Tag Archives: love

A Great Party

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Our dad’s 90th birthday party was a wonderful success.  It was a beautiful day and the party was in a greenhouse with an outdoor space.

One of my dad’s friends spoke about meeting Dad in 1943 when Dad was a corporal and his friend was a private.  They re-met during the Korean War (my father almost ran him over in Tokyo) and then at dental school and have been friends for 67 years.  I can’t imagine knowing someone for that long who could still say wonderful things about me.  Crazy.

Lots of relatives or people who are relatives just by longevity.  Follow me on this one.  My aunt, my mother and Blossom (among others) were sorority sisters at college in the 1940s.  (My aunt was dating my uncle and introduced my mother to her boyfriend’s brother (my dad) but that is another story for another blog entry).  Blossom married my aunt’s cousin whom she divorced.  (That cousin was there with his wife, even though they are not technically related either, but longevity is more important than blood anyway.)  Blossom then married Aaron.  Blossom died and Aaron married Marjorie.  The first time POB (partner of blogger) and I met Marjorie was at a cousin’s bar mitzvah.  But Marjorie must have been part of the family in another life, because she had no boundaries from the start.  POB was pregnant and Marjorie turned to her and said, “Known donor or unknown donor?”.  POB, having been raised in a good home and not quite used to direct, personal questions from near-strangers was so shocked that she actually answered.  I then turned to POB and said, “well, now that Marjorie knows, don’t you think we ought to tell our parents?” So a person married to someone who married into the family who was married to someone who was no longer married into the family asserted family privilege to ask any question that came to mind, without filter.  I love this family.

My cousins — Dad’s nieces and nephews — talked about things they remembered about Dad from when they were kids in the 1940s and 1950s.  Cousin Gentle (from prior blogs) talked about how Dad gave tickets to a ball game to his father (my Uncle Dave) so Uncle Dave could take Cousin Gentle to a ball game.  It turns out it was Don Larsen’s 1952 World Series perfect game.  Still the only ball game that Cousin Gentle has ever attended.

Another cousin talked about Dad’s teaching her to build card houses, and another talked about Dad’s taking him to the Opera.  All of them talked about the beautiful things he brought home for each of his nieces and nephews from Japan after the Korean War.  They remembered him as someone interested in them and kind and gentle.  It was really touching to hear new things about my Dad and hear the love expressed in those memories.

One cousin started talking about the meaning of family and how he is a trust and estates lawyer (I had to stop him from taking the opportunity for self-advertisement) and how he has seen families fight and disinherit each other.  He started to go off on a tangent and get a little worked up, without an end in sight.  SOB (sister of blogger) gave me a sign that I had to intervene, so I got up, went over to my cousin and took the microphone away and offered it to the next cousin who wanted to speak, in age order.  Cousin Gentle and SOB now call me “Hook” because I pulled that act off the stage.

SOB talked about the first night she was an intern and was in the hospital all night and was scared and overwhelmed.  At about 3am, she got a page.  It was Dad, wanting to make sure she was alive.  She never forgot that and it helped her through that rest of that night’s torture.

Then BOB (brother of blogger) talked beautifully about how Dad is a role model for being a good husband and father and how special it was that Dad was his best man at his wedding.  BOB is not usually that emotional, introspective or even talkative around us.  I was so moved.  But the moment was over like a shooting star flaming out, so all returned like a flash to status quo ante.  But for the moment, there was kumbaya in the air, as if it were being sung for the first time.

My dad is such a sweet, and humble man.  When it came time for the cake, he thanked everyone for coming and said how fortunate he was to be surrounded by friends and family and he was grateful to everyone for being there and for their kind words.  The cousin from whom I had to yank the microphone said in a stage whisper (really a stage SHOUT), “what, that is all he is going to say?”  Aaaaargh.  My dad said it all in a few words and did so with grace and humility.  Dear Cousin, a lesson might be learned here.

