And That’s The Way It Was- Goodbye Walter Cronkite

I always liked Walter Cronkite. Grew up watching him on the news.

(CNN) — Walter Cronkite, the CBS anchorman known as “Uncle Walter” for his easygoing, measured delivery and “the most trusted man in America” for his rectitude and gravitas, has died, CBS reported Friday.
Cronkite was 92.

His career spanned much of the 20th century, as well as the first decade of the 21st. The native of St. Joseph, Missouri, broke in as a newspaper journalist while in college, switched over to radio announcing in 1935, joined the United Press wire service by the end of the decade and jumped to CBS and its nascent television news division in 1950. He also made his mark as an Internet contributor in his later years with a handful of columns for the Huffington Post.

He covered World War II’s Battle of the Bulge, the Nuremberg trials, several presidential elections, moon landings, the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the Watergate scandal of President Richard Nixon’s administration.
At times he even made news: A 1977 question to then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat about Sadat’s intent to go to Israel — at the time considered a nonstarter because of the lack of a treaty between the two countries — received a surprising “yes” from the Egyptian leader.

Soon after, Sadat traveled to Jerusalem, a trip that eventually led to the Camp David Accords, which included a peace deal between Israel and Egypt.

At his height of influence as CBS anchorman, Cronkite’s judgment was believed so important it could affect even presidents. In early 1968, after the Tet Offensive, Cronkite traveled to Vietnam and gave a critical editorial calling the Vietnam War “mired in stalemate.”

Noting Cronkite’s commentary, President Lyndon Johnson reportedly said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Johnson announced he would not seek re-election less than two months later.

The Final Goodbye Replayed

The Final Goodbye Replayed

It is hard to believe that it is almost two years since I wrote the post below. I was over at my parent’s house helping them clean out a storage shed and I came across one of his old toys. It caught me off guard and I was surprised that for a moment I got choked up, but I miss the big lug.

I miss wrestling and running with him. Sometimes the two of us would just start running. He of course would quickly outpace me. He’d turn his head and look at me, taunt me to try and catch up. As soon as I got close he’d take off again.

More than one evening ended with the two of us sitting together in a room, keeping each other company. Well, those days are gone now. I miss you old friend, but I won’t forget you.

***********

The last chunk of time has been rough. It has been hard for a whole host of reasons, but this evening the toughest was because I had to say goodbye to my pal.

Tomorrow morning he has an appointment with the vet. The family has agonized over this. We have spent a ton of time trying to make sure that we make the right decision. Every discussion with the vet has made it implicitly clear that there are no heroic measures to be taken.

That is not to say that there are not things that could be done, there are. At best they might extend his life by a few months, but they wouldn’t add to the quality of his life and that is the crux of this matter. He is more than 14 years old and the body won’t give of itself anymore.

So for the past few days I have spent as much time with him as I could. He can’t chase me anymore. He used to love to fetch a ball. I could throw it a country mile and he’d go get it and bring it back to me. He has trouble doing the basic stuff now. I look at that majestic head and I can see the young puppy staring back at me. Dark soulful eyes look at you and you just know that he is waiting for a treat.

I feel guilty that I know what is going to happen. I feel like part of me is betraying him, but at the same time I don’t feel right watching him struggle to get through the day. His breathing is labored and there are times where I swear it looks like he is already gone.

Yet there are moments where he fools me. There are moments in which he moves freely and issues that deep bark that always served notice of his presence. It is almost like he is hoping that this will be enough to gain clemency from the governor and gain a reprieve. If it made sense I would grant it. If I could turn back time I’d make him young again and we’d get more time together.

Fourteen years ago I was a single man and he was the one I’d share all my stories with. We’d take long walks at the park and wander the beach together. He has witnessed some of the biggest moments of my life. And all he has ever asked of me is a little food and companionship. It has been a good deal for both of us.

Tonight the children gave him an extra big hug goodbye and so did I. I bent down and rubbed his belly. I leaned over and made a point to smell him so that I would remember his scent.

Live Like You Were Dying

Some posts are worth recycling because they fit a mood or a situation. This is one of them.

I really like this song. I appreciate the sentiments for so many reasons.

He said I was in my early forties with a lot of life before me

when a moment came that stopped me on a dime

and I spent most of the next dayslooking at the x-rays

Talking bout the options and talking bout sweet time

I asked him when it sank in that this might really be the real end

how’s it hit you when you get that kinda news man what’d you do

and he said
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance to live like you were dying.

He said I was finally the husband
that most the time I wasn’t
and I became a friend a friend would like to have
and all the sudden going fishin
wasn’t such an imposition
and I went three times that year I lost my dad
well I finally read the good book
and I took a good long hard look
at what I’d do if I could do it all again

and then
I went sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu
and I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I gave forgiveness I’d been denying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.

Like tomorrow was a gift and you got eternity to think about
what’d you do with it
what did you do with it
what did I do with it
what would I do with it’

Sky diving
I went Rocky Mountain climbing
I went 2.7 seconds on a bull named Fu Manchu
and then I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter
and I watched an eagle as it was flying
and he said someday I hope you get the chance
to live like you were dying.
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
To live like you were dying
Tim McGraw

Inspired By Michael Jackson

Figured that if I sifted through the archives we’d find a few posts that are due to Michael Jackson’s influence:

Spontaneous Subway Dancing (A “Thriller” moment)
Phillipine Justice (Another “Thriller” moment)
Thriller With Legos
Michael Jackson : Thriller : Indian Style

And as a special bonus those wacky inmates are back:

Goodbye Ed

CNN reports that Ed McMahon has died. It has some interesting information. I was unaware that he served as a Marine in WWII andKorea.

Music to Play At My Funeral

Had a discussion earlier this week with what sort of music to play at a funeral. Ok, this isn’t really so much for a funeral, but any sort of memorial service. Truth is that when I am dead, I am dead, so anything can happen.

I don’t want a lot of tears and fuss. When the day comes and I take that final breath I want people to smile when they think of me. And to be clear, I haven’t any intention of dying any time soon. I have plans to fulfill. Got to walk down that Hampshire road through the burning river and decorate a few places.

Got a little covent tree that I am going to take care of. But I’ll cover all that in a separate post. For now this is the beginning of music for my funeral or memorial service. Call it whatever you want, I won’t be in attendance in the corporeal sense.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Soundtrack- Haven’t found the entire soundtrack in a clip that plays straight through so here are a few different links. Good Music.

1
2
3
4

Theme from the Magnificent Seven
May it be– Enya
Theme from Harry’s Game– Clannad
I will find you – Clannad
Hero of The Day– Metallica
As Time Goes By – Casablanca
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)- Bruce Springsteen

Iraq & Afghanistan

Been thinking about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two wars that have been waged my daughter’s entire life and most of my son’s. Two wars that they know little to nothing about, but that is OK.

Part of the joy of being a child is based upon innocence. Part of the joy is not being aware of how many bad things exist and how life doesn’t always have happy endings. It is a key component of their being able to sleep so peacefully. Children don’t worry about being employed, feeding a family, paying a mortgage or how to pay for car repairs.

And the truth is that so many of us here in the states don’t spend much time thinking about the wars, or if we do it is more theoretical in nature. We’re not happy about death and destruction, but because it is so far away we worry about the financial impact.

It is understandable, unless you are in a place where you are exposed to our service people it is easy to forget about the human element. I try not to. I try to remind myself that there are people out there who are being maimed physically and psychologically.

I try to remind myself that someone’s mother/father/sister/brother/son is not going to come home or if they do come home they are damaged in ways that I can’t imagine.

It doesn’t matter what your politics are, they are out there working for and fighting on our behalf and I am grateful for that.

In my little world I know a bunch of soldiers and have heard all kinds of stories. But lately when I think about Iraq and Afghanistan I think of a friend who is a medic. He has already completed two tours in Iraq and is waiting to be shipped out to Afghanistan.

Sometimes he’ll talk about some of what has happened and I sit and listen. Stories about how he was injured and what happened. Tales that aren’t told in a way that you would classify as bragging.

I am not always sure that he is talking to me, because sometimes he get’s this far away look in his eyes and I wonder what it is that he sees. He wants to go back because he doesn’t know what to do with himself here. I ask him what he is going to do when it ends because at some point we will leave both countries or he’ll be discharged.

He tells me that if he doesn’t come home as a KIA he’ll go back to being a software engineer, maybe. I tell him that he can’t think about dying, he just has to believe that he is going to live. He nods and smiles. I get the feeling that he is politely blowing me off and maybe he is.

What do I know about combat. I battle for rebounds. Been in more than one or two fist fights in my life, but not in a war. Can’t say that I really understand, but I can’t ignore the comments about not coming back either, now can I.

*************************

Alone in the dark I stare at the sleeping child and listen to the soft snore. I bend over and kiss a forehead and hope that somehow they never lose the ability to sleep like this. I used to be able to do that. I wonder if I can learn how to do it again.

What Happens When You Die

What Happens When You Die

The Shmata Queen and I have an ongoing discussion about what happens to people when they die. That wacky woman isn’t convinced that anything comes after this. You could sum up her position as life followed by death, end of story.

No heaven, no hell. Just a dirt nap during which time your corpse is eaten away, dissolving into dust.

I understand how and why she came to this position. The afterlife is based solely on faith. You can’t call your travel agent and book a flight. You can’t take a boat or a bus to get there. There is no tangible proof that it exists. She wants hard evidence. She wants a scientific proof to hang onto and we can’t give it to her.

This discussion about death is one that we have had a million times. I don’t try to convince her to rely upon faith. I leave religion out of it. Faith isn’t something that you can teach. You believe or you don’t believe. To me it is a highly personal thing and I can respect that.

So the question is what do I have to offer that isn’t based upon a belief that religious dictates are factual. To me it comes back to our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and those that follow them. Our descendants and the memories that they carry forward or fail to carry forward are the key.

When I look at my children I see reflections of the past and glimpses of the future. There are physical markers that we can use. For example if you look at my son there are shared features. His hands and feet are virtual duplicates of mine. And of course he has many of my mannerisms and that leads me to hypothesize that some of those are things that really come from several generations ago.

If you watch my father walk through a store you’ll often see him with his hands behind his back. That comes from what he was taught when he was a little boy. Watch my son and I and you’ll often see us do that. So you could argue that something that started in the early ’40s still happens 60 some years later.

But there are other things. Things that my zaide taught my grandfather who passed it along to my dad, to me and then to my son. So we can argue that something that might have started in a shtetl in Lithuania in the 19th century is still with us in the 21st.

In addition there are the stories that we hear about relatives. My maternal grandfather has pictures of his grandmother and grandfather on the wall. They died somewhere in the early ’30s. My mother and aunt haven’t any personal memories of them, but we all know a few stories about them.

We all can tell you the story about the cab driver in Chicago who ran into my grandfather’s grandfather and knocked him down. And we can all tell you about how he picked himself up, dusted himself off and then punched the cab driver in the nose.

Here we are in 2009 talking about a man who was born somewhere around the end of the Civil War.

There are other stories that we know. Tales of family who fled the Cossacks and hid in the fields. Tales of the great grandfather who fought the police and helped tailors form a union. Stories of a great grandmother who loved to go dancing.

The point is that for me that keeps them from being totally gone. Though they might not be alive in the truest sense of the word, they aren’t completely gone.

It reminds me a bit of a conversation that we had when my friend ‘D’ died eleven years ago. Would he be forgotten and left behind, just one more soul who was taken far too young. I don’t think so. While I won’t ever have memories of him as an old man, I won’t forget him either.

And for me that works, it is enough. As long as the stories remain we can stick around. And given the advantages of modern technology there are a lot of tools. There are endless videos that we are a part of and things like this blog.

What do you think?

If you Were Dying Would You Paint the Kitchen

That is a question I hope to never have to answer, but some people don’t have those options. Be thankful for what you have.

Questions and Answers

It is a bit after midnight on Thursday evening and I am trying hard to unwind. It has been quite a week. If you asked me to explain I’d say Consonance and Dissonance. I’d say that at moments I have felt as if everything is about to fall into place and there have been times when I have been certain that I am about to go over the precipice, hurtling ass over elbow into the abyss.

It is an interesting dichotomy, this feeling of complete control and a lack thereof. If I had to attribute anything to it I’d say that I have been forced to accept that I don’t have control of some things. Now it is a matter of faith and that is something that is hard for me to do. To just let go and say that you’ll see what happens isn’t easy, but sometimes it is what you have to do.

When I was a child I thought that every adult was happy. From my perspective I saw people who didn’t have to go to school, who had money to buy whatever they wanted and could stay up as late as they wanted to. And let’s not forget that no one told them what to do, they were grownups and had a life a million times better than my own.

That is not to say that I had a bad childhood, I didn’t. It was good. We were a happy middle class family. I have many good memories. But like I said as a child I had my ideas of what life would be like and how it all would be.

Now I look back at the past six years or so and I see an enormous amount of change in myself. In so many ways I am the Jack that I have always been and in others I am very different. Change has always been something that I have been slow to accept. It has always been easier for me to go at my pace and then just ease into things.

But if I stop and really think about it, if I elimate the cacophony of the chaos around me I realize that many of the changes have been good. So many of them have helped to make life better. In short it is a long winded way of saying that I am very clear on what it is that I want and what it is that I need.

The bigger issues are those that surround how to get to the place I have been searching for. It took a long time to identify those things and I am a bit uncertain about how to make them happen. This is one of those times where I shake my head and think about how sometimes life feels a bit backwards.

At twenty five I was completely unencumbered. The future was wide open and I could envision myself doing anything. Fifteen years later I can’t look at it from a completely selfish perspective. Now I have to account for other people. Now I have to consider what sort of impact the decisions I make will have.

So this brings me to the point where I mention that my son and I had a discussion about life and change. I told him many things, but for now I’ll only share two with you.

1) I told him that I wanted to really work hard in school and to work extra hard in math.
2) I told him that change wasn’t something that we had to fear and that if we learn how to go along and get along we’ll all be much happier.

He nodded his head and told me that he would try and that made me very happy because all we can do is try. As I said on Twitter I would rather try and fail than to never try at all. And then because it tied in with our discussion I brought up Moshe and how he too had tried and failed.

How is that for a segue into talking about the seder.

A family gathering is an experience that I can’t adequately explain. There is noise, there is chaos, there is confusion and all sorts of other fun stuff. There are stories about the painter with the wooden leg, the handyman who lived in the shed and other shared memories about those who aren’t around anymore.

As it worked out my grandmother was hospitalized Sunday night and unfortunately was unable to make it. She’ll be 95 next week. More on her in a moment.

I did my best to try and include the children as I knew that their attention spans would only last so long.

The dark haired beauty decided that she only wanted to know if Haman was worse than Pharoah. Her older brother wanted to tell me everything he knew about Pesach, but only in a voice slightly louder than a whisper. My youngest nephew is a week short of three and has an ear infection.

Between his age and the infection he was more than a little squirrely, but what really got him angry was not being able to sing with my kids. It wasn’t a matter of his not being allowed to, he just didn’t know all of the songs.

My grandfather sat next to me and told me how proud he was of my taking over. In between he told me how much he missed my grandmother and that he couldn’t remember her missing a seder. They met when they were 11 and were married at twenty, just a few months until they celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary.

At the far end of the table I could see my parents staring at me. A couple of times I heard my mother whisper my name to my father. I saw her smile and I knew that she was proud of me. But this time I realized that I understood the pride in a different sort of way because I feel that same way about my children.

This afternoon I went to visit my grandmother. She is still pretty sharp, but her memory has softened quite a bit. We had a nice visit and talked about many things. I told her that we missed her at the seder and talked about how her great-grandchildren had asked if she could come just for that.

She smiled and took my hand in hers. A moment passed and she laughed and told me that I don’t have a hand like a little boy anymore. I smiled back and said that I supposed that she was right.

UN Double Standards

Meryl’s post UN on Israeli “war crimes” in Gaza: The fix is in brings to mind an old joke.

Dan Rather, Katie Couric, and an Israeli sergeant were all captured by terrorists in Iraq. The leader of the terrorists told them he would grant them each one last request before they were beheaded.

Dan Rather said, ‘I’m a Texan, so I’d like one last bowlful of hot spicy chili.’ The leader nodded to an underling who returned with chili. Rather ate it all and said, ‘Now I can die content.’

Katie Couric said, ‘I’m a reporter to the end. I want to take my tape recorder, then describe the scene here and what’s about to happen. Maybe someone will hear it and know I was on the job till the end.’

The leader directed an aide to hand over the tape recorder, and Couric dictated some comments, then said, ‘Now I can die happy.’

The leader turned and said, ‘And now, Mr. Israeli tough guy, what is your final wish?’

‘Kick me in the ass,’ said the soldier.’

‘What?’ asked the leader? ‘Will you mock us in your last hour?’

‘No, I’m not kidding. I want you to kick me in the ass,’ insisted the Israeli.

So the leader shoved him into the clearing and kicked him in the ass. The soldier was sent sprawling, but rolled to his knees, pulled a 9 mm pistol from under his flack jacket, and shot the leader dead. In the resulting confusion, he jumped to his knapsack, pulled out his carbine and sprayed the rest of the terrorists with gunfire. In a flash, all terrorists were either dead or fleeing for their lives.

As the soldier was untying Rather and Couric, they asked him, ‘Why didn’t you just shoot them in the beginning? Why did you ask them to kick you in the ass first?’

‘What?’ replied the Israeli, ‘And have you two assholes report that I was the aggressor?!’

That’s the sort of humor that creates a wry grin because there is a perverse truth to it. If you picked up the paper and read that a senior IDF official sneezed on a Palestinian and was being investigated for war crimes you’d shake your head, but some of you would believe it to be a true story.

Some of you would believe it to be true because you have been conditioned to believe that most Israeli actions are based upon malicious intent. But before some of you accuse this post of being the standard polemic I want to draw your attention elsewhere.

The Guardian has some terribly shocking video and an article that has received far too little media coverage.

Video of girl’s flogging as Taliban hand out justice

A video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley in Pakistan, offering a shocking glimpse of militant brutality in the once-peaceful district, and a sign of Taliban influence spreading deeper into the country.

The two-minute video, shot using a mobile phone, shows a burka-clad woman face down on the ground. Two men hold her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly.

“Please stop it,” she begs, alternately whimpering or screaming in pain with each blow to the backside. “Either kill me or stop it now.”

A crowd of men stands by, watching silently. Off camera a voice issues instructions. “Hold her legs tightly,” he says as she squirms and yelps.

After 34 lashes the punishment stops and the wailing woman is led into a stone building, trailed by a Kalashnikov-carrying militant.

Where is the outrage. Where are the hundreds of newspaper stories decrying this action. Where are the editorials demanding justice. How can such a thing take place and receive so little news coverage.

The silence is deafening.

When Parents Die

There is someone very dear to me who is in the midst of a terrible challenge. Out of respect I won’t divulge their name but I’ll say that one of their parents is very ill. It is with them in mind that I write this post.

Actually the previous post was sort of inspired by them too. Not sure that inspire is the appropriate word, but it will work for now.

Life and death has been a fairly common theme here. I suppose that part of it has to do with my own experiences. I have been to more funerals than I care to think about. Many of my friends have lost a parent. Some of them were quite young, but most were somewhere between their teenage years and their twenties.

One of these days I want to try and find out if my experience is normal or abnormal because it seems to me that I have been to many more funerals than most people I know. Or maybe it is my own misconception, not like we keep funeral scorecards.

In my effort to support my friend I have been thinking about this a lot. I have wanted to be able to say something that would help ease their pain. Their parent hasn’t died, but is terminally ill. No telling exactly how long it will go on.

I feel badly because what can I say. I can listen, but I can’t offer any profound insight. Maybe it is arrogant of me to want to be able to fix things. But I do.

Anyway, if you read this please know that I think about this more than you realize. I don’t always bring it up because I want you to feel like you have some space from it, but I do think about it.

One more piece of business. Here are some past posts that tie into this topic:

Coping With Sick Parents
Coping With Sick Parents Part II
Death- My Son Asked Me Not to Die
Death Comes For Us All- When Do you Start Saying Goodbye

Don’t Die Dad

I won’t ever forget the day I got the call from my mother. She and my father had flown out to the east coast for the bris of one of my nephews. She and my father were on their way to the emergency room.

I asked to speak with him and she put him on the phone. The conversation was awkward and strange and it was clear that he wasn’t right. Mom took the phone again and told me that she would call me when she knew more.

A short time later she called to let me know that they had placed him on a ventilator and that they didn’t know much, but that it was very serious. At some point she must have passed the phone to my brother-in-law, the doctor. I asked him to tell me if my father was going to die and he said that he couldn’t guarantee it, but that it was highly probable.

When we hung up the phone I sat there in shock. I was almost 35, but it was clear to me that I still thought of my father as being the strongest man I knew. He couldn’t be that sick, he couldn’t be close to dying. It was just impossible.

At some point I realized that no matter how hard it was to fathom, my father had lost his status as immortal and become a man like all the rest. I suppose that sounds ridiculous, but it is how I thought of him and I have stories to back it up.

We got lucky because in spite of everything the docs told us he made it. He beat the odds. Two days before my daughter was born he underwent a triple bypass and now almost five years later I am ever so grateful to have him.

But I’d be lying if I said that it didn’t have a profound impact upon me. Those six months changed me in a lot of ways, but it took a while for me to recognize and realize just what some of those changes have been.

It gave me a much deeper appreciation for the loss that some of my friends and family have experienced. And it made me far more nervous about his health. In the time since that period he has been hospitalized a number of different times, some of them more serious than others.

For the first year or so after the bypass I’d estimate that not a day went by when I didn’t worry about him. As more time has passed I grew a bit more comfortable, but I never completely lost that fear.

I worry about him. I do. I try not to focus upon it. I am not kidding when I say that I am grateful, but dammit, he is my father and I am just not ready. Maybe I don’t think of him as being immortal, but he is so very important.

He makes me crazy. Few people can push my buttons the way that he can. I don’t need or ask for his approval but I’d be lying if I said that I don’t want it. It took years to reach this place, but I think that we have developed a friendship.

After all this time there is a lot that I understand about him that I didn’t. Some of it required life experience. I got married and had a family. I spent years being the sole breadwinner and learned what it meant to carry that weight.

Spent more than a few nights agonizing over various decisions. Made some good calls and some stupid ones. And so many times as I sat there mulling over what to do I could hear his voice in my head.

Not so long ago he and I sat at the kitchen table in my parent’s house talking about this and that. Dad started talking about his father and I saw him a bit differently. The man sitting at the head might have been my father but for a moment I think that he was closer to the 12 year old boy who was reminiscing about a trip his father had taken him and his brother on.

If there had been any doubt in my mind that we are never really ready to say goodbye to our parents that moment at the table fixed it. I miss my grandfather terribly, but not like my father misses his father.

We may all grow up and live our lives, but some people stay with us forever.

Goodbye Paul Harvey

I have a lot of memories of riding in the car with my folks and listening to Paul Harvey. And now you can read “the rest of the story.”

“(CNN) — Paul Harvey, the legendary radio host whose career sharing “the rest of the story” with listeners spanned more than 70 years, has died, according to ABC Radio Networks.

He was 90.

Known for his deliberate delivery and pregnant pauses, Harvey’s broadcasts were heard on over 1,200 radio stations and 400 Armed Forces networks and his commentaries appeared in 300 newspapers, according to his Web
site.

He had been hosting his radio shows part-time for much of the past year, after recovering from physical ailments including pneumonia and the death of his wife, Lynne “Angel” Harvey in May 2008.”

Life Is Too Short

I love music. It is one of the great joys of my life. Music is a source of infinite wisdom. It is joy and it is sorrow. It enriches my life. Sometimes I stumble onto certain songs and find that I play them over and over because something in them touches me.

Wake Up by Arcade Fire has something in it that grabs me, but I haven’t quite put my finger on it. The chorus in which everyone sings together reminds me a bit of walking to the Kotel just before Shabbos begins. As you walk through the quarter you can hear the hum of people davening.

For those who can’t relate try to imagine being at a concert where thousands of people sing along. There is an electricity, an energy that you can feel. It is intense. Music tells a story and I love stories and that really leads to the main topic of this post. I want to live far longer than I am going to.

The Shmata Queen have endless discussions about life and what happens when you die. We debate and argue about what comes next, if anything. She has death issues and so do I, but they’re different.

In December of 2005 I wrote a post called Eternal Life in which I touched upon my desire to live long enough to learn and master many skills. That really hasn’t changed. In fact in some ways it has grown stronger. As I become more conscious of my own mortality and more interested in ensuring that I truly live my life I find myself feeling a bit crazed.

There are so many things that I want to do. There are so many places to visit and so many skills to master. How can I possibly do it all within this lifespan and how can I do it at a lesiurely place so that I might enjoy it all.

Oftentimes when I look back at old posts I find myself cringing because I feel like I missed the mark. I look at it and think that the writing is too rough, too choppy, too whatever. But sometimes I look back and I find that I can still tie into whatever I felt that day. Sometimes I look back and I see that I have changed.

This time I don’t see any profound changes. I still want to master all the skills that I listed there and more. It would be nice to become a doctor and a scientist. It would be fantastic to have a chance to become a history teacher and an archeologist. I can add several more items to the list without even trying hard.

