Joanne Baltazar, 1974-2019

How wonderful life is while you're in the world.

I went to sleep last night thinking about you, I woke up this morning still thinking about you. When I'm down, I whisper your name to myself and smile. I still love you, don't doubt it.     

On September 27, 2019, I lost my dearest friend.  

Joanne Quintos Baltazar, 1974-2019.

One of Joanne's favorite songs early on when I met her was Enrique Iglesias' "Hero."  I was jealous that she loved him and his voice more than mine.  But she adored Enrique, his voice, and his song.  

Her favorite TV show was Friends as though no other show existed.  Joey delighted her, but she was tickled by all the characters.  I think Joanne's mom was good at commenting on what the characters did and said, so I knew Joanne had fun watching and commenting on the characters with her family.  I enjoyed listening to her talk about a show and characters that I did not follow.

When I think of Joanne, it's these songs that console me the most. 

About the song above, a commenter wrote, "When I die, I want this song to play at my funeral."  Hard to argue with that.

On October 7, 2019, a 1:01am, I wrote to a friend,

Well, it just goes to show that I can't read people worth a shit.  Joanne really did have cancer.  I really didn't know her life in the last few years.  Hadn't seen her since March 2015.  She insinuated that she was interested/dating someone else. Though her voice sounded familiar on the phone, I think she was saying things to me that were, in effect, goodbyes.  She passed on September 27.  My last text exchange with her was September 6th.  My jealousies being what they were made me think that she was pregnant and making arrangements to marry a coworker.  Turns out she was sick and was saying goodbye to people. Two months ago she asked if I wanted to live with her.  It never sounded serious. She came to terms with dying; proof that she had courage.  Resentment marbled in her concerns. Maybe it was the last-minute play for something resembling a sacrament of love.  I don't know.  Life is pretty fucked.  I even blocked her number because she wasn't returning my calls.  I blocked her sister's number too but her sister got through to my number with a few texts and then the phone call 10 days ago on Friday morning, September 27 that Joanne had passed.  Fuck.  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

On October 7, 2019, at 1:46am, he answered, 

Sorry for your loss. I know you loved her. 

To which I replied at 6:04am, 

Thanks, _______.  I do love her.  She knows it. She was only 45. That's only half a lifetime.  I was lucky to have told her that I loved her in the last few months. I didn't realize how sick she was. A few pics she sent me she looked healthy.  But apparently, her pics were putting her best face despite her predicament. Of all the women I've known, it was she who solicited the tenderest feelings from me. Being with her was always so calming, so thoughtful, and so sweet.

Here are the lyrics to "This Bitter Earth."

This bitter earth
Well, what a fruit it bears
What good is love
Mmm, that no one shares

And if my life is like the dust
Ooh, that hides the glow of a rose
What good am I
Heaven only knows

Lord, this bitter earth
Yes, can be so cold
Today you're young
Too soon, you're old

But while a voice within me cries
I'm sure someone may answer my call
And this bitter earth
Ooh, may not, oh, be so bitter after all

This song above most, not all others, but above most captures for me the bitterness of losing best friends.  The gentle but sad violins capture the extended grief from losing people we love as though the background music to life and its struggles is only sorrow.  And yet there are soul-murdering family members who won't let me grieve.  Not to worry.  Thankfully, there are only a handful of sociopaths above ground. 

When I think of her life, Elton John's song, "Your Song," (1971), plays in my head.  The lyrics are beautiful and applicable to all friends, I guess.  It's the line that says "I don't have much money, but if I did, I'd buy a big house where we both could live." 

Oh, and, of course, the refrain, "How wonderful life is while you're in the world."   

"Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen."  

And then there is the adoring song by Roberta Flack, "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" that I would have loved to dance to with my wife at our wedding.  But alas, I am the goat in a very Greek sense.  

Joanne loved the 2014 film, John Wick.  Formulaic.  Cute.  But as far as the plot was concerned, too predictable.  But this is what people like.   

 

When we first met, Joanne shared with me that it was the movie The Thornbirds that influenced her intensely as a 9-year-old.

And, of course, when she invited me to see The Lord of The Rings, I felt at that moment that she was declaring her interest in me. That was right around 2001 when we first started dating.

