June 16, 2017--Midcoast: Colonoscopies

It used to take at least a half hour before any of us would mention colonoscopes. Now we get to it right away. Even before we are served our first cup of coffee.

Just yesterday we not only talked about them but also bladder infections, melanoma, detached retinas, atrial fibrillation, shingles, abscessed molars, Hashimoto's Disease, and kidney stones.

And of course we share health insurance, doctor, and hospital stories. Few of them good.

My colonoscopy story was about my recent visit to a new internist. After taking my medical history and giving me a thorough examination, including a cardiogram, when he was done, he told me things look pretty good except for a heart murmur and my right hand tremors.

Ignoring that for a moment, I asked him about a colonoscopy. "I haven't had one in a few years," I said, "So maybe it's time . . ."

Before I could complete my thought, he said, "At your age we no longer recommend colonoscopies (he's a gastroenterologist no less) because no matter what we might find, at your age, you'll die of something else."

In a way that sounded good, but in truth, on reflection, not really.

I said, "I guess that gives me something to look forward to. Dying soon."

He doesn't have much of a sense of humor, or maybe his waiting room was full of patients and he didn't have time to schmooze, and so he barely smiled.

The cardiologist and neurologist he referred me too said pretty much the same thing--about the murmur, something else will get me before it becomes a problem; and the same for the tremor--"I'll write you a prescription for L-Dopa," he said, "And we'll hope for the best." He hardly needed to add, "that you'll die before . . ."

I stopped listening.

When I told the story to friends at the diner yesterday, one said, "This reminds me of a joke." We all groaned. Lou is not known to be a good joke teller. Undeterred though, he began, "Morty goes to his doctor who gives him his annual physical. When he's done, Morty asks, 'So how did I do?'

"The doctor says, 'Ten.'

 Confused, Morty asks, "'Ten what?' Years? Months? Days?'

"The doctor says, 'Nine, eight, seven, six . . .'"

Not that bad a joke from Lou.

And of course everyone either has a new set of hearing aids or is about to get them. And so there's a lot of breakfast talk about that.

"Why do we always seem to be talking about medical issues?" Rona wondered. We were driving to the pharmacy to get my L-Dopa prescription refilled.

"Isn't it obvious?" I said. "We're all getting on in years and stuff happens."

"Wouldn't you think . . ." she began.

"And don't forget that Maine has the oldest population of all the 50 states. And our county, Lincoln, demographically, has the nation's oldest residence."

The next time we were at Deb's Bristol Diner, when even before the waitress arrived to take our order, Jim began to talk about his diabetes numbers, I said, "Not to sound unsympathetic, but maybe we should try to talk about something not medical."

Jim who is not the sensitive type, without attitude, said, "What would you recommend?"

"A book, gardening, or maybe Donald Trump."

He said, "I rather have a colonoscopy."

Deb

July 4, 2106--A Year of Mourning

I am by nature skeptical. Especially about things that involve ritual or belief. I am more comfortable with evidence-based reality. Or, at least, my version of what constitutes "evidence" and "reality."

And so when my mother died a year ago Friday, at the time a close friend said it will take a full year of mourning to reach "closure" and for me to be able to fully "move on."

From what she said and how she said it it should be obvious that my friend is a therapist, a good one, but on occasion speaks psychobabble-tinctured English.

"And," she added, "though I know you are not a practicing Jew, in your tradition, an entire year is devoted to mourning. The rabbis," she winked, "determined that and as you know--as a believer or not--they could at times be wise in the ways of the world and the heart."

I chose just then to avoid a theological discussion, thanked her for her views but, as I said, I am skeptical about these kinds of matters.

As it turned out, she--and perhaps the rabbis--had it right.

Until this year I was naively oblivious to the annual procession of holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries. Passover, for example, is a holiday that since early adulthood I did not practice. But this year, knowing that if my mother were still alive, she would have been observing it at the Passover seder at Forrest Trace where she lived the last 20 years of her life, I wanted to be there with her, reconnecting to the ancient prayers, chants, and songs. And of course the matzoh, three cups of wine, and the rest of the traditional meal.

On the first night of pesach this year, I surprised myself by unconsciously intoning the Four Questions, the Fir Kashes, as I used to do when I was the youngest male at the extended-family seder. Those words, likely mispronounced, taught to me by my mother when I was six, brought more tears than I was expecting even before I got to the second question.

Mah nishtanah, ha-laylah ha-zeh,mi-col ha-leylot 

Why is this night different than all others?

Theology aside, the answer this past year was that that night was different because it was the first one for me that did not include the living presence of my mother. And it came with the realization that it never will again.

Mah nishtanah: "Why," indeed.

Then this past Saturday, in the Pemaquid lighthouse keepers' cemetery, just up the road from us, Rona and I participated in digging a grave for our great friend, Boyce Martin's ashes.

When his wife, our beloved friend, Anne Ogden told us, "You do not have to participate. You can decline . . ." I cut in to say, "If it's still all right with you, we want to help."

"In the Jewish tradition . . ." I said and then interrupted myself, a bit confused, when I realized that after a year of my mother no longer being with us, more than ever, I find myself unexpectedly referring to things Jewish.

Still I persisted, "In the Jewish tradition there is the mitzvah system. A hierarchy of good deeds or mitzvahs, that Jews are expected to perform. For example, at a Jewish burial, family and friends are invited to help fill the grave. Doing that is a mitzvah of the highest order because it is one that the 'beneficiary,' having passed away, is unable to thank you for."

"I like that," Anne said--she has a strong spiritual and ecumenical core--"So in that case do that mitzvah for Boyce."

My mother would have agreed.

And so we did. Now I am the one feeling blessed.

Anne Ogden

Boyce Martin

April 27, 2016--Dust to Dust

It is likely a stage-in-life thing.

I find myself these days thinking about the one thing that is inevitable.

No, not taxes. Death.

Republicans can cut taxes to zero, but as for death . . .

So I was intrigued by a piece in last Saturday's New York Times about eco-minded death. Actually, how to be eco-minded after death. Literally, what to do about corpses.

Artist Jae Rhim Lee has apparently done a lot of thinking about this.

She sees most of us in deep denial. To take profitable advantage of that, the funeral industry embalms bodies and then tries to get families to agree to putting them in fancy non-biodegratable coffins which in turn are entombed in concrete liners. More and more in above-ground tombs.

Forget for the moment the growing interest in cryonics, which promises to preserve bodies, or just heads, by freezing them for later revival and presumably medical restoration. Think Ted Williams and Walt Disney.

But here's my favorite politically- and environmentally-correct way to think about this--

Ms. Lee's Infinity Burial Suit.

At $1,500 a copy it includes mushroom seeds, yes, to grow mushrooms meant to help "break down" a human corpse, thereby supposedly cleansing the body of toxins and excelerating the distribution of nutrients into the soil.

Mushroom Suit

Ms. Lee has other things going on--

To quote the Times, for some time she has "been obsessed" with how humans as part of nature's realm coexist with the environment. To that end, as an MIT graduate, she uses her body for experimental purposes, including to see if by adhering to a strict vegan diet she could so purify her urine that it could be used to water plants. She was so successful at this that she then used it to grow cabbage that she in turn made into kimchi.

