<!– /* Font Definitions */ @font-face {font-family:”Cambria Math”; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1107304683 0 0 159 0;} @font-face {font-family:Cambria; panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4; mso-font-charset:0; mso-generic-font-family:roman; mso-font-pitch:variable; mso-font-signature:-1610611985 1073741899 0 0 159 0;} /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-unhide:no; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Cambria”,”serif”; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-bidi-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} .MsoChpDefault {mso-style-type:export-only; mso-default-props:yes; font-size:10.0pt; mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-fareast-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria;} @page WordSection1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.WordSection1 {page:WordSection1;} –>
EULOGY FOR MOMMY
Esther 7/18/10
Mommy was at once the consummate teacher and the eager, curious learner. She grew up in an idyllic household ripe with an excitement for new ideas and yet steeped in the spirit of ancient dreams. What is so incredible is that she recreated that wisdom and “ruach”, that spirit in our childhood home. She was smart and skillful, making and taking each teachable moment and permeating it for us with her powerful, beautiful little stories and even her songs in Yiddish, in Hebrew and in later years, in English.
Even though her parents and brothers and sisters were killed years before our birth, they became real presences in our lives. Hers is the triumph of sheer will, personality and skill over the destruction that was intended to end her life. Instead, she survived to rebuild it and we were the lucky recipients of her selfless love and ingenious resourcefulness.
As she often loved to tell us throughout our childhood, when she gave birth to us as a resident of a displaced person’s camp in then impoverished Italy, she welcomed us with the words, SHALOM BANOT…… welcome daughters, literally, although the word shalom also signifies the peace that had finally arrived for her. With just this little phrase, she transmitted the strategic, highly focused coded message, “I will bring you into the world I know and love even though its physical presence has been destroyed.” And that she did!
She was truly the heroic embodiment of an idea she often talked to us about…. That WHAT you HAVE is not nearly as important as WHO you ARE. She liked to point out with intense pride that, even though everything and everybody had been taken away from her, she remained in full possession of her most prized possessions, her knowledge and her skills, her dreams and her values.
Against all odds, she has created, already, 3 new generations who are illuminated by her clear vision of the kind of goals that are important and who are informed by her model for how to achieve them.
July 19th, 2010
Note: I’ve edited this a few times. It’s just about the hardest thing I’ve ever written.
Har Hamenuchot, Jerusalem
For the ten years before she died, I visited my savta whenever I was in LA to sit quietly with her and enjoy her calm strength.
She couldn’t say it, but I always felt she was deeply satisfied to have me sitting next to her. It was physical proof that she’d won. Her family was safe, secure and growing.
She was the model in many ways for who I’ve become. I never told her and I wish I had.
She was a kind, smart and intellectual person that spoke five languages. I saw her approach life with intense pragmatism and deep morality. She was optimistic and cheery even when she had no reason to be. She always seemed to know what was right and what was wrong. She knew what she wanted.
She didn’t get what she wanted much though.
She didn’t get to grow old around her close family. She lost them, her first husband, her baby and everything she knew in a few short years. She didn’t get to move to Israel after the holocaust. When she finally made it to Israel in the 90s she was soon chased out by SCUD missiles. My grandfather was a good man but a poor match for her.
I sat down to record her life story when I was in my teens. I’ve lost or taped over the cassette but remember many of her words. It makes me cringe to think that I might have traded her story for a Thompson Twins album!
I remember her telling me about how much she loved her father who was her idol.
I remember her telling me that her main complaint about the russian occupation of her village were the mandatory communal dances around a bonfire. I was just getting into clubbing and thought it actually sounded pretty cool.
I remember her eyes lighting up as she talked passionately about the first husband she had loved and connected with deeply.
I remember her mentioning that her papers were faked because she had to take someone else’s identity after the war. She said that she was really was a few years older than we thought.
