Tag Archives: Life

There is always joy and hope

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Ok, not always.  But even when the world is too much with me, when death and dying are all around, when senseless violence takes our young (and senseless people try to defend the indefensible), there is still joy.

Joy in a lover’s touch,

Joy in a child’s embrace,

Joy in the dark humor that binds us in loss and tragedy,

Joy in colleagues who become friends (and friends who become family),

Joy in the endless possibilities (outside of Washington), even amid the challenges, for our world,

Joy in lives that are no more but were well-lived, and

Joy that the world did not end on December 21, 2012.

And there is still hope:

in the energy and drive of kids, like SOS, to take care of the planet,

in the power of an individual’s ability to heal the world just a little bit, and

in the power of the example of a person’s life to cause others to do good in her or his memory.

Tomorrow, our family will bury a loved one, but we will not bury hope and joy.  Those live on as our inheritance.  More valuable than anything else.

 

 

 

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And then there was one. . . .

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Dad is the last of his generation in our family.  Weakened and confused, but nonetheless, here.  He is our only link with the past.

In his papers are where my great-grandparents’ graves are located. And a family tree.  And what happened to Grandma Dora’s ship-shvesters (ship sisters) whom she met making the arduous voyage to America.  I haven’t thought about that in years.  And was my great-grandfather’s wife named Tillie?  There is some confusion.

But we must sort it all out.  Because this is our history.  We are the grandchildren of the surviving remnant of formerly European Jews.  Most of the family got out before the Holocaust, but after the pogroms — the massacres — that scarred them for life.

We must now take ownership. For we are the elder generation.  And if you don’t know whence you’ve come, you cannot chart the course ahead.

We can no longer rely on others to remember, recount and record our history.  It is ours to do now.  Cousin Gentle, with great foresight, has already started that project.

We must search our minds for stories because it cannot be that the lives of our great-grandparents, our grandparents and, alas, our parents will fade from memory.  There must be someone always to light candles of remembrance in their names.  To bring their memories out of the darkness and into the light.

 

 

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Helpless in New York City

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Aunt Glue is fading.  The end is soon, according to her son.  Aunt Glue and her son and daughter-in-law have a plan to keep her pain-free and peaceful in these hours.  I need to respect that.  SOB needs to respect that.  BOB needs to respect that.  But SOB was trying to get coverage at the hospital and BOB was looking into flights to come here.  And I was trying to rent a mini-bus to schlep everyone to see Aunt Glue.

Because you can never say, “I love you,” too many times or squeeze someone’s hand too often.

Because death is permanent and, right now, she is alive. And she has a right to die the way she wants.  That is the last decision a person can (with any luck) make.  And that decision is sacrosanct and unimpeachable.

And, here I am, helpless and hopeless in New York City, waiting for the word that the woman

who introduced my parents,

who (with my uncle) shared my mother’s last days and minutes on this earth,

who was such a large figure in my youth,

who hosted the happiest family celebrations of my childhood (never mind, the overcooked chicken),

who was my solace after Mom died,

who embraced POB and SOS,

who, defying all odds, came to my wedding and danced, and

who was the only one to whom SOS would ever write a letter, much less maintain a correspondence,

has died.

She had a long and good life, but not an easy one.

Dad is sometimes clueless as a result of age and brain injury.  But he is so very aware of Aunt Glue’s condition and has a very heavy heart.  Some relationships are so deep that even dementia and brain injury can’t erase them.

One of our greatest generation is losing her fight with time and disease.  Maybe not today or tomorrow.  But soon.  Yet, on her terms (as much as is possible under the circumstances).

And that is the way it should be for our greatest generation.  Even if it breaks our hearts not to see her just one more time.

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Up to bat

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In these days in December, the world is often too much with me.  So much more so this year.

This is the tenth anniversary of Mom’s death, HOSOB lost both his parents in this year, Dad and Aunt Glue are both failing.  So, frankly, are the remnants of Mom’s family. Their deaths will seal a generation.  They were the first ones born on American soil and they laid the foundations for our generation to grow and thrive.  We stand on their shoulders.