Count me out.

July 29, 2015--Farewell to the Ladies of Forest Trace: Stuff

The receipt arrived yesterday from the charity to which we gave much of my mother's furniture, housewares, and clothing.

I believe all will be put to good use.

For tax purposes, I suppose, the receipt itemized the donation--

Under furniture they listed two upholstered chairs (one of which was the one my mother sat in for decades when we visited), a sofa, two end tables, six shelves, a desk and chair (where my mother sat to balance her checkbook), two patio tables (one of which held her orchid collection), three mirrors (who know what ghost images are contained therein), a large breakfront, a mobile bar (which held a dozen unopened liquor bottles--my mother didn't drink even sacramental wine), two twin beds (one my father's the other the one in which she spent her last days), a dresser (on which there were framed pictures of her immediate family--these were not donated), and a convertible sofa (where Rona and I slept restlessly when in years past we visited).

More reflecting the reality of my mother's final years, the receipt listed a shower stool, a "handicap bath set," two canes (which she began to use when she turned 95), two walkers (needed five years later), and a wheelchair (which during her last two years she eventually required).

The ladder of years indeed.

She was not a shopper but since she kept virtually everything she ever bought in meticulous, perfect condition, at the end, the itemized list stated, her clothing filled fully 17 bags. In addition, there were at least two dozen pairs of shoes. All in their original boxes. (Not enumerated in the receipt. The IRS will figure it out).

The receipt also noted--COW 1 Hour. I assume that's an acronym for about how long it took the men to remove Mom's things. One hour. A lifetime resolves itself, this aspect of a lifetime, in just one hour? Would two have made me feel any better, that she had had a richer life? And then of course I wondered, how many COWs will it take to cart away my remnants?

But it's hard to imagine she could have had a richer life. Accomplished, respected by all, generous, loving, loved.

It is a cliché to say a life well-lived is not about things. Stuff. Though perhaps in some cases, if there is little else, it is.

But with my mother, her life was about what she did, the people she embraced, her pride, her ambition, the mark she left on the world, and how she lives on--not in anything tangible or quantifiable like a list of things, but in the hearts of all who knew her well enough to feel the awesome power of her love.

July 23, 2015--Ladies of Forest Trace: Mom and Dianne

It's been three weeks since my mother died and I called Dianne yesterday to see how she was doing.

As my Mom's senior caregiver, she had spent more time with her during her last years than anyone and they had formed an uncommon closeness. A friendship. So Dianne's loss was much more than professional.

"I learned so much from her. She was always teaching me things. I didn't always like the lessons but I always knew she had my best of intentions in mind and now, after she is gone, I realize that even the things that disturbed me at the time were more true and important than not."

"She was like that for so many of us."

"Your Mom may be gone," Dianne said with her familiar laugh, "but she will be here for a long, long, long time."

"I know what you mean. The lessons, the love that she shared with so many of us."

"Isn't that the truth."

"I am hearing the same thing from distant cousins of Rona's who live in California, who didn't really know her, who never met her but only heard about her, they have been sending us notes and cards telling us how important to them was the meaning of her life. How she lived and . . ."

"How she died."

"That's true too."

"You know, I would say to her toward the end when she spent most of her time in bed, when she told me how frustrated she was because she needed to spend all that time resting, I would say to her, 'Ray, you're doing what you have to do. You're still teaching, you're still working.'"

"'I'm still working?' she would say. 'Lying here like this I'm still working?'"

"'Yes,' I would say. 'You're teaching me how to grow old and how, yes, to die with grace.'"

"That's what I meant," Dianne said, "That's what I meant and it would make her smile. You know that smile."

She trailed off.

"I do," I managed to say.

July 13, 2105--Ockham's and Dad's Razors

We've been sorting though things at my mother's apartment, stopping frequently to savor a picture or letter from long ago and only vaguely remembered.

Thus far my favorite is a thick looseleaf notebook in which my mother kept the minutes of the Groucho Society. It was in effect a cousins club that included Zwerlings and Neubauers, the Neubauers being from my grandmother's side of the extended family.

The Newbauers were great characters and even included a gangster or two. As you might imagine, they were my favorite of all Zwerling and Neubauer relatives. Just think how my youthful imagination was fired by the fact that Uncle Herman knew Mayer Lansky and had a pistol, which he allegedly needed and even used in one of the bars and grills he owned in New Jersey.

The Grouchos met every month or two during the first ten years after my parents were married--the late 20s to late 30s. During their lifetimes, though pressed frequently by me wanting to know about secrets from their past, neither of my parents had a good explanation about the name of the group--was it derived from Groucho Marx or just because many of the members were, well, grouchy?  They never said, which incited me to want to know more. Perhaps now in the minutes . . .

I haven't had time yet to read through the minutes my mother meticulously kept, but even a glance at her literally perfect handwriting reveals not a blot or edit on any page through which I have thus far thumbed. But just to marvel at the perception, her perfection is full of meaning and challenge. The standard she set for herself and the rest of us. To be perfect in all regards is to hold us to the highest standard, which has it attraction, but is also one we can never reach. Maybe that too has value--it humbles us to experience the unobtainable.

My other favorite thing thus far is a Bic razor of my father's that my mother brought with her to Forest Trace when she relocated. Nearly 20 years ago. Quite a shelf-life for an otherwise disposable razor!

I remember using it on much earlier visits to my mother when I either forgot to bring one of my own or wanted, by using it, to have the feel of his hand on mine and on my face while shaving. It was very intimate.

I haven't used it in 15 years and was not surprised to find it still in the guest bathroom since my mother was very good at keeping things--of course in perfect arrangement and preservation.

I took it with me to our apartment in Delray and used it twice while here because I forgot to bring one of my own or, closer to the truth, wanted my father literally close at hand at this emotional time stroking my cheeks. It worked well in those regards.

It also made me think of another razor, a metaphorical one--Ockham's. I have that helpful or dysfunctional ability to switch from deep feelings to the abstract as one of my ways of dealing with sadness or memories that overwhelm. Thus, Ockham's Razor.

It, or the Law of Parsimony, is a problem solving principal devised by William of Ockham in the 14th century that says that the best solution to a complex problem is the simplest one that accounts for the largest number of facts, variables, and phenomena. For example, in contemporary particle physics, there is the Standard Model that connects in the simplest terms yet understood the electromagnetic, strong, and weak nuclear forces.

My father was very much an Ockham man.

He was a great problem solver and, I must say, problem maker. He was adept at putting things in contexts. Often simple ones that, as he would put it, held a "grain of truth." Like, his favorite--religion is at the root of most of the world's most intractable problems. That gets to a truth in a version of the simplest way.

I should add--his version of truth. Just like Ockham's, which could be, always was, ultimately superseded by other elegant solutions that explained even more, so were Dad's challenged by members of his striving family who were coming to insights and conclusions of their own devising.

His literal razor, however, which is still functioning, over time has lost some of its sharp edge and it now scrapes across one's flesh, plucking as well as cutting. Rough while also gentle--just like my father.

July 7, 2015--The Rabbi

We were about to leave for Anne and Boyce's annual July 4th lobster bake when the phone rang.

Sensing my disinclination to answer it, Rona said, "Pick it up. With everything going on it might be important."

