grief – Don't Gel Too Soon

Big Birthday Memory #2: Home and Heartache

NOTE: As I approach my 70th birthday, I’ll reprise a milestone post here each day until the end of May. Today – from December 4, 2006.

Yeah, we’re home – and as usual it’s like walking into an electric fan. We landed, unpacked, did laundry, slept (until 3AM) then Rick went back to the airport for a fund-raising trip to California. I’m working on several major projects and wanting to organize for when the boys come home for the holidays. Grocery lists and activity planning in addition to many hours of business obligations.

Lots on my mind. Today a friend told me about the last conversation she had with her father and I was ambushed by a deluge of memories. It’s tough to come to terms with the loss of a parent. Both of mine have been gone for years and there isn’t a day I don’t think of them — and, often, wish I could ask them something – or tell them something — or just feel their love again. I haven’t felt this way in a long time and it surprised me. I just wasn’t expecting the intensity.

I once sent my dad the lyrics to a Judy Collins song about her father. It’s a wonderful evocation of the love between fathers and daughters and the bitter-sweet realization that one’s life will exceed that of a beloved parent. It’s what they’d wish for us but it’s complicated. Anyway there wasn’t a moment of my life when I doubted the love for and faith in me felt by both my parents.

There were also circumstances in my life that led me, in my memory at least, to be less attentive than I wanted to be. I think it will haunt me forever- times when finances or my own parental responsibilities kept me from visits; times when I let my dad tell me not to come because he didn’t want us to “see him like this.” — all those things we all wish we’d done differently. I am beginning to think that this is a real issue for me and one I’ve got to get some clarity about.

This is the second time in the space of the 90 days or so I’ve had this blog that my dad has come up and he’s been gone since 1991. Somehow though I’m more at peace with the loss of him. I can summon memories that make me smile and I know that he had a profound and lovely effect on my sons, which adds to my own fond remembrances of him.

My mother, who died in 1998, haunts me though. I know things in her life frustrated her – and that she would have liked to do more in the world outside the house. My husband told both her and me that I was guilty that my arrival had pulled her out of a promising career but she insisted that that was HER choice and I should get over it. That she loved raising the three of us. I don’t doubt that she loved raising her daughters but I also think she needed more than she was able to get in life as a suburban mom. I don’t know – all I know is that I feel a need to be particularly helpful to elderly women on the street, or the bus, or the synagogue steps. As if I can do for her by doing for them. Agh. I don’t know. I’m going to bed to see if I can beat the last of the jet lag. This is too sad.

Grief, Prince, Bruce and a Lost Friend

This is one of just many musical tributes to the loss of a great artist and since it’s Bruce, it’s especially meaningful to me.

When a celebrity dies, the public memories of respected peers add a kind of emotional gravitas that helps all of us who love the mourner or the mourned – or both.

Personal loss. though, has a weight and impact hotter, sharper and deeper.

Sunday, we went to a “shiva,”a home memorial services held for a friend. We’d met him and his wonderful wife on a cruise, sailed all through the Mediterranean and had a great time; we were so happy they lived nearby, especially since we shared so much: they’d been married as long as we have, also had grown kids and grandkids and, it turned out, lived just across San Francisco Bay from us.

Gerri Larry tender fixed2 — Gerri and Larry Miller Summer, 2015 Outside Gironda, Sp;ain

Larry was a blast to be around, intense, funny, smart and curious; he and his wife Gerri were a great pair and it was so very hard to see her grieving so intensely.

As I near my 8th decade with very little sense of age, I’m so aware of each loss of a peer and remember my dad telling me with astonishment every time one of his friends left us; it seemed to impossible to him. Like so many other things, I understand this so much more now.

Of course it’s easier to grieve the loss of a public person, no matter how admired: the sharp reality of a more personal one, deep feeling for his family and realigning of each memory of them, especially in the years that we become so much more aware of our own mortality, cuts and lingers so much more.

So Much Pain

All women are sisters. If you don’t believe me, write about a miscarriage and see what happens. A week ago I described my own experience, now more than 30 years old — memories made fresh by a private newsletter conversation.

Two amazing (but not surprising) realities emerged: 1) This is one pain that stays right there – buried under daily events and worries and happy times — but not gone. Never gone. 2) It is a gift to have a place to discuss or describe the things that wound us, change us, leave silent but permanent marks. Offering that space is one particular gift women give to one another. Here are three who shared my “place:”

Nobody ever talks about it but the reality is that many people have been through it (multiple times even) and I think there is comfort in shared grief.

I like to be tidy with emotions (I never am – HA!), but the grief I feel about these losses have a layer of guilt around them – as if I shouldn’t be so upset. But I am.

I am in tears! I was on Facebook, saw your post on miscarriage and just oh my goodness. I have had 2 miscarriages in the past year. It been hard, but it’s made so much harder that the whole subject has a weird taboo around it. It’s not like people won’t ask me when I’m planning to have kids. I’ve heard a thousand times “when are you going to have children?” and had to make light of a situation that I was still really sad about.

That’s all.