SOB and I know that we, along with our many first cousins, will soon assume the mantel of our family’s eldest generation.  The ones who are supposed to know everything, have the wisdom of the ages, the memories and secrets of the past generations, and the answers to the questions (whatever they may be) and, yes, the next wave of those to leave this earth (G-d willing). We are up to bat in a baseball game, as it were.

It is only now that these giants of my parents’ generation seem so young and human.  Now I understood that Mom and Dad and the uncles and the aunts were as clueless then as are we now.  The mantra, just keep moving because it is better than running in place or, worse, standing still, is still the mantra of our generation.

As long as Dad and Aunt Glue are still alive, there is always the illusion (although, not the reality) that there are elders who know more, who can bless us and what we do, and who can lead us out of the darkness and into the light.

But the truth is that wisdom comes from reflecting on the past.  Humility comes from failure.  Regret comes from somehow knowing if you were sure enough of your convictions and felt strong enough to press your point of view, the outcome would have been better.

The lessons of the generations that must be learned again by each succeeding generation.  Over and over, until the end of time.

This is life and its journey.  These are some of the immutable facts that govern the species.

One day, maybe this will change.  Until then, I will try to act with kindness, with humility and with the memory of those who came before me — what they did right and what went terribly wrong.

 

 

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Lunchtime in the Coffee Shop of the Living Dead

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I went down for a quick lunch with Dad.  We went to a nearby place that isn’t good, has bad service and smells like a bad diner.  But it is popular for the over-senile/decrepit set because it is a close walk from many once-bustling-high-rises-now-de-facto-old-age-homes (welcome to the Sutton Place area).   At the diner, there is a special area for canes and walkers, once the elder has been seated.  There are less chairs available than one would think necessary because — well — the proprietors need to accommodate wheelchairs. 

Dad looks better than most there. 

As we are looking at the menu, he says, “I don’t remember when I last had a hamburger.” 

Sidebar:  I think BUT DO NOT SAY, “Of course, you don’t remember, Dad.  It was last Saturday when we had this same conversation at the other diner, you know the one that is far enough away so there are fewer undead people there?  You had a hamburger.”

Still, Dad sometimes surprises me by retaining information from one day to the next.  “How was POB’s job interview?” he asked.  Whoa, POB told him about it on Thursday.  Awesome job, Dad.

I know many of the peope in the Diner of the Living Dead from the neighborhood.  I grew up here.  One, who is Dad’s friend, came over and wanted to talk to me only, almost ignoring Dad and Dad’s health aide (are people invisible?). 

Odd because he is usually a warm and friendly, if homophobic, guy. 

He was clearly in despair.  He needed home heath care information for his companion of decades.  Her kids were handling matters without talking to him and he didn’t know what to do.  He didn’t even bother to brag about his daughter’s life as a married, wealtlhy, successful, procreative heterosexual.  Now, that was a red flag for how the situation has deteriorated.

I listened and gave him what information I could.  He seemed unable to cope with the little I was able to offer.  I will follow up with him but I think he needs care, too. 

Sidebar: I might have to call his daughter.  I will start the conversation with, “as a married, well-to-do (before the crash), successful (before the crash), procreative (after a fashion) homosexual to you, the person I was supposed to be: get your ass back to New York and take care of your dad.” 

After the conversation, Dad said in a sad but resigned way, “he doesn’t look or sound so good.”  I nodded. 

And then I screamed so Dad could hear (relying on the deafness of those around me):

“Dad, you are doing so much better and you had a brain bleed that shorted out some electricity!!” 

We are nothing if not blunt.

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The day the questions started

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SOS has this elective class in school in which the kids, guided by teachers, debate various subjects, ranging from what are effective recycling methods to whether adoption records should be sealed. 

Adoption.  Yes,  Our lives.  It had to come up.  I didn’t think it was going to be age 10.5.  And for a debating class, no less. 