Given the time there are a lot of things to do like revisit and rework old posts like Jewish Sex- Between The Sheets. Ok, that I could do. I really could go back and I suppose that sometimes I do. But let’s not get too far afield.

It is well understood that it I could dramatically increase my lifespan I would. And if I could turn back time I would. If I had the power I’d change certain things. Maybe I’d fix it so that I spent that time in Israel or maybe I would have been in that dorm at Indiana, who knows.

I have to focus on what I can do. I have to focus on what makes me happy. I have to focus on what drives me, the things and people that make my heart pound. I have to focus on doing those things that make life exciting. And I am doing that.

Clarification for those who are interested. I do not believe that life is always about excitement. No matter how good it may be there are moments in which it is going to be dull, boring and unpleasant. Understood and accepted.

But that doesn’t have to be the primary thing nor does it have to define me.

I believe that you can always reinvent yourself and I believe that some dreams can become your reality. All it takes is a will to find the way.

Now if only I had a thousand years I could do so much more. I guess that I can settle for another 90 or so.

The Cheapest Blood

There is an ongoing discussion among my Jewish friends and I. Actually there are many ongoing discussions but for the purpose of this post we’ll focus on one. What is our role as a Jew. It is not so much a religious discussion as a question of what does it mean when you’re the only Jew in school or the office.

You see for whatever reason many of us seem to feel that when we are the only Jew around we have to assume the mantle of spokesperson for the Jews. It is especially noticeable during the holiday season or times like now when Israel is at war. Because now people start to approach us to ask questions or make statements about Israel.

Now let’s be clear about something there is no one person or organization that speaks for all of us. And there are many Jews who have never been to Israel or are relatively uneducated about it. They don’t know much about the history and can’t really discuss the politics with any degree of expertise. If you ask me that is ok. I play basketball with a Chinese guy who can’t tell you a thing about Chinese politics. He is an American who was born and raised in Los Angeles. He happens to be Chinese, but that doesn’t mean he knows Mao from Kung-Pao.Although I frequently ask him to Free Tibet.

The point is that there shouldn’t be a reason why a Jew who doesn’t live in Israel has to be an expert on what happens there. But the world is a funny place and my friends and I have found that while we shouldn’t have to know, it is helpful. Because for better or worse what happens in Israel impacts us.

If you have spent any time reading about the protests against the war in Gaza you’ll be aware that they don’t just focus on Israel, but also on Jews.

Victor Davis Hanson in an article called Creepy Times writes:

“There is something especially nauseating about the latest Middle East war — scenes of worldwide Islamic protests with photos of Jews as apes, protesters (in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida of all places!) screaming about nuking Israel and putting Jews in ovens, parades of children dressed up with suicide vests and fake rockets, near constant anti-Semitic vicious sloganeering,”

It wouldn’t take any effort to provide additional examples including video and pictures of the actions of these people. I could relate personal experiences I have had with Anti-Israel protesters lament that Hitler should have finished the job. Sadly that is not hyperbole, it is reality.

As it happens I have been to Israel many times and have a lot of friends and family who live there. So when things happen I am always concerned. As I write this I worry about their safety including younger cousins who have been called up. The connection is personal so it is easy for me. I like knowing what is going on. I like being able to give an intelligent answer to the questions I receive.

Still, I am American. Been here all of my just short of my 40 years of life. I vote in every election, recite the pledge, sing the national anthem (poorly) and have a barbecue on the fourth of July. So when people come to me and ask why Israel is acting in a certain manner I sometimes shake my head. Ben-Gurion didn’t bestow me with any special honors. I am an ordinary American Joe who happens to love Israel.

But these protesters remind me that some people think otherwise. It is a peculiar thing if you ask me. They protest a war and allege that there is a humanitarian crisis. Yet in the process of working towards sainthood they dehumanize me and my fellows. They curse and threaten us and suggest that a genocidal maniac should have been successful in his efforts to eradicate us.

Earlier today I played in my weekly pickup basketball game. While sitting in the locker room a Nigerian man approached me and asked me to explain what was going on and to get my opinion. Midway through the discussion I looked at him and said, “To some Jewish blood is cheap, but the cheapest blood of all is African.”

For a moment I wondered if I had offended him and then he nodded and gave a wistful smile. He paused and responded, “Jack, no one cares about Africa. Most Americans don’t know much if anything about it all. They can’t tell me a thing about my country. And the world, well the world ignores the pain and suffering because we have nothing that they can sell for money. You’re right, African blood is the cheapest.”

Crossposted here.

Gaza Round Up Part Two

The first round up I produced about the current situation in Gaza can be located here. Part two can be found beneath this. As always I will do my best to try and update this as possible throughout the day. If you have posts that you think should be included email them to talktojack-now-at-sbcglobal-dot-net or let me know in the comments.

FYI- I gather these links from a variety of places. In some cases I am tipped off via email and sometimes through the blogs I am visiting. I do my best to try and provide credit where it is due. My apologies for any credit that I miss giving out.

We’ll start out with some links to stories in the MSM:

CNN reports that Israel is in an all out war with Hamas. There are a number of blogs linking to this story moaning over support for Israel’s actions. As always I’d like to see what they would say if their next door neighbors spent all day throwing bricks at their homes.

The Washington Post reports that Israel is pounding targets in Gaza. Nice to see that some people keep repeating the “we may not like it, but Hamas is the legally elected government so we have to deal with them line.” They are being dealt with in the appropriate manner. You don’t hold hands with people who are trying to kill you.

The Grey Lady wrote about Arab Anger. Great, show your anger with Hamas and then let’s see what happens.

Surprise, surprise, the protests have started.

Spiegel Online reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel blames Hamas for the current violence.

In the blogosphere we have a collection of posts that are worth reading. Take a look at:

Palestinians Need Israel To Win.

The Gaza war on Twitter and Hamas shot Egyptian guard, Egypt blams Hamas for israeli attack

From Ricki’s Mom we have Israeli News.

The Rebbetzin’s Husband asks What is a Refugee Camp? At the Augean Stables The Double Disgrace of Hamas: Victimizing their own People.

At Writes Like She Talks there is another short roundup of posts about this topic. Solomonia has a number of good links as well.

Double Tapper shows a better way to use Rockets. From What Warzone we have By Far, the Most Signficant Development in the Gaza Conflict That No One is Talking About.

Treppenwitz calls it Revenge of The Nerds. A Soldier’s Mother who writes What I Want…and What I’ll Do.

Daled Amos provided Israel At War: A Primer, International Law and The Fighting in Gaza and Did Someone Mention Hizbollah?

Daled Amos also found Israel’s War On Hamas Now Includes YouTube. In case you are wondering, it is a war.

Joshuapundit blogged that IDF Troops Have entered Gaza. At Shiloh Musings there is A Prayer for Our Soldiers and Campaign War.

Dave shared Gaza: The real reasons Israel – finally – retaliated (Update 4)

Arpeh has Gaza War In The Eyes of The BBC and Me.

Jameel is still liveblogging here. Aussie Dave is doing the same here.

Westbankmama is offering Some Perspective. The Other MCCAIN blogged Appeal Against The Thunderstorm.

Avodah Ivrit shared Insanity.

Carl has Sky News: Will Israel undertake a ground operation? and Israel’s sorry history in Gaza.

Atlas Shrugs shared Hear O Israel and JEWISH GENOCIDE WATCH: IRANIAN PROXY HEZBALLAH PROMISES ATTACK ON THE JEWS.

Over at Hot Air we have Video: Israel attacking Hamas’ infrastructure of power. Michael Oren writes in The New Republic about a Crisis and an Opportunity and Yossi Klein Halevi has Why Gaza Matters.

BTW, Memeorandum has some other worthwhile links. Soccer Dad has Hamas And Its Boosters.

Gateway Pundit provided Surprise!… George Galloway Joins Violent Pro-Hamas Rally at Israeli Embassy in London (Video) and Pro-Israel Protesters Mobbed By Hamas Supporters in Toronto.

GP also linked to a post by Winston about the protest. Yid With Lid says that Israel Must Regain its Deterrence and discussed Disproportionate Response.

The Sand Monkey said My Head Hurts and Ghaza Again.

Dov Bear shared a post here and joining the war here. Tikkun Olam has Last Night of Chanukah,or: Oferet Yetzukah.

Seraphic Secret reveals Why We Fight.

Crossposted here.

Gaza Round Up Part One

**Updated**
Here is a quick roundup of posts about the current activities in Gaza. I am jammed for time but I’ll do my best to try and update this as things progress. My apologies for the lack of organization.

At the Augean Stables you can read Astonishing Statistic: How does this operation rank in the history?

Jules Crittenden shared Gotcha. Nasrallah is threatening to open a second front. For more on this check out Israel Matzav.

EOZ has a post about how the terrorists use their own people to try and gain the upper hand in Hamas leveraging Gazan lives for political gain. Confederate Yankee Writes about it as well in Because Monsters Are Always Monsters.

From Seraphic Secret: IDF Targets Hamas Military Targets and Egypt: “Hamas is to Blame.”
Esser Agaroth provided What Took ‘Em So Long?

The Rebbitzin’s Husband Kassams, Air Strikes, Gaza Invasion, UN Resolutions, Withdrawal, Kassams… and then what?

Solomonia Israel: Abandoning failed policies? and Nature Takes Its Course in Gaza (Updates).

Bookworm wrote about The Pieta. And Mere Rhetoric shared Palestinian Authority, Arab Countries: Of Course This Is Hamas’s Fault.

Yourish delivered Hamas is fighting the last war, redux and War snark. At Shiloh Musings they discussed the Seventh Day of Chanukah.

Jameel is live blogging. Hot Air says Hamas gets its war. What War Zone offered the obvious title, Here We Go Again.

Yid With Lid covered GAZA ATTACK!!!! Is Israel’s Policy of Restraint FINALLY Over ? and Obama’s Silence on Gaza Speaks Volumes. Not to mention US Terrorist Group CAIR Rips Israeli Action in Gaza.

Judeopundit on Soccer Dad’s blog has Guardian: “Analysis: The latest attacks in Gaza rank with Deir Yassin and the Sabra and Shatila massacres” it is also crossposted here.

From Daled Amos IDF Strikes Back At Hamas in Gaza Israellycool is live-blogging the Israeli retaliation against Hamas as well.

Westbankmama shared Tzav 8 – Reserve Soldiers Are Being Called Up. Tzipiyah posted We Will Not Put Our Heads Down In Shame!

A Soldier’s Mother has a post called Dawn. Baka Diary heard the Jets all day long.

Tel-Chai Nation is talking about the activities as well. Treppenwitz asks 300 Dead What.

My Right Word shared the following: Marty Peretz goes gung-ho, Today’s Quiz and Just Sitting Around.

Here is a link to CNN’s report about the situation. Jewlicious has Hamas’s Winning Strategy. Backspin said: Hamas Blocks Gaza’s Wounded From Treatment.

Gateway Pundit says: Hamas: Israel Bombed Islamic University in Gaza …Update: Egyptians Fire on Palestinians!

More to come my friends. If you have a post or hear of something worth including let me know in the comments or send an email to talktojacknow-at-sbcglobal-dot-net.

Crossposted here.

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If You Could See The Future Would You Want To

In the midst of all of the current chaos I have heard a number of people say that they wish that they could see the future. It is kind of a nice dream. It sounds like the sort of thing that would be useful. It is a practical skill. See the future and you can be sure that you’ll always make the right decisions. At least that is the theory.

There was a time in my life that I used to be one of those people who wanted to know what was going to happen. I’d like to say that it was because I wanted to plan ahead. I’d like to say that it was because I wanted to stay a step ahead of the game. Those were certainly part of the reasons why I wanted that particular skill at that particular time.

But the rules of the blog dictate brutal honesty so I have to acknowledge that it was also because I was a 20 year-old kid who was heartbroken. A relationship had ended and I really wanted to know what was going to happen. Friends who tried to console me told me all sorts of good stories. I heard about their breakups and why they thought that splitting up had been a blessing in disguise.

The reasons varied. Sometimes it was because they led to new opportunities and sometimes it was because the couple had to have time apart so that they could grow and then come back together. But the common theme there was that splitting up was ultimately a good thing. There were one or two exceptions. I heard from a couple of people who said that breaking up had been the worst thing ever. I remember telling one of my friends that he should never consider being a therapist. I think that I said something to the effect of “you’d be the guy who handed the suicidal patient a gun.”

Anyhoo, I was like so many other people. I just wanted to know what was going to happen. Would the struggle be worth it. Was it going to lead to some incredible experience or relationship. Was the end really the beginning of something new. I remember looking up at the sky and saying that I was ready for the door to open. It was in reference to that line about one door closes and another opens.

If you ask me today if I’d like to be able to see the future I am not so sure that I would want to. I don’t really want to know when I am going to die. Sure you could make an argument that if we knew when we were going to die we’d live our lives differently. I already try to do that. I try not to make excuses to do certain things because you don’t know when the end is coming. Still, I don’t want to know the exact date. It is more interesting to me to wonder if I have another 200 years.

I am curious to see what sort of people my children are going to grow up to be. I wonder what sort of careers they’ll have and what they’ll be like. I wonder what my own life will look like in five years. What about ten or twenty or fifty years. What kinds of memories will I have. Will I have lived the life I wanted to live.

Foresight would be nice. It’d be useful to have some sense of things. I’d probably find it easier to relax. I wouldn’t worry about going bankrupt or dying of some dread disease because I’d already know about it and be prepared.

I am no different than anyone else. If I could change the past there are some things that I would have done differently. There are jobs that I wouldn’t have taken and relationships that never would have been. But I can’t help but wonder what I might have missed out upon. There are so many interconnected threads. If I don’t follow one path I’d never hit the fork in the road that led me to the other one that gave me that great whatever.

So I think that I am kind of glad that I can’t see the future. While I appreciate the thought of not suffering through some of the struggles in the same way I come back to the appreciation of surprises. I can’t and won’t say that they are all good, but there is something nice about not knowing. The uncertainty has its own rewards.

I suppose that it all helps to explain why sometimes I like to gamble and take a risk here and there.

What do you think?

Crossposted here.

Pearl Harbor

Text of speech

“Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation.

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

But always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces- with the unbounding determination of our people- we will gain the inevitable triumph- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire. “

If you are unfamiliar with the attack on Pearl Harbor you can click on this link. I am thankful to my grandparent’s generation for the sacrifices that they made to protect our freedom today. It is wise to remember the past and to recognize the lessons learned from those days.

If there is one lesson we continue to learn it is that we always need to remain vigilant. Every generation has its challenges to face. Consider that for so many of us Pearl Harbor and the horrors of WWII are just history lessons learned in school and or from friends/family/neighbors. It is easy to forget the importance of these moments and to downgrade them as to being less significant.

Perhaps I’ll write more about this later, but for now I’ll reiterate my thanks again. And though it is not directly related to Pearl Harbor I’ll link again to Churchill and one of my favorite speeches. Here is a post in which I referred to it. But because I like it here is an excerpt and a link to the audio. Or try this one.

 

“we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender,”Speech before Commons(June 4, 1940)

 

 

 

Related links:

Pearl Harbor – One Final Gathering

Moshe’s Nanny Speaks

CNN is running an article in which Moshe Holtzberg’s nanny shares some of her story. She deserves many thanks. It is hard to read it without getting angry. Here is an excerpt:

The nanny says she came face to face with a gunman late Wednesday, the first night of the siege.

“I saw one man was shooting at me — he shot at me.”

She slammed a door and hid in a first-floor storage room and attempted to reach the rabbi and the others on the second floor.

Overnight, Samuel frantically tried to call for help as gunfire and grenade blasts shook the Chabad House.

Samuel says she emerged early the next afternoon, when she heard Moshe calling for her. She found the child crying as he stood between his parents, who she says appeared unconscious but still alive.

Based on the marks on Moshe’s back, she believes he was struck so hard by a gunman that he fell unconscious at some point as well.

“First thing is that a baby is very important for me and this baby is something very precious to me and that’s what made me just not think anything — just pick up the baby and run,” Samuel said.

“When I hear gunshot, it’s not one or 20. It’s like a hundred gunshots,” she added. “Even I’m a mother of two children so I just pick up the baby and run. Does anyone think of dying at the moment when there’s a small, precious baby?”

Crossposted here.

Outgunned Mumbai police hampered by WWI Weapons

If you think about it the fact that so few men were able to hold a city hostage for so long is ridiculous. This is just unacceptable:

Indian police who bore the brunt of last week’s attacks on Mumbai had defective bulletproof vests, First World War-era firearms and insufficient weapons training, police sources have told The Times.
Many wore plastic helmets and body protectors designed for sticks and stones, rather than bullets, as they fought highly trained militants armed with AK47 rifles, pistols, grenades and explosives.

The contrast between them was vividly illustrated yesterday by CCTV footage of two militants attacking Chhatrapati Shivaji terminus, Mumbai’s main railway station, last Wednesday.

It shows the gunmen spraying automatic fire while two constables cower behind pillars, one armed with a .303 rifle similar to the Lee-Enfield weapons used by British troops in the First World War.

Similar scenes were played out at other targets in the first seven hours of the attacks, in which 16 policemen died, including three of India’s top officers.

“That’s 16 too many,” Maxwell Pereira, a former joint commissioner of Delhi police, said. “These casualties could have been prevented if they’d been properly equipped.” The abysmal state of police equipment helps to explain how ten gunmen managed to paralyse a metropolis of 18 million people for more than 60 hours.

It also illustrates how ill-prepared India’s 2.2 million-strong police force is to tackle another such attack.

“We’d react exactly the same way tomorrow,” Ajay Sahni, of the Institute for Conflict Management, said.

He described India as one of the “least policed” places in the world, with 126 officers per 100,000 people, compared with 225-550 per 100,000 in most Western countries.”

 

I suppose that it helps to explain somewhat why a photographer excoriated the police and said that he wished that he had a gun. Not that it excuses cowardly behavior. If you are going to work in law enforcement you have to be prepared to deal with dangerous situations.
 

“But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

Thankfully heroes appeared on the scene. The story that I know best is of the nanny who rescued Moshe Holtzberg. She is yet another example of how ordinary people can rise to the occasion.

As the siege at the Chabad House began, Samuel heard the commotion, locked the doors and hid in a room.

“She heard Mrs. Holtzberg — Rivka — screaming, ‘Sandra, Sandra, help, Sandra,’ ” said Robert Katz, executive vice president of the Israeli organization Migdal Ohr.

The gunmen reportedly went door-to-door, searching for targets. Samuel unlocked her door and dared the gunmen to stop her, according to Katz.

She then ran upstairs to find the Holtzbergs shot dead, lying on the ground with their son crying over them.

“She literally picked him up and made a dash for the exits, almost daring the terrorists to shoot a woman carrying a baby,” Katz said.

If you read the article you’ll notice that recovering the bodies of Moshe’s parents was hampered because the terrorists had booby-trapped them.

“The return of the bodies was delayed until authorities removed hand grenades from the bodies, left there by the attackers, Katz said.”

 

There will be a response to their murder. I hope that it is swift and severe. Ironically it is reported that Rabbi Holtzberg was reading an anti-terrorist handbook.

Pictures from Mumbai- It Lingers-

Click here and here.

Mumbai- Notes/Links About Terror

In the past some commenters have complained about graphic comments and images in posts that discussed war/terrorism. I don’t believe in sugarcoating the truth so we are going to continue to provide specific details about what happened. It is important to do so that people understand the gravity of the situation and are not able to minimize things.

Also, let’s not forget that they made a point of going after Jewish/Israeli targets. That doesn’t mean that I have no sympathy for the other victims. It is just important to mention that we recognize that alongside hotels, rail stations and restaurants they went for a small, obscure house. It was deliberate. But one way or another justice will be served.

Aussie Dave tipped me off to a story that says it appears that the hostages at the Chabad House (Nariman House) were tortured.

“They said that just one look at the bodies of the dead hostages as well as terrorists showed it was a battle of attrition that was fought over three days at the Oberoi and the Taj hotels in Mumbai.

Doctors working in a hospital where all the bodies, including that of the terrorists, were taken said they had not seen anything like this in their lives.

“Bombay has a long history of terror. I have seen bodies of riot victims, gang war and previous terror attacks like bomb blasts. But this was entirely different. It was shocking and disturbing,” a doctor said.

Asked what was different about the victims of the incident, another doctor said: “It was very strange. I have seen so many dead bodies in my life, and was yet traumatised. A bomb blast victim’s body might have been torn apart and could be a very disturbing sight. But the bodies of the victims in this attack bore such signs about the kind of violence of urban warfare that I am still unable to put my thoughts to words,” he said.

Asked specifically if he was talking of torture marks, he said: “It was apparent that most of the dead were tortured. What shocked me were the telltale signs showing clearly how the hostages were executed in cold blood,” one doctor said.

The other doctor, who had also conducted the post-mortem of the victims, said: “Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

Corroborating the doctors’ claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. “During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis,” an IB source said.

It is also said that the Israeli hostages were killed on the first day as keeping them hostage for too long would have focused too much international attention. “They also might have feared the chances of Israeli security agencies taking over the operations at the Nariman House,” he reasoned.”

The Times of India shared a report from a Russian expert who speculates that the terrorists were trained by special forces.

Another report says that the terrorists posed as Malaysian students. The story relates information from the confession of one of the terrorists.

“But the 10 men were apparently not the only ones directly involved:
Another group, he claimed, had checked themselves into hotels four days before,
waiting with weapons and ammunition they had stockpiled in the rooms.

The 10 men in Azam’s group were chosen well: All were trained in marine warfare and had undergone a special course conducted by the Lashkar-e-Taiba. Preparations were also detailed, and started early.

Azam and eight others in the team made a reconnaissance trip to Mumbai several months before the attacks, pretending to be Malaysian students. They rented an apartment at Colaba market, near one of their targets, the Nariman House.

The chief planner of the attacks also visited Mumbai a month before to take photographs and film strategic locations, including the hotel layouts.

Returning to Pakistan, the chief plotter trained the group, telling them to ‘kill till the last breath’.

Surprisingly, the men did not expect themselves to be suicide terrorists. Azam said they had originally planned to sail back on Thursday – the recruiters had even charted out a return route, stored on a GPS device.

On the evening of Nov 21, Azam’s group set off from an isolated creek in Karachi in a boat. The next day, a large Pakistani vessel with four Pakistanis and crew picked them up, whereupon the group was issued arms and ammunition.

Each man in the assault team was handed six to seven magazines of 50 bullets each, eight hand grenades, one AK-47 assault rifle, an automatic loading revolver, credit cards and a supply of dried fruit. They were, as some media put it, in for the long haul.

A day later, the team came across an Indian-owned trawler, Kuber, which they boarded. They killed four of the fishermen onboard, dumped their bodies into the sea, and forced its skipper Amarjit Singh to sail for India.

The next day, they beheaded the skipper, and one of the gunmen, a trained sailor, took the wheel and headed for the shores of Gujarat, India.

Near Gujarat, the terrorists raised a white flag as two officers of the coast guard approached.While the officers questioned them, one of the terrorists grappled with one of them, slit his throat and threw his body into the boat. The group then ordered the other officer to help them get to Mumbai.

On Nov 26, the team reached the Mumbai coast.

Four nautical miles out, they were met by three inflatable speedboats. They killed the other coast guard officer, transferred into the speedboats and proceeded to Colaba jetty as dusk settled.

The Kuber was found later with the body of the 30-year-old captain onboard.

At Badhwar Park in Cuffe Parade – just three blocks away from Nariman House – the 10 men got off, stripped off the orange windbreakers they had been wearing and made sure to take out their large, heavy backpacks.

It was there that they were spotted by fisherman Prasan Dhanur, who was preparing his boat, and harbour official Kashinath Patil, 72, who was on duty nearby.

“Where are you going?” Patil asked them. “What’s in your bags?”

The men replied: “We don’t want any attention. Don’t bother us.”

Thinking little of it, Dhanur and Patil, who said they did not see the guns hidden in the backpacks, did not call the police, and watched the 10 young men walk away.

Then the carnage started.

On hitting the ground, the 10 men broke up.

Four men headed for the Taj Mahal Hotel, two for The Oberoi Trident, two for Nariman House and two – Azam and Ismail – for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus by taxi.

At the railway station, Azam and his colleague opened fire, targeting Caucasian tourists while trying to spare Muslims.”

Thanksgiving in Mumbai

The world is a strange place. I just finished playing in my yearly football game. For two hours I ran or should I say staggered my way through a muddy field. For two hours I pushed my ancient almost 40 year-old body against 18-20 year olds. And when it was all done we hugged each other goodbye and wished each other well.

Driving home I thought about the attacks in Mumbai. Two of my cousins were recent guests in the Chabad house. We emailed each other last night to confirm that they were back home in Israel. I thought about my friend David and his post about his recent trip to India in which he was a guest at the Chabad house.

I listened to the news in the car as they explained that this was a well coordinated and professional hit. I thought about how they intentionally attacked a place that they knew had Jews and Israelis. I listened to reports in which they said that the terrorists tried to identify American and British passport holders. An attack on the west.

While I sat there listening I felt very badly for the victims and was reminded that there are people who are willing to do terrible things to my family, my friends, myself and many others. They are willing to murder and maim without regard.

Look I can sit here and feed platitudes about why they might do this. I can wax on about it being a war of ideologies, but I am not going to. On this day I have no patience for that. Terrorists deserve to die. Or as I read earlier this week terrorists should just get dead.

