Mother's Season

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Not Just Mother's Day

The Peonies are in bloom again. Nearly a year later.

One of the only blog-posts I ever read aloud to my mom (z"l), who didn't have her own computer, was one with pictures of peonies from May 18, 2014. It was about loss.

Just over a year later, I'm bursting from loss, or wish I were. Nearly a year ago, while trying to comfort me over my mother's (z"l) death, a rabbinical student asked me, "What do you want to ask God?" I posted this here already:

"When do I get to fall apart?"

"And how would God respond?"

"Never," I said because what would my falling apart serve?

Serving others is the antidote to self-pity, yet I want to wallow a little.

Pat's on her annual golf trip in Tennessee with her friends from her days at NIU and I must do all of the daily chores she'd be doing if she were here, since she's retired: filling and re-filling the pitcher from the rain-barrel, watering the plants, feeding the birds and local wildlife along with the kitties (I do feed the kitties daily already -- that's my job), making dinner, taking out the garbage and the recycling, dealing with the guy who needed to waterproof the front steps and walkway....These chores, it turns out, are a pretty nice way to connect with the world right around me.

And I've been doing more connecting than usual this past week, in part to distract myself from imminent, first yahrzeit of my mom's (z"l) death along with our impending trip to Green Bay to unveil my mother-in-law Bev's (z"l) headstone; she died unexpectedly of complications from a fall last month, exactly 10 months after my mom. I loved Bev (z"l), too, and also miss her. When we come back, we'll have my mom's (z"l) unveiling on the 31st of May.

My mom (z"l) is so present in her absence:

On Wednesday last week, she (z"l) was there among the caravan of Stamford [Connecticut -- my hometown, where my mom (z"l) lived for 50 years --] Tents trucks at Duggal Greenhouse in Brooklyn last Wednesday as I was departing from World of Watson, but she was not there to call when I wanted to debrief on the coolness of the experience of seeing a positive future for the world, augmented and aided by artificial intelligence.

My mom (z"l) was there at the Art of the 1990s show at the Montclair Art Museum on Thursday evening as I was telling a new friend how she and my dad (z"l) practically chose to move from the Village to Montclair because it had an art museum, but then chose Stamford, which had one, too, but was not there when I wanted to talk about the couple of interesting installations I saw as part of the exhibit.

My ever-present and shatteringly-absent mom (z"l) was there at the Agudath Shalom Cemetery when we visited her not-yet engraved joint-plot prior to the mezuzah posting ceremony in her memory, held at the Stamford Jewish Community Center Library, and was there at the Senior Lunch afterwards as Mr. Soifer, our Bi-Cultural Day School music teacher, smiled at me as he saw me moving my lips accurately while he sang the extended Kiddush over the Shabbat wine and gone when I wanted to tell her that one of her friends there had said, "Your mother was so valuable to me."

Rabbi Cohen, reciting blessings

Rabbi Cohen, my sisters Kayla and Deb, and me outside of the Stamford JCC Library, where our mom (z"l) volunteered.

L

The mezuzah was created by Chaya Magal and the roses remind us of our mom (z"l); her middle name was Rose.

She (z"l) was there at the Brookdale Park Conservancy-sponsored *Heaven is a Garden* book talk and signing at Watchung Booksellers on Friday evening, even though I should have been at Shabbat services instead, but gone after our dinner out with two new friends at a restaurant in Montclair that she liked, too.

Author Jan Johnsen, discussing her marvelous book,*Heaven is a Garden*

My mom (z"l) was there when Noga and Hilla, a gorgeous couple of Israeli friends with four kids, two of whom were with them, visited us in our newly renovated home, and there when I brought my giant case of Lego over to their four-year-old Shaked, and there when Uri, the baby, smiled winningly and there when we talked about *Fun Home* as a masterpiece. But she was gone when I wanted to call her the next day to wish her a Happy Mother's Day.

My still-here mother (z"l) was ultra-present when I picked up the tray she gave us some years ago that read, "Smart women crave good company" and which featured only a '50s-era, stylized illustration of women drinking coffee on it and tried to determine how to display it visibly in our newly renovated kitchen/dining room and living room.