We had the quintessential Jewish goodbye — we all said goodbye but didn’t leave.  In fact, I must have said goodbye three or four times to the same people.  The rule is if there is more than a half-hour between goodbye kiss and departure, you have to start over again.   I don’t know the provenance of the rule, but it caused the goodbyes to go on for almost 2 hours.  Also, it probably didn’t help that we had pictures from 1920 to the present out on a table by the door so people starting reminiscing anew as they were leaving.  Some of the older folk sat down in comfy chairs to nap a little while they waited for the rest of their group to finish.  I wish I had pictures of that.

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Sunday night dinner chez nous

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Further reinforcing my hypothesis that older people progressively allocate more time to traveling and invariably arrive early, our fathers came for 6pm dinner at 4:30pm, which coincides with the time-honored “early bird” hour.  Which makes one wonder whether restaurateurs named, rather than caused, the phenomenon.

I don’t know about other Jewish families, but the first dinner after the Yom Kippur holy day involves comparing Yiskor books (books of remembrance for those who have died) and book plate honors (having someone’s name put in a prayerbook) from the various synagogues to which various members attend.  It is a morbid combination of “Bingo”, “Wheel of [Mis]Fortune” and “Celebrity Match-ups”.  I like to think of it as “Did You Remember to Name that Dead Person?”

My dad was upset that he forgot to list POB’s (partner of blogger’s) mom (z”l).  I said, “Don’t worry.  You’ll remember next year, Dad.  We had her covered.”

I mentioned that we also covered several uncles and cousins and he mentioned a few we forgot and also the grandparents.  Oooooh.  Darn!!!  Missed that!  Harumph. We need to have a huge list for next year, even if the dollars pile up (wait, you thought it was free?).

But we had a book plate put in a prayerbook for Dad’s 90th birthday.  SCORE!!!  (POB is sooooo awesome.)

POB’s father and our son were watching the football games.  The other Jews shrugged and then started to talk about concussions and debilitating diseases, as a way of showing interest in the football game.

Then SOB (sister of blogger) wanted to take out the old family pictures so we can mount them on poster board for my Dad’s birthday party.  We all got a little teary-eyed about how young and vibrant everyone looked and how most are now gone.

So, to recap:  we have talked about death, destruction and death again.  Just what Jews need to work up an appetite.

POB made a delicious dinner, over which we discussed the importance of building that Islamic Cultural Center right where they planned it and argued about the meaning of life, chaos theory and the mysteries of the universe.  It got rather heated when we were contrasting a Jewish, G-d-centric approach that assumes that actions have meaning and can cause change versus the view that most of what we do doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.  I ventured that, while I am not so sure that I believe the former, if I in fact believed the latter, then what’s the point and POB should just get my life insurance.  At that point, POB’s father then asked, “how much?” in a very oddly interested tone.  My brother-in-law (the bird nerd from other entries), quietly advised me not to go anywhere alone with my father-in-law.  All this while I was choking over the salad course.

Dessert brought calm to the table as we talked about the Million Moderate March on October 30th and exhorted our TV-challenged relatives to tune into Jon Stewart on the web.  (I could not speak to Stephen Colbert, because I remember him when he was really a right wing-nut at Dartmouth.)

So, death, destruction, death, religion & chaos, politics and comedy.  Another excellent family dinner with the extended family.

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In Memoriam — Yvette

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Yvette died peacefully today at age 94. She was born in Paris, France in 1916.

I met Yvette many, many years ago, as a friend of my mom from their days at Revlon in the 1960s.  Rudy and Yvette were stalwart friends to my father and my mother when my mother was dying and then died.  They were a necessary part of every family celebration (except for Thanksgiving). 

Even though she had been in this country for over sixty years, she would still say things like, “let’s get together for — how you say? — lunch!”  As she was losing her beloved Rudy to renal failure, she would say, “this is le end, ne c’est pas?”  “Oui,” we would say, our hearts’ breaking.

Rudy was Jewish; Yvette, as she got older and more forgetful, gravitated to her religion of origin — Catholicism.  At the end of Rudy’s life, when he wanted them to be cremated and their ashes joined and thrown to sea where they met (see below), her response was, “pas catholique!”  I said, “Yvette, you’re Jewish!”  A family friend motioned me over and said that she had been taking Yvette to Christmas and Easter mass for years, because as her memory was fading she didn’t remember she had been Jewish.  I had been noticing she was making signs of the cross every now and again and more frequently over the years.

