Not yet Daddy – Reflections on Mortality

I am wide awake at this ungodly hour because my body and soul are restless. That, and there seems to be a party of sorts going on next door; I looked over and believe me, for all the noise, it sure isn’t much of a party.

Not much of a party, but loud

I decided to write, but I fear with my fatigue and general irritability, it will come to no good.

What the hell, it is just a blog, and further more it is my blog, so write I will, and critics be dammed, I am going to click publish.

A year or two before he died they had a party

Today is November 25th – this morning my father will have been dead for 40 years.

That is a long time.

My mother outlives him yet, even though as she gets closer to 90 her fragility increases with each passing day. She thinks about death more and more, although I am quite sure she is no hurry to make that journey.

I wonder, does he wait for her on the other side?

My mother says that November is by far the grayest and dumbest month of the year. I agree with her, if it weren’t for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade I would stay in bed the whole month.

Drunk.

Daddy, rest in peace, but you can’t have her yet.

His Insouciant Smile

Dearest Carl

Oran le 12 Fevrier 1946

Dearest Carl,

I am sorry to answer so late your long and charming letters which reached me only in January; because I have had a lot of troubles home, though I have been thinking of you and I am thinking at you always. I have been very happy to get some news of you, I have not had that pleasure in a long time; you are in the best of health, that is the mere point. I think that when you receive my letter you will be discharged and happy to get back home. I am pretty sure, Darling, that you can’t come back to Oran, but I will surely go to the States to see you, if you care to give me your address. My brother Daniel will stay in the States and must marry himself pretty soon, so it will be easy for me to got there, and I make you a little surprise! Ho, la la —– oh! Darling I think of you always, and the good time we had together.

I like often to see like you the little pictures! souvenirs of our good time, and in the last one that you sent wish your letters, I see you a lot better, I can see pretty well your insouciant smile.

There are no more Americans in Oran, I think that elsewhere in North Africa it is the same: The dispensary, the Florida Club, the Navy-Hospital, all that buildings are closed, nothing else is open and I never pass by them without having a strike in my heart. I will never forget, dear Carl, all the kindness you have had for me during your stay in my home;

…

My dad served in the Navy during WWII, he was stationed in Oran, North Africa. Like many men of his generation, he didn’t talk about his time in the service so what little I know, I found out after his death.

My dad suffered from depression throughout my childhood. I loved him but I was afraid of his darkness; I learned early on not to get too close. It was a matter of self preservation.  To his friends he was an entertaining guy, but to us, he was moody and distant much of the time. He died in 1968, the day before Thanksgiving.  The year leading up to his death had been a tough one. My older brother, C, my father’s pride and joy, was away at college. My other older brother, D, his other pride and joy, was having a rough time in high school. My mom was struggling under the burden of yet another of my father’s breakdowns and his decision to buy, of all things, a candy store, so that he could get off the road.

That November was filled with tension. My mom was working long days at the candy store, while my dad was on the road as a salesman for Columbus Pharmaceuticals. On our own much of the time, D and I settled into an amicable indifference, leaving each other plenty of time and space to pursue our favorite hobbies. He cut school all the time to work on cars; I ate.

The day dad died my mom was at the store, my brother was home and I was at school (probably thinking about cookies).  My dad died on the road, D took the message and called my mom to tell her. You can imagine the chaos that ensued. My mother was exhausted, my older brother far away and D and I too young to be of much assistance.  Somehow all the arrangements got made, there was a funeral, dad was mourned and buried. Life moved on.

If my mother was distracted before my dad died, now she was almost completely unavailable. D used this time to jockey for a better position in the sibling pecking order. He was brilliant in his machinations; by the time the month was out he had conned my mother into buying a 1969 Chevrolet muscle car, complete with stick shift and air shocks. Left to my own devices (you can only eat so many cookies), I  spent my time alone sifting through my father’s life.