I remember how she segued matter-of-factly from escaping a line of her family members being marched off to telling me - in great detail - about a good looking fellow partisan in the forest that played a mean violin.
Finding the bright side of years as a partisan in a forest was her in a nutshell.
She had an unconditional way about her that always made me feel loved and special even when I was being an idiot.
When I was 18 and telling her about hanging out in Europe, I insisted that Switzerland was in Northern Europe and full of sexy blond girls. She finally looked at me and said with an affectionate smile ‘I know where Switzerland is. I went through it when I walked from Poland to Italy’.
I regularly see her values and legacy in the way I live my life.
I’m certain that she influenced my love of adventures, living around the world and a good story.
I’ve tried to do the right thing for people like her that have lost their home in helping illegal aliens in the US and Japan and now working with refugees in London.
I’ve taken strength from her in dealing with otherwise crushing experiences.
And I’ve tried not to take life too seriously. I learned from her that shit can happen and you still have to find your own happiness.
This last bit of my savta’s legacy is the part that matters most. It’d be easy to get caught up in my savta as hard-core survivor and miss her sweetness.
It’s a sweetness I saw every time she took five minutes at her door to say goodbye with a strong ‘Be Helty and Heppy’. Survive and thrive.
Every time I think of her it reminds me how fortunate I’ve been to have so much goodness in my life and how much of it I owe to her.
June 21st, 2010
Grandma, I always made sure to visit you to deliver at least a half an hour of quality teasing every time I came through Los Angeles from wherever else I was living.
It’s weird for me to come to LA and for this to be our time together. The last time.
My first memory of you is when you came by our house in Granada Hills when I was around 6 and you didn’t want to touch me because I had a cold.
I remember better times after that staying over with you enjoying 5 PM dinners at Sizzler, playing with cool electronic things Uncle Steve left behind, rocking out on your organ and hanging around in the kitchen drinking ginger ale while you made tuna for lunch. I felt comfortable at your place.
I also remember deciding when I was 12 or so that I shouldn’t accept money from you. You started talking about your will for some reason and I told you firmly that I wanted you to ‘write me out of it’. After that yearly Chai (and later double-chai) september birthday checks went uncashed and the annual tradition of you asking me around july whether you should call the bank and cancel the check kicked off!
I didn’t want to have money screw up our relationship as it did so many of your other relationships
My next series of memories are from high school years when I often wished you were a different kind of grandmother - more affectionate, more supportive, I guess someone I could go live with if things got really rough!
After I moved out of LA when I was 18 and over the next twenty years or so my experiences with you were a series of snapshots where I was lucky enough to get to know you better each time and to have a great time every visit to your apartment.
Thinking back and given your enjoyment of a good dust-up, it still amazes me that we never had a disagreement, were usually laughing and, I think, both looked forward to each, admittedly brief, visit.
On one trip to LA about ten years ago, I remember driving you back to your place from some Ventura Blvd. restuarant in my flashy Jaguar and you telling me about some dapper guy you’d gone out with on a few dates 20 years before that also drove a Jaguar. We talked about how you’d never really wanted another man after grandpa sol died and you told me how much he’d meant to you.
After you had your first stroke, I got to see independent grandma - the fiesty one that saw being dependent as a mortal sin. I respected the hell out of you for overcoming disability after disability. Sicknesses that I’m sure have beaten down less formidable and ornery grandmothers.
As I continued to see you on my ocassional swings through LA I finally cracked the code on the perfect grandma visit.
Teasing.
The visits got more hilarious each time as we followed the formula.
First, you’d complain about health issues past and present. I’d commiserate.
Next, I’d catch you up on what I was doing somewhere pretty distant. It didn’t matter much if it was Tokyo, Mexico City or San Diego - it felt like I was giving you dispatches from exotic places. I always did admire how you didn’t want or need anything beyond the world bounded by the San Fernando Valley and memories of Chicago.