"The caller ID says 'Unknown Caller.' Anything important would be coming from someone we know."

"Oh, answer it. We have time. If we leave now we'll be early."

So I answered it, "Hello. This is Steven Zwerling."

In a booming voice, the caller said, CONGRATULATIONS!"

"Did I win something?" I asked. "Like from Publishers Clearing House or from whoever it was earlier this week who called to say, 'You have been selected for a cruise to the Bahamas'?"

"No, this is Rabbi ____ ."

"Rabbi what?"

"Rabbi ____ . I will be conducting your mother's service on Tuesday."

"Oh," I began to comprehend. My mother came from a traditional background and the family thought she would want a rabbi to preside over her graveside service.

"It will be my honor," he said.

"What a strange way to begin this conversation," I said, settling into a chair.

"I'm not following you," he said.

"The CONGRATULATIONS business. Why are you congratulating me? My mother died three days ago. Are congratulations in order? I mean, she died at 107 and three days. Not anything resembling a tragedy, but still . . ." I trailed off sorry I had answered the phone.

"That's my point," he said.

"Your point being?"

"That you are to be congratulated for having a mother who lived such a long and meaningful life. Actually, she is to be congratulated."

"She did have a very long life and indeed it was meaningful in more ways that I can describe."

"I hope you will try to do that for me."

"Do what?"

"Tell me about her meaningful life so I can talk about that at the service. I won't pretend to have known her but will refer to what you and other members of the family tell me about her. Does that sound all right?"

He was a rabbi after all and I am sure he picked up that I was still not comfortable with the way he began the call and so I said, "I still think you got off to a bad start with me. But of course I am willing to talk with you about her."

"I am deeply sorry if you took it that way. Perhaps I overstated how I was feeling about what I already had come to know about her. I was overcome with joy when I began to learn about your mother. And maybe I was a little envious of you. My mother . . . Well, that's another story  fro another time."

As he was talking, in his own way apologizing for upsetting me, I began to think about what he had already said, as if intuiting the joyousness that I had been secretly feeling.

I had been feeling joy and had not spoken about it out of concern that I would appear to be not caring, not sufficiently sad. Yes, I am sad, how could anyone not be after the loss of a wonderful mother even after so many years. Is it greedy to want more? Yes, I thought, but still I wanted more. Now I am left with memories and feelings. Enough to fill a lifetime, true, even if I am fortunate enough to live as long as she, but greedily I still wanted more. Want more.

"Are you still on the line?" I had lapsed into silence.

"Yes, I'm still here."

"Can we proceed?"

"Of course. It's just that it's taken me a moment to assimilate how you began."

"I understand, The congratulations part."

"Yes. But, you are right. And thank you for helping me to be more honest about the way I am feeling about her death. More important, about her life."

"So, congratulations are in order?"

"Yes, indeed they are. This is all so complicated."

From two years ago

June 3, 2015-- X-Ray

On our last day in New York, before heading to Maine, Rona needed a routine medical test. A scan.

The AC at the imaging center was not working and the waiting area was sweltering. While filling out the forms, Rona wondered if without air conditioning they would be able to run the equipment. "I think they generate a lot of heat so to use them they have to be in a cool environment. Since there's no emergency we can always get the scans done up in Maine."

"Let me ask," I said. "We're here and if possible let's get it over with. Let me find out what's going on."

I checked with a staff member and she indicated they were working on the problem and at most Rona would have to wait no more than 45 minutes.

"Drink lots of water," I said. "You need to keep hydrated."

"What's that ruckus," Rona said. "It sounds as if someone's having a fight."

From the reception area I heard a woman, clearly agitated, say loud enough for all to hear, "I don't know where he is. The traffic was abysmal. Three hours it took to get here from Atlantic City. An hour through the tunnel alone. I don't know why his doctor made us make the trip. We could have gotten his X-rays done in New Jersey. At the worst, in New Brunswick. Maybe an hour's drive. At Robert Wood Johnson. What's so unusual that they have to do? X-ray his thyroid, that's all. No big deal. And now I don't know where he is." She sounded desperate.

"OK, so he probably has cancer. It's still early they say. He's not dying. At least not yet. Though when I get my hands on him . . . " She trailed off.

"Should I see if I can help?" I asked.

"I'd stay out of it," Rona said, "Try to stay cool and see if anything more happens. They just sound stressed. That drive alone . . ."

"But didn't she say she doesn't know what happened to him? That she doesn't know where he is? I could maybe go look for him. My guess is he doesn't want to get the tests done and ran off. I know from not wanting to deal with medical issues. I almost died 15 years ago when I ignored all sorts of symptoms."

"Tell me about it," Rona said under her breath.

"I mean maybe I could talk with him about what I did and didn't do and how when I finally dealt with the problems I eventually got better."

"My advice. Sit here and drink your water. We have  a lot to do today and the next two days to get ready to head north."

"I'm losing my mind," the woman up front resumed, "I'm at the end of my rope. For all I know he's heading back to Jersey. He's that crazy. And," she added, "scared."

"I need to talk with her," I said, "I know it's not my business but it's reminding me of what I did and how I made you crazy. Maybe I can help."

"Whatever," Rona said.

The Jersey woman was soaking wet from the heat and anxiety. As I moved toward her she backed away, as if knowing my intentions and not wanting to have to handle another crazy person.

Softly I said, "Is there anything I can do to help?" She backed further away, almost to the entrance door. "I mean, I couldn't help but hear what you were saying. About your husband."

"Him," she spat.

"I don't know . . . but I . . . 15 years ago did . . . so I thought I might . . ."

"What are you talking about?" she exploded as if to transfer her frustration and anger to me.

"I just thought . . ."

"Thanks for your thoughts but, frankly, it's none of your business."

I backed up a step and was about to turn around when a man, it couldn't have been anyone but her husband, burst through the door. He was wearing shorts, flip flops, and a sleeveless tank top and was so soaking wet that sweat dripped on the carpet from all parts of his body. Almost immediately a puddle formed at his feet.

"So there you are, big shot," his wife said. "Did you have a nice walk? Did you get a cup of coffee? Maybe a hot dog? You haven't eaten in half an hour and I know you must be starving."

"Let's get out of here," he growled. "I've had it up to here." He lifted a hand six inches above his head. I could see his swollen thyroid. "Let's get the car out of the garage. I mean let's pay them the ransom they charge to park here in Manhattan. I don't know how anyone can afford to live in this place much less park their car. Sheet."

"You're either getting that X-ray or you're going home to Jersey yourself. I'm the one who's had it up to here." She too gestured to indicate how high up-to-here was for her.

"Do we need to talk about this in public?" He shot me a glance. "What I do, what you do, it's between us. Right? Private."

"Private," she sputtered. "The way you walk around, on the Upper Eastside looking like a clown. You call that private? You make such a spectacle of yourself that half the city's looking at you."

"Let's get the car, Marcy. By now they'll charge me 50 bucks to get it out of hock."

"I told you if you don't get the test you're on your own."

"I told you while we were lined up for an hour trying to get in the tunnel that I am not going to do that. I know I have a problem, but I want to handle it my way."

"Which is to ignore it and get into real trouble. Like dying trouble."

"If that's to be, that's to be. I want to live and, yes, die if it comes to that, my way."