Joanne was such a dedicated teacher, committing several hours in the evening to grading and designing lesson plans for the next day or for the week.  She always justified the sacrifices.  I told her to not commit so many hours to grading since no one cares about that work.  She retorted that she has to, that the administration comes into her room to inspect the presentations pinned to the bulletin boards.  She was an excellent teacher.  The kids loved her.  She loved the affectionate responses she’d get from older kids whom she taught when they were in the 2^nd and 5^th grades.  That Roosevelt Middle School did not deserve her.  She should have committed to some other trade.  But she liked the lifestyle that the money she earned could afford her.  She liked to travel.  She raved about Hawaii, citing its beauty and lushness, and how she wished that she’d been married while visiting there. 

POSTED ON MONDAY, MARCH 23, 2020 On Monday, April 1, 2019, I sent Joanne a song that I'd heard up here on the Colorado Public Radio station, 88.1.  It is a beautiful song, but Joanne's reply was lukewarm, like everything that she'd shared with me from March to September 2019.  Here is the song: 

Here is our exchange.  

On Monday, April 1, 2019, at 6:54pm, I wrote to Joanne,

Last week, this tune "Cherry Blossom" played on Colorado public radio station while I was driving to work in the morning night.  I had only the radio; no visual of the quartet or the instruments. Just music. The cello sounded buoyantly hopeful against despair of unspeakable loss before the relief of the soothing western notes from the viola. Living up here on the Plains made me think the song was about the adult joys of reliving happy moments shared with our parents in childhood and the gratitude over their influence on us. The viola player at the right, who is half Japanese and half Italian, wrote the piece and grew up in Billings, Montana.  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r1VaduyMExwr. 

On Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 8:34am, she replied

The Cherry Blossom piece had a beautiful melody.  I could see why you would think that.  The melody sounds similar to an instrumental piece I heard that was played by a quartet in the movie "Titanic." 

These men played this music to help calm the people as the ship was about to go down at the bottom of the sea.  Too bad I don't know the name of it.

On Tuesday, April 2, 2019, at 8:41am., she followed up with this,

Oh, I looked up the name of the song.  It's called "Nearer my God to thee."  This too is a lovely piece but quite somber.  What do you think of the piece?

I've posted it here.  

And after enduring the 3, short minutes, I came to realize that Joanne felt love and beauty in the presence of sorrow and tragedy, as though loving unhappy events prepared her and protected her from it.  I don't know.  She spoke so lovingly of her grandfather, and the most intense memory of him was how he held her and made her feel loved; that, and his passing.  Like love and tragedy were inextricably intertwined.  So if she loved someone, she also expected misfortune from it, like some kind of bad Romeo and Juliet tableau constructed in her mind.  It may be true that she was beset by misfortune or unpleasant experiences and times during her life, like on Ricardo Street and while her dad was away in the Philippines, but it doesn't seem like enough good things replaced the bad memories.  And I cite movies like The Thornbirds and The Titanic that she cited as examples of cinematic beauty.  The Thornbirds, yes, there was a beauty.  Rachel Ward, gorgeous, and Richard Chamberlin, handsome, were both good-looking actors and top of their field at that time in 1983.  She cited the movie, the characters, and the romantic drama with me often.  In 1983, Joanne was all of about 9 years old.  I was 26.  Two different world views.  But either out of love or in admiration for end-of-life things, like she had a romanticism for, even an affection, for tragic experiences.  I don't know but it seems that way, particularly after watching The Thornbirds and this clip from The Titanic, both with unhappy, sorrowful endings.  There isn't much time in life, so we must be the best we can be and deliver the best we have.  I want to honor Joanne for her immeasurable ability to love someone.  She had a big heart.  She loved her dad terribly. It bordered on the holy, it was so beautiful.   

Joanne loved movies.  That was how she spent most of her richer moments with her family was through movies.  So, too, was it for me, that some of the best times we shared were with movies.  She endured a 2002 movie I wanted to see by John Sayles, called Sunshine State.  The acting was good, the cast was good, and the scenery of Florida was also beautiful, but the message or theme of the film was lackluster.  Wikipedia gets it right, it's a commentary on "race . . . and commercial property development," two topics that were far removed from me.  Will I be called a racist for admitting that?  Should I care more about OTHER people and their welfare?  I don't recall the first movie that I went to see with Joanne, but it could have been The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring in 2001.  Though I liked the movie a lot, I did feel while watching it that she was trying to move me toward  Protestant Fundamentalism.  That was my anxiety.  But she was hoping that I would catch the bug of loving Christ the same way that she did.  We saw the movie at the Alhambra Edwards Stadium Cinema and we sat at the back because the place was a bit crowded.  