Then the teasing would start. At first it was mostly me with high comedy like the one-ply toilet paper bit, riffing on creatively edited versions of different TV soaps as seen in a two-inch horizontal strip on your always broken TV and best of all, a growing collection of fine walker jokes. All good for a laugh. A few years ago, when you started to tease back, I started to see you as a friendly voice for the first time - someone I had a real relationship with.
A few nights ago when I got the email from Dad that you were dying I wasn’t surprised and my first thought was to wish you could go out the way you wanted - independent until the end.
I was still crushed though and cried for a long time.
I cried for everything you were to me, to my father and to others.
I cried for the everything you weren’t that I wanted you to be.
Most of all I cried because I love you and always knew you loved me, in your way.
Goodbye.
December 20th, 2009
I upgraded to Firefox 3.0 recently and Google Maps stopped working soon after. Most of the page would load but the map portion would stay blank. I went through all the usual steps (clear cache, nuke cookie, check about:config settings) with no dice until I started to disable Add-on Extensions (Tools->Add-ons->Extensions). By semi-pseudo-scientific process of elimination I think I fingered the Skype extension for Firefox as the problem. Give it a try if you have the same problem. Hope it helps.
August 25th, 2008
Last July 4th weekend (about eight weeks ago) I went to Tijuana with my cousin Nate to grab a bite at one of my favorite restaurants. Sadly, no donkeys or tequila were harmed in the breaking of my shoulder. Don’t take this as a TJ-bashing story. Although there is a narco-twist, I lived in Mexico for years without anything remotely bad happening. I do hope to provide a glimpse of what’s ahead for other folks that have similar injuries. If you’ve just had a similar injury, get ready for a life changing event (at least for the next few months) and you’ll find there’s not much on the interwebs about it.
I was walking back to the border with Nate and came to one of the huge TJ roundabouts. I didn’t see any cars coming and started to cross. About a 1/3 of the way in I heard an engine rev, looked up and saw a narco looking 4×4 accelerating towards me and jerking his wheel back and forth. Seeing that this is a fight I would lose, I turned back to the curb, promptly slipped on something and went down on my outstretched right hand. Immediately, I knew that I had blown the shoulder - those of you that have been in shock know what’s it’s like to be beyond pain. Somehow I rolled to the side of the road, didn’t get run over and made a sling out of my jacket. Doctors told me a few times after that I must have hit the arm with massive energy to cause that level of damage. So, after being offerred aspirin by at least ten friendly Mexicans and a few introductions to brothers-in-law that are good with bones I made it back to the border and on to a US emergency room. That’s where the real fun started.
Bone doctors don’t seem to hang around in emergency rooms waiting for patients, particularly at midnight on Saturdays. So, they have to call them in. If you’ve got a badly broken shoulder waiting is pure agony. In my case it took a few hours for the orthopedic intern to show up. His key decision was whether to operate right away or have me see an orthopedist on Monday. He ordered up a set of x-rays to see if the shoulder was displaced and the position of the bone. His read was that I had a comminuted three or four-part fracture in the ball of the shoulder with a proximal fracture of the humerus. The humerus is the long bone that goes from the shoulder ball/socket down to the elbow. Comminuted means the bone is in multiple pieces and proximal means that the the ball part of the humerus is broken off from the forearm part at the neck.
So here’s what they saw when they took x-rays:
Since the shoulder wasn’t dislocated and the break was bad but not too out of place, an emergency operation wasn’t needed and he sent me home and told me to see my orthopedist on Monday. He also gave me a cheapie sling with instructions to immobilize the shoulder. By this time, the entire arm from the shoulder blade down to my elbow was swollen and painful. He also gave me some heavy-duty painkillers which I never took.
The next few days waiting to see my orthopedist I didn’t do much and discovered quickly a few aids to proximal fracture living:
-Hygiene: Showering was really painful so I didn’t take one for a week (yuck). Changing shirts is painful too so I wore the same shirt for a few days. When it was too nasty for me I just cut it off and switched to a XL button-up rather than moving the shoulder.