SOS has always known that a sperm donor helped us have him.  There was never a time he didn’t know that.  He has also always known that POB is his biological mother, but somehow he always thought (however irrationally) that he was connected to me in some way that was in addition to nurture.  Until today.

So we brought out the old records.  Together, we read through the information we had on the donor — his medical history, his academic achievements, his personal statement about funny things that happened to him and his hopes and dreams for his own children.  POB described his voice.  

We showed SOS the petition for adoption and report by the social worker which was submitted to the Court, as required by law.  I didn’t tell SOS this, but the social worker interviewed me for 4.5 hours and made me cry.  She asked about my recently dead mother and other pressure points in my life.  At the end, she asked how would I deal with having a straight son.  I was so emotionally and mentally exhausted that I responded honestly, “It happens in the best of families.  And I understand attraction to women, so I would be totally good with it.”  The social worker was stunned and I thought, “oh, no, I have blown it now.”

Luckily, the social worker’s report was strongly in favor of the adoption.  The judge who originally contorted New York law to allow same-sex couple adoption was the judge who heard SOS’s petition and, as her last act before retiring, she so-ordered our joint adoption of SOS.  We told him that this was a big deal to have this judge approve his adoption.  He asked to feel the official seal on the certified copy of the order.

SOS told me earlier in the day, in anticipation of this afternoon’s discussion, that I am just as much his mom as POB.  I think he was scared and, yet, he was trying to protect me.  But new information can change things.

At the end of the discussion, SOS was concerned because he finally realized that it is “only” nurture that connects him and me and that 50% of him is the donor’s genes.  So we talked about the power of nurture, love and commitment.  I told him that before I adopted him, I could have walked away, without legal liability for his well-being.  But I took on that responsibility and I can never undo that.  I chose to be responsible for him.  That had some resonance, but I could hear the wheels of his brain turning about the donor’s genes.

“Dude, this is not the only conversation we are going to have about this.  You may need to seek out the donor.  It is ok.  I am ok.  You are my baby.  Ok?”

“Ok, [Blogger], I love you.”

“I love you, too, buddy.  More than you will ever know.”

And so ended the first episode of “The Questions”.

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Fatigue Fatigue

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Election fatigue.  Fiscal Cliff fatigue.  War fatigue.  War hero sex scandal fatigue.  Bomb Iran or not fatigue. Crazy politicians saying psycho things fatigue. Human-engineered natural disasters fatigue. Finger-pointing fatigue.  European debt crisis fatigue.  Stock market sinking fatigue.  Living in precarious economic times (controlled by others) fatigue.  Dealing with a failing parent fatigue.

Wow, I am tired.  If one or more of these things come to fruition, it (or they) will dwarf the others and can send our nation, our society and/or just me into a tailspin.

In fact, I was too tired to get all excited that President Obama was re-elected.  I was more relieved that the months of uncertainty were over.  And BOB, who lives in a Red State, wrote a poignant Facebook post just before the election that made me re-think any self righteous glee after the president’s re-election.  BOB wrote:

I don’t post, particularly about politics. Others do, for whatever reason. I am certain that whoever wins the election tomorrow, and his supporters, will continue to be reviled and mocked by those that did not vote for him. I do not care who my friends vote for and will respect the fact that they believe what they believe. I do not try to lobby them and I ignore any efforts to lobby me. The diversity we have is what makes us a unique place in the world and what makes no sense to one makes all the sense in the world to another. So, my hope is that on Wednesday morning we get back to (or start) respecting each other, doing good in our own way and not just complaining about what others are not doing the way we see fit, and working together instead of bullying and demeaning, recognizing that it is too late to take all of that money that was spent (read: wasted) campaigning on all levels to help feed hungry mouths here and elsewhere around the globe. And that’s all I have to say about that.

BOB is a good and smart man.

But Nate Silver (fivethirtyeight.com) is my new pin-up boy (ok, so many levels of complexity there).  Nate:  you have gotten far too many love letters from straight and gay men and women for a numbers geek.  I think Brad Pitt’s agent is trying to have the exact tally sealed.  It is a Hollywood thing.  And that guy with a girl’s name who is really popular now is soooooo not loving you right now.  Neither is Karl Rove and that is just fine with me.