A message needs to be sent. A clarion call that cannot be mistaken. Use violence to try and affect change and you receive a bullet in the head.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe that the solution to these problems is also going to include a diplomatic component. It has to. But sometimes diplomacy has to come after you have made it clear that a refusal to come to the table will not yield the results that you want. Terror cannot win.

So on this day I want to say that I am thankful for many things. I am thankful for the health of my family and friends. I am grateful to those who serve to help preserve and protect those freedoms. I am grateful to live in a land whose limitations are set more by us and less by others. Sometimes circumstances favor you and sometimes they dont. But more often than not the real limits on your future are those that you set yourself.

Have a good Thanksgiving and may we all be safe.

Necrophilia Is Still Illegal in Wisconsin

This story is beyond disturbing. Calling Stephen King.

“Three men accused of trying to dig up a grave in Wisconsin in order to have sex with a dead woman entered not guilty pleas this week.

The twin brothers, Alex and Nicholas Grunke, and Dustin Radke (all pictured) are alleged to have attempted to remove the body of a 20 year-old woman killed a week previously in a motorcycle crash. The three decided on the woman after seeing her photo in an obituary in the local newspaper.

Stranger still perhaps is the legal argument leading to the point. The case in the courts so far hasn’t been whether the three were guilty or not, but whether necrophilia was illegal in Wisconsin or not. A lower court originally found that there was nothing in the state that banned the boys having their way with the corpse, but the State Supreme Court over-ruled that decision in July. The fact that the three brought condoms to the scene to protect themselves was not taken into account by the court.”

When Do You Start Mourning

One of the benefits to reaching a certain age is that you start to gain a fair amount of life experience. You have been around the block a time or two and so you find that some situations have presented themselves a time or two.

As a father I have been blessed to see the birth of my children. As a grandson I have had to say goodbye to some of my grandparents. And as a friend I have had the sad task to watch some dear friends pass away far too early.

And I have also had the chance to witness the grief and struggles of other friends/family members as they have said goodbye to their parents. It is not an easy thing. I am not sure if we are ever really prepared to let mom and dad go. No matter how independent you are there is something very comforting in knowing that they are still around.

When my parents purchased their plots I was a little weirded out. I appreciated their pre-planning and their efforts to make a hard time easier, but it was still strange. G-d willing when I am 130 and their pushing 155 I’ll have to call the cemetery to make sure that they haven’t sold their spots.

I suppose that you could say that the birth of this post is rooted in recent experiences in which people around me have begun to prepare for the death of a loved one. It is a hard thing to watch, the grief and pain of someone else. I can’t take it from them. Can’t shield them or really even share the pain. It is a very personal thing and it is different for everyone.

But I can offer my shoulder. I can listen and I can say that I think that it is important to celebrate life while you can. One day they will be gone and you’ll have plenty of time to think about them. Until that moment comes it is important to try and enjoy what time you can with them.

I am not saying that it is easy or that there is a right way to do this. It is one of those moments in which we all need to find our own way. And I am not trying to say that I understand everything either.

You can call me morbid, but I have thought about my own death. I have spent time thinking about what I want my own funeral to be like. I have spent time thinking about where I want to be buried and I am sure that I will again. I am not who I was at 25 and at 60 I expect that I’ll be different from 40.

Not really sure where this is going so I’ll try to wrap it up. I suppose that the point is really one that I made earlier. I don’t think that you can totally prepare yourself for the loss of a parent. And I think that it is important not to bury someone before they are dead.

Life has plenty of hard moments, no need to take anymore on before you have to.

Crossposted here.

The Last Surviving US WW I Vet

We owe him and our other vets a debt of gratitude.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Frank Buckles considered it his duty to represent his fellow soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery on Veterans Day.”I have to,” he told CNN, “because I’m the last living member of Americans” who fought in what was called The Great War.

Buckles, 107, who is the sole living U.S. World War I veteran, attended ceremonies Tuesday at the grave of Gen. John Pershing, the top U.S. commander in that war.

He was present for the first Veterans Day in 1918 — though it was originally called Armistice Day — that marked the end of WWI.

Buckles was warmly greeted with standing applause by those in uniform and others who had gathered for the commemoration, but he said he did not think the fuss was about him.
“I can see what they’re honoring, the veterans of World War I.”

“Time has passed very quickly to me,” he said after a wreath-laying. “I’ve had a lot of activity in the last 90 years.”

Crossposted here.

Goodbye Michael Crichton

“(CBS) Best-selling author and filmaker Michael Crichton died unexpectedly
in Los Angeles Tuesday, after a courageous and private battle against cancer,
his family said in a statement. He was 66.

Crichton was a brand-name author, known for his stories of disaster and systematic breakdown, such as the rampant microbe of “The Andromeda Strain” or dinosaurs running amok in “Jurassic Park,” one of his many million-selling books that became major Hollywood movies.

Crichton also created the hospital drama “ER” for television. His most recent
novel, “Next,” about genetics and law, was published in December 2006.”

I was a fan.

Crossposted here.

Death and Children- Sick Parents and More

Who was it who said that life doesn’t come with instructions and that children don’t come with a manual. I think that I’d like to kick them in the teeth. I should apologize now for being grumpy. I had planned on writing the story of how I knocked up the Shmata Queen and here I am talking about death and children.

It wasn’t intended. It wasn’t where I had planned to go but sometimes the blog takes you in directions other than your own choosing and this is one of those moments. So take a walk with me if you will and I’ll try to paint the picture.

Children have big ears. They listen to everything that is going on around them, but it is easy to forget. They may be playing quietly nearby or seem to be just out of earshot, but they are always listening. I learned a long time ago to try to be careful about what sort of discussion I had around them, but sometimes you get so caught up you forget. Or sometimes you think that the discussion will go right over their heads and they fool you.

I am wondering if that happened here. My daughter had a nightmare that I died. It is the second time that I am aware of that happening. Thankfully it is not a regular occurrence, but she was shaken up. I walked into her room and found her shrieking that something or someone had killed me.

So I took her into my arms and she curled up against me and I spoke to her in a soft voice and reassured her that I was fine. She cried for a moment or two and then asked me a series of questions about dying. In some ways it felt like history repeating as I had been through it with her brother.

Death- My Son Asked Me Not to Die

I asked her to try and tell me more about her dream to see if I couldn’t piece things together. She wasn’t able to tell me much other than I had died and she was scared that she’d never see me again. I kissed her forehead and told her that I loved her again and she smiled. For a moment I thought that I was through the hard part and then she started to cry. When I asked her why she was crying she told me that she was afraid of dying.

So I reminded her that she is very young and going to live a very long life. Abstract concepts like that are hard for a four-year-old so I tried to make it simple. And then she gave me a clue as to what was fueling this.

Some of her friend’s grandparents have died recently. They were sudden deaths, women in their sixties so I suspect that she may have heard the mothers talking about this. Not to mention that she may have heard a conversation about my own father’s health. Maybe she wasn’t sleeping in the car, hmm….

Anyhoo, this morning she was far more chipper and upbeat. And just when I thought that we were beyond that she asked to talk to me. It was all of two minutes before she had to leave for school and I thought that what she wanted was to hug and kiss me goodbye.

So I bent over and received a lecture. The little girl put one hand on her hip and told me that I am not allowed to die for 235 days. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she had just given me less than a year to live. And then she made me promise that if any bad guys come I teach them some respect.

That line about teach them some respect got my attention. I haven’t the foggiest idea where that came from. She watches Dora and Diego not the Godfather and Good Fellas. I am going to have to do a little investigating.

And that my friends is a quick snapshot of a recent moment here.

Crossposted here.

Wrestling With Atonement- Yom Kippur Kraziness

I am willing to bet that few people have written a post about Yom Kippur while listening to Wild Cherry’s Play That Funky Music. It is not really the sort of music that one thinks about as setting a proper mood for introspection but it happens to be what is playing on iTunes right now. In another moment I’ll shift gears and put on something more appropriate, but this will work for now. 

In a relatively short period of time the sun will rise and set and rise and set and another Yom Kippur will have come and gone. And so I find myself sitting in the dark contemplating what it all means to me and what I have learned.

I’ll start out by quoting from Moments When I feel Closest To G-d:

“I have written a number of times about my struggles with G-d, how I Yelled
at G-d and the challenges I have had with davening. If you are really interested you can read more here, here and here. There are probably a couple more links but that is enough time shilling for my own blog.

If you are here you are probably interested in what I have to say or trapped beneath a heavy object and unable to do move away from the keyboard. If you are trapped and without an internet connection I encourage you to search for meaning in what I say, I do all the time because what is the purpose of living if there is no meaning in life.

That is not really tongue in cheek, it is just my wry sense of humor saying that we all need to find a reason to be here and that it is an individual thing that does not have to mirror your neighbor.”

I used to dislike Yom Kippur immensely. I didn’t really find meaning in it. It was a day that seemed to be predicated upon enduring being uncomfortable. I didn’t find the davening to be significant, meaningful or interesting. Most of the people around me spent the time in shul complaining about something and few had anything positive to say.

At some point that feeling changed, but I can’t say when. I have been trying to figure out when and what changed, but it is like grabbing smoke. The harder I try the harder it is to determine. So if you’ll bear with me I am going to to just ramble a bit.

Unetaneh Tokef grabs me

“On Rosh Hashanah it is written and Yom Kippur it is sealed
How many shall pass on and how many shall come to be;
who shall live and who shall die;
who shall see ripe old age and who shall not;
who shall perish by fire
and who by water;
who by sword and who by beast;
who by hunger and who by thirst;”

Part of me shrugs my shoulder at it all. It is easy to blow it off and say that people die, earthquakes happen, fires burn and the world goes on. Certainly I won’t say that divine punishment is the reason for natural disasters. Neither will I say that some people die early because of some unknowable divine plan. That is not how I roll.

But I have come to appreciate setting aside time to sit down and take a hard look at my life. It is not always easy to engage in that sort of introspection, to take a hard look at the good and the bad. And that is what I do.

I try to take time to consider who I am. I am a flawed individual. There are many things that I need to improve upon. It would be unfair, unreasonable and unwarranted to suggest otherwise. I have made mistakes that I am very sorry for. I have traveled upon some dark roads that I wish that I could have avoided.

I don’t expect to find salvation by admitting all my sins. I don’t believe that with a few words they can all just be forgiven and washed away. That doesn’t make any sense to me. Neither do I believe that I should engage in endless self-flagellation for them.

What I will try to do is the best I can to improve. I’ll do what I can not to repeat the mistakes of the past and to try and be better for the future. A large part of that effort will be spent on trying to help my children avoid the pitfalls that I fell for and into. It was a challenging year, but that is how it goes.

So here we are at the end of the post. Have I learned anything more about myself? Nope. Not sure that I have done much other than babble. But I am a believer in the exercise so if I am still blogging you can expect to see this kind of post again.

And for what it is worth, if I have offended or upset you my sincere apologies.

G’mar Chatima Tova. I wish you an easy fast. May you be inscribed and sealed.

The Attempt To Kill Osama Bin Laden

This is an interesting 60 minutes piece with the Delta Force Commander who was tasked with killing Osama Bin Laden.

CBS) Shortly after 9/11, the Pentagon ordered a top secret team of American commandos into Afghanistan with a single, simple order: kill Osama bin Laden. It was America’s best chance to eliminate the leader of al Qaeda. The inside story of exactly what happened in that mission, and how close it came to its objective has never been told until now.

The man you are about to meet was the officer in command, leading a team from the U.S. Army’s mysterious Delta Force – a unit so secret, it’s often said Delta doesn’t exist. But you are about to see Delta’s operators in action.

Why would the mission commander break his silence after seven years? He told 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley that most everything he has read in the media about his mission is wrong and now he wants to set the record straight.

---

“Our job was to go find him, capture or kill him, and we knew the writing on the wall was to kill him because nobody wanted to bring Osama bin Laden back to stand trial in the United States somewhere,” the mission commander tells Pelley.In 2001, just 10 weeks after 9/11, he was a 37-year-old Army major leading a team of America’s most elite commandos. Even now, 60 Minutes can’t tell you his name or show you his face.

60 Minutes hired a theatrical make up artist to take this former Delta officer through a series of transformations to disguise him. He calls himself “Dalton Fury,” and is the author of “Kill Bin Laden,” a new book out this week.

Dalton Fury is used to disguises. In fact in 2001, his entire team transformed themselves in Afghanistan. “Everybody has their beard grown. Everybody’s wearing local Afghan clothing, sometimes carrying the same weapons as them,” he explains.

“The idea was that if this all worked out Osama bin Laden would be dead, and no one would ever know that Delta Force was there?” Pelley asks.

“That’s right,” Fury says. “That’s the plan. And that always is when you’re talking about Delta Force.”

And there was no mission more important to the United States. “We’ll smoke him out of his cave and we’ll get him eventually,” President Bush had vowed.

But the administration’s strategy was to let Afghans do most of the fighting. Using radio intercepts and other intelligence, the CIA pinpointed bin Laden in the mountains near the border of Pakistan. Following the strategy of keeping an Afghan face on the war, Fury’s Delta team joined the CIA and Afghan fighters and piled into pickup trucks. They videotaped their journey to a place called Tora Bora.

Fury told 60 Minutes his orders were to kill bin Laden and leave the body with the Afghans.

For the full story please click here.

Hard Questions- Death, Children & More

Before we begin here is a snapshot of what I have been listening to this evening.

Desire-Ozzy Osbourne
Crazy Train-Ozzy Osbourne
Girls, Girls, Girls– Motley Crue
Home Sweet Home– Motley Crue
Life is Beautiful-Sixx:A.M.
Bulls On Parade – Rage Against The Machine
Run To The Hills– Iron Maiden
Thunderstruck– AC/DC
Tales of Brave Ulysses– Cream
Can’t Find My Way Home– Blind Faith
Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance
Now) -C & C Music Factory
The Power- Snap
Who’ll Stop The Rain-Creedence Clearwater Revival

When I first tried to write this post I was far too fired up to do it justice. So instead of forcing myself to sit down and write I headed out to the garage and went to work on the heavy bag. Decided not to wrap my hands and just threw on the gloves.

Started out slowly just throwing a few jabs. Circled right and circled left. Gradually began to throw combinations and developed a rhythm. As the music played I followed along and soon I found myself lost in the moment. It didn’t take long for me to start swinging from the heels. It felt good to just unload upon the bag.

I am not real big on sparring as I tend to look unkindly upon those who try to hit me, even in the not so friendly confines of the ring. From time to time to I have done it, but inevitably I find that it aggravates me. I don’t care if I wearing gloves, if we are swinging at each other my goal is to put you down because I don’t want to get hurt.

But that is all narishkeit that I throw out in advance of this post. It was a long week. At times it was really hard. I find davening to be really hard. I find myself questioning so many things that I once believed in. I find myself being forced to try and answer really tough questions and so here I am.

The big kid and I had a few more conversations about death. If you have spent any time hanging out here you know that it is has happened before. I don’t have the energy to go through the archives and give a thorough list, but I’ll grab a few:

Physically and Emotionally Exhausted- The Blogger Blogs
The People You Love Most
Death Visits Again- Cremation Story
Daddies Love Their Sons- Darth Vader & Luke Skywalker Edition
Explaining Death to Children

He asks good questions. They aren’t ridiculous, they are appropriate and I find myself working hard to give solid answers. Let’s take a quick look at a few of them.

 

1) Do they tear the flesh off of you when you die. Skeletons don’t have any skin.

2) How much does it hurt to die?

3) Are you afraid to die?

4) Will G-d kill us before Yom Kippur if we aren’t good?

5) Why do people die and why do some people live longer?

 

(BTW, I really like Burn from The Crow Soundtrack)

 

My usual strategy is to turn the question around and ask him what he thinks. It gives me a moment to try and determine what he knows and formulate an appropriate answer.

 

For example I told him that when you die your skin begins to rot and that eventually it falls off. I explained that it is not painful, but he was a little freaked out by this.

 

His second question was tough because he has learned enough to know that you don’t always die peacefully. When I asked him what he thought he told me that he thought that getting blown up or hit by a bus would really hurt. I asked him where he learned about those two options and he told me the news.

 

Note to self: the big guy reads the newspaper so not turning on the television news or radio is not so effective. Can’t say that I am totally surprised by this. In fact one of the reasons that I get the paper is because I want the children to learn to read it. I want them to do more than rely solely upon the net. I want them to read multiple news sources, but that is a discussion for a different day.

 

Anyhoo, while I really do enjoy these conversations with Little Jack they sometimes take a lot out of me. I suppose that it is because sometimes he hits me with questions that I don’t really know the answer to or am not real sure about.

 

Let’s take this a bit farther. I don’t fear death. I don’t know what happens afterwards. I think that there is an afterlife. I think that I am going to have a part of it, but I don’t really know. And I truly don’t believe that I am going to spend eternity in some sort of supernatural punishment.

 

All that being said, I just don’t fear death. I don’t really know what is going to happen and I won’t until that day arrives so I just don’t worry about it. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want to die. I have an awful lot to do so death would be quite inconvenient, but that is neither here nor there.

 

At the moment the big guy is nervous about dying so my concern is assuaging that concern. I don’t want him to waste energy worrying about it. So I do my best to keep him calm. It is not an ongoing conversation. It has come up every so often and usually it is tied into some other event. Since he has been learning about Yom Kippur I am sure that it triggered this current moment.

 

Kids have a built in B.S. detector and I get the feeling that he is not buying what I am trying to sell about death. He says that if he can’t see it or touch it he is not convinced that it exists. I can’t totally fault him for this either.

 

And that ties into his question about lifespans. He won’t accept simple explanations and in a way that makes me very happy. But it doesn’t necessarily help solve his dilemma about why sometimes good people die early and bad people don’t.

 

Ok, this post has gone on long enough. Time to hit something else.

 

 Crossposted here.

A Tale of Two Widowers

This is the sort of post that I struggle to write. I struggle because I have a story to tell and I want to convey the message in a particular way but I am not quite sure how to do it. It is a story of life and death, of the power and pain of love.

It is moments like this where I wish that I could write music because such a tale deserves an appropriate soundtrack. A full orchestra that could impart the highs and lows of this story because I am not quite sure that I can do it justice. Since that is just not possible I am going to do my best to fumble my way through this. All I can do try my best to catch the Silver man, so here we go.

Just a few short hours ago I was at a holiday dinner with my family. The table was covered in with a beautiful linen table cloth and adorned with china and silver. Several assortments of flowers were spread out throughout the table. And of course there were lots of guests surrounding the table.

Now I could tell you about the peals of laughter emanating from children like silver bells or I could share the sounds of my grandparents and relatives discussing the election and the rabbi’s sermon. It wouldn’t be hard because those are probably things that you can relate to.

But then I might miss out on sharing a tale of two widowers. Two men who lost their wives roughly a year ago. Two men who sat at the table and enjoyed the meal, but whose eyes and words revealed the depth of the pain of loss.

It seems unfair that I can’t tell you their individual stories because it is. It is unfair because they lost the light in their candle long before they ever expected to see them go dark. It is unfair because it is unfair. Sometimes evil people live much longer lives than good people. It is unfair because life is unfair.

And it bothers me that I have to teach my children that no matter what we do life will never be fair. It bothers me that I have to teach my children about death and that no matter what they or anyone else does, they will experience death. One day the people they love the most will be gone and all they will have left will be memories.

But I’ll do my best to teach my children to seek the positive side of all this. If the loss doesn’t hurt than there is a problem. I have often thought that to a certain extent you can expect the loss to be as painful as the love was joyful.

I spoke with both of these men at different times this evening and I spoke with both of these men during shiva calls. And part of what struck me is how deeply they loved their wives and how their losses wounded them.

At separate moments they both made a point of telling me to make sure that I truly live my life because the person I love most could unexpectedly be taken from me. It is a theft like no other. I can’t say that I truly understand what they are going through, but I can say that I am convinced that the hardest pain to deal with is mental pain.

You can always find a way to get around the physical pain, but mental pain is a harder nut to crack. How do you turn off your memory. How do you forget and would you really want to.

So I find myself lost in thought about the words that they shared with me and how to apply them to my life. I don’t want to wake up and say that I failed to live my dreams because I failed to try. It is one thing to have tried and failed and another to have never done so.

I can find a way to live with the failure of having tried and been unsuccessful, but I don’t think that I can live with never having tried. Someday is a great way to put off the future, but someday doesn’t always come.

And so I find myself pondering the new year with similar thoughts and questions to those I had last year. If I have any sort of resolution it is to make a greater effort to live my dreams and to do the things that I need to do to have a happier and more meaningful life because you really don’t know when it might all come crashing down upon you.

Crossposted here.

A New Fear of Heights

I am beginning to wonder what the hell happened to the Jack I used to know and love. In the good old days that guy was relatively fearless. I won’t be a total revisionist and say that there weren’t things that frightened me because there were.

But overall there weren’t too many things that I wouldn’t do because I was afraid to do them. I spent a lot of time climbing trees, buildings and all sorts of different kinds of objects. Had no problem going up a ladder. Ladders were simple, as long as I felt like they were secure I hadn’t any issue making like a monkey.

Within the last ten years or so I noticed that something has changed. Certain things give me a bad case of the heeby-jeebies and I find myself thinking foolish thoughts like, “damn, if I fall from here I might die.”

Although to be clear I am more afraid of paralysis than death. The thought of being confined to a wheelchair or bed forever makes my heart race far more than the thought of death. And it is not because I have this rock solid belief in an afterlife. I do believe that there is something more and that upon my death I will discover that, but I am in no rush to find out if I am correct.

There are still far too many things to do, too many worlds that need to be conquered. I want to live for a thousand years so that I can do those things. I don’t fear dying for anything other than I am just not ready to consider giving up what I have here.

And I suppose that it is part of what makes me nervous about heights now. While I still consider myself to be mostly invulnerable I have seen far too many die a young death to think that it is impossible for me to be one of them.

Although I will say that whenever death comes from me I am going to surprise him. I’ll take that S.O.B. and kick him the balls, pull his halo, tie his wings together, steal his scythe or whatever the case may be. Death may get me, but not without my pulling a trick or two first.

I have to say that it is not easy admitting that heights have begun to make me nervous. Matter of fact I am not real keen on admitting that I have any sort of fear. It is far more fun to pretend to be one of the lost boys.

Aging, it is just not what it is cracked up to be.

Crossposted here.

Goodbye Paul Newman

It seems that Paul Newman has died. He made a number of movies that I enjoyed, but like so many others I liked Cool Hand Luke the best. I have been trying to find some of my favorite clips to share with you.

Thus far I haven’t found exactly what I am looking for, but we’ll use what we have.

Cool Hand Luke Clip

Here are clips from The Hustler– unfortunately the sound quality is a little rough.

Finally, here is what CNN said:

(CNN) — Paul Newman, the legendary actor whose steely blue eyes, good-humored charm and advocacy of worthy causes made him one of the most renowned figures in American arts, has died of cancer at his home in Westport, Connecticut. He was 83.

He died Friday, according to spokeswoman Marni Tomljanovic.

Newman attained stardom in the 1950s and never lost the movie-star aura, appearing in such classic films as “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” “Exodus,” “The Hustler,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Sting” and “The Verdict.”

He finally won an Oscar in 1986 — on his eighth try — for “The Color of Money,” a sequel to “The Hustler.” He later received two more Oscar nominations. Among his other awards was the Motion Picture Academy’s Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.

Goodbye Jerry Reed

I enjoyed his singing and of course I loved Smokey and the Bandit.

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (AP) — Jerry Reed, a singer who appeared in the “Smokey and the Bandit” movies, has died of complications from emphysema at age 71, his longtime booking agent said Tuesday.

Sudden Death and Aging

If you asked me to describe the most frustrating aspect of blogging it would not be the struggle to come up with content or the fight to develop of a community of readers who comment. For me those things are mild irritants.

What really bothers me is when I have trouble writing the actual post. Sometimes the words just flow from fingertip to keyboard and sometimes they come in drips and drabs. I picture it as water flowing through a pipe with various kinks and obstructions in it.

Or maybe it is because some of these topics are harder to write about. Maybe it is because they’re more personal and my ability to share some of those things has been compromised. That could be it, I don’t know and I am not sure if I really care. Does it matter.

In the end there is just the keyboard and my struggle to try and give life to the story because some of these tales deserve more than they get. This is one of those, or at least my attempt.

Death is something that sometimes preoccupies me. I have been to a lot of funerals for people who have died what would be described as untimely deaths. It seems to me that I know or should I say have known more people who have died young than most people my age.

At least that used to be how I looked at it. Now that my friends and I are in that late thirties to mid forties bracket things have changed. More of our parents have gotten some sort of terminal illness and or died from it.

There are more stories about the mother/father who was sixty-something who didn’t wake up. More stories about how a sudden heart attack or aneurysm ended their life and the questions this leaves for their children.

In the pre-marriage, pre-children days these were still looked upon as tragedies, but they were different. Now my friends look at me with fear in their eyes and ask what will happen to their children if they die. Who will watch them. Who will make take care of them. Who will love them forever without question.

During the past year I have sat with friends of my father, widowers, and been given a window into their grief. As a kid I wanted to be able to do adult things, I wanted to have the freedom that grownups have. Now I have it and sometimes I don’t want it.