-Sleeping Nest: Pillows are really helpful to supporting a somewhat upright position for sleeping and supporting the broken shoulder arm. I never got less than six hours of sleep during the first month.
-Ice: I got a few wrap around the shoulder icepacks. They killed the pain enough that I got to avoid being stoned on painkillers (ignore if this is a beni!).
-Wardrobe: Nothing is more painful than getting into a pullover long-sleeve shirt. I got a new wardrobe (you may have these types of clothes but I didn’t) of loose shorts, button-up short-sleeve shirts and loose socks. I got a few XL shirts as well that I could wear on top of the sling because initially I didn’t want to move the shoulder socket at all. Changing what I wore seems simple but it was one of the largest pain/hassle reducers.
-Diet: I have NO scientific basis for this part but it seemed to work for me and I healed much more quickly than expected. I drank loads of water, stopped anything with caffeine or alcohol and went on a high-protein high-vitamin diet. All of the doctors I saw told me that anything I did diet-wise was meaningless but I really do think it helped. At the very least I lost weight rather than gained during the low-activity period.
So, I went to see orthopedic surgeons on Monday and Tuesday (2 and 3 days post) and heard the same thing from both. Essentially, I had the best type of the worst fracture possible. The proximal fracture with multiple pieces is nasty because the shoulder is a tough healer with lots of possible complications. On the positive side, the pieces were mostly in the right area. Both doctors said that they could operate and might have to replace the shoulder, but if they watched it there was a 50% chance that the shoulder would not fall apart (the pieces getting less together) and it would heal on its own. Even if it did not fall apart, there was also a smaller chance of non-union where the peices don’t heal together with a good fit. They could only do pin/plate/etc. surgery for a few weeks so I would come back every week for x-rays to see if the bones had shifted in a nasty way. My expectations were set that any way it goes it would be a 1-2 year recovery including physical therapy.
So I settled in for a wait and made a few more lifestyle changes:
-Dual-Sling Strategy: The orthopod gave me a nifty Ultrasling to replace my cheap-o-sling. As a note, make sure you take time at the office to learn how to adjust the sling. I found pretty quickly that each sling has its use. The Ultrasling is great at stabilization so I used it most of the time while sleeping or walking
around. I did need (desperately) to take a shower though and needed a waterproof, fast-drying and lightweight sling for the task. The lighter nylon cheapie sling they gave me at the emergency room was perfect for stabilizing my arm during a shower. Key skills here is switching between the slings.
This post is in progress - more to come!
August 24th, 2008
UPDATE NOTE: Not surprisingly, more than one group is working on the concept I described. One of the vCard extensions that I received an email about is Hcard.
Between calls today, I thought about how personal information is still sliced and diced into multiple IM systems, multiple personal pages and difused in other ways. Places like MySpace are an improvement over the narrowly focussed kane.org for sharing information of the personal type with others. However, they are still largely a closed system.
These community and social technology enablers take the first stage of open syndication and content technologies to the next level, but don’t provide an equivalent to RSS to ‘publish’ personal information. I’m thinking of a network friendly, expanded vCard or Plaxo-type technology that lives in the world of open standards and technologies. A single authoritative, but syndicated/published source of the info would solve the issues I have with both the vCard (not universal or auto-updating) and Plaxo (it has to poll each contact with email).
There are good reasons for some folks not to want anyone else to have access to their phone number or email address, but the same restrictions may not apply to bands you like or technologies you think are cool. Some of the inevitable concerns about control over information could be addressed with a federated directory approach.
How about XMLRPC-type access so I can ping the place your personal info lives (if you authorize me) and grab updates to your phone number, favorite bands, blog location, etc.?
Wouldn’t it be great if your Outlook, cell phone or other address book could constantly update your contacts?
And last, wouldn’t it be great if these capabilities could be integrated into the relevant web services that you use?
November 8th, 2005