Their lives could fill adventure novels.  She was a nurse on the war front for France during WWII and then worked for the Resistance.  She was awarded two medals (or commendations) for valor.  Rudy’s family had fled their native Austria when the Nazi took hold and found their way to Palestine (pre-Israel).  They met on a boat taking Jewish Holocaust survivors to Palestine; she, the ship’s nurse, and he, the commander of the boat.  They fell in love.  These boats were being strafed by British bomber pilots because the international community didn’t want Jews to populate Palestine.  Yvette did what she did because her nature compelled her to help people in need.  She and her beloved Rudy were heroes in cowardly times.  Their wishes were that their ashes be mingled and cast out to sea where their love began so many years ago.

And she lived life with humor, perseverance and strength of character that kept her going 94 years. 

May her memory be for a blessing.

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The Apple Fell Not Far From the Tree

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I think about my mother, z”l [may her memory be for a blessing] every day.  I always draw strength from those thoughts, although they are sometimes tinged with humor or sadness, but always with gratitude for her life among us.

I reminisced about her with colleagues.  It wasn’t maudlin; it was apropos of the conversation and we laughed at her antics.

My mother was the epitome of discretion and a vault when it came to secrets.  However, if you asked her a question or her opinion, be ready for her whole truth and nothing but her whole truth.  Mom never thought she cornered the market on “Truth”, but she did believe everyone was entitled to hear her version of the truth.

A number of weeks ago, during a conversation with my sister, I stopped mid-sentence and said, “you’re thinking what life will be like when I lose my already limited ability to censor my thoughts, right?”  She nodded heavily, somewhat overwhelmed by what the future held in store for us.  My sister is the epitome of discretion and the vault for secrets.  While I dabble in discretion (and must be a vault as a lawyer), she inherited the qualities that allowed Mom to opine with impunity.  I just opine with impunity.  Look, Mom’s genes were allocated to three children.  Together we make a clone of Mom.  Separately, we struggle a little.  So, let’s accept that stuff that comes out of my mouth sometimes must be followed by a whisper (from a sympathetic witness), “she means well.”

It is hard to generalize about Mom’s more emphatic ways, so here are some specifics.  When Mom was well into her 60s, she joined an abortion rights picket of then Cardinal O’Connor (now deceased).  My mother started the chant, “keep your rosaries out of my ovaries!!”  Ok, it isn’t always easy to have a Mom who says things like that, but it certainly awesome.  Or, the time, she got up from her seat on the bus and move over to a young man who seemed foreign-born.  She put her hand on his forearm and said, “You’re such a good-looking man.  Why must you pick your nose in public?”  It turned out the guy ran the newspaper stand near where my parents lived and, whenever Mom passed, he would run out with a free magazine.  Mom always declined, with “You have rent to pay!!  Stop it!!”

My mother always believed that you opened your home to those in need or without family.  Needless to say, since Mom’s death, I have discovered that some of my “cousins” are related only by love and not by blood.  Mom taught us that love makes a family — nothing more, nothing less.

Mom believed that each person should leave the world a little better for that person’s having lived on earth.  She helped found New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, an organization that thrives today.  She helped plan the silent marches on Albany, NY, and Washington, DC, because people needed to visualize the empty shoes representing all who died from gun violence on the streets of America.  She loved America and only wanted it to be an ever-shining beacon of hope.

So, in the end, I only got her directness and inhibition about saying her truth.   My sister has her discretion.  My brother has some of her activism (ok, before he moved to the Republic of Texas and had a family but at least he is a Democrat).   My sister was right to shake her head, wearily.

SOB (sister of blogger), it is just going downhill from here.  Be afraid.

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The Monday Morning Blues

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My sister resembles my father in the way she gets out of bed in a happy mood.  My brother resembles my mother’s father in the way he gets out of bed (or did when we were kids) in a less-than-kind or communicative mood.  I am in the middle:  I am low energy, slow motion and hit the alarm six or ten times before staggering out of bed.  That is why lawyers’ hours in NY — in the office by the crack of 10:15am — work for me.