I have watched and listened as men who knew me as a young boy shared their feelings of loss and devastation. Twenty years ago I thought of people who were sixty as being really old, but now I see things differently. Look, I am 39, I don’t expect to become a member of AARP any time soon, but it is different. It is different because I see that there is no reason why I can’t have decades of life to live.

To live, not to endure, but to live. In theory those years and beyond will be a time where I get to do things that I can’t do now.

But I watch and listen and wonder. In their grief I see the tears that roll down their cheeks and do my best not to shame them by making a big deal of things. I hear them talk about never falling in love again and having to live out their lives a shell of a man and I wonder.

One of my father’s friends and I had a long discussion about it and I see that life really has changed a bit. Some years ago he listened and offered advice on life and now here we are, our positions reversed.

It is a little more than a year since his wife died. He is only 64, but he feels like he’ll never feel real joy and happiness again. I don’t accept his premise that he can never fall in love again.

Fortunately I have never been in his position, I am not a widower so I can’t comment on that. Can’t say that I totally understand some of the challenges of being 64, but I do know what it is like to be heart broken. That is something that I can relate to and can provide some advice about.

Different day, different scene. One of my friends calls to let me know that his father has cancer. It is in a relatively advanced stage, but they think that there is a good chance that they can treat it. I listen as he speaks, worries about what will happen to his father, whispers about the worst and wonders if he should ask his mother to live with him.

Flash to a different day again and there is a group of us talking about our parents overall health. Who has long term care, who has good healthcare, questions/comments about how many of us are going to end up having to take care of our parents.

More talk about wills, retirement and our own health. This person says that and that person says this. For a moment it feels like I am at a tennis match. I have said it more than once, these discussions used to be a lot more fun in our twenties.

But I get it. Too many heavy things have come down and we haven’t even discussed the state of our own grandparents. I think that I’ll save that talk for a different time, this post has gone on long enough.

Goodbye Randy Pausch

CNN shared the sad news that Randy Pausch has died. You may recall that I blogged about him this past April in a post called The Last Lecture- Remarks of a Dying Man.

The most important part of that post is the YouTube video of his presenting his Last lecture. It is well worth watching again so I’ll repost it at the bottom of this entry. Before I do let me share an excerpt from the CNN obituary.

“Pausch was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer in September 2006. His popular last lecture at Carnegie Mellon in September 2007 garnered international attention and was viewed by millions on the Internet.

In it, Pausch celebrated living the life he had always dreamed of instead of concentrating on impending death.

“The lecture was for my kids, but if others are finding value in it, that is wonderful,” Pausch wrote on his Web site. “But rest assured; I’m hardly unique.”

The book “The Last Lecture,” written with Jeffrey Zaslow, leaped to the top of the nonfiction best-seller lists after its publication in April and remains there this week. Pausch said he dictated the book to Zaslow, a Wall Street Journal writer, by cell phone. The book deal was reported to be worth more than $6 million.

At Carnegie Mellon, he was a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design, and was recognized as a pioneer of virtual reality research. On campus, he became known for his flamboyance and showmanship as a teacher and mentor.

The speech last fall was part of a series Carnegie Mellon called “The Last Lecture,” where professors were asked to think about what matters to them most and give a hypothetical final talk. The name of the lecture series was changed to “Journeys” before Pausch spoke, something he joked about in his lecture.”

Watch the video, it is really worth the time.

The Challenge of Aging

Just some crap that is circulating through the empty space between my ears. Had to move my grandparents again. They now live in a facility that provides more care. In many ways it has been great. They receive the attention they need and there is a lot less stress upon them and us.

But it is not easy to see them there. It is not quite skilled nursing, but it is not really living on your own. It is a place in between the two, and it is probably the last home they’ll ever have.

It is selfish, but I miss their old apartment in Hollywood. I miss driving through Laurel Canyon to go see them. I miss looking at the houses in the hills, peering out to catch the ruins of Houdini’s place.

I miss hiking up to the third floor, listening to the echoes of our steps. I miss swimming in their pool and walking down Fairfax to grab an ice cream cone. I miss going down the street to Farmers Market.

I won’t tell them, but this place will never be their home to me. When they left the apartment for Leisure Village in Camarillo I was a bit disappointed, but that place had a lot of charm. They had a little two bedroom house on a golf course. We’d head over early Sunday morning and enjoy brunch with them.

I’d take the kids outside and we’d wait for the wild hares to come bounding through. I’d pretend to be a wolf and chase them and the kids would roar with laughter. But eventually it got to be too hard. They were too far away for any of us to get to quickly and they just couldn’t do it all on their own. So they moved to a place that was five minutes from my folks.

For a few years it worked out nicely, but as their bodies continued to break down they began to require more and more help. Eventually it became clear that they had to go somewhere that provided more support.

Overall their minds are still there. They may be a bit slow and some memories have faded, but they know what is going on.

My grandfather took me aside again and told me that he lived too long. Told me that he could handle outliving his money, but that not being able to take care of grandma was killing him. It is not the first time he has talked to me about this, but it is hard for both of us.

“Jack, I remember giving your grandmother piggy-back rides. She’d hop on my back and I’d just run.”

“You see that old woman and I see the girl I kissed in high school.”

He paused and looked away, or maybe I did. Either way it doesn’t matter, we both needed a moment.

We shared the silence and I reached over and held his hand. He giggled and asked when my hands got to be so big. I smiled and reminded him that I have been bigger than him since the first Clinton administration. He is a political junkie so he appreciated the remark.

As we sat there I mulled it all over, just took it all in. He gave me some advice about this and that and told me to remember that I have years to accomplish my dreams. Reminded me that he wasn’t saying to relax and not try to make them happen now, but to relax and understand that if I work I can make them happen.

And now for a side confession. Throughout my life I have been gifted with physical strength. Those who believe in astrology will say it is because I am a Taurus. I’ll say that is good genes and a few hours a day carrying my desk around with me.

The point is that when grandpa said that you don’t understand how hard it is when you realize you can’t pick your girl up anymore it stuck with me. I can’t conceive of that. I just can’t conceive of a time when I am so weak that I can’t muscle my way through things.

I am not foolish enough to believe that I can outrun the clock forever, but does time have to take everything away. The next time I put together a list of things I am afraid of I can add that to the list.

Isn’t it nice to know that the fragile male ego is so helpful.

Anyway, it wasn’t easy to see them in there. I am very thankful that at 39 I still have two grandparents. It is my good fortune, it really is. But I’d be lying if I said that the new joint didn’t give me a few heebie jeebies.

Speaking of that, the big boy wants to know how you get heebie jeebies. I told him that you can find them at a special store called “The Willies.” Guess where he wants me to take him.

Ain’t life grand.

Aussie Dave Lost His Father

So Sorry to hear this Baruch Dayan Emet.

Coping With Sick Parents Part II

This is the intended to be tied into a post I wrote this past February called Coping With Sick Parents. When I wrote that post it occurred me that I know many people who had the misfortune of losing a parent while still in their early childhood or young teens.

I felt bad for their loss as I know from my own experience just how lucky I have been. Until my mid thirties I had most of my grandparents and even at 39 I am still blessed to have two. And I feel very fortunate that my own father survived a major heart attack and triple bypass four years ago.

But this isn’t about my own luck. This is more about what I have seen from watching my parents help their own parents and things I have seen from my friend’s struggles. So there is nothing scientific about this, just my own observations.

Coming to grips with your parent’s mortality can be a brutal and heartwrenching experience. For the most part age doesn’t matter, meaning even if you are in your sixties it is not easy to watch mom/dad start to deteriorate.

Some people cannot deal with this. No matter how hard they try they simply cannot cope with seeing the man they viewed as superman reduced to wearing diapers. So they run away and make any number of excuses as to why they can’t spend time with them.

As you can imagine this can place enormous strains upon their relationship with their siblings and other family members. But even good coping skills can be tested. I have seen a couple of situations in which siblings engaged in battle and open warfare about the best way to help their parents.

It seems obvious that this would be the time in which the family pulls together, but life doesn’t always work that way. To be clear, I am not making a value judgment about this. Having been through my own situation I know how tough some of it can be.

When you see your father on life support and unable to participate in the discussion about the best course of treatment it is hard to be impartial and objective.

But let’s move away from that for a moment. I want to focus on my own grandparents. They’re 94 and in a couple of weeks are going to celebrate their 74th wedding anniversary.

During the past five years I have seen a steady progression healthwise and not in the direction I want. On the whole their mental faculties are good. They’re still sharp enough to know what is going on. They follow the news and are abreast of current events, but their is slippage.

Their memories are starting to give them a bit of trouble. My grandfather prided himself on knowing dates, birthdays, anniversaries, whatever. Name the person and he knew it. But he has lost a bit of his edge there, and the sad part is that he knows it.

I say sad because he is aware and bothered by what is going on

He recently told me that “the golden years are for shit.” When I asked him to elaborate he told me that he was frustrated because he can’t do what he wants to do. He said that he tires too quickly to enjoy some of the things he used to do and that he is scared to death of my grandmother falling down because he can’t pick her up anymore.

“Jack, the day you realize that you can’t protect your wife like you’re supposed to is not a good day,” he said.

I did my best to make him more comfortable. At his age he deserves some more peace of mind, but there is only so much that I can do.

From a different perspective watching my parents deal with their own parents has had its own lessons. I have to give them credit for the love and care they have shown. When the time comes I will have a hard act to follow.

But I am quite concerned about the strain it has placed upon them. They are paying a heavy price for the love and devotion. And while I would be the first to say that parents like children are invaluable, I also have to say that there are limits to what is reasonable.

Or maybe that is just my own fear that this will negatively impact their lives and I’ll lose my parents sooner than later.

If nothing else I am definitely aware of my own parent’s mortality. I don’t consciously live in fear of their dying, but having a sick father does keep the thought in the back of one’s mind.

It is hard not to wonder what else I could be doing to help improve things there.

I’ll Miss You George Carlin

Updated Monday Morning

Breaking news reports that George Carlin has died of heart failure at age 71.

Here is a link the CNN obituary and an excerpt:

“But he was probably best known for a routine that began, “I was thinking about the curse words and the swear words, the cuss words and the words that you can’t say.” It was a monologue, known as “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” that got Carlin arrested and eventually led to the Supreme Court.

The “Seven Dirty Words” bit, which was initially recorded for 1972’s “Class Clown” album, prompted a landmark indecency case after New York’s WBAI-FM radio aired it in 1973.

The case was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the justices ruled 5-4 that the sketch was “indecent but not obscene,” giving the FCC broad leeway to determine what constituted indecency on the airwaves.

“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” Carlin said. “In the context of that era, it was daring.”

Carlin was one of my favorite comedians. If memory serves the first comedy album I owned was AM/FM.

He had so many outstanding routines. BTW, these are NSFW.

Stuff

Seven Words you Can’t Say on Television

Icebox Man– Used to crack me up. There is a better version of this, but I couldn’t find it.

Rest in Peace George.

Daddy You Died

I enjoy listening to my children interact with each other. It is great fun to watch them play and to listen to them talk. Their conversations fascinate me. I can’t help but smile as I watch Little Jack expound upon the meaning of life to his little sister. Right now he is her biggest hero. She watches his every move and tries hard to be just like him.

About 3.5 years ago the big boy asked me not to die. As a relatively new father it was a powerful moment for me. Not that I am so much more experienced now, but I feel like I have a decent handle on things.

Over the weekend I woke up to the sound of my daughter shrieking in fear. I raced over to her bed and found her sobbing. She threw her arms around me and told me that she had dreamt that I had died. I picked her up and carried her into my living room. There in the dark I reassured her that I had not died and did my best to calm her down.

The power of dad worked and in a relatively short time she was peacefully sleeping in my arms. I waited a few moments and carried her back to bed. Moments later I crawled into my bed and tried to fall asleep. Can’t say how long it took, I just know that it took a few minutes.

My dreams were troubled and that made my sleep less than peaceful. I woke up because I heard myself yell. I don’t always remember my dreams, but I remember large parts of what had woken me.

I had contracted a terminal illness and was going to die. Can’t tell you what it was and I don’t think that it matters. I haven’t wasted time on trying to figure out why I had that dream. It could be because I know so many peers who have died an early death. Or it could be because I have a 20 something year old cousin with a brain tumor and a dear friend with a rare form of cancer.

Chances are that they are going to die. Chances are that they are going to die far too young and it bothers me.

Sometimes I find myself thinking about what I would do if I were in that position. Sometimes I find myself taking a really hard look at my life and asking if I am really doing the things that make me happy. Am I fulfilled and if not, what do I need to do to make that happen.

Where do you draw the lines. How do you take care of your family and still take care of yourself. What are you entitled to. How selfish are you allowed to be.

Life is about balance. We do our best to take care of our families. We do our best to give our children every advantage, but at some point we have to remember to do for ourselves as well.

There are some really hard decisions. There are some really painful moments that school just doesn’t prepare you for. At the end of the day we shrug our shoulders and hope that we have done our best.

One day I will find out that death is closer than ever. All I am trying to do is see that I have lived a life that was a little bit more.

Cleaning The Garage

Sunday Night Play list- Here is an incomplete list of what is playing on my iTunes:

If You Could Read My Mind-Gordon Lightfoot
Shaking the Tree– Peter Gabriel
All I Want Is You– U2
With Or Without You– U2
Go Your Own Way– Fleetwood Mac
When We Dance– Sting
Crazy Train(Live) with Randy Rhoads– Ozzie Osbourne
Diamonds on the Soles– Paul Simon & Ladysmith Black Mambazo
Don’t Stop Believin’-Journey

What a freaky, deaky day. I am not all that sure how to describe it so I’ll just ramble on through it. If you live in L.A. you know that right now we are in the midst of a heatwave. It is after 10 and it has to be more than 80 outside.

When I wrote about being 25 I thought of a similar time to this one, weather wise. Back then the A/C in my apartment barely worked so I spent more than a couple of nights sleeping outdoors on a raft in our pool. There was something very peaceful about sleeping on the water. Every now and then I think about those days and wonder if I shouldn’t live on a boat.

Anyway, found ourselves at a park to celebrate a nephew’s birthday. It was an experience. There is a lot that I could share about it. I could mention that my nephew has a set of grandparents who need to get their collective asses kicked up, down and around the block. And then again for good measure.

The stories I could tell about these knuckleheads have taken upon legendary status for their place in incompetence, stupidity and unbelievable chutzpah. In fact it has taken great effort not to share them with you. If you think that your in laws are bad write me and I’ll show you some who have worked over time to screw up their children and the relationships of all they come into contact with.

Ok, that is not entirely fair, but they don’t know a thing about fair so why do I extend the courtesy. On the off chance that one day my nephew reads this let me say this; Uncle Jack tried very hard to help but due to my inability to use magic or the Jedi Mind Trick I couldn’t do more. Sorry pal.

Back to things that interest me. The kids did me proud. They ran around in spite of the heat. Just like their old man used to do. However the old metal equipment has been removed so they cannot say that the slide felt like a frying pan. That is kind of nice. It gives me something like those crazy snow stories my father would tell. You know, the ones where he claims he walked through snow storms to reach school. Only it was 3 miles, uphill both directions and he carried my uncle and was never late.

Headed from the party to the always exciting Israel festival. It is different from the Walk we used to do. Anyone remember that, back in the day when we marched all over LA and ended up at Rancho Park.

Anyhoo, the festival was pretty nice. There was a ton of booths, some great food and precisely 1,287,986 Israelis. I got a good chuckle watching this American guy yell at a group of people about standing in line.

Of course this being the festival the freaking missionaries showed up and I gave them the usual treatment.

Missionary: Would you like a flyer?
Jack: I don’t speak English?

Missionary: Atah Medeber Ivrit? (Do you speak Hebrew?)
Jack: Nope.

Missionary: You understood both languages?
Jack: Nah, that was an optical pollution. You know, that fire in cleveland is burning here.

Missionary: I know someone from cleveland.
Jack: Was his name Grover?

Missionary: Do you mind if I walk with you?
Jack: Doesn’t seem like it matters, now does it.

Missionary: I wonder if you’d let me speak with you about something.
Jack: My wife once asked me that very same question.

Missionary: And what happened?
Jack: She ended up in Texas and I ended up here.

Missionary: You’re the first person who has taken time to speak with me today.
Jack: Well, you’re walking with me. Frankly if you were any closer it’d be considered sexual harassment.

Missionary: That is kind of funny. May I borrow it?
Jack: Only if you return it.

Missionary: You see, I can help you become a complete Jew.
Jack: I am not aware that I am missing anything. Got all of my teeth and two sets of encyclopedias.

Missionary: You are a smart guy, so you probably realize that they didn’t teach you everything in school.
Jack: Actually I am not that nice. I pride myself on being exceptionally offensive to people who peddle bullshit to me. It is juvenile, but it helps keep me young.

Missionary: I am used to it. People act strongly when they hear the truth.
Jack: Ok, let’s stop for a moment and talk.

Missionary: I am so glad, thank you for your time.
Jack: Let’s see if you still feel that way in five minutes. Matter of fact, this is probably a mistake. Maybe I should go.

Missionary: It is ok.
Jack: The only reason it is ok is because I am keeping you from trying to engage in religious terror against someone else. It is truly sad that you have been captured by a cult and have been brainwashed.

Missionary: I can assure you that I am not brainwashed.
Jack: Good news for you, I am certified as a deprogrammer and let me tell you that every time we pull someone from a cult they always tell us that we’re the ones with the problem.

Missionary: If you felt secure you wouldn’t be so hostile.
Jack: No, if you felt secure you’d come right out and say who you were, what you were doing and you’d hand out pamphlets that were honest. But you don’t because you can’t. The reality is that deep down you know that you’re a charlatan peddling lies. Put down the pamphlets and let go. You don’t have to live on the Dark Side.

Missionary: I am not sure that this is getting us anywhere.
Jack: Probably not, but we’ll never know because I just lost ten minutes of my life that I can never get back.

And with that I regained control of my senses and resumed walking. When I left several hours later I saw him engaged in a conversation with four excited Chabadniks. Ok, I can’t really say that he was doing much talking, but he was trying. It was kind of fun to watch. I kept waiting for two of the guys to hold him down while the the other two forced him to wrap tefillin.

Which raises another comment. I like the Chabad guys, but you have to chill out on the tefillin. Just relax a moment. You guys found me ten at least ten times and each time all you asked was if I had wrapped tefillin today. I was half tempted to tell you that I did wrap tefillin, only it was during my breakfast in which I consumed a bacon cheeseburger, milkshake and a shrimp cocktail. Would have said it, but it was so ridiculous that I couldn’t figure out how to do it with a straight face.

Eventually I found myself back home where I engaged in more masochism. I deigned to clean the garage. I didn’t have time to do as much as I wanted, but I did manage to get a bit done. The biggest problem wasn’t even my incredible fatigue, it was my incredible nostalgia and sick need for sentimentality.

As I tore through boxes I stumbled onto all sorts of stuff. The first had a bunch of baby toys. Don’t ask me why I still have them, ok I can answer that. I can’t quite part with them. I look at them and I see this little boy, this tiny little thing with my hands and feet. This little guy who used to live with me. This baby who became a toddler and is now a full fledged boy.

Some of his old toys just take me back. And don’t get me started on the Thomas The Tank Engine stuff. He has long since stopped playing with them, but I am never giving those away. Thomas, Gordon and Percy will be with me until my grandchildren have need of them. In fact I just may see that my will says that it is only good as long as he is in possession of those trains and track. Sir Topham Hatt rocks!

Inside another box was more evidence of the babies that used to live here as well as grandparents who are no longer with us. Can’t quite give those things up either.

So after a few hours of muss and fuss I managed to pull myself out of the garage and get back to the important task of blogging. Don’t know if any of this is important to anyone, but perhaps in 2109 someone will look back and be amused by what their great, great, great, great, great grandpa Jack did one May.

Death Visits Again- Cremation Story

A little more than a week ago Death paid the Shack a visit. The old Grim Reaper came a calling upon our doorstep and in spite of our best efforts he strolled on in. With little to no effort he claimed another loved one and set in motion an odd series of events.

Due to privacy issues I am not able to reveal everything that happened, but I will share bit with you. You see this particular relative was insistent upon being cremated. If you are not Jewish that may sound relatively innocuous, but it is generally frowned upon by us. Jews aren’t real big on throwing ourselves into an oven. We’ll leave it at that.

As the levaya wasn’t a traditional affair we decided to let the kids attend. It was the first time either one of them had been, although not the first time they had visited a cemetery. I made a point of speaking with them before we went. I wanted to make sure they were as comfortable as they could be.

We sat down and spoke for a few minutes about what it means to die and what happens. I felt relatively good about the conversation and figured that I’d deal with whatever else came along.

There are two moments from the levaya that I will always remember.

1) My son spots my parents in the back of the room and runs down the center aisle to see them. He explains to them that the family room on the side has bottled water and offers to get them some. Before my parents can respond he throws himself on his belly and soldier crawls all the way up the aisle until he reaches the Bimah.

Upon reaching the Bimah he stands up and sprints over the family room to grab the water. He then races off of the Bimah and returns to the soldier crawl position to deliver the water to my parents.

2) The service ends and he asks me where the body is. It catches me off guard. I don’t want to tell him about cremation. He is not ready to hear it and I know that it will freak him out. So I tell him that there are a couple of steps that need to be taken to finish preparation of the body.

This of course leads to a whole line of questions. I answer all of them and find out that I have a budding attorney/detective. He thinks that I am holding back and asks me what I haven’t told him.

I tell him that he knows everything that he needs to know and he tells me that he needs more information. I never waver and spend the next six days fending off additional questions, but I think that someone else might have spilled their guts.

He has been asking some peculiar questions. If I find out that someone told him about cremation there may be another funeral because I will have tear off their arms and beat them to death with them.

That is the kind of stuff that you don’t share with a child unless you have cleared it with mom and dad first.

The World’s Fastest 95 Year-Old Man

One of these days I am going to take the various posts I have about my grandparents, print them out and put them into a folder. It is on that giant list of things that have to be done. I’ll get to it. No, really I will.

My grandmothers have gotten short shrift on this blog. There is an awful lot that could be said about them and I have been negligent about sharing it. In part it is because I spent more time with my grandfathers than my grandmothers, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t play a very large role in my life.

Not long before I got married Grandpa Jack took me aside offer some friendly advice. He looked at me and said something to effect of “You’ll never find anyone who can make you happier or more irritated than a woman.”

With a smile on his face he told me that I should always squirrel away a couple of bucks for myself. Just some kick around cash that I could have for myself. I remember smiling and nodding my head.

My other grandfather had similar advice. He was more specific. “When you get married you and your wife are going to have different ideas about how to spend your money. Take a few bucks from each paycheck and save it. Eventually you’ll have enough to do something with. Don’t forget to get her something too.”

With that comment he got more than a nod and a smile. When I was five he promised to buy me a pony. My mother was not pleased about this. She didn’t like seeing him tease me, or anyone for that matter.

As I have mentioned to my mother many times, it didn’t bother me. I can’t remember a time where I was upset about not having a pony. However, in the gulp, 34 years since his promise I have had my own share of fun with him about my pony.

Last week was the latest example. I told him that I had a way for him to make the whole pony thing up to me. He laughed and asked me to give him the details.

“Grandpa, you just turned 94.”
“You’re math is bad, I am in my 95th year.

“You’re right. What did Lincoln say at Gettysburg.”
“Ok smartass, what is your idea.”

“Grandpa, you used to tell me that when you were a kid you were really fast. You said that you used to win the 100 yard dash.”
“It is true. I did.”

“Good. It is time for you to go back to your roots. You’re going to start training.”
“Oh, I am.”

“Yes, I am going to promote you as the world’s fastest 95 year-old man. Nike, Reebok, one of these companies will be happy to spend millions of dollars on a nice ad campaign.”

“And you plan on taking a few of those bucks.”
“Absolutely. If we do this right by the time I am 50 I can retire.”

Giggling he said, “This is all because of the pony, isn’t it.”
“Yep. That pony could have been the next Seabiscuit.”

This is the point at which my grandmother entered the conversation. Instead of taking engaging the two of us in our silly fantasy she began to chastise my grandfather for making such a foolish promise. And thus I learned that not only had my mother yelled at my grandfather for making such a promise, but my grandmother had as well.

I interrupted her and told her that it was ok and tried to reassure her that I wasn’t upset. It didn’t work. It is funny. Over the years many people have remarked that my grandfather is a real character, but they missed seeing that in many ways the power in that relationship lay with my grandma.

For five minutes she laid into him. Finally he barked back and was rewarded with the sort of glare that would send most of us out for flowers. And then as quickly as the storm had started it was over.

I don’t really know what happened, but he walked over and they shared a moment. Yet again I felt like a bit of an intruder. I don’t know if they are more conscious of their age, but these sorts of moments seem to be happening more often.

A moment or two passed and I looked at my grandfather and said “for a moment there I bet that you really wished that you were the world’s fastest 95 year old man.”

He laughed again and told me that he wanted to show me something on his cane. I laughed and told him that his grandson wasn’t a fool. He smiled and asked for the remote. I handed it to him. He turned on the television and within moments he and my grandma were both asleep on the couch…holding hands.

A Simple Post

The song above is by Aya Korem and is called SHIR AHAVA PASHUT, or in English A SIMPLE LOVE SONG. And this is a simple post about everything and nothing.

