The Yup-yup Game

When I was a kid I played a game with my brother. We were hooked on Sesame Street, and lots of our games came out of it. One of our favorites was the Yup-yup game. This is how it went:

Yup. Yup. Yupyupyupyupyup. Nope. Nope. Nopenopenopenopenope.
Yup. Yup. Yupyupyupyupyup. Nope. Nope. Nopenopenopenopenope.

And so on. Until we fell on the floor laughing.

Today at the office a colleague did something in a tenative way, looking for my approval, and to encourage her to keep going, I said, "yup-yup-yup." She is a very beautiful and chic person, so when she twisted around, eyebrows raised, face impassive, I cringed. One yup sounds helplessly old-fartish. Yup-yup-yup is inexplicable.

Until she burst out: Yup. Yup. Yupyupyupyupyup.

And we both nearly fell out of our chairs laughing.

One week ago today my brother-in-law -passed away. The clan gathered from all over the country, from Florida, Wisconsin, Colorado, Michigan. One group drove 24 hours straight; my aunt, who suffers from chronic fatigue, made it in two 12-hour days.

We came to be with my sister, to be with each other. Alex also came from a large clan. For many years we have been partying together at holidays and graduations, births and weddings and funerals.

For four days and nights the two families gathered at my sister's house. There were 20, 30 and more. We slept on floors and sofas and air mattresses in every room. We devoted ourselves to excess; at times it seemed we flirted with the line between wake and bacchanalia. We drank and ate, played cards, joked and told stories, hugged and hugged and hugged. We were riding a runaway train toward a cliff, and our obsession was to not think of the cliff.

A neighbor, a newbie paramedic who had helped my sister perform CPR, cried and cried and cried. My brother was a pallbearer. Outside the church in a private moment, he watched as the priest said a personal prayer over his friend, gave the casket a farewell pat. Then my brother cried.

Tonight I stayed home from tango. I called my brother. I wanted to tell him about the yup-yup game, but it's not the kind of joke that carries well over the answering machine. It's the kind of joke that will keep, but I don't want to keep it for long. I want to hold every single person I love close to my heart.

Tomorrow I will call my brother at work. When he answers the phone. I will say, "Yup. Yup. Yupyupyupyupyup. "