My parents’ bedroom, down the hall from ours, had pretty much been off limits. But now there was no one to discourage snooping, so one cold December afternoon I decided to investigate what my father left behind. I pushed open the bedroom door, one of those old ones, heavy, with a rough surface from too many uneven coats of cheap varnish, and stepped inside.

The smell hit me first, a combination of hair cream, cologne and despair.  A bottle of Old Spice, in its iconic white bottle, still stood on the dresser. His worn dark red bathrobe with tiny white and black diamonds hung on a hook inside the closet door, a scrap of paper from his company, neatly folded in half was taped to the inside showing a record of my dad’s weight over the past year (162 1/2 lbs. the week he died), inside were a few dark suits and a line of pristine starched white shirts waiting to be worn.

On the mahogany dresser sat a mysterious pearl inlaid box and a stack of 3×5 index cards covered with his impossibly neat handwriting. I gathered up the box and the cards and stole away to my room to read.

North African Box

I learned more about my father and my mother that day than any other.

The stack of cards seemed to be from my father’s most recent hospitalization. Only weeks before he had been hospitalized (yet again) for depression. This might have been therapy, or, more likely his own attempt to sort out his broken family and feelings of regret. Reading through card after card, I finally found out why my Uncle and his wife (a true witch – and not in a good way -of a woman ) never spoke to us and the pain that family wounds caused my dad. It certainly explained why family gatherings and holidays were celebrated with an edge and an afterthought.

I never disliked my Aunt and Uncle more than I did that day. In the years that followed my uncle tried to make up to my mom for all those years of pain, but no matter how kind or welcoming they seemed, there was always a part of me I held back from them.  How unfair that after years of ignoring and hurting my dad that they dare pretend to love or care?

My mother seemed more forgiving, either that, or she was too worn out to care about hurt feelings. She seemed then, and now, impervious to memory. Now, it is the vascular dementia that keeps her in the present with no regrets, but even then she didn’t seem to hold on to much in the way of memories, good or bad. That might be why, when I opened the wooden box, I found an old love letter, yellow with age, folded over on itself many times, along with a picture of a dark haired woman, my father’s wartime love while serving with the Navy in North Africa.

My mother was not given to affection or praise. I think she loved my dad, but I cannot believe she was anymore demonstrative to him than she was to us, and that is to say, she wasn’t. I can count on one hand the number of time my mother said “I love you” to me during my childhood; I never heard her say it to my dad. I cannot remember being hugged as a child.

Her view of him, and her view of us, seemed to be that we her charges. She was responsible to a fault. She took impeccable care of us. Our clothes were clean, there was always food on the table and if we were sick, she would sit by us. She wouldn’t say much, but she was always there.

Given all that, I wasn’t surprised she let my dad keep the picture and the letter. Nor was I surprised that she knew all about the woman and was willing to share the story, which she did, without any trace of emotion. The last page of the letter is long gone now and I can’t remember her name, I think it was Lillian. My mom told me that she was a French Jew  who fled Paris for North Africa before the Nazis invaded. She adored my dad – the letter certainly bears that out. My mom thinks they stayed in touch for awhile after his discharge.

Your insouciant smile

My mom and Lucille gave me a gift. I never knew my father as anything but a disappointed man. His happiness, when it came, was rarely shared with his children.  It softens his memory to know that he was young and charming and happy, even if it was long ago and in a world far removed from ours.

I wonder if she ever tried to find him, her love with the insouciant smile.

Love letter to Cleveland Ohio

Cleveland, I love you.

I love you from the gritty parking lots of the flats to the boarded up houses standing like bookends in neighborhoods struggling to survive. I love you because even though you are hurting and depressed you pulled yourself up and got to the polls. I love you because given the opportunity you voted early downtown at the Board of Elections after work, day after day after day through the month of October. I love you because on November 4, 2008, you got up at the break of dawn to stand in line in the cold and dark for hours so you could mark that circle and make history. I love you because you got there even though you were sick, or just had a baby, or were so bent from age and years of hard work it took you 15 minutes to walk the 100 yards from your car to the polling place.