POB (partner of blogger), who wakes up at 5:30am, takes our son to school.  But today, she had to wake up even earlier to catch a train for an out-of-town meeting.  

I had to take my son to school.  That meant that I had to start slamming the alarm at 6:00am.  (For most of the year, the sun has not risen at 6:00am so in my book it is still the middle of the night.) 

Clearly, POB is a blessing in my life because our son would be a truant if I were responsible for getting him to school.  AND she made coffee for me.

In bizarre proof that gene replacement therapy works by osmosis and hypnotic suggestion when kids are asleep, our son is just like me in the mornings.  Which makes POB even more of a ROCK STAR.

We soldiered on through getting dressed, eating breakfast, washing up and brushing teeth.  (I am talking about both of us, here.)  Neither of us could talk but we grunted as humanely and endearingly as we could.

I dropped our son off at school and arrived at my office at the crack of 8:15am.   I need a nap now.

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The seasons, they go round and round

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Today, my always capable, unflappable father gave me his power of attorney.

This may not seem like a watershed event at first glance but let me tell you about him.  He is a hybrid of the 1930s good provider and a modern-day sensitive man.  I use the 1930s as a benchmark because, as a child growing up in an immigrant home during the Depression, he always provided for his family ahead of himself.  No fancy car or fancy clothes for him, but for my mother and the kids, whatever was necessary — within reason.  True, he bristled (ok, more than bristled) at the conspicuous consumption of our classmates in high school (and our desire similarly to consume conspicuously) and at what my mother termed the “Gucci, Pucci and Fiorucci crowd”.  Ward Cleaver he wasn’t.  But he is a gentle man who adored my mother and who took care of her tirelessly and with love all through her long illness.  And, when I was a troubled 20-something, he would hug me and tell me to hold on tight to him and all would be ok.  Wherever “there” was, he would go there for his wife and his kids because he loved us.

These days (as opposed to during our growing up years), he makes few demands on his kids and is happy just to be around us.  Of course, the quid pro quo is that we have to listen to the same stories and opinions that haven’t advanced since the 1980s (ok, maybe 1990s) but, to be honest, he is a lovely, lovely man who is heartsick at the prejudices and other cruelties that still exist in the world.

Up until recently, convincing him to change a habit was hard because he is a fiercely independent spirit, even as his aging started to make us worry about one thing or another.  SOB (sister of blogger) and I had to enlist POB (partner of blogger) to talk to Dad about many different things over the years, because (1) Dad adores POB and (2) if we talked to him about it, you could see the indignation in his face and hear it in his voice as he asserted that he, as parent, was not to be questioned.

So, today, my father, aged 90, handed over control to me.

I am moved so deeply that he trusts me and I am so afraid that this means that my incredibly strong, independent father thinks he needs help on big picture decisions.  I prefer to think that he has gotten to the point where he thinks (in quintessential Dad language), “hey, if I can delegate the senseless paperwork to my daughter and not worry about it, I am way ahead of the game!”  So, Dad, on that theory, I accept the power of attorney, only so you have more time to sculpt and paint.

Because I cannot today imagine a world where the man, who kept me together and helped back on my feet when I was in my 20s and fragile, is slipping away.

Stay strong, Dad.

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Change of Venue

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SOB (sister of blogger) came back from visiting her in-laws and wanted us all to come over for Sunday night dinner at her house.  The usual complement of the family showed up.  POB (partner of blogger) was happy for the night off from cooking.

As I was helping my sister, I had occasion to open her refrigerator.  This is what I saw:

Nothing else on that shelf in the refrigerator.  Without these cans of non-nutritive and non-food particles, you could sleep in that refrigerator.  I was amazed and therefore, I had cause to investigate further and I found this in the freezer:

I was a little shocked to see all of this ice cream and sorbet especially when she said she went out especially to buy vanilla ice cream for my son.  Really?  Really? You mean you didn’t pick up vanilla by accident while you were buying in bulk??  Or maybe the neighborhood store threw a vanilla in your order because as part of a customer rewards program? In all that ice cream and sorbet, there wasn’t already vanilla?

