Alyssa

December 29, 1995.....The Coastline.....Cherry Hill, NJ.....sometime around 9:00pm...........

I am wandering the bar as usual, as my roomate Kenny is hooking up left and right with all of the best looking women in the place. It was my duty as his friend and roomate to hit the bars on Fridays and Saturdays. The scenario was always the same; he would bring one home and I would chat on the internet all night. Sometime around 7:00am, I would hear the apartment door open and close, then peek through the blinds to watch her get in her car and drive away. Shortly thereafter, Kenny would emerge from his room and eat breakfast. He would tell me he forgot her name and I would tell him I found a cool new page on AOL to check out. Fun for me, huh?

Anyway, on this particular night, we were at the bar with my friend Evan. One one side of the bar, Evan is engaged in chat with some random woman and I am standing against the wall, sipping my vodka cranberry. Before I know it, Evan approaches me with this woman and she quicky announces herself as my friend from high school. I recognize her...it's Alyssa Rubin. I remember her because I had a massive crush on her at some point. She looked good. She's fast-talking to me about how she wants me to meet this great girl who's her best friend in the world and would I PLEASE talk to her NOW. Then she starts pulling me across the room. We stop and she proceeds to make an introduction.....

"Jordan, this is Debbie....."

I wrote Deb's phone number down on a napkin. Our first date was January 5th, 1996. We were married two years later.

Alyssa Rubin introduced us.

Two weeks ago, Alyssa passed away after suffering a massive heart attack in her home in North Carolina. It's just three weeks before our tenth wedding anniversary. She was only 40 years old.

This is one of the heaviest posts I've ever made in Jawdy's Basement. I really don't quite know what to say....

Alyssa was married shortly after her famous introduction. She married Tom Bass in a Rabbi's apartment in Cherry Hill. Deb and I were the only witnesses. Alyssa and Tom had two beautiful daughters together, Lily and Ava. Lily is Deb's god-daughter. She's eight years old now. Ava is just five.

We had Tom and Alyssa over often so the kids could play together. We called them "T&A". We had dinner parties, played Hearts into the night, celebrated New Years, etc... Lily was Elijah's first friend - she was born six weeks before him.

It's very sad that Alyssa and Deb had recently lost touch. After their move to North Carolina, she seemed to disappear from most of our lives. Some of her best friends had not heard much from her and it was not uncommon for one of us to say, "I wonder how Alyssa is doing..." It's makes it far more sad to know that Deb never had a chance to say goodbye or even catch up to someone who was really her best friend for three of the most difficult years of her life. Deb has said more than once that Alyssa "saved" her from a very dark time in the early nineties. Deb was in a very destructive relationship and Alyssa was the voice of reason. They were inseperable for three years before Alyssa introduced us.

The truth is that there would be no Jordan and Debbie. There would be no Elijah, Hannah and Sadie if Alyssa Rubin Bass had not noticed Evan in the Coastline that night. If she had not literally dragged me to where Deb was standing and so loudly introduced us....who knows where we would be today. She is the reason why our lives have travelled this road for over twelve years. And now she's gone.

I remember one special moment that occurred at our wedding. I snuck up behind Alyssa at her table and whispered in her ear that the celebration was all because of her. I thanked her for being in the right place at the right time and she said something about fate. She always had something to say about fate. She was very spiritual and she felt she had a clear vision of what the future held for everyone. Deb always believed her during the "dark days" because Alyssa insisted that she would meet someone special that would change her life and that she would be happy. She told Deb that she would have three children with this man. Deb made it through those days clinging to the hope that Alyssa's vision would be true. It was.

I'll be forever indebted to you, Alyssa. I know you are seeing this where you are right now. You were the very first regular reader of the original Deuce Daily newsletter before it became this blog. You used to e-mail me and complain when I would go too long without posting. I know you have the site bookmarked up there. When I've looked at our children these last few days, I could not help but think what life would be like if we hadn't produced them. We have you to thank for them. You were our angel. Rest in peace.