Reunion Redux

Last night, I got revved up after two hours of conversing with Beth to whom I last spoke when I was about 15 years old.  Back then in the suburbs of Denver, in a tightly knit Jewish community, her  family curiously mirrored mine. She had an exceptionally kind Jewish pharmacist dad (who she described as having saved  her life...ditto) and a smart crazy mom who was as harsh, controlling, and unfiltered as my mother.  Beth was one of my older sister’s frenemies, and I always liked and admired her, especially her intelligence.   

Recently, I have been reconnecting with people from my past and these encounters have blown me away by their richness and resonance. I am energized by lively exchanges with my complicated and self aware Jewish peers.  I like learning about their life trajectories and marvel at how unchanged they are,  and also how consistent I am — still the creative intellectual queer funny hippy athlete that Beth and others remember me as being. 

My friends’ lives have turned out to be well lived, not always easy, after all, our Ashkenazi genes have occasionally brought us to our knees; high achievers, anxious and intense, we all keep moving forward with our critical and questioning minds. 

I love hurtling into the present without missing a beat — because what connected us back then somehow connects us now. I feel fluid and light as a time traveler, vibrating with a feeling of authenticity and continuity. Time compresses, converges, and expands in these conversations that cover so much ground; yet we plant ourselves in the soil of what matters  most to us— our families; our work; our passions. 

Maybe this is a bonus of growing old, to have the time to engage in the  art of reflective connection. My dad modeled this magnificently. He used to pick up the phone, talk deeply to his childhood friend Al, or his college roommate Hank, or the ex-detective Rick, he played tennis with in his early 50’s. He held his people close over his lifetime.  He always asked me who I stayed in touch with, implying that I would greatly benefit from doing so. He was right. 

Beth, a MIT educated Radiologist, it turns out, lives in the South Bay with her Ophlamologist Pickle ball playing husband of thirty five years.  (Since I have  just taken up the sport myself  I hope to wrangle an invitation to play on their court — yes,  oddly enough they have one). She has 3 grown kids who have challenged her considerably but now that their brains have developed  they seem to doing quite well.  She just sold her medical practice, works part time because she loves doctoring, and hikes, bikes, and travels. When she tells me that she still loves to ski, I tell her we are definitely going! She wants to write a few books, one about choosing medical professionals and the other a memoir.  I talk about my writing practice and coaching and encourage her to make time for writing as I sense that this woman has some great stories to publish.

“Even now when I see my mother she tells me that I look horrible with no makeup and she wants to drag me into Nordstrom’s to buy decent clothes. She is profoundly disappointed in me,” Beth confides. “Oh Beth, I’m sorry, “ I say. “My mom’s dementia in many ways made her nicer, but she was so mean and judgmental. Clearly, none of her daughters met her expectations. Oh well. Not our problem.”

We laugh, intimate with this brand of inflicted damage,  and we agree to share mother/daughter, and pharmacist father stories when we get together, which I hope will be soon.

“There was a pill in my family for everything,” Beth remembered and I told her about the huge garbage bags full of drugs we removed from my parent’s house when my dad died.  And then we were off talking for another half hour.  Honestly, I don’t know how we managed to get off the phone call. 

A New Prayer

"Pray for acceptance,” Dr. Harley, my new naturopath suggested, as she handed me a bottle of Hawthorne, an herbal remedy that uplifts and strengthens both the physical and emotional heart.

After managing a major crisis with my mother this month, when she was mercilessly thrown out of the Memory care facility where she’s lived the last couple of years, and sent without my consent to Marin General, where she was pumped full of Haldol for two and a half days until I could get her discharged (she only had a mild cold), my blood pressure soared; at night, for the next week, my broken heart would not stop racing.  

My mom has been on a difficult dementia journey for almost a decade. A blunt, judgmental, and tough-minded woman, she's become gentler as her dementia has progressed. Recently, however, in her fear and confusion, she’s gotten aggressive towards her caregivers and peers. This isn’t unusual for dementia folks, it’s just a lot to handle. Many corporate-owned Senior facilities appear to be more inclined to either drug or remove problematic individuals rather than attend to their needs. Time is money, and mercy is in short supply.

“Shirley was always such a live wire,” Rita, one of her Gary, Indiana friends from the way back machine, reminded me when she called my cell phone the other morning, concerned that my mom’s landline had been disconnected.

“I moved my mom to Shalom House,” I explained. “It’s a smaller home near to my house.” This peaceful place is run by Pilar de Olave, a compassionate and smart Sephardic Jewish woman, who has 25 years experience caring for adults with dementia including her own mother. 

Shalom House is situated in a sweet neighborhood built in the 1950’s in Terra Linda, near the Montessori pre-school where I brought my daughter Sophie when she was three. In those days I used to marvel at how Sophie’s magnificent brain rapidly developed.  With glee, I accompanied her on this delightful ride as her neurons formed new pathways while she played and sang and learned each day, becoming more and more herself.  Conversely, as helpless as a passenger in a car wreck, I have watched my mom’s brain deteriorate. Instead of becoming, she has come undone. 