My mom (z"l) said she thought of Pat & me when she saw this platter and got it for us; she had a good sense of humor.

And she was proud of the rest of how we re-assembled our home and of its major freshening. But she (z"l) was gone when it came time to eat dinner and then take a rest in the living room.

Our new kitchen/dining room/library

Our refreshed living room

Sad Music to Match My Mood

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

These Songs Help Me Feel My Sadness Around the Loss of My Mom (z"l)

Not all of the lyrics are sad, but all of the melodies make me feel sad, and not all of the melodies are entirely sad, but sometimes the lyrics are. And sometimes, they're neither, but they remind me of sad times. And sometimes, they're just moving to me in a sort of sad way.

Charlie Brown Christmas song by Vince Guaraldi

One Hundred Ways by James Ingram

Wedding Bell Blues by the 5th Dimension

One Less Bell to Answer by the 5th Dimension

At 17 by Janis Ian

Hard Candy Christmas by Dolly Parton

Problem by Ariana Grande, featuring Iggy

Porcelain by Julia Fordham

Where Does the Time Go by Julia Fordham

Father Figure by George Michael

Constant Craving by k.d. Lang

Rhode Island is Famous for You by Michael Feinstein

I've Got You Under My Skin by Nenah Cherry

It Never Entered My Mind by Rodgers & Hart, sung by Ella Fitzgerald - This was the song that made my mom (z"l) sad after my dad (z"l) died.

That's the Way I Always Heard It Should Be by Carly Simon

The Piano Has Been Drinking by Tom Waits

Such Unlikely Lovely Lovers by Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach

God Give Me Strength by Elvis Costello

The Message by Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five

Mama Used to Say by Junior

Sof la'Sipur (End of the Story) by Yehudit Ravitz

Yo Ya by Poogy - reminds me of dancing to the record in the living room where I grew up, the living room that we'll be listing along with the rest of the house tomorrow, to be sold.

Lost in the Supermarket by The Clash

Luka by Suzanne Vega

Black Boys on Mopeds by Sinéad O'Connor

I Can't Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt

No One Is Alone from "Into the Woods" sung by Bernadette Peters

My Eulogy for My Mom (z"l)

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

My Two Sisters and Three of Their Children Delivered Eulogies, Too, and This Is Mine:

When my mom of blessed memory stopped driving several years ago, she started hitchhiking. With her walker. She’d take a bus, cab or senior shuttle to a destination and then when she was ready to go home, if she didn’t spot someone she recognized from her 50+ years in Stamford, she would look for kind people and she’d simply ask if they were going her way. Practically every time, they said they were, and then they put her walker in their trunk and off they went.

Just last week, something unprecedented happened, my mom reported -– something even lovelier than a ride home; a man at Trader Joe’s on High Ridge Road insisted on paying my mother’s $14 grocery bill because he said, she reminded him of his grandmother. The man made my mom’s day!

In Twitter, as my wife Pat drove us back from the funeral home, I tweeted that my mom (z”l), gave me a sense of adventure and my Yiddishkeit. I’m not yet quite as adventurous as my mom – I don’t routinely hitchhike, for example, but I’m confident that I’m as experimental at work as I am because of my mom’s adventuresome example. When I was a kid, my mom invited me to try all sorts of museums and music lessons, swimming, tennis, golf, and ski lessons, and all sorts of art and nature classes.

Sometimes, she pushed me a bit too far with her adventure-sense, like when we were in the most ultra-Orthodox section of Jerusalem when I was eight and she had me wearing pants because it was February and relatively cold, and suddenly an older man grabbed my arm and urged, “Minchah, Minchah, Minyan!” I was tall and short-haired, just like now, and he mistook me for a boy that had already had his bar mitzvah and who could help complete the needed quorum of men for afternoon services.

I was terrified, but at my mother’s urging, I followed the man and donned one of the yarmulkes they provided in a box at the doorway of the sanctuary and then imitated the way the boys in my Modern Orthodox Jewish day school prayed. We never talked about that experience until I was an adult and when I asked why she had urged me on, she said, “I wanted you to have the experience and besides, why should you be excluded?” To my mom, it was an adventure not to be missed.