"You've been listening to too much Frank Sinatra you guinea, you."

"Leave my heritage out of this," he said, straightening himself. I sensed a change in tenor.

"It's my heritage too so I can call you whatever the eff I want. But what I really want is for you to stop acting like a baby and let them do the friggen test."

"I know about that test and how the next thing they'll be doin' to me is cuttin' me open and then there'll be chemo and radiation and other shit and then before you know it I'll be bald as that guy over there," he nodded in my direction, "And after that it will be time to take me on a one-way ride to the cemetery."

"You know . . ." I tried to interject myself, "Like you . . . 15 years ago I . . ."

"Who is this creep?" he asked his wife, again meaning me. "You invited him to talk? Look old man, stay out of my business. Get my drift?"

"I only . . ."

"Whatever you're here for," he cut me off before I could say another word, "be a good boy and take your medicine or have your MRI. Or whatever. But in the meantime, as they say where I come from, take a powder."

I shuffled back to where Rona was waiting. She continued to sip her water. I shrugged. She had heard the entire encounter. "What did I tell you? That's none of your business and if anything you made matters worse."

"Actually, I thought I was being helpful."

"Really? Helpful? You almost got yourself killed."

"I think I got them to deflect some of their frustration and anger for each other onto me."

"Another crazy person."

Thankfully, the AC by then was working sufficiently to allow testing to begin. Rona was first and kissed me, breaking the tension, and said, "Wish me luck." I smiled, knowing she didn't need it for this.

Later that day, at dinner, after a couple of glasses of wine, I ventured, "You know that guy from this morning?"

"The one who threatened to kill you?"

"He was just scared. Which I can relate to. But I have a question that he brought to mind."

"It is?"

"Maybe he is onto something with his my-way approach to the business of getting older and developing serious medical conditions. Maybe backing off is not such a bad idea."

"Backing off? I'm not following you."

"Maybe just let things happen? I mean, for the simple stuff do what you can to deal with it; but for more serious things that sweep you into the medical world, which take over your life--I mean for those things that do that, that take you over and turn you into a perpetual patient--we know people like that who do nothing but go to doctors and have tests and then procedures and operations--to squeeze out a few more months or even a year or two, but a year or two in medical purgatory. Again, for the most serious conditions. Does that make sense?"

"You've had too much wine," Rona said, "and like you Atlantic City friend have been listening to too much Frank Sinatra."

January 13, 2015--My Mother-In-Law

Today is the sixth anniversary of her death. Here is what I wrote about her at the time--

I’m not inclined, nor was Adele, to get religious or biblical at these ultimate times; but her life, especially the last three decades, presented a challenge to all of us who loved her to understand the meaning of all that befell her.

How could such a truly good person have so many punishing things happen to her? Rona and I, and all who loved her, spent many days trying to understand. To make some sense of it. To make sense of what seemed so senseless.

We looked for examples of equivalent unfairness to help us understand. Compared with Adele, those that we remembered from our own experience were sudden reversals of fortune or where the suffering was of relatively short duration. And so from these examples we were able to learn very little that was helpful.

But one day, while walking on the beach, which is a good place to think about daunting things, Rona suggested that the only equivalent she could think of was the relentless suffering of Job. That her mother’s life had tragically become like his—an endless series of afflictions and sufferings that took away more and more of her life.

With this insight, as her family and friends and caretakers struggled to help her endure and bring her some measure of comfort, we also have been trying, again as from Job, to find, if there are any significant meanings.

All three religions of the Book—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—also have struggled to understand Job’s plight, asking, in their own ways, how the same God they all believe in, who is supposed to be benevolent to those he created in his own image, who is supposed to reward and not punish good men and women, how could he so willfully bring such misery to such a good man.

As is characteristic of these ancient religions their struggle is mainly to understand the nature of God. Not so much the nature of man, in this case Job, who was the sufferer.

But with Adele, with Rona’s insight, we thought not about God but about Adele; and came to conclude that from the noble way in which she dealt with her endless series of afflictions we could extract many lessons. But more important, in this way, we could, we would come to respect and honor and love her even more.

It was her dignity that was even more endless than her illnesses. And the uncomplaining nature of her struggle to get through every day as less and less of her capacity to live independently and care for herself was taken from her.

This was all the more impressive since throughout, until literally her last day, she, as she would put it, “had her mind.” She was not even granted the release of unawareness or oblivion. Not that she ever wanted it.

She took it all on directly with a touch of stubbornness, contrariness, spunk (I love spunk), tenacity, and mainly humor. Humor often with an ironic, even a sarcastic edge, which is the closest expression of anger that she would allow.

It was perhaps that humor which most sustained her. All her life she loved a good joke (in recent weeks she and I were exchanging daily jokes—mainly doctor jokes--some raunchy) and interestingly as her decline accelerated these jokes, her ironic laughter increased.

It was ultimately, I think, that irony that gave away her secret—as she, with a hint of irony, would, with a shrug, frequently ask, “What are you going to do?”

It was a question that contained its own answer, which was-- “Nothing.” But not a “nothing” full of despair. Rather a “nothing” that meant, “What are you going to do?” Answer, “Just live.”

Whatever that means and with whatever the cards dealt to you. And though during these decades she had seemingly unplayable cards, she kept playing them to the end.

You all know that for years her favorite song was the one she wrote for herself—“I Want to be Young Again.” Well, we know how in life that always works out. But maybe she had the last laugh. We always thought she was hoping for restored health and beauty—that’s what she thought being young was about. And we knew that was not to be for her or, for that matter, for any of us.

But now, maybe as another bit of meaning derived from her life, perhaps, if there is a place beyond life, she got it right. She at last found a way to achieve that dream and a place to realize that hope--the one place where she will be young again. Forever young in all its meanings.

It is her final miracle.

And in this spirit of what one might ultimately achieve, Adele achieved one more thing that she for certain now is able to smile about.

She would probably spunkally say that the best thing about what just happened is that on this coming April 30th she can now avoid having to “celebrate” the 45th anniversary of her 35th birthday. She would have hated that.

So there are all sorts of consolations even at this sad time

September 24, 2014--New Friends

I've envied friends who are so much better than I at remaining close to people they know from college and even childhood.

I have felt there is something missing within me because I have maintained so few friendships from those times. How could I, I chastise myself, have seemingly intense, meaningful  relationships that span years and even decades and then distance myself to the point that they becoming attenuated and then ultimately end.

I rationalize--

At first we had so much in common but then life intervened: they moved, I moved--distance did not make our hearts fonder; they married people with whom I was not compatible, I did a version of the same thing; they had children, I never did; they developed extravagant tastes, I didn't; they drifted to the political right, I became more progressive; they found God, I was unable to.

So it was understandable, I justified to myself, that I would move on from generation to generation of friends. Different kinds of friends for different stages of life, I would say to myself. But it always sounded hollow.

And, I confess, I pulled back from some friends who I prefer to keep frozen in time.

Yeas ago I worked closely with a colleague, Flash was his street name, who at about 40 began to change in ways that upset and distanced me, including becoming attracted to orthodox Judaism and conservative Republican politics.

I wanted to remember him as the audacious and activist "Flash" and did not want to follow along his evolving journey to places I didn't understand or respect and, after that, into old age. Another issue.