I love you because, even before November 4th, you knocked on doors, made phone calls and kept faith, even when you were attacked. I love you because you shared your heart with me over these past 6 weeks when you committed to making sure Ohio went to Obama.

And what a heart you have.

You embraced with kindness the hundreds of volunteers who came to our city.

You stood in line hours and hours to vote, without complaint.

Your children stood with you, hours and hours, without complaint.

You drove you grandmother to the polls, and walked her ever so patiently to the booth so she could vote.

You hadn’t voted in 30 years, and even though you suspected your one vote would not matter, you couldn’t stay home.

You stood outside the polling places cheering and celebrating your friends and neighbors who came to vote.

You were a brand new grandmother driving your daughter and her newborn home from the hospital, and because the hospital discharged her before she could vote, you stopped at the polls and made arrangements for her to vote so that her baby could have a brighter future.

You came even when you couldn’t vote because you wanted to part of history.

And you were – all of you.

This post is dedicated to the 15 year old boy who stood outside the polls on Kinsman, dancing with joy, and who said “I want to vote for Obama – he needs me, but I can’t I’m only 15.”

You stood there in the cold with the Obama volunteers until the polls closed; you inspired them. You inspired me too even though I couldn’t say anything then, you were adorable! Your mother should be very proud.

Remember, everyone told you to keep believing, that you would be able to vote (and work) for Obama’s re-election.

They were right , yes you can, because Cleveland and Ohio did what needed to be done.

Be proud.

* I worked the polls as a neutral volunteer on election day, so I couldn’t say or do anything to show my support for Obama. It was tough, but I honored the directive; I even removed my Obama bumper sticker.  The day went smoothly in all the districts I attended. By the end of the day I regretted my decision to work the non-partisan end, I would have had much more fun as a lawyer for Obama’s campaign.

And they were extraordinary. From the hundreds of people standing in line outside cramped polling places, patiently waiting for the doors to open, to the two young guys who made it in two vote for Obama with barely two minutes left to go.

Any partisan conversations I shared were conducted after the polls closed and my duties as a neutral volunteer were complete.

You Have the Right to Vote

Election Protection - call to report problems

Just call me Judy Btfsplk

I know I am dating myself with that reference but, I could care less about dating myself, since in fact, I am only dating myself.

Do you see now why my head spins when I think too much? And internets, my head is spinning.

Much like the trinity (“a mystery wrapped in an enigma” or so my catechism told me),* today was a comic-karmic cesspool wrapped up in a nearly perfect day. Thursday Obama announced a Cleveland rally featuring none other than “the Boss.”  I love Obama and I love Bruce Springsteen (who doesn’t?) so I RSVP’d on Obama.com, donated 5 bucks* (maybe please to win a front row seat on election night) and started planning.  Being single (alone again, naturally) and with a surfeit of absent and/or crowd averse friends, I was worried I would have to attend alone. And you all know how people look at single women of a certain age mumbling to themselves in crowds. Not pretty. So I started recruiting.

I convinced my good friends and neighbors the M’s to go; N and P (two of the finest people G-d put on this earth) said they might go.  Son No. 2 wanted to go but had a Leadership Conference this weekend and would be in East Podunk doing rope/rock climbing at a YMCA on Sunday. Saturday it looked like it was a go for everyone except the boy – by Sunday the M’s were still working out the details, N & P (wisely) decided to watch at home and the boy was texting me that he wanted to, oh and by the way, would I drive to East Podunk on Sunday and pick him up so that he could rock to witness the Boss history.

I am a softy, I would drive anywhere for the boy.  But my car (like everything else since I lost my job) suffers from lack of maintenance. I agonized over whether the bubble in the rear tire would be a problem; I worried about spending money for gasoline. But after 70 billion-ty texts and cell calls I decided I would pick him in East Podunk (over an hour away), drive to downtown Cleveland and find a parking place far from the madding crowd so we could rock the vote participate in history.