My mom, as I mentioned in my tweet, also gave me my sense of Yiddishkeit. When my sisters and I sat in the all-night Bull’s Head Diner with our spouses a couple nights ago, writing a draft of our mom’s obituary, it contained the word, Jew, Jewish or Judaica no fewer than nine times... in less than a page! My mother transmitted the best of what being Jewish could mean. By her example, she taught us always to advocate for social justice.

For example, in 1993, when Pat and I still lived in Illinois, my mom decided that she wanted to join the March on Washington for human rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. So she went with the bus that Congregation Beth Simchat Torah chartered. The synagogue is dedicated to LGBT congregants and our supporters. Since moving to Montclair, New Jersey 18 years ago, Pat & I have belonged to the congregation. But in 1993, we didn't yet live in Montclair, didn't yet belong to the shul and my mom went without us. A woman close to my mom’s age began talking with my mom some minutes into the ride to D.C. Thinking the woman was flirting with her, my mother told me she said, “I’m here for my *daughter*.”

And then my mom said that a younger woman popped up from the seat next to the woman and said, “Well, I’m here for my *mother*.” The three of them had a great march. I’m grateful that God gave me my particular mother and I pray that I can remain grateful for the time I had with her and not drown in my sense of loss. She would not want me to drown.

Longevity: What It Can Buy

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

In My Experience of Observing My Mom & Some of Her Memories So Far:

• Reminiscences of her red-bearded grandfather when she meets the orthopedist earlier today; the doctor has bright-red hair and a bright-red goatee
  
• A spine that curves at the bottom like a slippery-when-wet sign -- the X-ray doesn't lie
  
• A University of Wisconsin Journalism B.A.
  
• Father loss by her early-20s; she says he looked Swedish and people would buy furniture from him and say, "Thankfully, I didn't have to buy from a dirty Jew," and after completing the transaction, he'd say, "Would would you say if I told you you just did?" (Their name had been Prensky, but Ellis Island officials turned it into Prens, which was not identifiably Jewish)
  
• Marriage to my dad, a tall, handsome, creative, funny, toy-designing, child co-producer x3
  
• Three good daughters who are there for her when she needs us, which is not as often as it could be, considering her advanced age
  
• Trips to Majorca, England, Israel, Maine, France, Nova Scotia and more with various family members and alone
  
• Widowhood at 56; my dad (z"l) died of bile-duct cancer within six months of his diagnosis
  
• Grandmotherhood x4 beginning at age 67, of three gifted, gorgeous boys and a super-creative, beautiful girl
  
• Good friends from 40+ years in metro-Stamford, a number of whom have died; today, she was missing Jane
  
• Lush, Jewish cultural enrichment through her love of Jewish folk art and fiction
  
• A super-active brain that is the cognitive equivalent of a bodybuilder's physique, still!
  

Long-time-coming Contentment

The postings on this site are my own and don’t necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.

Relief Rollercoaster

Rabbi Rachel Weiss, smiling a beautiful, broad smile, as she has done practically throughout the relatively short and very sweet ceremony: "Now, if anyone would like to say a word -- not a sentence or paragraph -- about what they're feeling right now, please go ahead."

Pat, Rabbi Weiss, and me

Oh, no, I think silently, but loudly, this is the pressure-part for everyone. What if no one says anything? An otherwise surprisingly relaxing ceremony feels suddenly tense for me.

My mother begins, "I don't want to give away either of you because you're both too precious to me."

My tension drains. How perfect. Unsolicitedly, my mom has taken up the mantle, serving as the proxy for Pat's mom, who, at 87, is too frail to travel from Green Bay for the wedding, and for both of our dead fathers (z"l). My mom is all of our parents for the day, and also, finally -- genuinely -- Pat is her daughter-in-law.

"OK, 'precious.' Who else?" asks the rabbi.

"L'chaim!" says my brother-in-law Gary, coming into view behind the rabbi.

"Mazel tov!" says our friend of 18 years, Carol Vericker, who's holding one of the chuppah poles.

"B'hatzlichah!" says David Chase, our friend of 17 years, and another chuppah-pole holder.