So to me, though he is no longer an active friend, I will remember and cherish him as always youthful, unshaven, with shoulder-length hair, over-size lumberjack shirt, and battered construction boots, tirelessly working all day every day to help bring about social justice.

"Yes," a current friend says, "as you suspect about yourself, there is something missing within you; but since that may be true for me as well, I suppose this making and letting go of friends across a lifetime helps make us compatible. It's just who you are. Who I am as well."

But still I give myself grief about this since this also sounds like more rationalizing.

"Look," my friend presses on, "we met only, what, three, four years ago and don't you consider me a friend? A close friend? As close as I consider you?"

"Indeed," I say. "A friend, yes, and a very close one. What do you make of that? How could that possibly be? At this age?" I am genuinely perplexed.

"We enjoy each other. We need each other," he added almost in a whisper as if he didn't want me to hear. "And since we have experienced many similar things, including some sad and some tragic, and have gravitated to a range of common understandings, we have found many ways to enjoy each other's company and have come to care deeply about each other. Even this quickly. Limitations and imperfections aside, we are two reasonably fully-formed people. And that helps."

While taking this in, while I ruminated, he added, "Part of it is at this time of life many things are behind us which, if present, could, do get in the way of true and deep friendships."

"Like what?"

"Ambition, for one. And how we are now less about gathering and accumulating, engage in less pretending, have less fire in the belly, are less competitive, share aches and pains and worse, experience diminished hormone flow, less--"

"I get your point, and it's a good one" I said, cutting him off with a laugh. I was not wanting to get that intimate. But what he said made sense. And, if true, helped me understand why later in life it is possible to make new friends and gather them close. Perhaps as important--friendships that may last for the rest of our attenuated lifetimes.

I have been thinking about the nature of my experiences with friends, especially reflecting on some that are recent but powerful, since one of them, Steve Gerson (Dr. Stephen Gerson), died, to me, unexpectedly on Sunday. Yesterday was his funeral.

How could it be that since Sunday morning he has not been out of my thoughts?

He was anything but a lifelong friend--perhaps we saw each other during two, three years twenty times--and yet I despair that we will not have more time together. It is not just because, in spite of being chronically ill, he was so inspirationally full of life and interests and joy and work and memories and stories and insights and fun and optimism that I will miss him, but because there was an instantaneous intimacy that sparked between us and connected us deeper than understanding, seemingly for life. An anticipated much longer life, thwarted now, which also revealed that the magic potential of friendship does not end with age and it can come in stages.

Sad, I'll take what I got. It was a gift.

August 15, 2104--Best of Behind: The Dead Rosenbergs

This is from a fictional memoir that I have been working on for a number of years. I posted this chapter on Behind on September 28, 2012. 

Yes, on June 20, 1953, Heshy Perlmutter and I made our way to the I. J. Morris Funeral Parlor in Brooklyn to see the bodies of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg who had been executed the day before in the electric chair at Sing Sing. I had never seen a dead person and the prospect of seeing two, and such notorious Soviet spies, was irresistible--

When we heard that the Rosenbergs had been electrocuted up in Sing Sing and that their bodies would be laid out and available for viewing at the I. J. Morris Funeral Parlor just six blocks from where we lived, Heshy and I raced over so we could for the first time see some real dead people. In my neighborhood we had seen lots of dead cats and dogs, but no dead bodies and thus had developed an inordinate interest in death.

But a lot of others had the same idea that hot June night, and thus we wound up near the end of a line that stretched around the corner. Since it took hours for the line to crawl toward the entrance, we learned from what we overheard that no one else shared our morbid obsession: We were there to see some corpses. Everyone else was lined up to pay their respects to these martyrs of “progressivism” and to protest not just their executions but the injustice of the entire American and Capitalist System. We barely understood any of this—the raging about Judge Kaufman, the abuse heaped on President Eisenhower who refused to stay their “murder,” and especially the fury reserved for someone named Roy Cohn, who, as a Jew, was venomously vilified for his role in their prosecution.

“He should rot in Hell,” we heard these atheists mutter.

Heshy and I understood what they were feeling. His father, Mr. Perly, was the local glazier and window blind maker but was better known for wandering the streets at night talking to himself, debating some inner furies, waving like a saber a rolled-up copy of the Daily Worker. Heshy knew that what his father was so agitated about also had something to do with Capitalism and “surplus value,” whatever that was, and lynchings and anti-Semitism and McCarthy and also that betrayer Roy Cohn.

More important, having Heshy with me meant that we would actually be allowed to enter I. J. Morris. You see, as we got closer to the door, word filtered back to us that to be admitted you had to be at least sixteen. He and I were a few years younger than that and were worried that they wouldn't let us in and that we would have to wait for subsequent executions before being able to see some dead people. But when we got to the entrance, the man guarding the velvet rope took one look at me, already almost six feet tall, and especially at Heshy’s premature beard, and waved us in. Heshy’s nickname, you should also know, was Big Dick.

Once inside, things settled to a hush. No more sputterings about the Running Dogs of Capitalism, just the muted sound of shuffling feet as we inched our way toward the chapel. As we crept forward, Heshy and I were whispering to each other about what to expect. We thought Julius and Ethel would probably just look like the dead cats—with stiff arms and legs and bulging, staring eyes (would they be attracting flies too?); but we grew increasingly nervous about how dead people who had been electrocuted would look.  We had never seen an electrocuted cat or dog.

What we knew from The Street was that when someone from Murder Incorporated went to The Chair, the next morning, screaming in six inch type from the front pages of the Daily News and Mirror would be the headline, “Bugsy Berkowitz Fries!” And since we knew how my mother’s fried liver looked—the closest thing to shoe leather not worn on a foot—we were trepidiously expecting the dead Rosenbergs to look like huge slabs of fried liver in side-by-side coffins. We were thus rethinking the whole situation: Maybe we should wait until we were really sixteen when perhaps someone would just die of a heart attack or something. That would be a better way to get started with dead bodies.

But before we could reconsider and get out of there, we were pushed through the chapel door by some grizzled shoemaker.  If we had thought about it, we might actually have been glad to have a shoemaker nearby as we approached the leathery Rosenbergs. He again began to spit about that “Jew bastard Roy Cohen.”

And then, there we were face to face with the dead Rosenbergs whose side-by-side coffins were tipped forward for better viewing. Dead they were, but under spot lights with orange faces and black hair that looked as if it had been touched up with shoe polish.  Julius’ mustache was so blackened that he appeared more like a Semitic Hitler than a Jew from the Bronx. It was not hard to believe, from their squirrelly looks, that they had been spies and had indeed given away to Russia the secret to the Atomic Bomb, which as a result caused us to have to practice taking cover under our desks in school in case the Reds decided to drop one on the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

The undertakers moved us along quickly so we had time for just a quick but sufficient glimpse and, in truth, a sniff because all the dead cats and dogs we knew stank something awful. We were curious about that too. But the Rosenbergs smelled more like the science lab in school, which was fitting since this whole experience was more like an experiment to us than a pilgrimage, except perhaps to Heshy who would be interrogated and lectured, we were certain, by Mr. Perly, about more than their hair, painted faces, and smell.