My Miscarriage: Memories that Don’t Fade

A Lost Possibility: Women on Miscarriage - from The Nib — A Lost Possibility: Women on Miscarriage – by Ryan Alexander-Tanner, from The Nib

NOTE: In a newsletter, Nona Willis Aronowitz posted two stories about miscarriages. As I began to respond, this emerged:

My sons are 40 and 35. Between them I had a miscarriage. She was a girl. It was the first day I had told anyone I was pregnant and begun wearing maternity clothes.

It happened on Election Night 1978 and I was in the studio producing the “house desk” results.

When the pain got serious I raced home, lost most of the fetus in the bathroom, and called our OB. We went immediately to the hospital; in the morning I had a D and C. It was devastating.

Then came the reaction:
VP of News: You work too hard.
Secretary to Pres of News: What were you doing working all night? Didn’t you want this baby?

On the other hand, I also got notes from people ranging from my aunt to a colleague, all with the same message: “I’ve never told anyone before but I had a miscarriage (anywhere from 1 to 30) years ago.” The pain for each was still real.

I was lucky though. My OB was from Czechoslovakia. He had a real (maybe European, maybe Socialist, maybe just father of daughters) respect for professional women and, as he had been in my first pregnancy was wonderfully supportive. He ran a cell test to determine whether there was a distinguishable cause (there was – a serious genetic issue – although we didn’t learn that for months, it has been a comfort.) He explained the D and C, urged us to take time to grieve but also reminded us that we were far from finished with efforts to have more kids, kept me in the hospital an extra day so I could pull myself together before I went home and had to tell our nearly-three-year-old son.

He wanted to know where the baby went. I just couldn’t handle a literal answer so even though I wasn’t at that time religious at all I told him the baby was with God. I needed him to understand that she was somewhere where she would be as loved as he was on 79th and Broadway.

Several years later when I worked at TODAY, with the support of our Executive Producer, I produced a series about miscarriages. The narrator was an OB himself, one of the TODAY stable of experts. I’m not naming him because this is what he told me (to his credit:) “Thank you so much for doing this series with me. I’ve been an OB for 25 years and I never realized the pain that this causes women.” Seriously. I was grateful that he was emotionally available to admit this but can you imagine? Never realized.

One more thing – partners are NOT sufficiently supported when this happens. They need FAR more attention than they usually receive. My husband has said for years that he wished we could have had a funeral or some sort of service so he too could have a vehicle to grieve.

NONA thank you so much for raising this and for the links to those powerful pieces. The graphic one was particularly evocative as it reminded me of small moments I’d forgotten.

For the record – our second son was born 2 years later. Both my boys are fabulous men and exquisite spouses and dads. I am grateful for them both and the sorrow of our loss is not in any way linked to how I define my unambiguous and grateful love of them.

Even so – the fact that, 32 years later, the silence and shame and insensitivity remains is a travesty. Please share this with doctors, nurses, midwives, preschool teachers and others who are on the “front lines.” Maybe we can help to break the chain.,

A REBIRTH OF WONDER — DEATH AND LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

In A Coney Island of the Mind, San Francisco poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti wrote of a search for a rebirth of wonder.* It’s out there – that wonder — sometimes in the strangest places.

Here is what I know: Some things in life surprise us — not with shock but with wonder. Today we flew to Boston for Rick’s dad’s funeral. It was a beautiful day – sunny and almost as warm as spring. With Rick and me traveled not only our remarkable rabbi, but also two of Rick’s dearest friends. Despite the mid-week madness of Washington, they had chosen to leave their work and fly north to support us. In addition, the sisters of two friends unable to come arrived as their surrogates. That was the first wondrous thing.

An Orthodox funeral is deceptively simple. The coffin is a plain pine box held together with pegs. As it leaves the hearse it is borne by the mourners to its place over the grave. On the way, Psalm 91 is recited and the procession stops seven times. Once the coffin – reverently referred to as the “aron” is in place, the service proceeds.

With our rabbi leading the service, each step along the way was accompanied by warm and loving exposition: Why do we do this? — How should we participate? — What is the blessing of bearing the aron and seeing to its burial? As he led the prayers and answered these questions, it was with such love and individuality that participation became a privilege and a comfort. That is the second wondrous thing.

As the service moved toward conclusion the rabbi explained the final act. We, not the cemetery employees, would bury the coffin – my husband’s father. One by one, we took up the shovels and poured earth into the grave. Not until the grave was full and the coffin covered did we leave… and then, all those in attendance formed a double line so that Rick and his brother could pass through, moving from the funeral to the initial mourning period, or Shiva.

This last, loving duty is perhaps the most remarkable of what an Orthodox Jewish funeral offers mourners. At the funerals of each of my parents, way before we moved into this new life, the cemetery distributed little envelopes of “dirt from Israel” which attendees dropped on the coffin. We all left then, and the cemetery employees finished the job.