"To your success [or good luck]!" the rabbi translates.

I reward David with a big smile. David, who's an athiest, is the most respectful person I know when it comes to others' religious and cultural traditions. I don't recall when he found out that "B'hatzlichah!" was an appropriate phrase to use with Jewish friends, just that it was prior to our occasion, for another pair of friends.

I don't say a word then, but if I had done so, I could have chosen from, "finally [after 19 years]" or "relief" or "joy" or "buoyancy" or "phew!" These words remind me that we were invited by the nytimes.com team to create a 3-minute-or-less-in-length video of how we met and got together, and we did so. In addition, we submitted an announcement, which was published today.

Directly prior to the wedding, my words would have been, "awed," "self-conscious," "on-display" and "torn."

Our niece Zoe, her grandmother -- my mom -- Sam & Max, Zoe's brothers, at the High Line

"Awed" because I was feeling that it was practically too good to be true that my immediate family and four dear friends-as-family were gathered for an occasion that was in honor particularly of Pat & me. That feeling stayed with me all day, including at lunch afterward as I looked at everyone around the table; at the High Line prior to Shabbat services; and then again at shul, during services.

The only other time I had ever had a special moment(s) with a rabbi prior to a ceremony that involved me was for my dad's (z"l) funeral when I was a year younger than Zoe (and our other nephew Zach), at 17....I don't even recall a rabbi at my bat mitzvah, which I celebrated with my family at Camp Ramah...and that was not my finest hour, as I had been too busy, having a vivid sleep-away camp experience, rather than practicing my Torah reading, and so I was a tentative performer; I guess I'm trying not to remember that occasion.

"Self-conscious" and "on-display" because I was wearing the most beautiful, most classically feminine, most cadet-blue dress I had ever had on in my life, including open-toed dress-sandals with lavender-painted nails and I felt as vulnerable as I predicted I would. I was convinced to wear what I did by a heterosexual friend who had said to me some weeks ago, "Well, doesn't everyone feel vulnerable on wedding days in any case?" By "vulnerable," both of us meant, super-public, rather than private, and in various senses, almost naked, rather than armored, no matter what we're wearing.

Another two, lesbian friends were influential, too, as both of them had chosen to wear a dress for their weddings in Massachusetts because, they agreed, it was an ultra-special occasion. One of them and I also share a love of using virtual worlds for learning and I said, "And besides, you're familiar with that Stanford research that says that thin avatars influence their obese creators to lose weight? Well, as you know, my Second Life avatar is super-femme and I think she's influencing my real-life choice of outfit."

My friend understood, and I think our avatars would have been proud of me.

"Torn" because three of my relatives hit traffic and were late, and the ceremony already should have been in progress. While waiting for them, I experienced a bonus-dilemma: I ran into a friend I had met through another friend and our affiliation with a national organization that advocated against gender-stereotyping. I didn't realize that she worked in Stamford's Government Center, where we held the ceremony, outside of the cafeteria on the 4th floor, in a space that resembled a city-park.

She was with a colleague and I was happy for the coincidence, but anxious about our late-start, and our conversation was holding up the proceedings further. Pat walked over and I said, "This is Pat, my...fiancée."

"Yes, hi. I think we've met," she said -- and I recalled Pat, being with me at a benefit or two for the organization. Since my friend lived in Stamford and my mother still did, too, I had brought her to my mom's house to meet my mother some years ago. Pat's presence by my side reminded me of the occasion and snapped me back into the present.

In a split-second, I decided, no, I won't invite her to join us; this is going to go as planned, as much as possible. We are having just my immediate family -- my mom, two sisters, brothers-in-law and collectively, their four kids, plus four friends to serve as Pat's proxy-family, and who we chose because they were the first two couples to befriend us as we were moving to New Jersey from Illinois more than 15 years ago.

"I hope you'll understand, it's just a small, family wedding," I told my friend.

She nodded, of course, and I hugged her and walked back over to Pat and the rabbi. Oy! I wish I had been more flexible and just said, "Please join us."