I had entered this cult of death as the result of being most responsible for taking care of the family plot in Mount Lebanon Cemetery. We couldn’t afford Perpetual Care for the graves so unless we were willing to let them become a jungle, someone had to go there regularly, spring through fall, to cut the grass and pull the weeds that were indigenous to that part of Queens. As the most dexterous family member this truly awesome responsibility fell to me. So clip and pull I did with barely disguised eagerness.

As I would work my way among the headstones that multiplied through the years, as I drifted further from the bench where my mother and aunts sat huddled, talking silently to their deceased mother and father, I began to think about more than what was growing above ground. What, I wondered, was happening below the ground? That was not a question I could openly ask about poor Uncle Hyman who, I had been told, died of a heart attack before he was fifty. The weeds, by the way, were thickest at his grave.

In the spirit of experiment, when one day Chirps my parakeet died, rather than leave it to my mother do whatever she did to dispose of our dead pet birds and guppies. I suspected the guppies got flushed away, I absconded with him, found an empty Hellmann’s Mayonnaise jar, washed and dried it thoroughly, put Chirps inside, screwed the top back on securely, and buried him in a shallow hole of a grave in the vacant lot next door. Thinking I would dig him up periodically to see what was happening to him in that jar, interred as I imagined he was, not so unlike Grandma and Grandpa and Uncle Hyman at Mount Lebanon. That would finally answer my existential question.

A week later, when I exhumed Chirps, he looked a little dried out, sort of what an apricot left too long in the sun begins to look like, with his flesh now sucked tight against his tiny bones. The second week it appeared that his eyes had disappeared. Where they went I couldn’t figure out—though I turned and shook the jar they didn’t seem to be in there anymore. This was getting profoundly interesting, and mysterious.

But when I went to unearth him for the third time, about a month after he died, I couldn’t find him or the jar. I had marked his place with a distinctive stone but couldn’t find it; and without that, I couldn’t remember precisely enough where he was buried. And so over the course of the next week, I dug up virtually the entire lot, which must have been 30 feet wide and 75 feet deep.

My mother wanted to know what I was doing out there at all hours. I reminded her that in the past I had planted a successful, even legendary vegetable garden and was thinking about doing that again.

She said, “But it’s November.”

And thus I gave up on Chirps, but not on my quest.

Next came my obsession with Egyptian mummies. Even before I was aware of King Tut and all the stories surrounding his discovery and his treasures, from Richard Haliburton’s Complete Book of Marvels, a huge and enthralling book given to me one birthday by my well-traveled Aunt Helen, I learned about the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, which included the Pyramids at Giza. And how they were in reality giant tombs for the most famous pharaohs. And that the dead pharaohs, turned into mummies, were sealed in those pyramids.

So when our public school class went on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I managed to sneak away from the group and got “lost” for an hour in the labyrinth of the Egyptian Hall where, secured in glass cabinets in open coffins, what the Ancient Egyptians called sarcophagi, I could see actual mummies, dead pharaohs’ bodies that were more than 4,000 years old.

I was getting closer to the real thing. But there was still a problem—I couldn’t actually see the pharaohs’ bodies since they were so tightly wrapped in cloth shrouds. But the fact that I could sense more or less full bodies obscured within those wrappings suggested to me that both Chirps and Grandpa and Grandma might still be recognizable if somehow I could only get to them. After all, if the mummies were in such good shape after 4,000 years, Grandpa and Grandma and Chirps might still be quite like I remembered them.

Little did I know that before very long I would have a close encounter with a dead body, right in my own family, when one of Aunt Madeline’s husbands killed himself by taking an overdose of sleeping pills.

I barely knew him because they had been married less than six months. He seemed nice enough to me. Minimally he was the first of her husbands who wasn’t bald and, even more important to her, was taller than she and thus a better dance partner. Stories circulating in the family suggested that after living with Madeline for a few short months, he took the “easy way out” by killing himself. Though he may have had enough of her, from her carrying on after his death, she appeared to have lost the love of her life. In fact, things were so bad with her, and his ten year old son from a previous marriage, that it took her brothers’ and their wives’ total attention to console her.

Perhaps because of my experience weeding the family plot, I was assigned to help make arrangements for his funeral.

My primary responsibility was to give the mortician a suit in which to bury him. As you might imagine, at twelve, though tall for my age, I was not fully prepared for this. So I just grabbed the first suit I saw from his closet and spent the rest of my time hoping that at the service they would have an open coffin so I could at last . . .

To my considerable disappointment they didn’t.  But at the chapel, the funeral director to whom I had given Morty’s suit, pulled me aside and directed me to a very private corner where he whispered so as not to disturb anyone, “Was that his suit you gave me?”

“Certainly,” I said, “It was in his closet.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think so,” I stuttered, my certainty now eroding, “Why are you asking?”

“Because it looked as if it was a suit for a ten year old.”

I looked over to where Morty’s ten year old son was sitting and saw that he was in casual clothes. He was not wearing a suit.

The undertaker rasped in my ear, “I can’t tell you what we had to do to get it on the body.” I was cringing, “But we did,” he added with a twisted smile.

And so, on that day when I got to see the Rosenbergs, I was reminded of the guilt I felt about what I had inadvertently done to poor Morty.  But more, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the I. J. Morris needed to do to get that suit to fit.

My education and interests took some new directions as I began to grow into my body. And though a total failure at Hebrew School, where I was presumably to receive a religious education, in spite of my lack of facility for things of this kind, I begin to think about what one might call “spiritual things.”  Adolescent meaning-of-life questions—Where did we come from (not Facts of Life kinds of matters)? And where were we going (and I didn’t mean Mount Lebanon)?   Heshy, under the influence of Mr. Perly and his surging hormones, was ever the materialist and said, non-biblically, that we’re just a bunch of atoms and molecules and thus to a version of dust we shall revert, if we're lucky, after a life of feeling up the Siegel Twins in the school coat closet.

By then I was also into atoms (remember the A Bomb), but the dust-to-dust thing didn’t work for me. I had begun to think there were higher issues and meanings to being human. I saw a very different place in the world for us as compared to Chirps, the neighborhood cats,  and my guppies.

                                                                *    *    *

Many years later my father, well into his eighties, began to fail. He had always been such a force of nature. I know to children fathers often seem to be that powerful and arbitrary, but my father was truly tectonic. When he raged, all trembled; when he commanded, all obeyed; what he expected, we did; and when he acknowledged and in his own coded-way loved, we were smitten. So when his big body was being reduced by time and he could no longer move forward but was afflicted by what the medical people called “retrograde movement,” which meant he fell backwards when he attempted to move ahead, I saw this to be a metaphor for his decline—he was heading backwards, even while attempting still to cut his way through life.

To see him like this raised many more questions about the meaning of life, at least the meaning of a life. The answers I came up with were not comforting. Everything seemed to reduce itself to biology—eating and pissing and shitting was the final summing up. Not so different from what Heshy had been saying some years earlier.

Dad lived in Florida and we in New York; and so when my mother called to say, “Come down,” we got on a plane to Fort Lauderdale. We immediately lost our way from the airport to the hospital, grinding in frustration that we would miss the end. From my mother’s voice and her deserved fame as the family “witch,” invariably perceiving the future, we knew there was very little time and every missed turn made it less likely that we would find him still alive.

