brazilian.
Hence, the bush grows.
Still, the beauty in life is aging and we need to start treating growing old as a luxury. It’s one I don’t want to miss.
It may come with crow’s feet – something a lil’ botox can’t camouflage for a period of time. Oh, and the annoying hip click when you’re attempting to ride the man… and cock of your dreams. That’s when its time to start some hip opener sequences in yoga, FYI.
I had a date with a man of the same name, to which I said, “Ewww… I cannot call you ‘Bobby’.”
There can only ever be one “Bobby” in my life, and you aren’t it buddy. I settled on yet another fucking nickname for a man, who again wasn’t ready to commit but was DTF if I said yes. Thumbs down.
This kind of grief at this stage in my life is… complicated.
The age where you’re not young enough to feel invincible anymore, but not old enough to be ready for this shit.
The age where you scroll through Facebook and find out someone from third grade didn’t wake up.
The age where your old friends become names etched in fundraisers and obituaries.
It’s the age where grief shifts from abstract to extremely fucking REAL.
It starts showing up in your inbox with AARP mail, and life insurance quotes.
It’s tangled. Messy. Unexpected in all the great and worst ways. I wasn’t expecting this kind of mind-fuck type grief when it came to his death.
Bobby was told he had ten years– he died one year and one week after being diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma- a rare and aggressive form of bile duct cancer.
“Just my luck…” He said.
Like he deserved it.
Like it made sense for life to deal him the shittiest hand—never finding it easy.
As if his kindness, his quiet strength, his loyalty made him an easy target.
That line lives rent-free in my soul.
Because no one deserves that.
So now? I write.
I fundraise.
Because I’m not okay with cancer getting the last word.
Because the people we love shouldn't have to feel like their diagnosis is just bad luck-we owe them better than that.
Every time I look back at who we were – sweaty, wild, sun-drench 90s kids–I just hope you know:
We were magic.
And I’ll carry that with me, always.
You aren’t missing much, Bob but we are sure missing you.
~
With that being said, I recently became a Legislative Ambassador for the state of New Jersey through the American Cancer Society – using my voice, my writing, and every ounce of my platform to raise awareness for cholangiocarcinoma, a rare and aggressive bile duct cancer.
I do this in honor of my cousin, Roberto T. Rivera “Bobby” — the boy who helped shape my childhood and a man who was promised ten years to fight, but only survived 363 days after diagnosis.
I’m here to take his words, “Just my luck…” and turn it into something powerful.
Something lasting.
Now, I speak not just for him, but for every family who hears the word cancer and feels the clock start ticking.
Stay tuned for upcoming fundraisers, events, and a donation page added to The Hollow Quill ~ The Roberto T. Rivera “Bobby” Memorial Fund.
Until Next time…