After the ceremony, which was brief by design -- about 20 minutes in length total -- I saw that she was still at the picnic table, where she had been prior, though her colleague was gone. I approached her.

She said, "I like to work outside when the weather's nice. Guess who sends her best wishes?" She had called our mutual friend to let her know that Pat & I were marrying. I felt like a jerk for not including her, since I'm supposedly so committed to inclusion everywhere, all the time; oy! Pat came over again, which helped wash away my guilt for a moment, as I was happier than guilty in saying, "And here's my wife."

My friend smiled and Pat made a nice comment about the friend this friend had called, and then walked back to the rest of our family. My guilt returned. I looked at my friend sheepishly and she switched topics, "You know, I still have those tefillin for you," she said.

"I *know*. Every time I'm in Stamford, it seems I'm here with my mom and then gone and back to see my mom and then gone, but yes, we have to figure out a time."

This friend is a transwoman and while she recognizes that women, who are not Orthodox Jews, are welcome to wear tefillin, they remind her of the years, where she had to present herself as a boy and man, which wasn't true to herself.

I wonder what she was thinking as I walked away. I hope she forgave me.

Bonus Reflections By My Mom and Me

Two days later, as I write this, above all, I'm happy to be Pat's wife, finally, after nearly two decades. It reminds me of a shirt that our friend Gerard changed into for the evening, which featured a great photo of David and read, "Married to David in 2003" above the photo, and below it, "His fiancé for 16 years."

As I pressed, "Publish post" just now, my mom called me. "You said that Pat told you I looked contemplative during the ceremony?" my mom asked.

"Yes, 'contemplative.'"

"I was. I was thinking, Thank God I lived to see this day."

Shul as Spa Treatment

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Enjoying a Spiritual Soak

Shul hit the spot last night. Pat's on her annual trip to Tennessee for several days of golf with buddies from her Northern Illinois University colleagues' golf team, since a couple of them retired there. I'm famous for not liking to stay in the house alone, i.e., without other people, not including cats, and so my mom's here.

"Like most women, I decided who my mother was long ago, sometime during childhood," Ruth Reichl said in an interview on NPR the other day.

My mom went with me to services last night and I was reminded of that quote as we sang "Oseh Shalom" together; growing up, no matter how chaotic the week/morning/moments prior to sitting in the pew had been, we got into such a cheerful, peaceful mood whenever we sang that piece of the liturgy. Same effect last night. I was eight again, and still shorter than my then-totally-able-bodied, Girardo-frosted-hair mom.

Driving home, I thought about Ruth Reichl's statement and how through writing a memoir about her mother, her decision about who her mother was broadened. This weekend, with just the two of us, I want to be open to a further expansion of the definition I have of my mother.

Last night was just the start, and a welcome way to begin: For particular parts of the liturgy, I stood with the congregation and my mother sat -- unable to stand anymore for any sustained length of time; we held hands, though, and she began swinging them. I didn't even need to close my eyes; we were six and 46 again, skipping together down any of my hometown's streets.

I'm Still Hungry...

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

To Do Any Sort of Blogging -- Whether Clever or Not

During my commute home the other evening, I said, "Mom, we're going to the Cat Show at Madison Square Garden on Saturday. I know you can't relate [-- my mom has not had pets since she was a young girl --] but our cats give me the purest, most innocent pleasure. I just love it when they're curled up in my lap."

"Don't you think you gave me such pleasure?" my mother asked, "You were darling babies."

"I was a good baby, you said, wasn't I? Not colicky, right?"

"Right."

Days later, I'm still thinking about my mother's analogy. I can only imagine the delight that babies give their parents when they're being adorable -- not only the cuteness itself, but the marvel that the darling babies actually came from their own bodies.

"I can totally see why people are ok with adopting kids," I said, "Because we adopted these cats and they are seamlessly part of our family now." Five years ago, Pat and I opted not to adopt a child after I was unable to conceive through nine IUI attempts because my selfishness wanted only a baby that contained my genes.

A New Sort of Love

And I know I missed out by our not raising a child. I know only because I see how easily impressed I am by our kitties. Not having given birth or raised a child, I will never experience that giant joy, where I could take a bit of genetic credit for the child's loveliness. And I know this is hard to write about, as I just fell asleep at the keyboard for a few minutes, though I had a nice night's sleep last night.

