02.08.24 — Good morning. On behalf of my parents, Elaine & Myron; my sister Alisa; and everyone’s handsome hero, Linda’s dear husband Michael, I thank you all for making the journey to be here with us today to celebrate my sister’s life and our collective love... for her. It is remarkable, yet not surprising, how packed this room is.
Now, I’m going to ask for a little audience participation. If you would please indulge me for a moment:
WHEN I SAY “LINDA” YOU SAY “LOVE” — LINDA / love / LINDA / love
WHEN I SAY “UP A-” YOU SAY “BOVE” — UP A- / bove / UP A- / bove
WHEN I SAY “SHE’S THE” YOU SAY “BEST” — SHE’S THE / best / SHE’S THE / best
WHEN I SAY “CHICKIE” YOU SAY “YES” — CHICKIE / yes / CHICKIE / yes
…Yes. Good job, everybody. Thank you. You didn’t see that coming, did you? I figured: If we’re gonna spend the day crying our eyes out, there might as well be a song about it. She was always singing, you know? You’d be having a conversation with her and she’d hear the reference of a lyric in what you were saying and she’d just start singing the song. For fun. Because it made her happy. I always loved that about her. “Damn straight,” right? Never failed.
OK… On the exact same day that David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was released into the world — Friday, June 16, 1972 — a little girl was born at Flowers-Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan. She was just 5 lbs. 3 oz. and allergic to milk. And the stars looked very different that day.
Knock-knock-knock... knock-knock.
A few days later, that little girl went home to Bayside, Queens with Elaine and Myron Siegell, and they named her Linda Pam. Linda, after Elaine’s grandmother, Lena Perez, and Pam after Elaine’s aunt, Pauline Rubin. Linda was immediately scooped up by an older sister, Alisa, and Myron began forming a bond with Linda that can easily be described as “daddy’s little girl.”
“Say okayyy! Say okayyy!” Linda would cry whenever she wanted something. "Say okayyy!" As if he could resist.
Five years after Linda, I was born. Surprise! The family had moved to Roslyn, Long Island, and as I grew from playing with Legos on the floor to playing Legend of Zelda on Nintendo, the most unusual sounds began to seep through the wall that separated my bedroom from Linda’s: The Smiths, Morrisey, Erasure, Depeche Mode, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and a whole howling galaxy of others. I was fascinated. I’d go into her room and find Linda lying on her bed, completely zoning out, just staring at the ceiling, absorbing song after song, searching for their meanings, taking space for herself — and not doing her homework.
Whenever one of us needed the other, instead of calling out their names, we would knock on the wall so as not to disturb the house — knock-knock-knock... knock-knock — and the other would be there in seconds. Until she left for SUNY Oneonta and the kind likes of Donna Wanna and Tom, Linda was my best friend growing up. Talking for hours, telling stories about Herricks High School and Sprout Lake and T-Y summer camp. We’d listen to the bands that Michael Robinson turned her onto, and when it was time to clear the table and clean the kitchen after dinner — a dinner, mind you, a dinner she most likely ate with one hand holding her fork while putting her food in her mouth with the other — we’d sing those songs to help make our chores less tedious. She always made it a party.
Knock-knock-knock, knock-knock.
When she was younger, Linda used to light matches in the basement of our house. Mesmerized by the danger and the glow, she loved the smell of smoke and matches. She definitely got busted a few times, but no matter how hard she tried, she never once set the house on fire.
Let it be entered into the historical record, Linda once asked, in all seriousness: “What’s Grandpa Ben’s first name?”
You know when you were a kid and you got those stickers that were 3D and kinda squishy? There was that bump to them? When Linda was in first grade, she had to color in some shapes for an assignment, and when she handed in her paper, her teacher asked, “Linda, why is there dried Elmer’s glue all over your shapes?” Little Linda, in her absolute cutest, said: “Because I wanted to make them puffy.”
Linda was a schemer, mischievous and sparkling.
She came into my room one day with her hairspray hair, her high school report card, and a black pen. She had just transformed the F of a failing grade into a B and was about to forge our mother’s signature, but wanted me to make sure everything looked OK first. Linda was out-standing at forging our mother’s signature and she absolutely did it more than once. (Sorry, mom.)
She took me to my first concert: June 3, 1988, Depeche Mode at Jones Beach Amphitheater. I was 10. My goodness! She took me to see They Might Be Giants, and even Les Miz on Broadway starring none other than Tammy Jacobs as Cosette. The event and spectacle of a show was something Linda never wanted to miss. And I learned from the best.
When I moved from Pittsburgh to Orlando without a job the week before 9/11, she made a call and got me an interview at Cruise’s Only. Applying coupons to bookings, I quickly became the Employee of the Month and was gifted a free cruise, but none of my friends could go with me so I had no choice... but to take... my mom. Suuuper romantic. I wound up getting sun poisoning, but my family then spent the next 20 years booking cruise after cruise after cruise. Linda was always looking out for us. Pointing us all in adventurous directions. As many here can attest, if Linda ever loved you — at Herricks, at camp, college, work, wherever — if your spark and Linda’s ever truly found each other, she’d set you apart, you’d both glow brighter, and she’d stay in touch with you for the rest of her life: Christina Oliveros. Heather Schiffer. Marcy Pikus. Mike Silver. Jeff Tabachnick. Jean-Jean. Legends, the lot of you. That so many of you traveled to see her these past few years meant so much to her. / And to Michael. / And to my parents. / And to me.
Michael, my sister became who she was always meant to be when she met you. You gave her the space and the love to be her true self and we all took notice. What you did for Linda the first 10 years, and what you did for Linda these last six, should not and will not be forgotten. I thank you. I love you. We thank you. We love you. And I’m sorry “Gorgeous” and “Handsome” didn’t have more time with each other.
I miss my sister. I miss the bubbly, happy-go-lucky sister I had before she was ever diagnosed. I miss the always-positive Warrior Sister who showed us all how to face down the worst possible challenge with grace, and strength, and humor, and love. And now, today, I’m trying, I’m trying real hard to take comfort in the idea that whenever I need her, all I need to do is knock :::::
X-X-X… XX.
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