But with a sense of the miraculous, the hospital appeared just as we were about to make another futile U turn. We skidded the car into the parking lot and raced up the steps afraid that even to wait for the elevator would make us fatally late. We found his room and him in bed, unconscious, breathing with obvious final distress.

I sat beside him and held his withered hand, saying what I knew would be a few last words. There was no way to know if he heard me as I attempted to sum up what I had by then come to conclude about us (contested), his life (contradictory), and life itself (still imponderable). I longed to feel even a reflexive squeeze from him and perhaps there was one or at the very least a last spasm to let me know he understood, and that was what he too had come to understand.

And then all was utter, utter stillness.

I closed his quickly cooling eyelids and put my hand to his chest as he had done so many times to me when he would say to me as child and adult, “Such a good boy. Such a lucky boy.”

And then he was no longer there. Even during his last unconscious moments it was apparent that whatever he was was present but then that was gone. Just gone.

I looked at his body to see if I could perceive his spirit depart or whatever it was that was him.

But all there was was just a body.

July 2, 2014--Ending It

We hadn't seen each other since last September and there was a lot to catch up about.

After the how-was-your-winter and the obligatory you-look-good, we moved on to other things.

Remembering that late last summer she had arranged for her brother to move to a care facility in Pennsylvania, I asked how he was doing.

"As good as one can expect. He's not happy there--who is--but since he is descending into dementia in truth he is not that aware of where he is or who he's living with."

Remembering that my mother was very old she in turn delicately asked if she was "still around."

"Indeed, Saturday was her 106th birthday."

"Amazing. And she's . . . ?"

"As you said about your brother, how good can anyone be at such an age." Knowing I put it this way as a gesture of solidarity about her brother and the effects of very old age, I wanted to add more of the truth. "In fact, though 106 is new territory for me, and of course for her, I think she's doing remarkably well."

"I'm so happy to hear that. Where does she live?"

"In Florida. In a so-called senior residence. She lives with some assistance but is quite independent."

"That's wonderful. Look, I myself am getting on in years," she glanced over at me, indicating she suspected I too might be having similar thoughts, "and live alone, my children are far from here and I don't want to be a burden on them, so . . ."

"If I may," I don't know her that intimately, "What are you thinking when . . . ?"

"And if I may," she winked at me, "What about you?"

"Well . . ."

"Ditto for me. Well indeed."

"I hate to think about these things, but I suppose I'm old enough to have to."

"I hate those nursing and assisted living places. You give up your home, you essentially give up your friends, give up the foods you like to eat, you even have to give up your pets." She tugged on Jojo's leash. To him she said, "I couldn't leave you."

"I hate those places too. Unfortunately I've been to a lot of them. I hate the look, the smell, the plastic plates and utensils, even the food looks and tastes plastic to me. I know this sounds superficial, talking about plastic plates and forks, but still I hate it and can't stand the idea of living out my final days that way."

"Have any people where your mother lives, I don't know how to put this, committed . . . I mean . . ."

"Funny you should mention that. So many there seem depressed enough to want to do so. Most, though, I should add, like my mother, have a strong will to live and find things in life to enjoy. But just the other day I asked her about that. She's lived there more than 15 years and it's a big place so you would think . . ."

"But?"

"But, in spite of that--and there are a few hundred residents--my mother, who knows everyone, says she hasn't heard about even one person . . ."

"That's amazing. My plan it to . . ." She lost her thought as Jojo lunged at a chipmunk.

"Is to?"

"Well, how to put it--end it."

"End?"

"My life."

"I think that way too. Have a wonderful dinner, a great bottle of wine, put on a Bach cello suite, take a fistful of pills and . . ."

"That sounds like a plan to me. Though I think instead of wine I'll cuddle with a bottle of Chivas Regal."

"On that happy note, I need to get back to my weeding."

"It's such a beautiful, good-to-be-alive kind of day. Whatever possessed us to . . . ?"

"Getting older probably possessed us. The facts of our lives. And, I think, living so closely here as we do with nature puts you in touch with the entire cycle."

"True for me too. I find it to be a kind of preparation."

"For?"

"What we've been talking about."

"Jojo wants to get going. There are gophers to chase and rabbits will be out soon."

"That's my point."

February 3, 2014--Ladies of Forest Trace: India

"Come over as soon as . . . you can. There's something . . . I need to talk to you about."

My mother, short of breath, sounded ominous. I thought, considering her age, was this the . . .

"Are you OK?" I asked, not really wanting to know the truth.

"Come."

"We'll be there in 35 minutes." I was already looking for the car keys and signally to Rona to get ready.

"Just you."

"Me? Alone?" That was unprecedented. Rona and I have always visited together.

"You. There's something . . ." She didn't or couldn't finish and hung up.

"I need to go to Forest Trace," I said to Rona who was hovering close, picking up my sense of concern.

"Give me a second to get my sweater."

"My Mom wants to see me."

"Just you?"

I shrugged.

"Of course, whatever she wants. But call me as soon as you get there. I can always have car service drive me and . . ."

"Just me," I said as I headed for the car, full of trepidation.

It's not as if this was unexpected. She is after all nearly 106 and though in remarkably good condition for someone her age--or even someone ten years younger--the time comes for everyone.

The drive south was harrowing. More so than usual. Everyone who lives here says I-95 is a death trap with cars darting across lanes as if in a Nascar race. So with death on my mind anyway, I shifted into the extreme right lane and got in line with the usual stream of cautious and traumatized senior citizen drivers. I thought, considering the circumstances, I'd better not get killed.

My mother wasn't at the front door when I arrived. As she always is. Arms out. Smiling. Like she wants to envelop you and all the world.

I rushed to the den, relieved when passing her bedroom not to see her curled in her bed in her last throes of  . . .

"Here I am," I said, breathless myself.

"That I can . . . see," she gasped.

"You have me worried. You never asked only me to come to see you. I was afraid that . . ." I trailed off not able to complete my thought.

"I need to talk . . . to you. You. I have something to say . . . to . . . you. My son." She squeezed out her words one at a time.

"I'm here for that or anything you need."

She sat silent for a moment, panting, then said, "India."

"India?"

"There."

"What about India, Mom? I'm all confused." I genuinely was.

"I want to talk with you about . . . India."

"I'm glad to hear you're all right enough to want to talk . . . But India? I thought . . . Honestly, I thought that . . ."

"I was . . . dying." She smiled up at me.

"You scared me half to death. I thought . . . But?"

"Half to death sounds . . . good to me. At my age . . ." She trailed off.

"You're 106, Mom, so when you called and said . . ."

"Not yet."

"Not yet what?"

"106."

"OK. You're 105-and-a-half. What difference does sixth months make?"

"At my age I'm allowed . . . to be . . . any age I want."

"At your age?" I couldn't restrain myself from feeling put upon. Relieved, yes; but in truth annoyed as well that she had gotten me here this way to talk about . . .

"What did you tell me . . . about India?"

"Here we go again with India."

"Indulge me a minute."

"Go on."

"Like I tried to say . . . before being interrupted," she was sounding better, "What did you tell me about India?"

"I can't remember. Please remind me."

"That you want to go . . . there."