But, I digress, comme d’habitude.

I am so tired of our national issues being treated like a really bad reality TV show that masquerades as news.

I am hungry for good news, for hope, for public service without political advantage.  I am hungry for good things happening to good people who work hard and do the right thing.  I am hungry for a commitment by those of us who have more to share with those who have less.  Not wealth redistribution; rather, compassion.

Good policy and hope come from searching, sometimes emotional, debates about our national values and our common future and how we best meet the challenges ahead.  It involves compromise and respect.  It is not a winner-take-all game.

Until then, the fatigue will slowly, but surely, become indifference or powerlessness.  And, assuming it spreads beyond just me to the greater populace, that will bring a good and mighty nation to its knees more surely than any war or any economic crisis could ever.

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Homeward Bound

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POB spent some time with Dad yesterday.  He kept telling her that he doesn’t feel as if he is home, even when he is sitting in his living room.  His living room for 50 years.

Often, he says, he gets confused and wonders: “How am I going to get home from here?”  And then either he remembers or his aide (or one of us) reminds him, “you are home.”  Then he relaxes.  But this repeats throughout the days.

Last night, when POB told me about the conversation, I had an unusual panic.  Does “home” mean something different for Dad?

Even though this has been Dad’s home for more than half of his life, Mom isn’t there, and his memories are hard to tease out of the recesses of his mind.  His kids visit, but we don’t live there anymore.  There are lovely aides helping him, but they are strangers.

Daddy, please stay just a little longer with us.  If “home” is some place else, don’t go “home” just yet.  Ok?  Stay here with us.  Because here is still where you live.

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Filling the adult shoes

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When we were young, my Dad always wore wing-tipped shoes — brown or black. 

 

 

 

 

 

He had one pair of Keds sneakers and several pairs of tuxedo shoes.  Maybe he had another pair of shoes for the weekends, but this was the 1960s after all.  And a man of my father’s generation didn’t wear jeans until the late 1970s and sneakers — gasp — only when old-style shoes were too tough on his aging feet.  Dad and his wing-tips.  That’s what men of a certain age wore.

I remember the weekly walk from synagogue after Sunday school and Dad’s racing me the last block home.  He wore his wing-tips and I wore my Mary-Janes (which I hated).  Dad and his wing-tips.  That’s what men of a certain age wore.  Even when playing with their kids.

Dad and his wing-tips.  I used to try to walk in them after he had taken them off and put on slippers (another thing that people haven’t done since the 1970s).  They were so heavy and unforgiving.  I used to clomp around and fall and get up and keep trying. 

In the early 1990s, Italian designers started selling women’s wing-tipped shoes.  More refined than the clunky saddle shoes of the prior decades.  I have several pairs in black and brown, although I went for a simpler look:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For years, I didn’t wear them because I thought I looked too dyke-y in them.  Since Dad’s fall, I wear them again.

If I am going to be as good and kind to him as he was to us, I need to walk in his shoes.  The shoes he wore when he had all the answers.   

 

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Out of the darkness into a warming light

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Some times, people think I am too open about my emotions and observations.  And talking about sad things can really depress people.  And if you only talk about the stuff in your life, not only do you lose friends, but you risk losing those essential human traits of empathy and compassion for others and what inevitably are their challenges, fears and bags of trouble.

Here is one of the great surprises.  Many of the friends and family who have held me close (physically and figuratively) have also shared their past and present sadnesses and allowed me to try to comfort them or share in their memories.  And I am grateful.

I guess we all walk the paths of crises, loss, joy, exhilaration and near-misses, but not at the same times.  Friends and family allowed Dad’s crisis to open me up, rather than close me down.  And it is hard not to be joyful about his long and happy life.  And it is hard not to feel the heartbreak of others whose family members aren’t as lucky as Dad has been.

Life is a journey.  Success is having made that journey surrounded by loved ones and friends.

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