By 10:30 AM, I was scrubbed and dressed, ready to grab my keys and zip out the door when I reached for my trusty eye glasses -

cue foreboding music – dum dum dum

SNAP – they broke clean in half.

Broken glasses, insurance card, tea and Mounds miniatures to dull the pain

Dammit I thought is this an omen?

No, I have to stop being afraid and worrying – get out of the house and get out of this isolation.

Bravely I grabbed a set of old glasses, logged onto to Map Quest to get directions to East Podunk. I printed everything while I tied my most comfortable pair of shoes.  I turned off the computer and grabbed the stuff from the printer and hit the road.

Sort of.

First, I forgot my cell phone, then I realized I forgot to print the directions to East Podunk. No problem I thought – I’ll get them on my cell. I googled map quest on my cell – WTF – no results. I googled google maps – WTF – had to install an application.  I was multitasking like Kate Plus 8 when I walked out the door. I moved the boy’s car to the street (it’s complicated the garage situation here) and made one last return to the house to get my ipod.

Finally in my car and on the road I was making progress, zipped out 271, got on Rt. 8, I was cruising to the Dixie Chicks not making nice and congratulating myself on getting out of my way and into the world.  So far so good – right?

Umm – no.

After about 10 minutes I noticed a lot more buildings than usual on Rt. 8 – hmm – lots of building – wait wait wait – dammit I am going the wrong direction – I am headed back home. I turned the car around and got myself going in the right direction which included LOTS road construction and 40 MPH speed limits and a 100 billion-ty text and calls from the boy – WHERE ARE YOU!

Finally I made it to the general vicinity of East Podunk in the middle of nowhere Ohio. One hand on the wheel and one hand trying to mapquest, I suspected I had gotten lost.  Spying 2 churches ahead I thought – SALVATION! and pulled into the lot to consult my map.  I couldn’t figure it out, but luckily a car was pulling out of the church lot, I pulled beside it and motioned for the driver to roll down her window.

She did. I asked do you know where Nimsalla Road is?

She replied – I’m deaf.

What are the odds? When I am not flustered I can sign enough to be polite but I was so flabbergasted I just mumbled – I am sorry.

Geez. Hey G-d it’s me Maragaret Judy Btfsplk – are you trying to tell me something.

I forged on, ultimately arriving at the YMCA camp where the boy was waiting. He jumped in the car, allowing me only the briefest of bathroom breaks**, and we were off to Cleveland. We arrived in Cleveland about 1:15 PM and parked a good distance from the Event. We hoofed it fast and got to East 9th and ran smack dab into the line for the event. We got in line and waited

the line

and waited

more line

and waited

We made it!

until about 2 hours later when we inched our way forward as the last lucky few to make it into the actual event. We were way way way in the back, but we were happy.

the back of the rally

After about another 45 minutes the Boss came on and he was awesome. I couldn’t see him but I could hear him.  About 30 minutes after that, Obama came on and he was even more awesome.  I couldn’t see Obama either; not only was he far away, but they had HUGE BRIGHT rapture lighting blinding my field of vision.

rapture lighting Bruce Springsteen

It was impossible to even look in the direction of the stage without being blinded.

But it was great and everyone was having a good time until Obama mentioned Dick Cheney’s name. Dick must have some heavy dark mumbo jumbo because right then it started to rain and it didn’t stop. Don’t get me wrong – it was still awesome – only now it was awesome and wet.

Rally over, aching from standing in one place on cold concrete, headache from the rapture lights, we headed back the seeming gazillion miles back to our car. Needing a drink and a bathroom by this point, we were frustrated at every block by our city’s non-existent nightlife. Finally just when I was about to pass out we spied a Starbucks.

AHHHHhhhhhh – we zipped in and while the boy got us coffee I stood in line for the one, now very popular, ladies room. Soaking wet, worn out and looking pretty ghastly, I was glad I had not run into anyone I knew when, dum dum dum, the bathroom door opened and there she stood.

A perfectly put together HR person who didn’t hire me for one of the jobs I applied for – dammit.

Maybe she won’t recognize me.