Then SOB said something that completely blew my mind, as a 46 year-old listening to her 50 year-old sister:  “you can’t imagine how quickly we go through this.” Doesn’t HOSOB (husband of SOB) have a cholesterol issue?  Doesn’t SOB have high blood pressure?

AND, AND, to add insult to injury, SOB is the doctor in the family.  She is supposed to know better.  Because she is an M.D. and has mastered that air of authority, she can get away with saying crazy things.  I loved her comment, “eating fat-free whipped cream is like eating nothing”.

For the sake of family pride, I feel compelled to mention that she went to excellent schools and has incredible credentials.  Because even I, the juris doctor, know that what she was saying was just nuts (which, by the way, you could have had on your ice cream with whipped cream).

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25th Reunion

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I have 5 weeks until my 25th college reunion.  I have 5 weeks to be slim, prosperous, toned and, maybe, un-gray.

Nothing like waiting until the last minute.  I was a crammer in college — I was still buying the books from the class syllabus three days before the final exam.  (And my GPA showed it.)

I am 46 and, with 5 weeks to go, here is my status:

Slim:  I am much slimmer now than I was in college, even though I have gained “more than a few” pounds in recent years.  I call it the Recession 8.  Better than the Freshman 15.  (I had come in with the pre-Freshman 30, so I don’t have college to blame.)  But, in truth, I look pretty slim.  So, √ in that box.

Prosperous:  Ok, things were better a few years ago, before people on Wall Street got stupid and greedy. But, while I don’t stack up to the crazy high-profile entrepreneurs in my class, I am really fortunate.  So, √ in that box.

Toned:  I want to be buff.  I don’t look bad, although there is a certain sag to the skin on my legs from my fat days.  And gravity does “weigh down” some erstwhile perky parts.  So no short shorts and no tank tops for me.  Anyway, after a certain age, a person looks ridiculous in that kind of outfit.  I lost this last week to having injured my hip and back (a little arthritis in the hip leads to compensating with other muscles that spasm which leads to crippling pain), and so I think buff is out of the question, but quietly toned is still possible.  So, X in this box (with an “*I don’t care anymore because I am not so shallow” followed by “**Does anyone outgrow that infantile sour grapes attitude? Surely not I”).

Un-gray: I am unconvinced on this.  Covering the gray requires upkeep even after the reunion. That is a huge commitment.  Still under advisement.  So put a ? in that box.

My son just walked in and kissed me.  He really wants to use the computer, but the kiss was also real.  That’s the things with kids — they take you as you are and they don’t put on the artifices that we adults do as naturally as we get dressed in the morning.  POB (partner of blogger) calls out to me and wants to know what we want to do for dinner tonight.  I remind her to call her dad about coming over for dinner tomorrow night with my dad and assorted relatives.

Now, I think, do I care if I am thin, prosperous, toned and un-gray?  Yes, but not because of reunion.  I am happy and I don’t envy anyone or want to be envied.  I simply want my family to be happy and healthy and safe.  I have that.  Add new box and put √√√ in it!!! (with an *”still would like to be slim, prosperous, toned and less gray”) .

[break for dinner out during which my son has a mother of all melt-downs and tests my resolve against spanking as a disciplinary tool.]

Ok, so my son was temporary invaded by an alien life form, and all because we cannot go to his choice of local restaurants (there were no tables available).  This is not my son (usually).   The following race through my mind: (i) aliens are clever, (ii) my parents grew up poor and would not abide such behavior in us, (iii) we knew not to exhibit such behavior and (iv) what have I done to create this monster?

Am I still happy and blessed?  Absolutely.  Am I pissed?  You betcha.  But keep the new box with the √√√ in it, and don’t forget the all-important asterisk.


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If you love someone

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If you love someone, then don’t make him or her executor of your will.

