Little Sister #2: Zid

At the time I had come up with the "Little Sister" designation, I thought it only applied to one person. However, when I look back on Zid, I can say that there was a second person I sort of treated like a little sister. I never tried to date her in a romantic fashion and she likely didn't have any feelings for me outside of friendship.

I met Zid when I was recording material for my CD release. I had a song that I needed a female vocalist for. I had put an ad in The Reader in their music section and stated that I would pay $50. The first time I did it, it was almost like a personal ad, but I was actually getting a lot of responses. I tried to meet with everyone. I had asked them to just give me a cassette of them singing so they wouldn't have to sing in front of me. Most of them I was able to meet in Balboa Park with my portable cassette player. Some were good, some weren't that good.

The one I selected lived in Encinitas with her mother. I had to mail her the material so she could practice. But when I tried to call her, the phone had been disconnected. I drove up to her house. She was still there, but didn't know her phone had been shut off and didn't know why. The first thing she tried to do was call her mom at work.

I told her we could try to set up some rehearsal time in the near future and she could call me when she got her phone back. The next thing I knew, I never heard from her again and I did not want to have to drive up to Encinitas. All of the runners up decided they didn't want to do the song.

I ran another ad. This time, I was more selective. I only called and arranged meetings with just a few of them. Zid was among them. She lived in Spring Valley, was 23 and had a lot of experience performing. She had been cast in leading roles in local musicals and says she was close to signing a record deal. However, that all came to an end when she had a horse-riding accident. She started having seizures after that and wasn't able to be on her own any more.

She wasn't my first choice. But my first choice flaked on me and other runners up also changed their minds. I knew Zid would go ahead and do it. She and her parents agreed and I gave her the material to practice. We set a date for her to come to the studio I used and we recorded it. She sang great and the song sounded amazing. It was one of the major highlights on the CD. It made me wish I had paid her to sing all the songs. My CD would have come out a lot better if I'd done that.

When I was asked by a local band to open up for them at a coffee house in North Park, I asked Zid to come perform the song with me. She agreed and we rehearsed the song. She and her parents showed up for the performance. It went over very well. But she had to leave after our set because the group I opened for warned that their presentation may cause people to have seizures.

Because of some upheaval in my life (which will be the topic of many posts ahead), I went about a year without seeing Zid after that, but dud talk to her from time to time. During this period, she had lost a lot of weight. She was a little on the chubby side when we performed together. While she had warned me, nothing prepared me for what she looked like when I actually saw her. I wouldn't have recognized her if I ran into her somewhere in town.

At this point, I got to hear what she went through when she had seizures. Usually, it would happen when we were on the phone. She would start by saying, "Okay!" And then she'd keep repeating, "Okay! Okay! Okay!" The first time this happened, I didn't know what was going on, but she was saying it like she was mad at me. After a little bit, her mother got on the phone and told me she had a seizure. That happened a few more times on the phone. When it did happen, I had to wait for someone to pick up and let me know she was going to be alright.

She told me that the worst part about the accident was that a lot of people whom she thought were good friends abandoned her after that. She still had some friends that she would see from time to time, but felt really sad because it meant that the ones who left weren't really her friends. Something strange about all this was that she somehow got it in her head that I was one of her friends before the accident and I had just recently come back into her life. I had to correct her and let her know that I hadn't met her until just recently and it took awhile for her to accept this. But I always wondered that if she thought I was in her life before, what memories she possibly possessed of me before the accident.

I would hang out with her at her house sometimes. Once, I was there and the film version of "Bye Bye Birdie" was on TV. I told her I played Conrad Birdie in high school. She told me she was in two productions of the musical. She played Maria in one and Kim in the other. She had videotapes of the performances. We watched highlights. One of them had Hugo throw the punch at Conrad in slow motion. I told her about the conspiracy in which our Hugo actually planned to punch me for real. She thought that was terrible. I was also surpised with how they staged "The Telephone Hour." Years later, Dad and I were talking about the production when I went to school. I commented that he had put a lot of work into that one set piece that was only used for five minutes. He replied that the show absolutely had to have that set piece for the number. (It resembled the Broadway version.) I said no, I saw two other school productions that staged the song without the set piece. He didn't say anything in response.

I had gone out and done some other things with Zid, like go see live music, but her father usually came along. My friend Fraz was having a barbecue at her home and I invited Zid to go with me. Her parents let her go with me by herself. Before we left, they told me what I needed to do in the event she had a seizure. Nothing happened during the barbecue. We returned to Spring Valley and parked outside her parents' house. I played her a tape of music I had recorded for my next release, which she was going to do the vocals for. While we were talking, she went silent and her eyes were wide open, staring through me. I realized she was experiencing a seizure.

I went over to the passenger side of the car and guided her out. She was able to walk, but I helped her by putting my arm around her and held her hand. While we were walking to the front door, she lifted up my hand and kissed the back. I don't think she was totally aware of what was going on. We got to the front door and rang the doorbell. Her father answered and he could see what was going on. He took it from there. I explained it just happened in the car.

I didn't see too much of Zid after that. I did continue to talk to her on the phone until 2003, when I moved from San Diego to San Jose. I know I told her I was moving and didn't know if I was going to keep in touch. As it turned out, I didn't.

So, searching for her on the Internet, she doesn't have any social media accounts. There's no Facebook, MySpace, Twitter or anything. And it also looks like none of the other members of her family (sisters, parents) logged on, either. According to Intellius, she's married, but her last name hasn't changed, so I don't think that happened.

I do feel terrible that I didn't stay in touch with her. I still have contact with my other "little sister." But if Zid doesn't do anything to create a presence on the Internet, I may never find out how she's been doing.

That makes me feel even more terrible.