Then she looks me in the eye and says Clare?

Ahh no I said – Judy Btfsplk.

No time to chat, la la la, we got the heck out of there.

By now I am starving (no lunch, no supper, no coffee, no energy) and I still have to get the boy fed and back to his leadership conference, which I did cuz I am awesome.

Finally, 8 long hours after I left, I  returned home with visions of Advil and my jammies dancing in my head – but wait – the boy’s car is in the street and I have to put it back in the driveway. I can barely walk I am so cold and sore, but I hobble out the street, open the passenger door (the only one that unlocks on his jalopy) and climb my old tired ass into the driver’s seat.  I start the car and back up to pull into my driveway. Only, in the inky blackness of the night and unaccustomed to his car, I put it into reverse and

CRASH – right into my neighbor’s car.

Listen guys, I am tired, I am broke, I haven’t been able to find a job in spite of mad crazy wonderful skills and sterling references. The last thing I need is another day like today.

Send light, send prayers, send good thoughts.  I am ready for CHANGE.

* I know I am being irreverent – don’t hassle me – at least I am not talking about my ideas for Imprimatur panties or a Pop up Pope book.

** the East Podunk YMCA has the loudest most powerful hand dryer on the planet except maybe at the KFC in Roanoke Rapids, NC

Letter to my son

My son is participating in a leadership conference this weekend.  Parents were invited to send letters to their children to be opened as a surprise during the weekend. One of the many stresses of long term unemployment and poverty is that opportunities like this get jumbled and mixed up. His dad can afford to buy/do/provide what he needs – I cannot.

This sets up stress. He walks and lives in 2 different worlds. His father’s, where their home is a McMansion and his archetypal stepmother doesn’t work, has a trust fund and gets weekly massages and manicures at home and mine, his childhood home (still owned by dad), where I live rent free in lieu of child support, and where, since I lost my job, there are no frills and sometimes, not even the necessities.

His father works hard, makes a good living, but has always balked at paying additional child support and I made a decision early on not to put my child through the pain of litigation over that issue.  In retrospect, I think it was a mistake, but with only 8 months until he leaves for college, it is water over the dam.  I think in not fighting for what could have made my life, and by association his life, better, I think I lost his respect. Without a job, and struggling to keep my car, food on the table and the lights on, sometimes I feel I have nothing to offer him. When he tells me how his dad is spending all this money on college application fees, I die a little inside that I, in spite of all my education and skills, cannot help.

The worst pain is that in the day to day stress of trying to survive, sometimes I feel like all I give him is pain. This letter is my attempt to give him something more.

Open letter to my son.

My darling boy,

It seems I am always running to catch up – last week when the school’s request came to write a letter to be presented to you this weekend, you were unsure about going so I didn’t do it. But here in between breakfast and driving you to school I am stealing a few moments to let you know how proud I am of you.

You are an extraordinary young man – full of courage and heart. You work hard and you play hard. These traits are not new – you have always embraced the challenge and joy life brought to your plate.  Never lose your passion for sport – it nourishes your spirit and keeps you safe from the inevitable stress of life.  Never lose your ability to savor joy in every moment, no matter how small, because this will keep you optimistic when life becomes challenging.

You are my pride and my joy – I know you are your father’s as well.  I am sorry for the troubles that my life and my choices have placed on your shoulders.  With deep humility I ask that you not let these troubles make you bitter or hard, rather open your heart so that within the pain you feel and see every day, you grow in compassion and strength.

You do not have to be cold and dispassionate to get things done. The truly strong are not afraid to really see the pain and struggles of their fellow human beings.  When you know and feel what those around you are dealing with, you have the opportunity to lift them up, and in lifting them up, you create strong relationships. This is true in family, business and community.

Honey, you have all the qualities of a great leader.  As you continue to mature and grow, don’t ignore any aspect of who you are.  Your spirituality is just as important as your physical strength. Your compassion is just as important as your intellect.

I am so proud of you – I love you very much.

Mommy