In 2002, we saw the second installment of Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.  Strange coincidence in that the Twin Towers in New York had been brought down on September 11, 2001.  We saw this movie in Cerritos at the Cerritos Town Plaza, and I came out of the theater animated by some of the themes in the movie, like environmentalism with the trees talking, not unlike in The Wizard of Oz.  Joanne appreciated my comments about that and I was surprised by her appreciation since most things about me seemed tiresome to her.  Joanne loved movies.  An actress whom she loved was Angelina Jolie in her role as Evelyn Salt in the 2010 movie, Salt.

This song, for me, captures Joanne's heart more than any other.  Every time I listen to it, I tear up.  By phone, she called our relationship off again I think on December 31, 2017, while I was staying in Monterey Park.  And I used to play this to remind me of how much she loved me and to comfort myself.

        

Joanne liked Jolie because she said that Jolie represented a strong female character.  And that was true.  It is true--we all need strong male and female characters in our lives.  When I was growing up, it was Daniel Boone, Davey Crocket, Jim Thorpe, John Wayne, Bruce Lee, and others.  In sports, it was Jerry West, John Havlicek, Joe Kapp of the Minnesota Vikings, Alan Page, Sandy Koufax, Tom Haller, Don Drysdale, Ron Peronoski, Claude Osteen, and others.  

In the movie, Jolie plays a CIA operative who is being tortured as the story opens.   

Joanne loved Cameron's Seafood on Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena.  She'd always order the same thing: Wild Caught Atlantic Salmon, au gratin potatoes, and coleslaw.  She also liked their ceviche appetizer.  She really did love seafood.  For her, it was more than food.  It was loving memories with family and friends.  I loved the intimacy of the place when I'd eat here at 4pm or so after work.  Not many people were in.  The place was quiet.  

We spent one day together up in Santa Barbara, and I think the highlight of that day for her was eating a salmon dinner with clam chowder in a restaurant on the pier that looked out over the coastline.  I miss being in her presence, the presence of someone who really loved good food.

Her other favorite place to eat was Izzy's in Santa Monica.  She loved their turkey gumbo and the ample portions of meat on the corned beef on rye sandwiches.  Talking about this now reminds me of happier times.  

I loved Izzy's, too, for several reasons, one of which was that it was open 24 hours.  During my semester breaks, I would occasionally drive from San Gabriel to Santa Monica at 1:30, grab a corned beef on rye, and devour it on my drive back.  It was one of those exclusive moments--healthy or not--that was all mine.  Didn't have to share it with anyone else who might spoil it for me. 

I once took her to Gladstones in Malibu, where we both had bouillabaisse.  I loved it, and I think she did too.

One other outing we had was in Santa Barbara, where we walked State Street, walked the beachfront with all the artist wares, and then had lunch at a seafood place on the pier, called the Harbor Restaurant.  She loved that.  I did too.  Joanne loved clam chowder, and if it came in a sourdough bread bowl her experience was even more special.   

She was driving a 1999 Saturn when I met her.  

I asked Joanne what she thought of this song, and she said it was haunting which it certainly is. But I thought that not all beauty was John Williams.  [Posted Saturday, October 8, 2022]

Whenever I hear this song, I wish that Joanne were sitting with me, next to me in the car.

And it was this song that had me crying, "Joanne, don't go without me."  I love you and miss you.  [Saturday, March 18, 2023.]

Posted on Wednesday, April 12, 2023, the 35th anniversary of my dad's death.

Joanne had real beautiful sensibilities when it came to music.  I played her a song by Capercaille once and she noted how much the melody sounded like a lullaby.  

I played her Samuel Barber's Adagio with strings and she did not like it, too haunting for her she said.  She was right.  She was right.  I liked it because it seemed to call up the haunting depths of tragedy, failure, and heartbreak that seemed to make up my existence.  I have never been able to get that idea of it being haunting out of my mind.  I love you, Joanne.  And I am sorry.  She really was the best thing that I'd had in my life without a doubt.  The sweetest, most endearing person I'd ever known.

 

I think that Joanne would like this tune.

Will never forget the time I took her down to San Diego and we stopped at the Hotel Coronado.  But on the way down, we stopped for breakfast in Del Mar.  I wanted her to have the whole South Beach experience possible.