"True. I casually mentioned it to you a few months ago. That, all things considered . . ."

"I'm trying now to consider all things."

"And?"

"And I have something I want . . . I need to say . . . to you."

"I'm listening." I moved closer and took her hand in mine. Though still not understanding why India or what I had said about it was on her mind.

"You should go."

"I just got here." I was totally puzzled.

"Not here. There."

"Which there are we talking about?"

"Where . . . you said you wanted to go. To India."

"I was just talking. We were just talking. Looking for things to talk about. I think I said that it's one place I haven't been that one day I might like to visit. I said might. Which is different than want."

"I know the difference. I'm not saying you need . . . to go; but if you want to, you should. Go."

"Since you brought me over this way, as if you had something very important to say or, because . . ."

"Again with the dying business. I told you that I'm not . . ."

"I'm relieved to know that. But, again, let's not worry about India. We don't need to. You for sure don't.  I mean, need to worry about India or anything. I'm OK, we're OK with the way we are living and how . . ."

"I am keeping you from . . . your dreams."

I was beginning to understand where this was going. What was concerning her.

"No you're not. We're living how we want to live."

"I don't believe you."

"How can you say that, Mom?"

"Because . . . I know you. I know Rona. You're . . . sacrificing for me." She squeezed my hand.

"How can I convince you we're not?"

"You can't."

"Can't what?"

"Convince me."

"I don't know what else to say." I really didn't.

She said, "Time zones," and peered at me as if that would explain everything. Now fully confused I looked back at her and shrugged.

"You say you want to always be in the same time zone."

"Oh, now I think I understand. That we want to live in the same time zone as you--from Maine to New York City to Delray Beach. I mean, in the same time zone as you. So if . . ."

"It's the if I want to talk with you about."

"The if? Just as I thought I was understanding you, you have me mixed up again."

"It's usually me . . . who's all mixed up. Now you. That's what I'm trying to say. About . . . being mixed up."

I thought it better to just listen.

"Old people get all mixed up." I nodded. "I'm all mixed up . . . and now you're mixed up." I continued to look at her, trying not to show concern about her being so seemingly mixed up.

"You're getting to be . . . an old man." All too true, I thought. "Which is my point." Now she was squeezing my hand with more strength that one had any right to expect from someone as old as she.

She saw tears beginning to well in my eyes. "I don't want you . . . to get any older waiting for me." I knew all too well what she meant by waiting.

"Go there . . . if you want. Forget about time zones. Live. Live . . .  your life. Don't worry about me. I am all right. And will be all right until . . ."

"It's hard, Mom. I understand what you're saying and I love you for it. And for many other things. But, yes. It does feel as if we're all waiting."

Now she too was teared up. Too old sentimentalists, I thought, tethered to each other for more than seven decades. Waiting. Maybe even wondering who would be first to . . .

"Live your life," she repeated.

"We are," I tried to assure her as well as myself. "We . . ."

"Just do."

January 1, 2014--My Father's Son

There is a story my Aunt Madeline took delight in telling. It was about something that happened twenty years after her brother, my father and my mother retired and moved to Florida.

Every six months Madeline would call to tell it to me yet one more time. I enjoyed hearing it again and again and took pleasure in her unrestrained joy when she recounting it.

You remember your cousin Irving? The dentist from Jersey City? He called all excited to tell me about something that happened on a visit to New York City.

"You'll never guess who I saw," he said.

"Who?" I asked.

"Your brother. David." 

"Where?" I asked, very confused. "Were you in Florida?" 

"Like I told you," Irving said, "I was in the city." 

"New York City?" 

"Yes." 

"That can't be," I told him, "He's lived in Florida. For twenty years."

"Maybe he's here for a visit." 

"I would know it if he was here. He's not here." I could hear he was becoming annoyed with me. 

"But," Cousin Irving insisted, "I saw him. In Greenwich Village. Walking along the park."

"You're wrong!" I yelled at him. You know me, I'm not shy about expressing my opinions.

"Well, I did see him in New York. And you know what's most amazing? I haven't run into him in more than twenty years, right?"

"Whatever you say," I said. "But," to humor him, I asked, "What's so amazing?" 

"Though I haven't seen him in twenty years, he looks exactly the same."

Aunt Madeline and I always laughed at this because, as she told him, "You didn't see Dave, you saw his son Steven who lives in the Village and looks just like him. I mean, he looks like how Dave looked twenty years ago."

Madeline long ago departed but I was reminded of this story the other day when I caught an unexpected image of myself reflected in a store window on Sixth Avenue. What struck me was that after twenty years, I now look just like my father did the year before he died.

Then about three years ago, visiting my 103-year-old mother, as she is inclined to do these days, we were talking about the past. It was and is for her the most vibrant time of her life.

She suggested we look at old family photographs. This gives her great pleasure. She has them loose in neatly-labelled boxes, not arranged in chronological albums. So a formal picture of her parents as bride and groom in late 19th century Poland is as likely to be found among photos from Passover dinner five years ago, or of me as a six-year-old, or Cousin Chuck at 12 on Brighton Beach showing off his Charles-Atlas-toned body.

Falling out of the box was a picture of a bearded, patriarchal figure clearly from the Old Country. "Who is that?" Rona asked. "I don't remember seeing him before."

"I don't know," my mother said, testing her memory. "He looks familiar, but . . ." I could sense her becoming frustrated at what she took as more evidence of her decline.

"I think maybe it's your father's uncle. He was a very learned man. Almost a rabbi."

"One thing, though," Rona said, "He looks just like Dad did."

"And Steven," my mother said, smiling at me.

Indeed he did, I thought. Not a surprise, but--

Last winter, two years later, we were back in Florida, again in my mother's living room, again listening to her stories from the Old Days, and again going through fading photographs.

On my lap I had the same box in which there were pictures of adolescent Chuck and her parents' wedding portrait.

"Let me take another look at Steven's great-great Uncle," Rona asked. "The one who looks so much like dad."

"And Steven," my mother recalled, with her cognitive powers intact.

"Where is it?" I asked, rummaging among the pictures of past Passovers and cousins' weddings and bar mitzvahs. "I'm sure it was in this box two years ago."

"How could it be missing?" Rona said, beginning to get annoyed at my inability to find it. I suspected wondering about the state of my own decline.

"Here. You look." I thrust the box over to Rona, who was curled up on the sofa.

Systematically she took each of the dozens of photographs out of the box and, while she was searching, stacked them in what appeared to be some kind of order.

"I can't seem to find them either," she confessed. "Whatever could have happened to them?"

"It's happening to everything here," my mother said. "Nothing is not where it's supposed to be. And everything is missing."

"No, it's not Mom," I said, reaching across to take her hand. "Everything is still in place. You're very careful about that. The apartment is perfect." And indeed it is.

Mystified, Rona put the newly-organized photos back in the box. "It's the strangest thing," she said to herself.

I  thought--are we losing the past? My father. Aunt Madeline. Cousin Chuck. My great-great uncle. The list is lengthening.

That's what time does, I rued. The circle is closing. Would I be next?

After a moment of sadness, I consoled myself by recalling that the image in the Sixth Avenue store window where I caught a glimpse of myself looking like my father did a year before he died was fully two years ago.