Chapter 11

"I still don’t get why it sooths your soul, I don’t get how our music helps you deal with the loss of a parent.” Jon admitted. “It's not necessarily just the loss of my mom – she represented so much more, home, family, stability – without her there is no home for the holidays – you can’t go home when it doesn’t exist, Jovi is my escape, I don’t have to deal with how heavy that is if I’m absorbed in Bon Jovi. Think about it, in 2 months I’ll spend my first holiday without being able to be with mom, it wouldn’t be my first holiday I spent without her but this one is the first where it's not my option. Touring with the band gets me out of my old routine of calling mom every day, with my last job, every day when I go to the parking lot I’d call her, it was my way of gauging how she was, if there was anything wrong it was my way to find that out. We had this system worked out where I would always ask her ‘what do you know’ she’d tell me nothing and I’d ask her what she did and she’d say I went and did this or that and my answer was ‘you’re lying to your only kid.’ It was our little daily joke. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have this, I’d cry every day. I can’t call my childhood number anymore, the one we’ve had since I was four and get mom anymore. Soon it will stop working all together, right now it's routing to my house in Wisconsin.” ”You’re a very strong woman Mika. I honestly am in awe. The one time my dad was sick and had to be taken to the hospital I flipped the fuck out. He can’t be sick, he can’t be weak, he can’t get sick, he’s dad and he must be strong. I’m 45 yrs old and still have both of parents. They’ve seen me married and they’ve met their grandkids, they wanted to pull their hair out because of their grandchildren. I’ve had all those memories.” Jon looked at her and asked, “Do you want to get married?” Mika looked at him like he has 3 heads. “NO I’m not asking right now – this is not how I’d do it if I’d ask. What I mean is the concept of getting married. I look at it that a lot of times with a woman getting married is a way to complete that final stage of going from a girl to a woman. When Dot and I got married in Vegas it was because Dot is very similar to you. She didn’t know her dad he died when she was like 2 or something and her mom died at 16. She had no desire for a wedding. She wanted forever but told me it's the marriage that counts not that day I didn’t want to remind her of everything she didn’t have.” “Something tells me if I met dot we’d get along very well .” “Is that how you feel too?” “I have no desire to be reminded on the “happiest day of my life” of what I can’t have. Dad can’t walk me down the aisle – mom’s not there to give me away or talk to my future husband about how he better take care of her baby girl. Why would I want that?” “You don’t want to get married?” “I do but I’d want Vegas or something very similar, ‘you two love each other, great, promise you will forever, great, sign here kiss and go have a marriage. It's about the two people involved not the rest of the world.” Mika would tell him hoping he understands her thought process.

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