I can’t get the image of my grandparents walking away hand in hand out of my head. In some ways it was incredibly comforting and at the same time it was a bit nerve wracking. For a moment I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d see them again. You know that the day is going to come and one more piece of my childhood will be gone.

Before they left my grandfather asked me to bring my kids over to look at some family photos. Hanging on the wall are a ton of family pictures, including pictures of his grandparents. Lately I look at them a bit differently.

I stare at them and silently beg them to speak to me. They have been gone for almost seventy years. I can’t help but wonder about them. They were born into a different world than myself and a far different world then the one my children occupy.

So I stare at them and wonder about who they were and whether I have any traits of theirs. I wonder if we would have liked the same foods and what they’d think of life in the 21st century.

Not far away are pictures of my parents, siblings and myself. The kids look at pictures of me and shake their heads. They can’t quite imagine that their dad was eight or ten or even twenty. Ok, they can picture twenty, but they giggle. My son stares at the picture of the guy with the flat top and asks “what happened to your stomach?”

I smile and ask what he means. “You used to have lines in your stomach and now it kind of sticks out.” So I lift up my shirt and flex my stomach. “Dad, I can almost see the lines. Should I get a pen and draw them in?”

And thus a seven year-old simultaneously inflates and deflates his father’s ego. This brings me to the topic of Pesach, or Passover and my decision to go full bore on the Atkins diet.

Ok, it is not solely my decision, but what the hell. I do it every year and this year I think that I am going to try and make a real effort to continue. I have this fantasy that I am going to lose every single extra pound and that I’ll keep it off.

A dear friend told me that she’d like to have me around for the next fifty years and asked if I’d consider losing some weight. I told her that I’d be happy to lose 135 and that she should get lost. She laughed and then said that she had known me too long to be offended.

If I actually lost as much as she suggested I’d weigh less than I did in Junior High, but I suppose that sooner or later I need to get serious about dropping a few pounds. I have a large enough frame that I am able to hide some of the extra poundage, but the time has come to try and get more serious about it.

Confession of the moment. Part of me wants to say screw it and just go eat with reckless abandon. What would basketball be like if I tipped the scales at over 300 pounds. But then again I enjoy seeing my feet, not to mention I like looking down and seeing all of me, including the parts designated for fun and good times. 300 pounds would put a real damper on that.

As I publicly shame myself I’ll take a moment to say that I have been good about doing push ups. It is a daily activity and I have found that I have made improvement there. Every now and then I’ll let my daughter climb up on my back and give her a ride.

Earlier tonight my son and her both hopped on. I was able to complete one push up and then promptly collapsed. If all goes well by the end of the year I’ll be able to handle both of them at the same time.

One more comment and then it is off to bed. For a couple of hours each day I am trying to disconnect myself from the computer and my BlackBerry. It is bit nerve wracking. I have a home office so it is really easy to make the excuse that I need to check in with work, but at the same time I really need to focus on doing it less around the children.

What prompted this? I heard my son tell his grandparents than I am either on the phone, the computer or in the bathroom. I asked him if that was what he thought I did and he said not all the time. He clarified things by telling me that I also played with him and his sister. I was happy to hear him say that, but since it wasn’t the first thought I think that I’d better work on it.

Anyway, it is bedtime for this old me. See you all in the A.M. Laila Tov from Los Angeles.

The Last Lecture- Remarks of a Dying Man

I think that I might have covered Randy Pausch before, but I didn’t see it in the archives. Anyway, I thought that this was worth showing again.

If you’re not familiar with the story Randy Pausch is a college professor who is dying from pancreatic cancer. He is 47 years old, married and has three small children. The video below is of his final lecture.

He is still fighting the battle, but as his home page says “Pancreatic cancer is the most deadly of cancers, with only a 4% 5-year survival rate.”

I enjoyed his lecture. I hope you will too.

R.I.P. Charlton Heston

I was just asked if Charlton Heston was still alive. And now we know. One of his most famous lines can be found here. Someone has put together a Planet of the Apes – MUSICAL on YouTube. It was kind of fun.

For those of you who are interested in a more serious story you can check out CNN’s obit or just read the excerpt below.

“LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) — Actor Charlton Heston died at Beverly Hills home at the age of 84 Saturday, his family said.

Heston, known for portrayals of larger than life figure including Moses and Ben Hur, was suffering the late stages of Alzheimer’s Disease.
….

The Internet Movie Database listed 126 movies and television production credits for Heston, starting in 1941. He rose to fame in the 1950s with starring movie roles including Ben Hur, for which he won an Oscar. He played Moses in the Ten Commandments.”

Not Quite Goodbye- And Some other Thoughts

Less than two weeks ago I wrote a post called Death Comes For Us All- When Do you Start Saying Goodbye. It is about my grandparents. I am down to two. Now that might sound strange to some of you but until a short while ago I had a full set. Don’t get me wrong, I love the two that I have now, but I still haven’t gotten used to not having the others around.

And to be really honest I think about my paternal grandfather daily. I always knew that he played a big role in my life, but it wasn’t until he died that I realized just how much I had leaned upon him. Forgive me for being bitter, but just as I was really beginning to learn he was taken from me.
More on this later.

Sunday morning I received a call from my grandfather letting me know that the paramedics had taken my grandmother to the emergency room. “Jack, I need you now. Go to the hospital and see that my girl is taken care of.”

I told him not to worry and he said “I don’t. With your parents out of town you are the head of the family, you’ll do the right thing.”

It felt a little goofy hearing that, but he takes it seriously and so did I. As a kid I couldn’t wait to become a grown up and now that I am, well I miss being a kid. My kids always laugh when they hear older people refer to me as a kid, it is beyond their comprehension…for now.

Off I went to the hospital. Grandma has a heart condition and is just short of 94. You never know what can happen. I was optimistic because there is not much use in being anything else. When I got there I was pleased to hear her complain about being hungry. If you feel that badly you’re probably ok.

They kept her there for about two days. Ran some tests and decided that there was no reason to keep her there any longer. Enter the eldest grandson, moi. Off to the hospital I went to get grandma so that I could take her home.

As we waited for some paperwork we talked about my kids and what is happening in my life. She told me “Jack, I don’t think that I am long for this world. My time is coming.” It wasn’t said with any drama, just in a matter of fact voice. I told her that I wasn’t convinced that she was going anywhere soon and she laughed. “Men always think they have the answers.”

I stared at her and remembered the dark haired lady who had more energy than a dozen people. Until she was 80 something she carried the laundry up and down two flights of stairs and didn’t think twice about it. For a moment I got a bit choked up. She is right, she is closer to the end than the beginning, but I am not ready.

When I look at her and my grandfather I see a team. Truthfully I think that she has always been the real source of strength. She has always been this incredibly happy, optimistic woman. She always kept him up. I suppose that part of what concerns me is that if she goes first I am not sure how long we’ll get to keep grandpa around. It will devastate him.

This afternoon I got another glimpse of how deep their love and affection runs. When I brought her home from the hospital he was sleeping in a chair. Just as soon as he saw her he smiled and ran to the door. That is not an exaggeration, he ran.

For a moment I felt like I was intruding. She said hi and he kissed her. He KISSED her. In the awkward silence I made a crack about it and he smiled at me and made a crack about how “this beautiful lady helped ensure that I came to be.”

I won’t buy grief. I am not asking for the malach hamavet to come looking for anyone. That reminds me of when my other grandfather told me that he had a special surprise for him. I can still see him telling me that when the Angel of Death came for him he’d pop him in the mouth with a quick right, kick him in the balls and then throw his feathery ass out the window. As a kid that was pretty funny.

For some reason this reminds me of a conversation I once had. Here are a couple of quotes from that conversation:

I live alone and apart.

I didn’t ask for an apology. It is what it is. I can only be who I am. The path I walk is one of my own choosing.

I think that I need to Google that. I like the way that it sounds, but it sounds really familiar. I’d hate to find out that I accidentally plagiarized it

My life is one of perpetual motion, one transition to another. It is probably not any different than anyone else, but sometimes it sure feels like it. Watching my grandparents makes me exceptionally aware of so many things. Some are very good and some are not so good.

So as I approach another fork in the road I need to consider which path to take. Life is too short. If I could live to be a thousand I’d still feel like I have a million things that I want to do and not enough time to try them all.

Shakespeare was right, Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. Somebody do me a favor and check that quote, I am too tired to Google, which probably indicates that I should take my lazy butt to bed.

Night all.

Death Comes For Us All- When Do you Start Saying Goodbye

Last night we had the pleasure of celebrating my grandfather’s 94th birthday, but if you ask him how old he is he’ll tell you that he is actually in his 95th year. In a couple of weeks my grandmother will join him in beginning her 95th year. Come this June they’ll celebrate their 74th wedding anniversary.

Oh, did I mention that they have been friends since they were eleven years old.

As we sang happy birthday I watched the glint in his eye grow brighter. A gaggle of great-grandchildren were there to help him blow out the candles. They see an old man who doesn’t walk real well. They see a crankier man than the grandfather I knew.

They don’t see the man who would sing and dance to Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen. They haven’t the heard the stories of his time playing Lazar Wolf or other tales of the Yiddish theater.

That grandfather is still there but, he is clearly begun to slow down. In some ways the changes are so dramatic that you can’t help but notice. I remind myself that he is 94. It is natural. It is ok, but it is still hard.

I am not mourning his death. He is very much alive, but now it is clear that he is closer to the end than the beginning. I suppose that I could blame some of this concern upon him. He does talk to me about death more than he used to.

Most of the time it is his fear of what will happen to my grandmother. He has a fierce and burning love for her. He confessed that he sometimes feels frustrated because he is not the man that he was. To paraphrase, “If your grandma fell I couldn’t just pick her up, not anymore.” And then with a bit of a smirk he said, “you know, I used to do those sorts of things. Don’t think that it is just you younger people.”

And so he made me promise that if he should die before my grandmother I would see that she is taken care of. I did, but I won’t lie and say that for a moment I didn’t choke up. He was teary eyed, “You see an old woman, but I see a girl that I still love.”

Inside their bedroom are a ton of pictures of the family. There are all sorts of shots of my siblings and I. My kids love to look at them. My daughter looks at some and says “there is baby daddy.” My son smiles and asks if the little boy with the curly hair is really me. I nod and smile. He knows that it is me, but it is hard for him to reconcile the pictures of the boy with the father he knows.

My grandfather points to pictures of his grandparents. He shakes his head and says that he can’t believe that I never met them. I shrug my shoulders and say that they must have passed something onto him, so I must have a small taste of who they were.

There are pictures on the wall of my Bar-Mitzvah. My grandparents are dancing. They danced at every party. Every time there was a band the two of them were out there gliding around the floor.

I was about 11 when he told me that if I learned how to dance the girls would learn how to hold onto me. I asked him if remembered that and he said yes. Then he laughed and said “and once they learn how to hold on they never let go.”

After he blew out the candles my grandmother asked him if he had any money on him. He asked her why and she made some excuse. For a moment they sniped at each other and then he realized that she had been teasing him. She smiled and told him that she’d buy him a gift some other time.

They kissed each other and shared a moment.

I’d like to write more. I’d like to give you a better description of who they are and what they mean to me. As the eldest of their grandchildren I feel a bit of obligation, but I think that for now this is enough.

The sun is setting, but the darkness hasn’t quite come, not yet. One day I’ll come back to this blog and ease my pain by writing about them. But not yet. For now this is still a celebration of their lives and the joy they take in each other and their family.

We should all be so lucky.

Coping With Sick Parents

“DEATH be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadfull, for, thou art not so,
For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poore death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleepe, which but thy pictures bee,
Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee doe goe,
Rest of their bones, and soules deliverie.
Thou art slave to Fate, Chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poyson, warre, and sicknesse dwell,
And poppie, or charmes can make us sleepe as well,
And better then thy stroake; why swell’st thou then;
One short sleepe past, wee wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.”

Death Be Not Proud-by John Donne
(1572-1631)

One day we’ll all wake up and find out that mom or dad have died. It is an uncomfortable reality…dying. For most of us it doesn’t matter what our spiritual beliefs are, the loss of a parent is hard. Be it at 16 or 60 it can be a very profound experience that impacts the rest of our lives.

Since no one has figured out how to email, Skype or receive blog posts from death it carries a certain weight of finality. There is a reason it is called the final goodbye. And maybe that finality and sense of loss is why it can be so hard to deal with sick parents. It is that underlying fear that one day mom and dad won’t be there.

I remember when I was in grade school there were a few kids who had lost parents. It didn’t make sense to me. At ten years old I couldn’t conceive of a time when my own would be gone. It just wasn’t real. In the years between then and my graduation from college there were a handful of losses. But it still seemed impossible that one day it could happen to me.

That changed a while back. When my father had a major heart attack and teetered on the brink it became very clear that things were different. Thankfully he survived, but it was close.

I won’t forget what it was like in the hospital. The beeps and whirs of the machines and the knowledge that a ventilator was helping dad to breathe. That was really the moment when I realized that he was truly human. It was rough because I really had come to realize how much I leaned upon him.

Maybe it wasn’t daily. I didn’t need him to tell me how to do my job, raise my kids or lead my life. I had already learned the basics from him. Still, there were always little situations that would come up. Most of the time I knew how I intended to handle them, but it didn’t mean that I didn’t want to talk it out.

It is kind of funny. Every day my children come to me and ask to watch as they show me what they have learned. What that moment in the hospital taught me was that I still like doing that too.

And now here we are several years later and I find myself in discussions with more friends about sick parents. Some of them have lost their mother or father, in some cases quite suddenly. And in others they find themselves in a position in which one or both of their parents have become quite frail and or ill.

Intellectually you know that these illnesses are a sign that their journey may not be much longer, there is only so much sunshine left in the day, but emotionally it is harder to get prepared for the twilight.

It is a bit disconcerting, these talks about parents with John and Kim or Mike and Michelle. It was only yesterday that they were telling me about the new guy/girl or the great job they found. Then it became stories about kids and family vacations. And one day the new topic entered, mom/dad are sick, they are dying, what are we going to do. How am I going to explain it to my kids. They were so strong….

In the distance I hear a school bell ringing, marking the end of school. There is a loud rumble accompanying it. It is the sound of a thousand kids running out the door and heading home. A door slams and you can hear the sound of someone saying “Mom, I am home.”

The Cost: A Portion Of Your Lifespan

I wonder about many things. If you could extend a loved one’s life by giving them a portion of your own, would you? We’re not talking about transplants or any sort of current medical technology.

For the sake of this discussion we’ll say that doctors have found a way to siphon some of your life and that they could give it to someone else. Imagine it to be similar to a gas tank and all you need to do is take a bit of yours and as a result they would live longer.

Would you do it?

Or maybe a better question is to focus on what exists now. Would you donate a kidney? How far are you willing to go? If you had a child with a terminal disease would you have another child in the hope that they could be a potential donor?

Would you be willing to clone yourself so that if heaven forbid something bad happened you’d have a donor? Where do you draw the line?

Bhutto’s Death- Shots Fired From a Grassy Knoll

Pakistan is a just a mess. There are 16 different versions of how Bhutto died, err assassinated. If I am not mistaken the media has issued the following reports:

1. She was shot. The shooter then blew himself up.
2. She died from the shrapnel from the suicide bomber.
3. She banged her head on the sunroof of the car.
4. As she passed through Dealey Plaza shots rang out from the grassy knoll.

It feels a bit like an episode of South Park. Let’s see what CNN has to say about this:

(CNN) — Conflicting reports about what caused the death of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto are fueling questions about the circumstances of her assassination.

Bhutto’s political party disputed official versions of the incident, accusing the government of lying. Video footage of Thursday’s attack on Bhutto contains a murky shot of a hand firing a pistol three times, but the Pakistani government said Bhutto — who was standing through her vehicle’s sunroof — was not hit.

The latest explanation Friday by Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said Bhutto, 54, died from a fractured skull after hitting her head on a piece of the vehicle.

Immediately following the gunfire, a suicide bomber ignited explosives near Bhutto’s motorcade.

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, said Bhutto “fell down or perhaps ducked” and apparently hit her head on a lever connected to the car’s sunroof. Cheema added that the lever was stained with blood.

Cheema’s version of events conflicts with that of the government-run news agency Associated Press of Pakistan, which at first quoted the Interior Ministry as saying shrapnel from the bomb blast killed Bhutto. The suicide bomb killed more than 20 others, and at least 100 were wounded.

On Thursday, an initial report from the Interior Ministry said Bhutto died of a gunshot wound to the neck.

Bhutto’s death did not result from a bullet or shrapnel, Cheema said, and nothing entered her head.

Dr. Mussadiq Khan of Rawalpindi General Hospital, who treated Bhutto before she was declared dead, said she had “a big wound” on the side of her head “that usually occurs when something big, with a lot of speed, hits that area.”

By the time Bhutto was brought to the hospital Thursday, she “was not breathing, she did not have a pulse,” Khan said, and her eyes were not responding to light. Doctors tried unsuccessfully to revive her by cardiopulmonary resuscitation, he said.

At a news conference, Cheema showed the video of Bhutto in the vehicle, standing up in the sunroof and looking out at the surrounding crowd.

Farzana Raja of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party said the government’s explanation is “a pack of lies,” and she offered another explanation. “It was a sniper shooting,” she said, also accusing the government of a “total security lapse.”

CNN national security analyst Ken Robinson, who worked in U.S. intelligence in Pakistan during the Clinton administration, said he suspects Bhutto’s enemies are attempting to control her legacy by minimizing the attack’s role in her demise.

“They’re trying to deny her a martyr’s death, and in Islam, that’s pretty important,” Robinson said.”

Are You Smarter Than A Rabbi? Part II

Hello and welcome to to Are You Smarter Than a Rabbi Part II. For those who are late to the party may I recommend that you read the first part by clicking here. Before we get started I’d like to refer back to a comment from the first post.

Kol Ra’ash Gadol provided an answer to my son’s question. If he wasn’t so young you’d probably find his response to be kind of rude.

Here is what KRG said:

Tell him that I told you that girls aren’t jealous not to have a penis, because all out parts are neatly tucked away where they can’t get hurt. And I’m a rabbi, so I can be smart about some things like that.
bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah! [rofluIwm]

My son’s reply to this was to ask if she knew a lot about a penis because she had a father or brother. I didn’t ask him to clarify, but it was clear that his disdain for girls overrode his respect for rabbis.

If you want to see something funny watch his face when you tell him that one day he’ll think that girls are fun and interesting. Anyway, back to the matter at hand.

Son: I think that you are smarter than the rabbi.
Dad: I appreciate that, but it is not important to me.

Son: It is to me.
Dad: Why?

Son: Because you’re my dad.
Dad: Thank you. But really it is not that big a deal.

Son: I get it. You think that the rabbi is stupid and you don’t want to hurt his feelings. You are being nice.
Dad: No. I don’t think that the rabbi is stupid.

Son: You told me that rabbis are people.
Dad: Yes, rabbis are people.

Son: Sometimes people do stupid things, so maybe the rabbi is stupid.
Dad: Yes, sometimes people do stupid things, but that doesn’t mean that the rabbi is stupid.

Son: Can I ask the rabbi?
Dad: What do you want to ask?

Son: I want to ask him if he has ever done anything stupid?
Dad: That is not such a nice thing to say. You shouldn’t ask that.

Son: You told me that I could ask the rabbi anything.
Dad: You can, but that doesn’t mean that you should ask a question that is going to be offensive.

Son: What does offensive mean?
Dad: It means that some questions will hurt a person’s feelings. So you shouldn’t ask him those.

Son: Right, because if he is a stupid rabbi he is really going to feel badly.
Dad: No, because we don’t want him to think that we are calling him names.

Son: Moshe’s father said that the rabbi belonged in Chelm and that he wears ugly ties
Dad: That is not something that we should talk about. Moshe’s father did something that wasn’t nice.

Son: Your ties aren’t as ugly as the rabbis.
Dad: I don’t wear ties that often.

Son: I know, but they aren’t as ugly as the rabbis.
Dad: Ok, let’s get something straight. It is not nice to talk this way. We don’t judge people by how they dress, just by what they do.

Son: But dad, he bought those ties and they are ugly. That is judging him based upon something he did.
Dad: Listen to me, this is not a conversation that I want to have with you. It is not nice and we are not supposed to talk about people this way.

Son: Can G-d talk to people this way.
Dad: G-d can do whatever G-d wants to do.

And before he could confound me with anymore questions I offered to buy him an ice cream cone. Sometimes that kid kills me.

Are You Smarter Than A Rabbi? Part I

The almost seven-year-old hit me with a new series of questions today. I love it. I love his interest in the world around him and how it forces me to constantly think about what I believe and why and how to best explain things to him.

Sometimes the answers to these questions spur new questions or simple spin-offs about the original ones. And let’s not forget how simple comments can lead to all sorts of new stuff.

You’ll recall that in an earlier post I recounted his curiosity about body parts and whether they ever stop growing. I did my best to answer his questions without providing too much information. He doesn’t always need to know how to build a watch, sometimes it is enough to just tell him the time.

Anyhoo, today we revisited a topic that I think is important. How to pee in a public restroom. As alluded to in previous posts there is an art to this and since most preschool teachers are female it is not being passed along as well as it should be. This really should be a separate post, but in the interest of space I’ll try to condense it.

It seems that some people teach the boys to pull their pants well below their groin. It makes sense as if the rookies will often inadvertently urinate on their clothes. However, they will eventually be in a public restroom where it is not smart for little boys or big boys for that matter to stand at a urinal with their pal in their hand and their pants around their ankles.

I have spent a lot of time explaining to my son why he needs to learn how to take care of his business in a fashion that doesn’t require following the aforementioned ritual. Earlier today I learned that he has paid attention to our discussions about this as well as the one from the earlier post.

While running errands he told me that he needed to make a stop so off we went. I drank three cups of coffee so the timing was good for me too. Once inside we waited for a free urinal. He went first.

Son: Dad, It worked.
Dad: What worked?

Son: I peed with just one hand.
Dad: That is good.

Son: I can do it with no hands. Want to see?
Dad: You shouldn’t do it that way. You might pee all over everything.

Son: I know. I wanted to see if you remembered.
Dad: What if I had forgotten.

Son: I would have reminded you.
Dad: That is good.

Son: Can girls sit and pee in a urinal?
Dad: They could, but I don’t think that they’d like it.

Son: They must be so jealous that they don’t have a penis. (His words, not mine.)
Dad: You might be right.

Son: I am going to tell mom that you said she wishes she had a penis.
Dad: I’d rather you don’t.

Son: Why?
Dad: Because I didn’t say that.

Son: Why didn’t G-d give girls a penis?
Dad: That is a good question. I’ll have to think about it for a moment.

Son: Do you think that the rabbi would know?
Dad: I think that I can give you an answer that is just as good as the rabbi.

Son: Are you smarter than a rabbi?
Dad: Well it depends on what we are talking about. Different people know different things.

Son: Yeah, and you know more about a penis than the rabbi does.
Dad: Not always. Do you remember what a mohel does?

Son: Is the man that cuts your penis in half?
Dad: He doesn’t cut your penis in half.

Son: If your penis kept growing forever it wouldn’t matter if he did.
Dad: That is true, but we know that doesn’t happen.

Son: I still want to know if you are smarter than a rabbi?
Dad: Why do you want to know?

Son: Because I already know that you are stronger than the rabbi. You could beat him up.
Dad: Why would I want to do that.

Son: Well when I was a baby he might have cut off all of my penis and then I’d be like a girl. Could that really happen?
Dad: No, that wouldn’t happen. And for what it is worth your mohel is a urologist. That means he is a doctor who is an expert on penises. He did your cousin’s bris. Do you remember?

Son: Yes. His mommy kept crying.
Dad: She didn’t cry the whole time.

Son: She is your little sister, right?
Dad: Yes, she is.

Son: Did you make her cry?
Dad: When?

Son: When you were kids. Sometimes I make my sister cry.
Dad: No, I didn’t make her cry and you shouldn’t make your sister cry either. (Ok, so I stretched the truth a little. It is a shalom bayit thing.)

Son: Dad, when you peed it was really noisy.
Dad: I guess that I really had to go.

Son: Remember I told you that it would be better if our penises were bigger because we wouldn’t have to stand so close to the urinal.
Dad: I remember.

Son: When you pee that hard you can splash yourself.
Dad: Did I? (looking down and not seeing any spots on my pants.)

Son: No, but that guy in the black suit did.
Dad: It is not nice to point.

Son: He looks like the rabbi. Do you think that you are smarter than him?
Dad: I think that we need to finish washing our hands so that we can finish running our errands.

Stay tuned for part two.

Sex & Children

This past October I took on the challenge of explaining to my almost seven year-old son where babies come from. It was an interesting discussion that from time to time we have revisited to cover new ground and or review the basic facts.

A couple of my friends have asked/suggested that perhaps I should have waited until he was older to engage in this talk, but I disagree. I didn’t want to lie to him about this. No crazy stories about storks or any sort of make believe. The bare minimum was enough to satisfy most of his curiosity, although he did ask me to explain in greater detail what positions are required to have sex.

It was a relatively innocent question along the lines of “dad, I don’t get how you put it in. Do you have to stand up?”

So I told him that you could stand up or lie down. In fact, that is almost verbatim to what I said. He nodded and said ok and we went back to playing with his Lego set. Little did I know that a short time later I was going to have another sex talk of a different nature with him.