Just when I think it can’t get worse, it does. Years ago, my mom stopped doing her crossword and acrostic puzzles and reading novels; she discontinued past times like playing mahjong, bridge, and computer games. Once extremely competent running her own pharmacy business, as well as our household, I took over as her executive function failed,  She would call me on the phone, as many as 40 times a day, demanding to know what she should do next.

She lost the ability to think, learn, reason, and pay attention.  Short term memory, then long term memory abandoned her. Now, in what I hope is the final stage of this cruel demise, she is having difficulty walking and feeding herself, as the signals no longer travel from her brain to her body. She sits listing slightly to the left, and vacantly stares, her lovely blue eyes clouded over.  

Today, on my way over to Shalom House I listened to an interview with Scott Galloway, a former investment banker/entrepreneur who has written a book called “The Algebra of Happiness.”  He mentioned that caregivers live longer than any other professionals. 

I smiled as I shared this information with my mom’s attendants, Pilar, Maria, and Betty. My mom and I sat together at the dining room table and completed a puzzle for toddlers. I placed each piece, and she pressed it down with her trembling hands. “We do good work,” I noted.  “We’re a team.”  

 “Do you pray?” Dr. Harley asked me. I nodded in affirmation.  “Pray for acceptance.”

On Sunday, mother’s day, my mom, a willful Taurus, who I would never describe as easy going, turns 90. When I tell her that her grandchildren Sophie and Zak will be home from college to celebrate her birthday she lights up. “Can you believe that you will be 90?” I say. “No,” she responds. “How old do you think you are?” I ask.  “Twelve,” she responds.  “Just kidding,” she clarifies.  Remarkably, her sense of humor, as well as the lyrics to her favorite Frank Sinatra tunes, still remain somewhat intact. 

“These are not dementia patients, they are people, adults who happen to have a disease,” Pilar says. “We live here with dignity; at Shalom House we are family.”  I feel very grateful to have found Shalom House for my mother. My blood pressure registered normal when I visited Dr. Harley yesterday.

I used to pray that my mom would leave the planet soon -- that my dad, dead now for 8 years, would come to pick her up.  And every so often she turns to us and says, “Sid will be here in a few minutes. He’s just around the corner.”   I sure hope so. But in the meantime I will shift my focus, and do as Dr. Harley prescribes. I will pray for acceptance.

Fly Me to the Moon

Coloring

It’s late afternoon, and I’m sitting at the dining room table with my mom, coloring in our adult coloring books. 

“We’re really losing it,” my mom teases me, when we start in on this activity, formerly reserved for young children at restaurants, not women over 60.  “Nah, ma, it’s supposed to be good for our brains,” I tell her.

Eager to see if the act of coloring could promote mindfulness and induce a meditative state, I scored us some coloring books and sets of beautiful crayon pencils. This year in the U.S., people purchased 12 million adult coloring books with themes ranging from stress relieving geometric patterns to animal designs to expansive doodles of landscapes, forests, and gardens.  It’s a full blown “thing.”

Coloring involves both logic (by picking up a color for a specific shape or pattern we activate the brain’s analytic part) and creativity (by choosing, mixing, and matching colors we exercise our creative side).  It stimulates areas of the cerebral cortex that control our vision, coordination, and fine motor skills. It helps us “de-concentrate,” reduces anxiety, and quiets the chatter of our noisy minds.

As my mom selects shades of green and blue and purple to color a picture of a fish swimming in a coral reef, and I use orange, red, fuchsia, and yellow crayons to fill in a complex mandala, we listen to the Pandora playlist of Frank Sinatra tunes on the iPad.

“You make me feel so young

You make me feel so spring has sprung

And every time I see you grin

I'm such a happy individual.”

She sings out that last line, “I’m such a happy in-di-vid-ual” right along with Frank, and it occurs to me that in the moment, she is happy, and that she, miraculously, is remembering all the lyrics to the songs we hear.

Her memory is failing fast, with her ability to communicate in such decline that often I have no clue what she is trying to tell me; yet here she sits, across from me, bypassing her medial temporal lobe and activating the left side of her brain to come up with every single word.  Musical processing requires no cognitive function.

“Unforgettable 

In every way, 

And forever more 

That's how you'll stay. 

That's why, darling, it's incredible 

That someone so unforgettable 

Thinks that I am 

Unforgettable, too”

“Way, stay.” “Incredible, unforgettable.” Rhythm, rhyme, and melody provide structure and order, forming reinforceable patterns that transcend ordinary speech. Music facilitates the return of lost brain functions and revives timing mechanisms, word-finding ability, recognition memory, and even some short-term memory. 

“Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

Let me see what spring is like

On a-Jupiter and Mars

In other words, hold my hand

In other words, baby, kiss me”

She repeats the lyrics, so pleased with herself. She knows the words.  She knows she knows the words. Yes!