I told my sister about the custom that mourners fill the grave, thinking that she, who is not thrilled with our decision to live a more observant life, would be appalled. Instead, she said “That’s so great – leaving them covered and at peace. I felt so badly leaving Daddy there so exposed….” That’s probably the most critical. Imagine the difference, at the close of such a painful day, filled with loss and grief, if you knew you’d bid a farewell that leaves your loved one cared for and at peace. Imagine, too, that those you love – beloved friends and family members – have all left a part of themselves there in the grave; that the final resting place includes their loving labor. That’s the final wondrous thing.

We’re nowhere near the Age of Wonder, that’s for sure. But we are occasionally given a peek. Today the window opened and a bit emerged — not quite a rebirth but present nonetheless — just enough to help us see what’s possible. If that’s not wonder, I don’t know what is.

*I Am Waiting
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting for someone
to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder

SNOW AND SORROW

What a perfect Sunday. If you’ve never lived around snow, you can’t imagine the wonder of its first falling – big wet flakes piling up, covering dead leaves and dirt, silencing passing car noises and footsteps. You take a step and there’s a palpable give in the surface, and a wonderful squeaking sound. Here’s how our street looked and…

This is what our house looked like yesterday — the whole neighborhood was one big fairy tale. Some friends with (wonderful) small children invited us to come watch them slide down the local sledding hill.. an invitation we accepted happily. It was such a joy to watch them revel in the snow, the speed, the make-believe strawberry/snow candy, and manufacture of snowballs aimed, somewhat haphazardly (they are little) at us.

In the evening some friends who had parked their car in our driveway came over to dig it out and stayed for soup and toast. It was lovely. After they left, we both fell asleep during the Oscars and woke up in fine fettle. And then.

Of course, there’s an "and then." What did you think? At around 9:30 this morning my husband called me to tell me that his father had died. He was 87 and quite ill, so it was not, in that sense, a surprise, but it was still painful. He’s lived in LA for years, we saw him less often since we moved back east — and it was a complicated relationship, but still… I’m sitting here now listening to my husband make arrangements and work with his brother in Philadelphia and our rabbi to get things together — and worrying.

I have some strong opinions about all this myself and am having a terrible time keeping my mouth (almost completely) shut about it all. It was his dad and his reactions are the ones to be honored but as the one who usually does all these kinds of things it’s tough to stay on the sidelines – where he seems to want me to be.

I worry, too. How will it be when the arrangements are done, when there’s no place left to call? It’s my prayer that our new, observant life will help to support and protect him as he deals with the loss of the last of our four parents to leave us. And help us travel this newest journey together. There are rituals to follow for a year, so we will have some structure to his grief. For that I’m truly grateful. Not only does it offer us the comfort that comes with faith and the privilege of a community of loving friends – it also has served to bring Rick and his brother closer, since they also are observant – and that has made making all these arrangements much easier. You never know where the blessings are going to land, I guess. Wish us well.

A Woman of Valor

Lisa Goldberg, 54 years old, died this week of a brain aneurysm. When I heard, all I could think was “what a waste.” While it’s always sad when someone dies, especially to those who loved them, Lisa, quietly (there are so few photos of her available online that I had to use this candid) and with great dignity, contributed so much. President of the Charles H. Revson Foundation, she was responsible for funding many impressive programs. Some dealt with Jewish issues, some with urban social change, and, as in the one through which I met her, some dealt with issues relating to women.

Two years ago, she had the foresight to issue a planning grant to support the launch of the Women’s Media Center, a project for women in journalism whose founders include Gloria Steinem, Jane Fonda, Eve Ensler and Marlene Sanders among other great pioneers. In the time since, the Center has made great strides and become a force not only for women journalists but in the coverage of issues that matter to or involve women.

I didn’t know Lisa well – more admired her from afar. Her role at Revson was remarkable, and her leadership made difference in a great many lives. She was Best Woman at the wedding of a friend of mine — which I always thought was pretty cool. Beyond a few conversations about the Center or books we loved, we didn’t have that much contact.

One incident though, to me, is typical of her. I was “staffing” the early days of the Women’s Media Center and we were meeting at the Manhattan headquarters of the Revson Foundation. Some material had not been printed, there was a blizzard, and I barely had time to get to the offices much less to Kinko’s. Lisa’s staff helped me get everything printed, collated and bound without breaking a sweat – OR acting like they were doing me a favor (which they were…..) I sent Lisa a note letting her know how great they had been. Her response was typical of my perception of her. She thanked me for letting her know, told me she had forwarded my note to the young women who had helped me and added how high her own regard was for each of them. Again – quiet, unassuming and on the mark.

Of course there’s one other thing. When someone dies suddenly, there’s always a moment of terror. In this case, just as I always measure the deaths of older people by whether they were older or younger than my father was when he died, I was shocked to realize that Lisa was younger than I. It’s a credit to her, though, that this thought was fleeting and quickly banished. The loss of such a “woman of valor” is tough enough on its own.

Home and Heartache

There were also circumstances in my life that led me, in my memory at least, to be less attentive than I wanted to be. I think it will haunt me forever- times when finances or my own parental responsibilities kept me from visits; times when I let my dad tell me not to come because he didn’t want us to "see him like this." — all those things we all wish we’d done differently. I am beginning to think that this is a real issue for me and one I’ve got to get some clarity about.