Still, genetically ours or not, these cats, Phoebe and Toonces, trigger a mothering love in me that I didn't really know was there -- when I babysat infants, toddlers and young children at ages 13-16, I was more interested in watching "The Love Boat;" "Fantasy Island;" and "Saturday Night Live" on TV and in what I'd eat from the family's fridge and cupboards after the kids went to sleep than in practicing for future motherhood through them.

The cats are much easier to care for, I'm confident, than human children or even dogs, as they require only that we feed them twice a day and that we clean their kitty litter. What's harder is that they are affectionate nearly exclusively when they feel like it...so I've already had mini-heartbreaks since their arrival, i.e., whenever I'm feeling that I want to hold and/or pet one of them, and she's not in the mood. Only autistic children shy away from affection, and I've never heard of an autistic dog; they're almost always eager to be petted or to kiss people around them -- as long as no one has ever abused them.

In "The Wall Street Journal" this weekend, I read an interview of Nobel-Prize-winning author, Doris Lessing, on cats. She talked of one she adopted, who had been abused, and who had hid under her sofa for the whole first year she lived in her home. I thought, Not bad that Toonces came out of the rafters within a couple of weeks!

Toonces had been the pet of a mentally-ill man, who had stopped taking his medication, and so she was super-skittish, and even a bit naughty at first; it's why we named her Toonces, as I think I described in a July blog entry.

With Phoebe, between this posting and the previous one, I tried getting her to dance along with Randy Crawford's and The Crusaders' "Street Life" video on YouTube. She was a good sport. She didn't jump down off of my lap. Also, I showed her a few YouTube videos of cats and when I reached out to touch the one on screen she lunged forward with her paw at the cat and began to climb up on the keyboard. I had to take her down and change the picture on the screen.

Our Cats are Better than Any in the Cat Show

Being at the Cat Show yesterday made me miss Phoebe and Toonces. After walking past portable pet carriers and cage after cage of exotic varieties, I said to Pat, "Who needs this when we have our own show at home?"

When we entered the hall, I was amused by two cages, side by side, each festooned with red, white and blue, of a "Republicat" and "Democat." The Republicat had rich, gray fur and the Democat had a shiny black coat. A woman next to us exclaimed, "Oh, how funny! The Republican one is gray and the Democrat's black!"

Other than that, there was a demo by two Hollywood animal trainers on how to clicker-train your cat to sit and lie down, and to let you brush its teeth, plus some other tricks we'd not try at home, like walking a double tight rope, and then there were rows and rows of cats that were cooped up in nylon and clear plastic carriers, who kept rubbing their bodies against the soft walls, and who made me feel guilty at my freedom.

Cats Don't Think About the Economy Like We Do

Afterwards, we walked in search of lunch and remembered a great place, where we'd been before, Angus McIndoe Restaurant. While we ate, Pat reminded me, as she seems to have done every time we've eaten out in the past several weeks, that is, probably two or three times, "You know, Suze Orman says to stop eating out, but if we do that, then what happens to the restaurants, and to the businesses that supply the restaurants?"

I think about how much more anxious we'd be feeling now if we had succeeded in having a child. And then I remember my own scary childhood during the '70s recession. My dad was out of work for more than a year then. We almost moved to Tehran, where my father thought he would be helping to consult on the building of a toy factory, but the opportunity didn't materialize. That's probably when I began earnestly using bikeriding and radio-music for escapes.

I just found "The Top 100 Seventies Singles," and the ones that moved me most during that scary time, as an eight- and nine-year-old, were, "Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree;" "Delta Dawn;" "Come and Get Your Love;" "Seasons in the Sun;" and "Sunshine on My Shoulders." Everyone, but "Sunshine," was beat-ful, and most were also cheerful, which have turned out to be my lifelong criteria for my favorite music.

Watching "Saturday Night Live" this weekend, it struck me that a good result of this tumultuous time is how much funny comedy it's yielding. I think everyone's art is going to become more and more inspired and more and more interesting, including mine, I pray.