It is one of the most thankless jobs.  Sifting through the detritus of someone’s life is bad enough (you simply don’t need to know some things), but, then, you have to file tax returns and speak to the IRS because one never really leaves one’s affairs in order.  And there are clerical errors and the wrong tax identification numbers are submitted and life gets complicated and you remember that you love this person who died peacefully knowing all was in your care, and you know he or she would never have asked this of you had he or she known what it really meant.  [SIDEBAR: Ok, that was one of those crazy long sentences reserved only for established writers who look elegant in smoking jackets and cravats.  I am just a journeyman lawyer.  If I were Hemingway, I would continue on: “That was a damn good sentence.  A f@#$ing good sentence.  They opened a bottle of wine — a damn good bottle of wine —  and took turns taking swigs from the bottle because they were too proud of that f$%^ing sentence to move from the table.”]

I live my life so government stays far away from me, even as I am willing to pay more in taxes for better education, health care, etc.  I believe in Obama’s presidency and what he wants to accomplish because all of my grandparents were immigrants who struggled to provide a better life for their children, my parents.  And my parents embody the American Dream.  And I represent downward mobility or “regression to the mean” (which means that subsequent generations will achieve the stupidity of Joe the Plumber).  I support the “system” because it really can work (witness my parents and their entire generation in our extended family); I just work hard not to rely on the “system”. Yet now I have to deal with the government for the taxes on the estate of a person whose life is now reduced to a spreadsheet of dividend distributions and capital gains.

Ok, worse is to be guardian of a mentally incapacitated person.  I know someone who took on that burden and I believe there is a place in Heaven waiting for her after what I hope is a long, happy and healthy life on Earth.  But I digress.

POB (partner of blogger) believes that, in light of all of this, we need to rethink our financial future so that we give everything away except for two nickels at the second in time immediately before our deaths. That way, no one needs to do anything for us except have a little shiva cocktail party and light a Yahrzeit candle every now and again.  But the two nickels are really important to her.   I think she never wants anyone to say that we didn’t have “two nickels to rub together”.  Which is why I love her so.  She doesn’t want a “pot to piss in” because that is too crass.  She also expects “a roof over her head” so that doesn’t factor in (although she would consider a reverse mortgage so that there is no fuss about the homestead when we “go”).

She picks her aphorisms and saws to conjure a picture that we timed it all with precision and aforethought.  And she wants to live — and die — by them.  Of course, being the disaster planner that I am, I need to have only “two nickels to rub together” but also a sack of gold just in case.  Don’t tell her I have an extra stash, ok?

I guess the point — and I do have one — is that I am one of the lucky few who can be generally self-reliant and avoid government.  And, I have no expectations of an efficient government because I believe that is frankly impossible to achieve and unrealistic to expect.  If we were looking for efficiencies, we would ascribe to the Wall Street model and we know how that turned out.  No, government is tedious, hopelessly inefficient, and sometimes catches the do-gooders in the web of bureaucracy.  It is easy to complain about government.  It is hard to defend government.  There is a lot of paperwork to get benefits, but remember you are asking for money from the government.  It should be hard to get.

So, SOB (sister of blogger), because I love you, I will relieve you of the executrix role.  You are asking, “no, really, why?” Ok the answer is: (i) you’ll torture me for it and I will never get the last word for ALL ETERNITY and (ii) Mom would not want this to come between her two girls.  I believe BOB (brother of blogger) is also protected because Mom would not stand for that either.

Did you think there would be a point to this? Are you a new reader?

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Don’t cry for me, Argentina . . .

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No, not “Evita!” the musical sensation of the 1970s about Eva Peron.

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford is living out loud and proud, trying to patch things up with his girlfriend.  It was all a misunderstanding — when we heard Appalachian trail, he said “Argentinian tail”. [see http://40andoverblog.com/p?120]

But, at least he isn’t lying anymore and he maintains contact with his government on his weekends away.  If only other “family values” candidates would be open about marital issues, gay issues and the tough stuff of life that affects all of us, maybe we can re-calibrate expectations of our politicians and ourselves.  I am not saying that infidelity and lying are ok. I am saying live the truth so you don’t have to lie.  So many less lives get shattered that way.

He behaved like a child but he is trying to live as grown-up now.  It is a good start.

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