Let me set the scene for you. He and a few of his cousins are watching bloopers like this on YouTube. I sit in the room watching with them. After three or four of I decide that I want a cup of coffee and leave the room. Before I leave I instruct them that they are not to surf to any other website without an adult in the room, but they can click on another bloopers show.

As you can imagine this is where things went awry. I should have asked them to wait for me or had one of the other adults go in, but I figured that the bloopers were innocent enough and they were quiet. If you are a parent you can appreciate what quiet is like, especially after a good 10 hours with them.

In fact it initially appeared that things were fine because it only took all of ten minutes for them to follow me out of the room and that is when I found out that things had gotten farther afield than I would have liked.

“Dad, I just saw the funniest thing!” I looked at my son and said tell me about it. “Dad, his penis was in her mouth!”

I didn’t want to blow up or make it into a bigger deal than it needed to be so with some effort I maintained a poker face and listened as he gleefully explained what he had seen.

“She took his penis and put it in her mouth.” I carefully asked why he thought this was funny. He responded by saying that he knew the man peed in her mouth. I asked him if he saw that happen and he said no. I asked if he saw anything else.

He said no, just that the man smiled and that was how he knew he must have peed because sometimes when you pee it feels really good so you smile. He didn’t ask any questions so I let it drop and went over to the computer to try and figure out how they had stumbled onto this.

It seems that during my absence they clicked on a YouTube link called “Porn Bloopers.” I felt better knowing that they had innocently stumbled upon this. Since that time we have taken steps to see that this incident cannot be repeated. The primary one is just making sure that the kids are constantly monitored when they are on the computer.

The hardest part of the experience was responding to a question that my son asked in front of my mother. “Dad, is that something you like to do?” I could feel my mother’s eyes upon me. I took a deep breath and asked him to repeat the question.

“Dad, I want to know if you like doing that?” I looked at him and asked him why he wanted to know. “Because that looks like a grownup thing and you like doing grownup stuff.”

I breathed a sigh of relief and told him that I enjoy doing all sorts of grownup stuff. He smiled and said “that is what I thought” and went off to play with his cousins. His place was taken by my mother.

But that is a post for a different day.

Evel Knievel- Rest In Peace

If you were a boy during the 70’s you probably had one of these toys.

Evel Knievel was a household name. We loved to watch and talk about his stunts, not to mention pretend to recreate them. I can remember more than one occasion in which my mother specifically told me not to try and do what Evel had done.

The good news was that because I was just a boy I never had the opportunity to really imitate him, but my continual attempts to jump the Snake River, buses or through flames probably caused her and my father to lose a lot of sleep. For posterity’s sake allow me to clarify that these attempts were made using ordinary household products and all of the resourcefulness young boys could come up with.

So that meant building ramps out of wood and boxes, jumping on and off of the curb and doing all sorts of stuff that today would have made me and the boys contestants in the X-Games. Did I mention jumping off of the roof into the swimming pool? No, well let me add that we seriously considered riding our bikes off of the roof and into the pool.

Fortunately for us our parents always spotted our attempt to bring ramp and bike onto the roof so it never did happen.

Anyhoo, old Evel lived a lot longer than my mother said he would. Later today I am going to have to give her a call and ask her if she remembers telling me that sooner or later one of his tricks would kill him and that a smart boy wouldn’t try such silly things.

On a side note, I can just picture Evel doing his stunts in heaven, while Howard Cosell provides the color commentary. Perhaps I’ll add more to this later.

A Horrible Way To Die

You can add this to my list of ways I DO NOT want to die. How horrible.

Authorities in Orange County are working to recover the remains of a 24-year-old Anaheim man who was killed Wednesday in a wood chipper accident in Tustin.

The tree service worker “was standing at the back end of the chipper, throwing branches into it with his co-workers nearby,” said Sgt. Pat Welch of the Tustin Police Department.

“One of them looked over, and he was gone.”

And Then There Were Three- Grandparents

When my son was born he was the luck recipient of an enormous amount of love from five great-grandparents. Five great-grandparents did all they could to spoil him and his sibling and cousins rotten. And of course two sets of grandparents are guilty of aiding and abetting them in their efforts.

Part of my great joy at becoming a father was watching the joy in their faces as they played with him. When we would take him to see them I would often just sit and watch them interact. In some ways it was like revisiting my own childhood. They brought out the old tricks and games that they had stopped playing with me and share them with someone new.

And sometimes I’d close my eyes and listen and for just a moment I was ten and I could smell the smoke from my grandfather’s cigars. I could hear them argue about the best place to get a hot dog in Chicago…in 1934. And then I’d open my eyes and just be thankful that my son was able to get some time with them because I knew that it wouldn’t be that long.

And it wasn’t. When he was a bit short of three my grandmother died. He was too young to understand and too young for lasting memories. He recognizes her picture. He knows her name but he doesn’t really remember just how much she loved him. And his sister, well she never got a chance to meet her. Sometimes she asks why there are pictures of her other great-grandmothers holding her and not that one.

It has been more than 18 months since my grandfather died. Sometimes when she sees his picture she says his name and then mentions that he died. Death is a concept that is just beginning to take root, but even now it is little fuzzy for her.

Her brother is a different story. He is old enough to understand what it means and to be concerned about it. Sometimes he asks me very pointed questions about what kind of lifespan he should expect from the surviving three great-grandparents. I answer him honestly that I don’t know.

Tonight he told me that I should ask G-d. So I told him that I thought that he is big enough to ask himself. He told me that he already had and that G-d was ignoring him, but because I am bigger he can’t ignore me. I told him that it didn’t really work that way. So he asked me if there was a better way to talk to G-d.

I told him that we all have to find our own way to talk to G-d and that sometimes the best answer was found by just listening to your heart. For the moment that seems to have satisfied him, but I still found it tough to accept.

Or maybe it is the knowledge that so much can change in the blink of an eye. One of these days I am going to have to have another hard discussion with them. It is the price we pay for having been so fortunate to have them around for so long.

What Does It Feel Like To Die

New Scientist has an article that explores what it feels like to die. They cover drowning, decapitation and more. Here are a couple of excerpts for your review:

Decapitation

Nearly instantaneous

Beheading, if somewhat gruesome, can be one of the quickest and least painful ways to die – so long as the executioner is skilled, his blade sharp, and the condemned sits still.

The height of decapitation technology is, of course, the guillotine. Officially adopted by the French government in 1792, it was seen as more humane than other methods of execution. When the guillotine was first used in public, onlookers were reportedly aghast at the speed of death.

Quick it may be, but consciousness is nevertheless believed to continue after the spinal chord is severed. A study in rats in 1991 found that it takes 2.7 seconds for the brain to consume the oxygen from the blood in the head; the equivalent figure for humans has been calculated at 7 seconds. Some macabre historical reports from post-revolutionary France cited movements of the eyes and mouth for 15 to 30 seconds after the blade struck, although these may have been post-mortem twitches and reflexes.

If you end up losing your head, but aren’t lucky enough to fall under the guillotine, or even a very sharp, well-wielded blade, the time of conscious awareness of pain may be much longer. It took the axeman three attempts to sever the head of Mary Queen of Scots in 1587. He had to finish the job with a knife.

Decades earlier in 1541, Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury, was executed at the Tower of London. She was dragged to the block, but refused to lay her head down. The inexperienced axe man made a gash in her shoulder rather than her neck. According to some reports, she leapt from the block and was chased by the executioner, who struck 11 times before she died.

Hanging

Speed of death depends on the hangman’s skill

Suicides and old-fashioned “short drop” executions cause death by strangulation; the rope puts pressure on the windpipe and the arteries to the brain. This can cause unconsciousness in 10 seconds, but it takes longer if the noose is incorrectly sited. Witnesses of public hangings often reported victims “dancing” in pain at the end of the rope, struggling violently as they asphyxiated. Death only ensues after many minutes, as shown by the numerous people being resuscitated after being cut down – even after 15 minutes.

When public executions were outlawed in Britain in 1868, hangmen looked for a less performance-oriented approach. They eventually adopted the “long-drop” method, using a lengthier rope so the victim reached a speed that broke their necks. It had to be tailored to the victim’s weight, however, as too great a force could rip the head clean off, a professionally embarrassing outcome for the hangman.

Despite the public boasting of several prominent executioners in late 19th-century Britain, a 1992 analysis of the remains of 34 prisoners found that in only about half of cases was the cause of death wholly or partly due to spinal trauma. Just one-fifth showed the classic “hangman’s fracture” between the second and third cervical vertebrae. The others died in part from asphyxiation.

Michael Spence, an anthropologist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, has found similar results in US victims. He concluded, however, that even if asphyxiation played a role, the trauma of the drop would have rapidly rendered all of them unconscious. “What the hangmen were looking for was quick cessation of activity,” he says. “And they knew enough about their craft to ensure that happened. The thing they feared most was decapitation.”

Call me a chicken, but whenever that day comes I ask for quick and painless.

Another Funeral- My Best Friend Is Gone Forever

I’ll remember September of 2007 as being a hard month. Two family friends died unexpectedly. One day they were here and the next they were gone. Their loss has weighed upon me. It is a reminder of just how tenuous our grip on life is. It is just one more sign that in a moment it can all be taken away.

Two years ago I came very close to being an example of what can happen. In one of those links you can see some of my thoughts about that day. Now when I think about I really feel lucky. If things would have transpired a bit differently I would have been seriously injured, if not killed. For a while afterwards I carried physical reminders of the accident. One of my knees hit the dashboard. They said it was just a bad bruise, but it seemed to take an awfully long time to heal. There are some other aches and pains that made their appearance that day and have yet to leave me. But enough about me.

This last funeral was heartbreaking. Some deaths are more tragic than others. In this case a parent, a sibling, and a spouse was taken far too early. On the off chance that someone stumbles onto this I am intentionally being vague about the identity of the deceased.

I have been to more funerals than I care to think about. I have seen parents bury children. I have seen children say goodbye to their parents, but I don’t think that I have ever witnessed a more heart wrenching goodbye from one spouse to another. The anguish of the surviving spouse was a terrible thing to see. We’re not supposed to be exposed to such raw emotion, the intimacy was not meant for us. The sobbing and wails of pain were not for our eyes, but the pain of the loss was so great that they didn’t care.

They collapsed at the graveside and clawed at the earth. If you didn’t know the couple you might think that this was a show, that it was ridiculous, a hysterical over reaction. But I did know them and I am here to say that they had that kind of love. They were best friends. They were lovers. They were something more than husband and wife.

Jewish mourning ritual includes shoveling some dirt on the grave of the deceased. For the third time in my life I was part of a funeral in which a group of us took care of filling in the grave in its entirety.

It was hot and it was hard work. It was hard because I could feel the eyes of the spouse and children upon me. I could feel them begging for mercy, that they should wake up from a bad dream. And with every shovelful we proved that it wasn’t a dream.

But we shoveled on. We couldn’t bring about a miracle. We couldn’t remove their pain, but we hoped that that our presence would help them begin to heal. And it was one more way to show our love and respect for the departed.

It was a hard day. September was a hard month. But I learned from it. Some of those lessons I keep to myself, but here is something that I’ll share with you. When I die I hope that I merit having people fill in my grave. I hope that I have made enough of a difference in the world around me that they give my family that one last gift.

Baruch Dayan Emet.

Back To Iraq

Jimmy left for Iraq and I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I wanted to buy him a beer and tell him to take care of himself. It is his second tour. The first time around wasn’t all that much fun. The good people were no where to be found, but there were plenty of bad guys.

Every day and every night they kept Jimmy busy. Jimmy is a medic. Jimmy is also one of the guys that I played ball with. He is just short of 34 and a much better basketball player than I am. Until 9-11 he was a software engineer who made a very nice living.

After the towers fell he decided that he needed to help defend the country so he went and enlisted in the army.

I remember what he was like before he went in and I saw the difference when he came back. He told me himself that he was broken, his words not mine. He said that he had no regrets in having enlisted and that he would do it again, but the experiences he had fucked with his head.

It took a while for Jimmy to talk to me. I didn’t go looking for it. I was curious, but I also respected his privacy. When he first reappeared at the gym he had been home for a while. He was injured while treating one of his men. It wasn’t real serious, but it warranted an early trip home.

The guy at the gym was about 25 pounds heavier than he wanted to be. That is part of the problem with being injured, for a while he wasn’t allowed to exercise. If you asked him about it he wouldn’t complain. He always said that his injuries were nothing compared to his friends.

But those are just the physical injuries. The mental damage is a different story. Over time I heard a few stories about things he had seen and done. Stories about post suicide attacks and the body parts strewn everywhere. Random shoes that still held feet, shards of glass covered in blood, rib cages that had been torn open and the stench of burned flesh.

He said that he couldn’t turn his mind off. That being back home wasn’t peaceful. For months he begged to be sent back to Iraq. He couldn’t stand being away from the guys who understood why he couldn’t sleep anymore.

I asked him if he had tried going to the VA to find someone to talk to. I told him that I would listen to anything he had to say, but I never claimed to really understand what combat is like. I have heard many stories about it. I have heard from vets of WWII, Vietnam and some of my Israeli friends and their time in Lebanon.

I have heard the stories, but I am not a soldier. What do I know about fighting. I know what it means to have a fist fight. I know what it is like to have people try to hurt me with their fists. I have been hit with broom sticks and stones, but no one has tried to shoot me. I haven’t been stabbed. I have been close to a couple of suicide bombings in Israel, but then again, I was far enough away to be safe.

I have been lucky. I have been privileged not to have to live through some of these things. If things had been a little different I would have been a soldier, but those things didn’t happen.

So when I spoke with Jimmy I thanked him for his service and asked him to let himself get help. He deserves it. He has earned it. But we all do what we do.

So Jimmy went back to Iraq. You know in the ten years or so that I have known him I never did learn his last name. I just know him as Jimmy. Like I said I would have liked to have said goodbye. It would have been good to let him know again that his effort is being appreciated.

Now I’ll just have to wait and see. Take care of yourself Jimmy. We’ll save a spot for you on the court.

Monty Python Imitates Life

Sometimes art imitates life. As I read the story below I couldn’t help but think of Monty Python and The Holy Grail.

Police Question Armless Man In Neighbor’s Death

SNELLVILLE, Ga. — Police questioned an armless man Monday about the death of his neighbor.Relatives of Charles Keith Teer, 47, claim he died after the armless man head-butted and kicked Teer during a fight.

For the full story please click here.

Gaming Addiction Leads To Death

This is the second story that I know of in which gaming lead to a person dying. Sometimes you need to turn off the computer and go for a walk.

BEIJING, China (AP) — A man in southern China appears to have died of exhaustion after a three-day Internet gaming binge, state media said Monday.

The 30-year-old man fainted at a cyber cafe in the city of Guangzhou Saturday afternoon after he had been playing games online for three days, the Beijing News reported.

Goodbye Pavarotti

(CNN) — Famed opera tenor Luciano Pavarotti, who appeared on stage with singers as varied as opera star Dame Joan Sutherland, U2’s Bono and Liza Minnelli, died Thursday after suffering from pancreatic cancer, his manager Terri Robson said in a statement. He was 71.

“The great tenor, Luciano Pavarotti, died today at 5:00 a.m. at his home in Modena, the city of his birth,” according to Robson.

“The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness.”

The portly singer retired from staged opera in 2004, but was on a “farewell tour” of concerts when he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2006 and underwent emergency surgery to remove the tumor.

Although the remaining concerts of his tour were canceled, his management said that he hoped to resume the tour in 2007.

But in early August, Pavarotti was hospitalized in Modena with a fever and released 17 days later after undergoing diagnostic tests.

Pavarotti is survived by his wife, Nicoletta Mantovani, and a daughter, Alice, along with three grown daughters by his first wife, Adua Veroni, whom he divorced in 2000, and a granddaughter.

I became a fan of opera somewhere in the early ’90s. I very much appreciated his work.

Does Time Heal All Wounds?

Mama, take this badge off of me
I can’t use it anymore.
It’s gettin’ dark, too dark for me to see
I feel like I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.
Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door-Bob Dylan

Nine years ago we buried one of my best friends. His yarzheit was August 25th. For those of you who are concerned, I don’t remember what the Hebrew date is. I just know that it is close to Elul and that this has always affected me.

His death was a life changing experience. He wasn’t the first friend that we lost. There were others that came before and after him. I don’t mean to demean or marginalize the loss of the others. Should their loved ones ever read this I don’t want them to feel badly. But they were different.

Car accidents, a bike accident, a couple of suicides took the others. Cancer took my pal away. It didn’t happen over night. It was a process that took a while. In some ways it seemed like it took forever and in others it felt like forever. Each week there was a gradual deterioration of his abilities. The cancer didn’t discriminate between cognitive or motor skills. It took huge bites out of all until there was nothing left to take. The giving tree was no more.

The first few years after his death were hard, far harder than now. It is not that I do not miss him, but I have grown accustomed to his absence. For a long time that bothered me. I felt like I was betraying his memory. If I didn’t feel that searing sense of loss I’d wonder what was wrong with me. It took a while to realize that I was healing and to accept that it was ok not to miss him every day.

After a while it was normal not to think about him, to not wonder what sort of advice he might have offered, to not feel badly that he would never know the pleasure of being a father etc. Still I made a point of not missing his yarzheit.

Each year I would take a few minutes to think about him and appreciate all that I had learned and gained from our friendship.

This year was different. This year was different because I forgot about his yarzheit. It didn’t even occur to me until today that I had. So I suppose that this is more proof that time heals all wounds. Yet I’d like to clarify that.

I may not feel that searing pain. The sense of loss may not be there, but the scars remain. There are moments when it is tough. There are times when I do very much wish that he was still here. When I get together with the crew there are moments that I look out at 35 or so kids and wish that his were playing with the rest.

There are those moments when the memories pop up. A dinner in Beverly Hills, a hike in the Sierras, flying over Catalina or walking down the street in Jerusalem. They’re bittersweet memories. They’re part of deep spiritual questions and tied into growth.

His loss changed me. It aged me. It made me question and wonder about things that I might not ever have. I don’t want to belabor the point or make this post any longer than it is. All I know is that I wish the old bastard was here to argue with me because I miss my friend.

I miss my friend. How many times have I said that recently and how many more times will I have to say it. Every now and then I am amazed to hear someone say that they have never been to a funeral. I have been to more than twenty.

It is Elul and I feel unsettled.

If You Had One Day Left To Live

It is almost a cliche to ask people what they would do if they knew they only had one day left. I can think of more than one time in school in which one of my instructors used this as an exercise.

Pretend you only have one day left to live. Write a story about what you do etc.

I used to hate that kind of stuff. Ok, maybe hate is too strong a word, but it rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it is because when I was younger I believed in the invincibility of youth. Maybe that is why I couldn’t or didn’t take it seriously.

The thing is that I do take it seriously now. I have buried more than one friend. I have seen death come in various forms, cancer, airplane, car accidents, terrorism and war. It is a bitter education that I would have liked to avoid, but such is life.

So now I ask myself the question, if I knew that I only had one day left to live, what would I do? The answer is hard. I am not sure. I am torn. It is an internal struggle. The obvious answer is that I’d like to spend time with the people I love.

But that is not all. I think that I’d need to be outside. I’d want to go sit on a beach and listen to the roar of the ocean. I’d want to scale a mountain and look out on the valley below. I’d need to travel to the desert and look out on a vast expanse of sand. The end of Point Break comes to mind. ignore the bad acting and look at those waves.

One day left to live- what have I learned? What do I leave behind? What kind of legacy do I leave for my children. I ask myself all of these questions and so many more.

The more than I consider this, the more that I realize that I haven’t nearly enough time. My life is going to be way too short to do everything that I need to do. I’ll do my best to get it done. I’ll try so very hard and I’ll keep fighting, but sooner or later that guy with the scythe and I will have to meet in person.

The Final Goodbye

The last chunk of time has been rough. It has been hard for a whole host of reasons, but this evening the toughest was because I had to say goodbye to my pal.

Tomorrow morning he has an appointment with the vet. The family has agonized over this. We have spent a ton of time trying to make sure that we make the right decision. Every discussion with the vet has made it implicitly clear that there are no heroic measures to be taken.

That is not to say that there are not things that could be done, there are. At best they might extend his life by a few months, but they wouldn’t add to the quality of his life and that is the crux of this matter. He is more than 14 years old and the body won’t give of itself anymore.

So for the past few days I have spent as much time with him as I could. He can’t chase me anymore. He used to love to fetch a ball. I could throw it a country mile and he’d go get it and bring it back to me. He has trouble doing the basic stuff now. I look at that majestic head and I can see the young puppy staring back at me. Dark soulful eyes look at you and you just know that he is waiting for a treat.

I feel guilty that I know what is going to happen. I feel like part of me is betraying him, but at the same time I don’t feel right watching him struggle to get through the day. His breathing is labored and there are times where I swear it looks like he is already gone.

Yet there are moments where he fools me. There are moments in which he moves freely and issues that deep bark that always served notice of his presence. It is almost like he is hoping that this will be enough to gain clemency from the governor and gain a reprieve. If it made sense I would grant it. If I could turn back time I’d make him young again and we’d get more time together.

Fourteen years ago I was a single man and he was the one I’d share all my stories with. We’d take long walks at the park and wander the beach together. He has witnessed some of the biggest moments of my life. And all he has ever asked of me is a little food and companionship. It has been a good deal for both of us.

Tonight the children gave him an extra big hug goodbye and so did I. I bent down and rubbed his belly. I leaned over and made a point to smell him so that I would remember his scent.

I am going to miss my friend.

Humped To Death

There are many ways to die, but I never considered death by horny camel to be one of them. BTW, how do you become a camel expert.

(AP) An Australian woman was killed by a pet camel given to her as a 60th birthday present after the animal apparently tried to have sex, police said Sunday.

The woman, whose name was not released, was killed Saturday at her family’s sheep and cattle ranch near Mitchell, 350 miles west of the Queensland state capital Brisbane, state police Detective Senior Constable Craig Gregory said.

The 10-month-old male camel — weighing about 330 pounds — knocked the woman to the ground, lay on top of her, then exhibited what police suspect was mating behavior, Gregory said.

“I’d say it’s probably been playing, or it may be even a sexual sort of thing,” Gregory said, adding the camel almost suffocated the family’s pet goat by straddling it on several occasions.

Camel expert Chris Hill said he had no doubt the camel’s behavior was sexual.

Explaining Death to Children

One of the earliest posts I wrote is called Death- My Son Asked Me Not to Die. It is a short post about a discussion my son and I had about death in general, as well as our own mortality. It was a little odd reading it again.

Odd because I remember the discussion that prompted my writing about it like it was yesterday. It is only three years ago, but my son has grown so much in that time it feels like it was much longer ago.

It is not unexpected or surprising to see this growth. He is an elementary school student now and is exposed to more than just his own family. He sees our losses and hears stories about the deaths of his friends loved ones too.

He understands that all creatures have a lifespan. I am not sure how complete or comprehensive that understanding is, but it is there. In just a few days we’re going to have another discussion with him about death.

Next week we’ll send off another member of the family. It is going to be time to say goodbye to our dog. The time and date have been set. The moment I dread is approaching. The big fellow is failing. Every time I see him I hug and smell him because I know that soon I can’t.

It kills me to see him like this. He has so many little issues and the vet says that there really isn’t anything that can be done to improve his quality of life. It is old age. So the decision was made that it is not fair to let him go on this way. It has raised all sorts of issues in my head, but that is a different post.

Now I am busy trying to determine how to let the kids know. I want to prepare them, but I don’t really want to tell them all of the details. They are too young for that. But I can’t not say something. I don’t want them to be frightened and I feel badly because they love the big guy as much as the rest of us.

I feel badly because each time I see my friend I feel guilty about his situation. And I feel badly because I know that the children will be hurt. At the same time they need to learn this lesson. They need to learn about lifetimes and to understand that death is not to be feared. We shouldn’t run forward to meet it early, but we shouldn’t be so fearful of it either.

In the time that has passed between the first post and now there have been many other discussions of death. Many of those conversations stick out. I remember the time that my son asked me what I would do if someone killed him or his sister.

He told me that if that happened I should kill whomever killed them. Part of me smiled because I saw how protective he is of his little sister. When I am not there he’ll do what he can to stand in for me.

Part of me cried because it is so sad that he knows that these things can happen. The children should be able to grow up without worrying about such things.

It was a relatively short conversation because I don’t want him worrying about this kind of stuff. I reminded him that his parents and extended family will always protect him. I told him again and again that I loved him.

When he asked me why I said it three times I said that it was because I never want him to forget it. He smiled and hugged me. For a moment we stood there and time stood still.

And now here I am, a bit choked up about all of this. If I close my eyes I can hear my daughter’s laughter. She loves to chase the dog. She giggles as she runs. Her smile lights up her face. It is an image that is dear to me.

But it doesn’t give me the answers I am searching for. It is not going to make it any easier to say goodbye or to explain death. But, that is part of being a parent. I’ll figure it out and I’ll make sure that the kids still feel safe and loved.

And that is all I have to say about this….for now.

Goodbye Hal Fishman

Hal Fishman was a local newscaster here. A staple of the nightly news you could always find him on KTLA.

Hal Fishman, the award-winning KTLA-TV Channel 5 news anchor who was a Los Angeles broadcasting fixture for nearly 50 years, died Tuesday, the station announced. He was 75.Fishman died at 3 a.m. at his Brentwood home with his family at his side. He had been hospitalized with a serious infection after collapsing at his home Aug. 1, less than a week after being diagnosed with colon cancer. On Friday, the station announced that the disease had spread to his liver.

A broadcaster who began his television career in Los Angeles in 1960, Fishman had anchored his station’s10 p.m. newscast — now called “KTLA Prime News” — since 1975. He covered major news stories in Southern California, including the Watts riots, the assassination of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, the Sylmar and Northridge earthquakes and the Rodney G. King beating case.

A onetime assistant professor of political science, he also served as the newscast’s managing editor and commentator.

Fishman anchored his last broadcast July 30.

Click here for the full story.

Satchel Paige Rules For Life

Satchel Paige has always caught my eye. He was a colorful character who I have always thought might be kind of fun to hang out with. Here is some simple advice he offered for how to live.

1 – Avoid fried meats which angry up the blood.
2 – If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify it with cool thoughts.
3 – Keep your juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
4 – Go very gently on the vices such as carrying on in society – the social ramble ain’t restful.
5 – Avoid running at all times.
6 – Don’t look back, something might be gaining on you.

Almost Time To Say Goodbye

Fourteen years ago we added a new member to the family. Four legs, reddish fur and energy that seemed limitless ran circles around us. We all fell in love with the big rascal. He was a true puppy in spirit and action. At times it was hard not to get frustrated with him as he did what puppies do.

He ate shoes, hairbrushes, bag lunches, and the occasional steak. He tore up newspapers and chased shadows. At night he whined and moaned a bit. He was lonely and he did what he could to make sure that you paid attention to him. But in time his training kicked in and so did ours. We learned to read him and he us.

Family dinners were an occasion. The big lug would come over and bat our arms with a giant paw. You’d turn and look and see dark soulful eyes looking back at you. Sometimes he would take that massive head and force it in between your arms and your side. Even those times when you were angry you’d find yourself smiling. You couldn’t help but love this giant beast.

He is the largest golden retriever that many people have seen. Certainly there are larger versions of him running around, but that is not the point. We have long laughed about his abilities as a watchdog. If you broke into the house you’d probably be scared of him, at least until he tried to bring you a beer. He is that kind of friendly.

But age has caught up with him. His body is starting to break down and he is having trouble getting up and moving around. We have done what we can to try and make life easier but the end is coming. The vet says that it won’t be long before his body really begins to fail him and that even medication won’t prevent that.

He said that somewhere towards the end of the summer we are going to be faced with a hard decision. I was a little surprised by how hard the news hit me. He is not gone yet, but the thought of losing him got me choked up.

I stood there looking a face that has gone white with age. So I reached down and gave the big galoot a hug and wiped away a tear. I am not ready to say goodbye. I am not ready to talk to my children about what happened and why. I am not ready to walk into a house, an empty house. The silence will be palpable.

That is part of what is so hard about having a dog. Our lives can be so interconnected yet at the same time our life spans are not the same. Their candle burns brighter and ends sooner. In some ways it feels unfair.

The good news is that he is not gone yet and we may have him for a good chunk longer. That crazy animal is like every other member of the family; strong willed, stubborn and determined to do things on his terms.

For now I’ll continue to take advantage of the time we have together. I’ll choose to be happy because that is a much nicer way to live, but I’d be lying if I said that typing this has been easy.

Rod Beck- R.I.P.

He went to a rival high school, made it to the show. Interesting guy to say the least. Rest In Peace Rod.

A Six Year Old Wonders

Last April my son and I broached the topic of how babies are made. It was an interesting moment. I wasn’t embarrassed or upset by it. Just kind of bemused. I very much enjoy these conversations with him. I find it fascinating to see the wheels in his head turn. I still maintain that he is far smarter than I am. It is only by virtue of life experience that he has not yet surpassed me.

Tonight he brought the topic back up. I am not really sure what prompted the discussion. I just know that he must have spent some time wondering about how everything works. So I gave him the down and dirty explanation. To use a silly analogy I gave him enough information to make a basic watch but not enough to craft a Rolex.

For a very brief time my explanation was sufficient and then the dam broke. A barrage of questions was unleashed upon me:

“Dad, babies don’t really come out of tummies do they.”
“Dad, how big is a vagina? Could I still fit in one?”
“Dad, do mommies ever pee or poop when the baby comes out?”
“Dad, who stuffs the babies inside the vaginas?
“Why don’t they fall out of the vaginas?”
“Can you have a penis and a vagina?”
“Can you give birth with a penis?”
“Where were you when I was born?”

These were relatively easy to deal with. The hard part was the comment he made. On the way home we stopped at a grocery store to get some milk. While we were in the store we passed a woman who was quite well endowed. My son looked pointed at her chest and said “she must have a lot of babies at home.”

It was one of those “dayenu” moments. If he had said this quietly it would have been enough. I won’t bore you with the whole sordid tale. Suffice it to say that the only way he could have been louder would have been to have announced this over the PA system. “Huge boobs on aisle 12!”

To quote Steve Hartman, “We move on.”

Later on in the car we spent more time talking about the baby making process. He wanted a step-by-step guide to intercourse. Do you stand/sit/lie down? Does it tickle? Does it hurt? Do you need to be a father to do it? Do women get pregnant the first time you do it? etc.

I asked him if the reason he wanted to know all about this was so that he could get a girlfriend and then tried not to laugh. He has told me on numerous occasions that he doesn’t like girls, that he won’t ever get married and that he wouldn’t mind if his sister went on more vacations without him.

This led into another discussion about why he has to go to his sister’s dance classes. He thinks that they are boring. I explained to him that when I was a kid I had to go my sister’s dance classes too. My father happened to be standing there during this part of the discussion. He was rather surprised when his grandson berated him.

“Grandpa, you didn’t teach my daddy that dance class is boring.” I stifled a laugh. It was clear that in my son’s mind he saw my father as ultimately being responsible for his having had to go to dance class.

That is about all the energy I have for writing now. It is time for this old man to get some shut eye. See you all in the AM.

When Parents Die

Eighteen years ago my life changed in a number of ways. It was the year that I suffered through a broken heart. The year that M.B. committed suicide and the year that B’s mother suddenly died and then so did A’s father.

We were only 20 but I didn’t spend too much time thinking about mortality. I just shrugged my shoulders and went about my business.

Since then I have borne witness to the loss of a number of others. There was another suicide, cancer robbed us of some good friends and of course the death of more of my friends parents. I have been to a lot of funerals. I have more practice than I want offering condolences to mourners. It is not easy. You do the best that you can to offer support and not intrude upon people during intimate moments of grief.

I wrote about ‘D’ on more than one occasion. We buried him. I won’t ever forget it. As a pallbearers we helped escort him to the grave. When the time came I took off my coat and shoveled the dirt into his grave. I paused for a moment and looked up. I made eye contact with his mother and I won’t ever forget the look of horror on her face. It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

In all candor, most funerals pale in comparison to this. That is not to denigrate or marginalize the others, but they have been somewhat easier.

Back to the topic. This will sound silly, but it seems like my parents and many of my friends have aged overnight. With varying degrees we all see the affect of time upon our moms and dads. Most of them are hanging in there, but their ability to do things has diminished. Some of them are facing greater challenges than others.

It is not always easy to watch your heroes grow older. It is hard to reconcile how the man who used to effortlessly carry you around now needs your help with little things. And the deaths of the parents of friends weighs upon you because it is another reminder of the mortality of your own parents.

One day they will die. One day we’ll lose them to whatever comes next. Call me selfish, but I am not sure that I’ll ever be ready to say goodbye.

(author’s note: I couldn’t figure out how to end this. It might be because it is the middle of the night and I am tired. I don’t really care why, I just have to go to sleep.)

Text From a Post that I nuked

I didn’t like the way that this was flowing so I am scrapping it and starting over.

If you are lucky you grow up in house populated by loving parents who do all they can to take care of you. I used to think that this was a given, but I sadly learned a long time ago that some of us have parents who should be a failing grade. That is a topic for a different post.

As a child you view your parents as being superhuman. It is hard not to. They seem to have answers to most if not all of your questions and are able to show you all sorts of really cool things. Who knew that mom and dad knew so many nifty tricks.

At some point in your childhood you realize that the superheroes you call mom and dad have some shortcomings. Their super patience sometimes wears thin. Occasionally they might even yell at you and those tricks that were so cool at seven just don’t play well anymore. Slowly but surely the pedestal that they stand upon shrinks until it reaches a point just slightly above the one that you stand on.

I suspect that many of us go through a time in which we find our parents to be incredible pain-in-the-asses. I know that there was definitely a point in time where I wondered how they had survived so long. Ok, I was an ignorant moron. Call me the case study for the teenager who knew better than his parents.

The good news (at least for my parents) is that it was a short phase and then I realized that they knew so much and went back to the comfort of knowing that I could always ask mom and dad for help.

I don’t much like asking for help. It grates upon my nerves to admit that I am having trouble. I prefer to try and work things out on my own. If it is offered I take it, but I still don’t like it.

How Personal Should A Blog Be Part II

Part One is Here. BTW, I should add that this ties into the previous post.

No one knows what it’s like

To be the bad man,
To be the sad man,
Behind blue eyes.

No one knows what it’s like
To be hated,
To be faded,
To telling only lies.

But my dreams,
They aren’t as empty
As my conscience seems to be.

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That’s never free.

The Who- Behind Blue Eyes

I didn’t really get to all of the points that I wanted to hit in my last post. When I spoke about the lyrics of The Gambler I was specifically thinking about what it means to know when to hold them and know when to fold them. Sometimes when I take on a challenge I grab a hold of it with such fierceness that I can lose sight of when to let go. I am nothing if not tenacious. I am stubborn. I am determined. I am persistent. At times these characteristics serve me well, but they have their downside.

So I wonder if I let the passion of the challenge blind me to the risk. I wonder if I my tolerance for pain is too high. I recognize that this is cryptic. FWIW, this has nothing to do with any sort of physical issue. If you don’t understand what the references are it is because you don’t need to know any more.

It is one of the problems with losing my anonymity. In the past I would have been much more candid about the situation. I liked being able to do that. Sometimes I miss it. Unfortunately some people work hard to hurt me with some of the information here. I can take whatever they dish out and I can give back better than I received. But for the sake of my family I won’t give those jackasses any more material to play with.

So here I sit speaking in my own code, blabbering on about this and that. What does it really mean. Is this still a forum for sharing my thoughts. Is this still a venue in which I can unload about the things that I fear. Can I offer my pain.

The answer is that I can, but with limitation. The loss of my anonymity has compromised me. In some ways the blog has suffered for it. It has grown harder and harder to offer the posts that I so loved to write. I liked to write about the things that hurt because I found it to be cathartic.

I haven’t deleted any of those posts. They still exist. They are still here, but the place has a different vibe to it. I can’t say that this is a good or bad thing. I am too close to the issue.

In my third year of blogging I am feeling my way around. I am looking for my own derech. I am searching for my own path because that is what I do. I have a restless spirit. Perhaps that restlessness is the true source of my discomfort. Perhaps that is what drives me.

I do know that I want to continue blogging. I still have a love for it. There are still so very many things to write about. More experiences to share and so much more to learn about the world.

Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When To Fold Them

“You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when youre sittin at the table.
Therell be time enough for countin when the dealings done.”
Kenny Rogers- The Gambler

I have always loved this song. I can’t remember exactly when I first heard it, but I do know that I once saw an episode of The Muppet Show in which this was acted out. At the time I didn’t really understand it but in the years or should I say decades that have passed I have learned to have a deeper appreciation of this.

During some of the more stressful moments of my life I have taken the words of the song to heart. I know, it sounds kind of campy, a bit cliche but there is ever so much truth to them. It is not merely a song about playing cards. It is sound advice about life. Right now I feel like I could use some of that.

“Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you, baby, one more time again, now .”
James Taylor- Fire and Rain

I learned the hard way that life doesn’t always play out the way you expect, let alone the way that you want. Some of my friends have told me to just accept that it is all part of some grand plan. Some have said that when we pray for help that we should accept that sometimes silence is its own answer. I don’t like that. I can’t accept that. It doesn’t sit well with me. When I look heavenwards I half expect to see God shrugging his shoulders at me. Really, I do.

So call it contradictory when I say that I believe that there is such a thing as karma. Send out good vibes and you can receive them back. Give out negative and you might get those too. Maybe it is because I am superstitious, or maybe it is because I learned to use my gut to make some decisions. I am not sure.

What I do know is that part of my support system was fractured. I lost some of the key players. Cancer robbed me of one, old age of another. I don’t ask what happened. Life happened. The truth is that a part of me has always felt like a man apart. I can be in a room full of people and feel like I am the only person in the world. I don’t know if that means that a part of me is depressed or walking in the shadows.

I suppose that is part of what I miss about my grandfather. He and I shared a lot in common. There were some real similarities in our personalities. I miss my uncle for similar reasons. My uncle died 13 years ago…today. I didn’t realize that until just now. He died just as I was becoming an adult, just as I was developing a more mature relationship with him.

Maybe that is part of why today was hard. Try telling a parent that they have lost a child. Try telling your grandfather that his younger son has died. I don’t have to close my eyes to see the look of pain on his face. Just as I don’t have to close my eyes to remember the sound of my father’s voice when I told him that his father had died.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not scarred nor haunted by those experiences. In some ways I am glad that I was the one that had to do it. My folks were out of town when my grandfather died. I am the oldest son, for that matter the oldest child. Who else was going to do it, Maybe that is unfair to my younger siblings but it is something that I take seriously.

More in the next post.

Know When To Hold ‘Em, Know When To Fold Them

“You got to know when to hold em, know when to fold em,
Know when to walk away and know when to run.
You never count your money when youre sittin at the table.
Therell be time enough for countin when the dealings done.”
Kenny Rogers- The Gambler

I have always loved this song. I can’t remember exactly when I first heard it, but I do know that I once saw an episode of The Muppet Show in which this was acted out. At the time I didn’t really understand it but in the years or should I say decades that have passed I have learned to have a deeper appreciation of this.

During some of the more stressful moments of my life I have taken the words of the song to heart. I know, it sounds kind of campy, a bit cliche but there is ever so much truth to them. It is not merely a song about playing cards. It is sound advice about life. Right now I feel like I could use some of that.

“Oh, I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain
I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end
I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend
But I always thought that I’d see you, baby, one more time again, now .”
James Taylor- Fire and Rain

I learned the hard way that life doesn’t always play out the way you expect, let alone the way that you want. Some of my friends have told me to just accept that it is all part of some grand plan. Some have said that when we pray for help that we should accept that sometimes silence is its own answer. I don’t like that. I can’t accept that. It doesn’t sit well with me. When I look heavenwards I half expect to see God shrugging his shoulders at me. Really, I do.

So call it contradictory when I say that I believe that there is such a thing as karma. Send out good vibes and you can receive them back. Give out negative and you might get those too. Maybe it is because I am superstitious, or maybe it is because I learned to use my gut to make some decisions. I am not sure.

What I do know is that part of my support system was fractured. I lost some of the key players. Cancer robbed me of one, old age of another. I don’t ask what happened. Life happened. The truth is that a part of me has always felt like a man apart. I can be in a room full of people and feel like I am the only person in the world. I don’t know if that means that a part of me is depressed or walking in the shadows.

I suppose that is part of what I miss about my grandfather. He and I shared a lot in common. There were some real similarities in our personalities. I miss my uncle for similar reasons. My uncle died 13 years ago…today. I didn’t realize that until just now. He died just as I was becoming an adult, just as I was developing a more mature relationship with him.

Maybe that is part of why today was hard. Try telling a parent that they have lost a child. Try telling your grandfather that his younger son has died. I don’t have to close my eyes to see the look of pain on his face. Just as I don’t have to close my eyes to remember the sound of my father’s voice when I told him that his father had died.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not scarred nor haunted by those experiences. In some ways I am glad that I was the one that had to do it. My folks were out of town when my grandfather died. I am the oldest son, for that matter the oldest child. Who else was going to do it, Maybe that is unfair to my younger siblings but it is something that I take seriously.

More in the next post.

Telling The Kids That You Are Going To Die

GRAYSLAKE, Illinois (AP) — Seven-year-old Nicholas Chamernik had rarely seen his parents cry. So he felt a pang of worry when he looked up one evening to see his father wiping away tears.

“Dad, what’s wrong?” he asked.

Jim Chamernik was too choked up to respond. After 18 months of grasping for answers, he and his wife, Aimee, finally had an explanation for symptoms Aimee had been having — slurred speech and weakness in her right arm among them. The diagnosis was Lou Gehrig’s disease, a degenerative condition of the nervous system, also known as ALS.

There is no cure. But how could they explain that to their eldest son, the first in the family to notice his mom’s slurring, when she read him bedtime stories?

How, they wondered, do you tell a child that his mom is dying?

Wow. That has got to be so darn hard. I can’t imagine being placed in that position.

Cemetery Blogging

I am sitting with my grandparents, or should I say next to their stones.

The last week has been a little rough. In the past I would have picked up grandpa and had lunch.

He would ask about the family and laugh at stories about the kids. Sooner or later we’d talk about the challenge of supporting a family and this and that.

I miss those moments. Our relationship had matured. We were friends who could relate to each other.

When he died I lost a confidant. It is really hard not being able to see him.

So I drove out to Eden and here we are together. I am still telling him stories and I imagine that he is still laughing even though I can’t really hear his voice.

It makes me feel better to be here close to him. Sometimes I get upset with life because I feel like I have been robbed of people I love.

But then again I think about what I had and what I have.

Surely things could be worse.

That is all I have to say right now.

Your Daughter Is Going To Die

As a father I cannot imagine more horrifying words than being told that your child is going to die. It has to be a complete nightmare. I say this as someone who has seen what the loss of a child can do to a family. That experience is outside of the thoughts and feelings that some bloggers have shared about the loss of their children.

I wrote Taking Stock of Life- A General Accounting because of a number of things, one of which was learning about how very ill a good friend has become. But I didn’t share everything that was going on.

You see my baby cousin has a brain tumor. She is not really a baby anymore, not in the traditional sense of the word. She is 25. We grew up in different states and I can’t say that I really saw her all that much which is probably why it is easier to picture a little girl in pigtails.

The news about my cousin came on the same day that my friend filled me on what is going on with her. At the time I couldn’t bring myself to write about my cousin. I couldn’t do it because of the sick feeling that just hearing about it gave me.

I have been down this road before. Too many times, too many brain tumors, too much death. It just shook me up. I really was filled with dread. It is not easy to process so much bad news in such a short time.

When I thought about my cousin’s mother I heard this clinical voice tell her that in all likelihood her daughter would succumb to this. I am ashamed to admit that.

But while there is life there is hope. Medical science is not precise. Sometimes 2+2 does not equal four. So while there is time to hope, I will hope. While there is time to pray I will pray. Better now than later. Better today than tomorrow.

Life is a bitch, but you don’t have to let it break you. I don’t know what else to say. I am not sure that it is accurate to say that I feel better, but I am somewhat relieved that I got some of this off of my chest.

Taking Stock of Life- A General Accounting

Did you ever think that you would hear these three names together:

Gerald Ford, James Brown, Saddam Hussein.

I didn’t think so. This part of the post is called Jack’s avoiding the topic. Today I received news that really bothers me. A dear friend of mine has angiosarcoma of the lungs. I won’t spend a lot of time trying to explain this to you all. Perhaps one of the docs wants to take that on. I am not trained for that.

What I can tell you is that this is a nasty cancer and that my friend’s docs are not able to provide a real time line. I can tell you that this friend of mine is all of 37 and has purchased a plot. I can tell you that every thing that I read about this suggests that we are not going to have all that much time left together.

I have lost too many friends already and the thing that kills me about this is that I cannot say that it is just one. That would be one too many. No, it is more than that. Some of you died from cancer and some were lost in auto accidents and a couple of you committed suicide. I won’t claim that we were all close, but I was exceptionally close to some of you.

When I close my eyes I can see us. It is summertime and we are in running around the beach. It is Tisha B’Av and we are on a hillside in Jerusalem reading Eicha. It is Winter and we are running around Buffalo telling stupid stories about what life is like for Jewish teens on our island home in Maui.

When I close my eyes I see you all. We are young and vibrant and so very alive. The future is bright. I can hear you speak. I haven’t forgotten you. I haven’t left you to rot in the dust, but I don’t carry the pain of your loss in my pocket anymore.

But with this news it brings it all back. It reminds me of those I have had to leave behind. It reminds me of just how much good there is in my life. Because if I didn’t remind myself it would be too easy to just wallow in this.

I learned from you all. I learned from the experiences both good and bad. They helped me to grow, sometimes faster than I wanted to.

*****************************************************************

I saw Rocky Balboa. I had to. I love stories like that. I love the watching the underdog fight his/her way to the top. During the movie Rocky gives this speech about life. He discusses how life can beat you down. In essence he says that it is not about hard you can hit but how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.

It sounds like a cliche, doesn’t it. I like it. It makes sense to me. To use another tired cliche life is what you make of it. I can’t stop the cancer. I can’t explain it. I can’t save you and that is hard for me because you know that if I could I would.

You know that if it was that simple I’d pick you up and shield you. You know that if I had the power I would use it. You were there during that awful time in ’98 when we watched ‘D’ fade away and die. You were there because you were part of the group, part of the team.

It was one of those tests of faith. You know that I would and you know that part of what makes this so hard is being placed again in a position in which I feel relatively powerless.

However, as I told you again today, I am not completely without power. I am here. I can and will help. I can take on some of the responsibilities and ease some of the burden. It is not much, but sometimes the hardest thing to do is to accept our limitations.

*****************************************************************

I need to clarify one thing. I believe that one of the most important tools we have is our mind. Ani maamin, I believe with all of my being that a strong will and a good attitude can help you weather some of the most terrible storms.

I’ll spare you the tired claptrap I just typed and ask that you keep on fighting. Just keep on fighting and I’ll be there to help you however I can.

How Far Would You Go To Save a Life

It is a serious question. How far would you go to save someones life. What are you willing to do? If someone you knew was engaging in dangerous behavior what would you do to try and change it.

Let’s change the scenario. Imagine that someone you know has serious health issues. Imagine that they are not doing a good job of taking care of them and that by doing this they are compromising their health.

Imagine that in spite of your best efforts to help them they still continue to engage in this harmful behavior. It is not illegal. It is not dangerous to anyone other than themselves. But still because you love them dearly the pain of watching them dance upon the head of a pin is insufferable.

Do you rationalize it all and say that unless they want to change it just doesn’t matter. Or do you do everything you can think of; beg, plead, scream, berate, bully and discuss in the hope that something you say will have an impact.

If you try and fail will there be consequences that you cannot live with. Or would you be more afraid of what happened if you didn’t try.

And Then He Died

I suppose that you could say that at times I am kind of a morbid fellow. I know too many people who have died at ages that most people would say were “far too young.” The causes of their deaths is varied. Some had a terminal illness, some had massive heart attacks, others were killed by drunk drivers.

As I sit here typing it occurs to me that my perspective has changed about age. Some of them were less than 20, others were between 50 and 65. In my younger years I would have termed those in the 50-65 range as being old. Now I can no longer do that.

At the tender age of my late 30s I can see how I am going to blink and find myself the parent of teenage children and in another blink I could very well be a grandfather. Perception changes as you age, doesn’t it.

Sometimes I wonder what life would be like without me. I mull over what would happen. It is part of why I have life insurance. I wonder what lessons the kids would take with them. They are still so young. There is the financial insurance and then there is the spiritual insurance.

That is part of why I share A Secret For My Children with them so frequently as well as why I love to bless them. I want them to never forget their father’s love for them.

We all carry our own luggage, the burdens of the past. I know from personal experience the pain and frustration of not having the opportunity to share last words with loved ones. My mother and I recently had a long conversation about this as one of her friends recently passed away.

It was sudden and unexpected. One moment he was speaking to his wife and the next he was gone. It could happen to me. My last words could be “clean up your mess” or “where the bleep did you learn how to drive.” Who knows.

Needless to say my mother was upset. But as I told my mother you are in big trouble if after a lifetime together you don’t know in your heart that your spouse loved you. Sometimes things happen and you just have to have the intestinal fortitude to go on living.

It is not nice, but it is real. Life is what we make of it.

Walking With The Dead

The beauty of a child’s desire to ask “why” is that it forces you to take a hard look at your own beliefs. Do you tell your daughter that she was carved from Adam’s rib or do you explain that she evolved from monkeys.

When my grandfather died this past June I knew that it would be a source of many questions for my son. So when I told him that grandpa had died I tried to do the best that I could to make it easy. At 5.5 there is no reason to overly complicate things, but at the same time I do my best to be quite honest with him. I don’t want him to be afraid to live his life. I want him to savor and enjoy it and part of that comes from removing the mystery of the things that scare us.

But that is easier said than done and not something that you can accomplish with the snap of a finger or the roll of the dice.

One of the things that my son has been mulling over is the cemetery. It is a place that he was intrigued by. In his mind it was frightening, but at the same time his curiosity made him want to go visit.

As I mentioned above I think that part of the way that we overcome fear is to try and understand whatever it is that frightens us. So with this in mind I thought that it made sense to take him to the cemetery. At the same time I wanted to be certain that he was truly comfortable with it.

During a conversation a couple of weeks ago he asked me again if I would take him on a special trip to see grandpa and I agreed to do so. I then intentionally waited a while to try and gauge where he was at, not to mention that my work schedule conflicted with the hours that the cemetery was open.

We finally got a chance to go and I have to admit that it was with some trepidation that I set out with him. My concern wasn’t because of my son. I was confident that he would be alright and we both agreed that if he changed his mind I would turn the car around.

No, it was because of me.

I hadn’t been back to the grave since the day of the funeral. And in some respects I wasn’t ready to go and see the place where grandpa was buried. As I drove along the 405 I felt myself get a little choked up and I found myself lost in memory.

I turned on the radio and Vin Scully’s voice helped bring me some peace. My first Dodger game was with grandpa and my dad. The Dodgers beat the Padres. There were fireworks, Farmer John Hot dogs (if you are a Dodger fan how can you not associate Scully and Farmer John) and peanuts and so much fun.

By the time I entered the cemetery and was headed up the hillside I was ready to handle any question that the little boy threw at me. So I parked the car and walked over to the grass.

We held hands and walked towards the grave. I looked down and saw a somber face taking it all in.

“It is really green here dad.”

“Aye, it is.”

Don’t ask me when I became Scottish or began saying “aye.” I just know that for a moment or two it was what came out of my throat.

We reached the grave and I sat down. He came around and sat on my lap and together we read the name on the marker and then the name on the tombstone of the grave next to it.

“Hey, that is grandma.”

“You are right, it is.”

“I wish that I could see grandma now”

“Do you still remember her?”

“No.”

“Well, you were only 2.5 when she died. She really loved you and so did grandpa. As I said that there was a big sigh from both of us and he buried his little head against my chest. We hugged each other tight and sat quietly for a moment.

And then suddenly he stood up and asked if we could go on an adventure. I said yes and together we walked down the hillside looking for bad guys. In no time at all I had to explain to him that it wasn’t ok to hop from tombstone to tombstone.

He smiled and said “ok, we can just walk with the dead.”

It was an interesting response, but I knew that what it really meant was that he felt comfortable. The cemetery was no longer such a scary place to him.

As we walked back to the car I turned back and looked graveside. I was hoping to see grandpa standing there waving goodbye, if only in my mind. But all I saw were the leaves blowing in the wind and the long branches of a tree swaying.

It may not have been what I wanted but my son felt better and that was enough.

Goodbye Marni- Baruch Dayan Emet

A relatively short time ago I received a telephone call from a dear friend. He quickly handled the standard plesantries and asked me if I had heard the news about Marni Kaufman. By the tone of his voice I knew that whatever the news was it wasn’t going to be happy.

Sure enough he said that Marni had died. He didn’t know too many details, other than it was cancer.

I can’t say that I was close with Marni. Back in high school we took a few of the same classes together, but it would be a gross exaggeration to say that we were anything more than classmates together.

Still, due to various circumstances I knew a bit about her life after high school. You see, the girl that I once knew as Marni Kaufman became Marni Levine. Here is what her obituary in the LA Times said:

LEVINE, Marni E. (37) Devoted mother to Jordyn and Brooke, love of Darren’s life, Marni was also an internationally-known instructor in the Israeli self defense system of Krav Maga and founder of Krav Maga Worldwide. Marni, the highest-ranked female Krav Maga instructor in the world, appeared often in the news, from The Today Show to The Los Angeles Times to MTV. She was a co-founder of the Krav Maga National Training Center, one of the largest self defense schools in the world. Marni’s courage and spirit inspired all who knew her. She cared deeply for others and devoted her life to making them safer and stronger. Marni trained thousands of students and shared her knowledge with hundreds of instructors. She will be missed by all, and most especially by her husband Darren; her daughters Jordyn and Brooke; her mother and father Bruce and Lynn Kaufman; her brother Lee Kaufman and his wife Tracy; and her brother Mitchell and his wife Michele. Funeral services will be held today Sunday, September 3, at 9 a.m., at Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills. Call 323-489-6000 for information and directions. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the City of Hope.

My condolences go out to her family, especially her daughters. As a father it is just terribly distressing.

On a related note I must add that this bothers me tremendously. I have lost so many friends to cancer. Not just people that were acquaintances, but good friends and people that meant a lot to me. I don’t say that to diminish the pain and loss of others, but as a prelude to this next point.

I am 37 years old. I am young. And in my life I can recount the loss of far too many of my peers who have died because of some form of cancer. There have been a handful of brain tumors, stomach cancer and a couple of other versions.

Some people have suggested that I should be concerned because we all come from Los Angeles. But it is not that easy to draw commonalities like that. If you search for patterns you’ll see that we all lived in different areas around LA. We didn’t all go to the same high schools or colleges.

The docs attributed one of the cancers to an asbestos problem caused by the Northridge earthquake. One of the brain tumors was diagnosed as an Astrocytoma.

Causes and symptoms

The cause of astrocytoma is not known. Brain cancer may occasionally be caused by previous radiation treatments; however, x rays are not believed to play a role. As of 2001, studies have indicated that the moderate use of handheld cellular phones does not cause brain cancer; ongoing research will determine if long-term cellular phone use causes an increase in cancer incidence.

Some studies suggest that brain tumors may occur more frequently in people who have occupational exposureto certain chemicals, including some pesticides, formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, phenols, acrylonitrile, N-nitroso compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, lubricating oils, and organic solvents. The greatest risk is associated with exposure before birth or during infancy.

There is a slightly higher incidence of astrocytoma in the siblings and parents of people with this tumor; however, only one type of astrocytoma is known to have a genetic cause. The rare subependymal giant cell astrocytoma occurs in conjunction with tuberous sclerosis, a hereditary disorder.

And there you have it, they don’t know exactly what caused it. It could have been exposure to any number of things. Who the hell knows what.

Here is what I do know. I find it distressing to think about how many of my peers are gone. In high school and college I lost a number to drunk drivers and or other auto accidents. Those weren’t great either, but for me it was easier.

Anyway, what this reminds me is that I am a very, very lucky man. Life is precious and I am grateful for the time that I have. Hug the people you love and let them know that they are special to you.

Again to Marni’s family, I am so sorry.

Baruch Dayan Emet.

A Secret For My Children

I have a game that I play each day with my children. It is a game, but it is one that I take quite seriously.

Each day I ask my children if they want to know a secret. And each time I ask they come running over to me and sit in my lap. You just never know what little nugget of wisdom dad might share this time.

In a very soft voice I whisper “The Secret is” and then I pause. Almost invariably their tiny faces look at me attentively and I finish the sentence with these words:

“I Love You.”

Oftentimes my son will issue a sigh of exasperation and say “I already know that secret.” That is part of the game in which he pretends to be irritated.

So you ask, what is the point of the game. The point is this. I want to do everything I can to ensure that my children never ever doubt my deep and abiding love for them.

Life can be quite cruel. Life can be hard and it can be tough. There will come moments of self doubt in which they question themselves. There will come moments in time in which they go on their own search for answers.

Right now I am trying to help provide them with a rock that will always be there to cling to. When things seem darkest I want them to be able to look inside and remember the love of their father. It is part of why I take blessing my children so very seriously.

On a side note I am waiting for the day when one of them tells me that it is not a secret. And with that allow me to bid you a good evening from paradise.

A Eulogy for Myself

The day of the funeral was quite hot. I gave in to the local minhagim (customs) and wore a black suit. In a different time and place they would have asked me if I was dressed up in a poor imitation of Belushi and Akroyd, but not here.

Standing graveside in the California sunshine it was quite clear that I had a different role and a different purpose. Here I was part of the communal support that we offer the mourners. My job was to help my friend and his family say goodbye to a beloved father.

I listened to his children speak about him and smiled at the stories they told. I heard about a good man, a kind man, a family man, a mensch who went out of his way to improve the world around him. I witnessed the tears of the mourners and looked to my left and right.

At the age of 37 I have been to more funerals than I can count. I have helped to bury more than one friend and the parent(s) of more than one friend. The morbid checklist reads something like four fathers and three mothers are all gone now.

In short I have heard quite a few eulogies, but I have never heard an unkind word said about the deceased. Call me narcissistic but hearing them always makes me wonder what people will say about me.

Will they say good things. Will my memory be a blessing. Will they cry real tears or will someone think to themself that I never quite lived up to my potential, that I never quite climbed the ladder.

Will they be honest and talk about a man who was at times stubborn and intolerant. Will people hear the stories about the temper, or will it be couched in terms like (Jack was a real Taurus). What impression will those who never knew me come away with. What impression should they come away with.

I am quite honest with myself. Of course I want people to mourn the giant. Of course I want people to speak about the tremendous void that my absence will create, a hole that cannot be filled. Who wouldn’t want their ego stroked this way.

You know, a lawyer friend of mine once told me that he advised against writing these types of posts because you never knew when someone might try to use your words against you, but I digress.

Here is the most important thing to me. Here is what must be said at my funeral or I will have failed:

“He loved his family and was a good father.”

That is it, the rest is commentary.

Another Day, Another Funeral- It is Elul

Another day, another funeral. I don’t remember where I first heard that line or even who said it. Heck, maybe no one said it. Maybe I just made it up and don’t realize that I can take credit for it. It doesn’t matter all that much.

In a couple of hours I will be heading off to another funeral. A dear friend’s father has passed away and so I will join the community and do what I can to try and help his family ease the pain.

I got the news not long after I completed the post about my parents purchasing their plots. You could call it odd coincidence because the reality is that people do pass away each day. I don’t mean to make light of this or to sound callous. You can attribute some of this to the poor mood I am in.

It is Elul and it has its own impact upon me. I remember being quite little and learning about the so called book of life, judgement being rendered upon who would live and who would die. It has stuck with me, or should I say that I have always wondered about a couple of things.

The thing that really sticks in my craw is the question of why people would die so close to Rosh Hashanah. For some reason the idea that they fell short of seeing another new year bothers me. I don’t know why. If they would have lived just a couple of days beyond the new year I would feel better.

I don’t know why this bothers me. I can’t quite put my finger upon it, but it does. I feel edgy and unsettled.

A number of years ago I considered how many of my friends had already lost a parent. There were quite a few. By the time I was 21 I knew more than a half dozen whose mother or father had died. I don’t know if that really is all that unusual, but it seemed like a lot.

Now at the age of 37 it is not so uncommon. Today I’ll stand at the grave and look around. The strange thing is that as we age I see us all beginning to look more like our parents. There are a few more wrinkles and streaks of gray in hair and beards.

Later on at the house we’ll form small groups and discuss the state of affairs and I know that part of that conversation will include talking about life insurance and how we are trying to protect our children’s futures, just in case.

My Parents Purchased Cemetery Plots

(Playing in the background Drown In My Own Tears- Ray Charles The Best Of Ray Charles: The Atlantic Years)
Take a look at the pictures. They are from the cemetery that my parents plan on using.

It looks relatively nice. The rolling hills, palm trees and a sea of green grass give off a pleasant aura. From my monitor it doesn’t give off the cemetery vibe.

How do I describe that vibe, that feeling that you get at the cemetery. I don’t recall ever discussing it with anyone, so I am not sure that I have a frame of reference that is not related to pop culture.

I can’t say that this is like Scooby Doo, Thriller, the Three Stooges, Freddie, Jason or any one of the assorted sitcoms, flicks and plays that use a cemetery as a scary setting.

(Playing in the background Somebody’s Crying by Chris Issak)

Maybe it is because I have been to so many funerals, but cemeteries don’t frighten me at all. At worst they sometimes make me sad, but that is usually when I am there to help bury a loved one. Otherwise it is hard to put a finger on how they make me feel. It feels a bit sterile, sort of like a very solemn Disneyland. You know that there is more going on than what you see. You know that if you could just pull back the curtain there would be quite a show, although this really is one place that you don’t want to see how they make the magic happen.

So mom and dad have picked the place they want to hang out in. Their so called eternal resting place. When they called to let me know that they had purchased plots I assumed that it would be close to other family members. Call me lazy, but I was hopeful that I could do the circuit at the cemetery. Forgive the pun, but why not try to kill several birds with one stone.

That is not the case. It figures. Here in the land of eternal sunshine and gridlock I foresee a future in which in order to visit my family I am going to spend time on two or three freeways.

(Playing in the background Grievous and the Droids by John Williams)

Ok, the reality is that I probably will not try and visit my great grandparents, grandparents and parents all on the same day. At the moment I am blessed to have two living grandparents as well as both parents. And in theory if all goes well I have a good thirty years or more before my parents go.

With a time frame like that there is a lot that can happen. New mediums of travel can be developed, the burning river in cleveland might be cleaned up and George Foreman will make his 36th comeback.

It is a little surreal knowing that my folks have taken this step. Let’s face it, you never really are ready for your parents to die. I know that it is going to happen one day. Just as surely as my son asked me not to die the day will come for all of us, myself and my parents included.

(Playing in the background London Calling by The Clash)

I won’t apologize for wanting my folks to hang around as long as possible. Why wouldn’t I want to take advantage of the opportunity to continue learning from them. It took more than a few years for me to realize that they did know something after all. It took more than a few years to realize how foolish I had been in not trusting them more when I was younger, but that is youth.

Sometimes it is hard to understand that your parents were young once and that they might know a little bit about where you are today. So I suppose that I’ll take a moment to consider what else I can learn from them and with that this post is finished.

Teaching Children Not To Quit

One of the things that I love about my blog is that it is indeed an online journal. It is a place that provides me with a snapshot of moments of my life. I especially enjoy reading about my children and the experiences that we have shared together.

I have had the chance to document my son’s love for Scooby-Doo as well as his blasphemous belief that Scrappy Doo is cool. I recounted some of my daughter’s antics, my son’s religious questions and discussed some things that I want to teach my children.

I love my children. Each day I look forward to seeing them. I love the look they give me when I give them their blessing. I get so much out of that. There is nothing like feeling those little arms wrapped around my neck and hearing “I love you daddy.” I get choked up just thinking about it.

And it is because of this burning unconditional love for them that I am able to deal with some of the harder things in life with a smile. With beautiful kids like this, how can I not. This brings me to the topic of the post, teaching children not to quit. It really is a continuation of my post Teaching Children To Lose Gracefully.

The reality is that life is not fair and at times it can be quite hard. One of my responsibilities as a parent is to help them gain coping skills. They have to learn how to fail. They have to learn what to do when their best effort does not produce the result that they want and how to learn from these experiences.

It is hard lesson to learn and I cannot say that I have any magic formula. But I have been working with son on helping him learn that failure is not a license to give up. It is a reminder that whatever we were doing was not working and it is time to find a new angle. To make it more interesting I have tried to help him look at this as being a game.

I think he gets it. I intentionally am not letting him beat me at all of the games that we play. Sometimes I beat him. He still doesn’t like losing, but he realizes that he will not lose every time. I rather suspect that it won’t be all that long before I have to try hard not to lose. His mind works so quickly.

My daughter is a little too young to get too deeply involved with this, but I am not sure that I am going to have to talk to her about this. She adores her big brother and is forever trying to imitate him. As I watch her chase him around the house I see such determination. She is tough.

I suppose that the real point of this post is just to say again how much I love my children. What a joy, what a blessing. I am so very thankful for them.

Do The Dead Walk In Dreams

I woke up a very short time ago from a very fine dream. It was one of those dreams in which you fight to stay asleep if only to keep holding onto the feeling you had in the dream.

My grandfather and grandmother were in it. I am typing so quickly because even though it was so vivid and real to me the dream is already to starting to fade, why oh why do the details start to blur so quickly.

In the beginning we were at my parent’s house and my grandfather just kind of showed up. Everyone was in shock and surprise over this. I looked across the room at my father and our eyes met for a moment. I gave him a look that said you are going to have to explain what happened to all of his stuff.

And then all of a sudden I was in a different room and place with my grandfather and my grandmother. They were walking and moving freely, as they did in my memories. The walkers and canes were gone. It was like when I was a very little boy. They moved with the strength of their youth.

I was so excited to see this and them. It is almost three years since my grandmother died. But there she was. Her hair had been done recently and she was busy doing a bunch of things. She yelled at my grandfather and he just giggled and said something back to her. It was their normal banter.

But even in the dream I knew that something was off. I started babbling at him about everything that had happened. When it came to telling him about how he had died and I had to call my dad I got choked up. He walked over and put a hand on my head and hugged me.

It was so surreal because for years now I have been quite a bit taller and broader than him, yet in the dream it was like I was that little boy who used to go out with him all the time.

As he comforted me and I tried to spit out far too much information in too short a time the alarm went off. I woke up and stared at the ceiling. I had been defeated in my efforts to continue sleeping so that I could continue the dream.

And now I sit here at the keyboard trying to hold onto it in a different way. Do the dead walk in our dreams. Was I just visited by my grandparents because if they do and I was I am quite happy. And even if they don’t, I still feel good.

I’ll have to spend some time thinking about this one. If you saw me you’d probably see me with a bit of an odd bemused smile on my face. I miss them terribly but after what I was just a part of how I can not smile.

My Grandfather Laid Tefillin

My zayde came to the United States in the early 1900s. He left the pogroms and challenges of living as a Jew in Lithuania for the promise of a new beginning in the United States.

A tailor by trade he made his way to Chicago where he was determined to make sure that he and his children were as American as those around him. Many of the old traditions were left behind but not all. Family legend relates the tale of his father coming to America to visit his son.

He had been here but a short time when he found my great-grandfather eating treif and declared that America was no place to be a Jew and with that he picked up and returned to Lithuania. It is thought that he died prior to the Holocaust but that remains somewhat unclear.

Here in the states my great-grandfather worked hard to support his family. Although he no longer lived as an observant Jew he made sure to teach his children about all of the holidays and made sure that they never went to school nor worked on yontiff.

His children all spoke reverently and with great respect of the man they called Pa and there are many stories about how he helped to establish several unions in Chicago, including tales of how he and his friends would occasionally battle the police. He was an even six feet tall and broad shouldered and according to his children quite strong.

Apparently in those days that was considered relatively tall and as a result he was commonly mistaken for a policeman.

Anyway, back to the main thrust of this post. The brothers who left Lithuania most definitely went down different pasts. Some headed to Israel, some to South Africa and one ended up in London where he was among the chief rabbis of the city.

I often wonder about those days. The stories that I grew up hearing were these colorful tapestries of a life that in some ways was no different than my own and in so many so very different.

My grandfather told tales of the neighborhood kids and their sports and the rivalries with other streets and ethnic groups. Sometimes the fun turned into something more serious and it wasn’t all that unusual for the Jews to battle the Poles or to have the occasion to do battle with the Italian kids.

The Chicago of my grandfather’s youth was Al Capone’s town and there were stories about the men and boys who were part of that life and how they touched my grandfather’s life too.

Eventually the boy who grew up to be my grandfather enlisted in the US Army Air Corps. He spent a couple of years serving Uncle Sam before being discharged. (You’ll forgive me for bouncing around a bit, I like writing in a stream-of-consciousness style).

In time WW II hit and he returned to service. It was during this time that he married my grandmother and that my father was born. The family moved around a lot. There were stays in Los Angeles, Gary Indiana, Pittsburgh, and Chicago.

During one of these stops my grandfather placed my father in a yeshiva. My father loved and thrived in the yeshiva and has many happy memories tied into it. He speaks fondly of davening each day with my grandfather. As you may recall my grandfather did not grow up in an observant household.

He was proud to be Jewish and although he didn’t attend shul on a regular basis it wasn’t totally out of character to find him there. So when I write about my grandfather layin tefillin and davening with my father it is a sign of the love that he had for his children. He didn’t do it so much for himself as much as he did it because it was something that he could share with my father.

In time my father left the yeshiva and the days of davening daily with my grandfather ended.

(Author’s note. Sometimes transitions can be rough. As a matter of fact the reason for this author’s note is that I am not sure exactly how I want to move on to the next point in this story so I am going to use this interjection to make it happen.)

I only remember my grandfather laying tefillin once. Grandpa never believed in laying tefillin just because Chabad or someone asked him to do so, he said that if you were going to do it you should do it when it meant something.

It was at my bar-mitzvah, Rosh Chodesh Sivan 5742. If I close my eyes I can picture myself standing in between he and my father and I can still feel his hand on my shoulder.

Pictures, Videos and Memories

This morning I woke up with a sour taste in my mouth. I rolled on my side and looked on the floor for the bottles that must be there. I looked and looked and didn’t see them. It wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a nightmare. My grandfather had died, that was the reality.

So I rolled onto my back and stared at the ceiling. I wasn’t thinking about any one particular thing at all, just let my thoughts drift where they may. So many memories of the moments I spent with my grandfather and of the conversations we had.

A short time later I was on the phone delivering the news to more relatives. More tears, more cries asking me to say that it wasn’t true and more sharing of grief. Again I felt like the angel of death. Maybe I wasn’t administering it but I was the messenger and that had its own share of challenges.

My uncle shouldn’t have had to hear that he had lost his brother by telephone, but we don’t live in a small town world. And so I created a new memory. If I close my eyes I can hear his silent sobs into the telephone and the whispers of regret.

Later I told my children about the loss of their grandfather. My daughter just went about her business, that is the way two-year-olds are and I didn’t mind. In a way it was refreshing, but my son had lots of questions and plenty of tears.

He understands that he is gone but doesn’t quite understand why and I can’t give him all the answers that I want to. For the first time in a while he asked if I was going to die and I nodded my head. For a moment his lip quivered and then he asked if I thought that it would be soon and I told him no.

He asked if there was a way to avoid death and I again said no. I don’t lie about these things. I don’t give him more information than he needs either.

And then came the pictures, the videos and more memories. I shared many of the stories with him, but not all. Some will wait until he grows old enough to hear them and then we’ll bring grandpa back to life.

That is what I told him. I said that as long as people remember you than you never really die. Stories bring our friends and loved ones back to life. They show up for a brief visit and then go away again.

They may not be hear in the fashion we want but that is a part of life.

A number of years ago my grandfather and I discussed death. I remember him telling me that he would keep fighting for every breath until he was done fighting and then he’d fight some more. I told him that I appreciated that.

He smiled and said to remember that every man has their limit. At some point we decide that we are satisfied and then we just let go. It was accompanied by a brief, mischievious smile and then it was gone.

I am not done writing about my grandfather. I don’t think that I have really tapped into my own pain yet, but I am trying to. All you can do is take life one day at a time and within that day you do the best that you can.

Here is what I know for certain. The pain of his loss is an indication of just how much we loved him and we loved him an awful lot.

In time the sting will become less painful and I’ll be able to focus more closely on the lessons he taught. My grandfather was quite an interesting man. More to come about him on a different day.

Living Inside My Skull

“I fell in to a burning ring of fire
I went down,down,down
and the flames went higher.
And it burns,burns,burns
the ring of fire
the ring of fire.”
Ring of Fire- Johnny Cash

There is a fire that burns inside me. It has always been there. I cannot remember a time where I couldn’t feel it. Good, bad or indifferent I live a lot of my life inside my head. That means that I think in very graphic terms. It is a blessing and a curse.

It is relatively easy for me to remember the highlights of my life. I close my eyes and I can take myself to the finest moments, but the knife cuts both ways. I remember the bad things far too easily. The nicks, bumps, scrapes and bruises are there with the sunshine and roses. The failures stand next to the successes and they all buck for attention.

Someone told me that this is part of being a storyteller. They said that a true artist must suffer from the trials of passion or they cannot produce their art. I don’t know if I buy into that. It sounds good. I like to think that I am a good writer with potential to be great, but I don’t know if I can accept what they said.

What I do know is that every day I work at trying to be relaxed and easygoing, but it is not alway easy.

“Well, life is (too short), so love the one you got
‘Cause you might get runover or you might get shot
Never start no static I just get it off my chest
Never had to battle with no bulletproof vest
Take a small example, take a tip from me
Take all of your money, give it all to charity
Love is what I got
It’s within my reach”
What I Got- Sublime

I try hard to live like that. I work at just letting go and reminding myself that my life is relatively easy, but that fire keeps burning. As I age I find that it is easier to let go but every now and then something happens and I feel the flames shoot up inside of me.

It is no secret that I pay a ton of attention to my children. My son is very much his own person. He is a beautiful boy with so many positive attributes it just makes me choke up with pride. If you are expecting the proverbial but to appear now you are going to have to keep waiting there really is no but.

What I can say is that I have noticed that he shares many of my traits. (Cue Cat’s In The Cradle) One of them is that he internalizes things the way that I do. So I suppose that part of my search for answers is so that I can be of more help to him in teaching him to get over things. Too much narishkeit.

Here are the next 10 songs on my iTunes

Broken Hearts– Living Colour
Higher And Higher– Jackie Wilson
Because– The Beatles
I Want A Little Girl– Ray Charles
A Kind Of Magic– Queen
Institutionalized– Suicidal Tendencies
White Lines (Long Version)– Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel & The Furious Five
God Bless The Child– Billie Holiday
We Are Family– Sister Sledge
Young Americans– David Bowie
The Planets, Op. 32: Mars, The Bringer Of War– Holst
How Soon Is Now– Morrissey
The Hustle– Van McCoy And The Soul City Symphony

Ok, that was more than ten, but it was far too much fun. That is about all I have to say on this topic, for now.