I am frequently at a loss for what to do with my mom, as she is with herself.  I get calls at 7:00 a.m. from her, asking me “what am I supposed to do?” “Just do your day, Mom,” I reassure her, “Get dressed, you’ll go down for breakfast, then go to exercise class, and then have lunch.” 

Spaced-out, vacant, there and not there, these are ways I would describe the woman I previously knew as intelligent, intense, and judgmental.  My mom had difficulty being present for me in my life; and now, towards the end of hers, in her almost childlike way, she demands my presence.

Psychologists talk about the ambiguous loss one experiences when a family member suffers from dementia. Physical presence and psychological absence.  My ninja therapist tells me that I should add another “a” word – ambivalent.  I am experiencing ambivalent, ambiguous loss.   Some days in my unresolved grief, I think, just get me the hell outta here, please just fly me to the moon.

But despair lifts, as we sit together today, coloring and listening to the music. Coloring connects us to our inner child and does seem to help break negative thinking patterns. It lets us tap into unconditional love.  As the neurologist Oliver Sachs noted, “Music evokes emotion, and emotion can bring with it memory…it brings back the feeling of life when nothing else can.” 

“Love is all that I can give to you

Love is more than just a game for two

Two in love can make it

Take my heart and please don't break it

Love was made for me and you.”

The RMR B'nai Brith Youth Organization Reunion: May 2019

I’m not the type who attends reunions but my weekend with friends from my teenage B’nai Brith Youth Organization days made me so happy and grateful for the community that nurtured and sustained me. It still does.

Our high school, George Washington, had been a toxic place. The newspaper clippings and Look magazine article that people brought to the reunion documented the ugly race riots that resulted from poorly implemented forced busing and racism in Denver in the early 1970’s.

We could have easily been disaffected, depressed, or delinquent. But we had BBYO and the Jewish Community Center, a refuge where I practically lived, writing and mimeographing pages for newsletters and flyers for meetings, demonstrations, and events. We kept busy.

Through this amazing organization, I learned how to be a leader, how to channel my energy into social action, and how to form deep and lasting personal connections. I discovered and celebrated my brand of Jewishness.

I was elevated for being myself, not something most adolescents experience, as I became the N’siah (president)of my Chapter 201, then the Rocky Mountain Region, then District 2 (an 8 state area from Wyoming to Indiana.) With my wild hair and sense of humor that tempered my intensity, I stayed engaged and activated; my experience informed and influenced the rest of everything I have done in the world since.

At the reunion, on the table of memorabilia, I perused articles about Babi Yar Park, a memorial park in Denver. We mere youths had been instrumental in creating this public space to honor the 31,000 Jews who had been lined up, shot, and thrown into a ravine in the Ukraine in 1941. We held protests to pressure the government of the USSR to allow Soviet Jews to emigrate to the US in the 1970’s and then welcomed Russian Jewish families to the Denver community when they finally arrived.

Now, almost 50 years later, as I studied the room of semi-recognizable men and women, many of whom had raised their own kids and were now becoming grandparents, I thought to myself, such menches, what good people many of us had grown up to be.

I spoke with David, a civil rights attorney, who graciously hosted the Friday night party at his beautiful home overlooking Lookout Mountain and listened as he told me about how he had fought for Gay marriage in Colorado.

Marc, a kindred spirit, who had gotten kicked out of leadership camp with me for smoking pot and held my hand as we flew back to Denver from Starlight, Pennsylvania, talked with me for hours about moths, music, our creative children, our travels, and the book he has written about an eccentric fellow entomologist.

I glanced across the room to see Joanie, one of the smartest and funniest and bravest women I know, laughing as she talked with Melinda, an upbeat veterinarian who lives in Montana with her family and beloved cats and dogs. Like many of us, she alternates between posting happy photos of animals and sentiments of political anguish on Facebook.

Michele told me about her work for the Music and Memory Foundation in New York and I described to her how the only words my demented mom can utter are the lyrics to Frank Sinatra songs I play for her whenever I see her.

I met Spencer, the 19 year old son of Jeff, a sweet man who generously planned the weekend along with master organizers Karen and Joanie. Spencer, an international relations major is headed to Chile; I suggested he read Ronan Farrow’s book War on Peace, about the dismantling of diplomacy, and throughout the weekend we discussed politics. (I agreed with Spencer about the vision of Bernie and asserted the need for new progressive non-white male skin in the game.) We shared our enthusiasm for AOC. The apple does not fall far.

The next night, at a dinner gathering, I embraced my humble and brilliant friend Robin who has left the demands of high profile public service but is working on an apprentice training program in the troubled LA schools. She shared photos of her beaming with her blond curly headed granddaughter, who resembles me.

Before the night was over I sat with a grounded and warm educator, Debbie, a role model who was leaving B’nai Brith Girls as I was just entering it; we exchanged stories about helping kids find their voices through their writing. Sheldon, who works with disadvantaged kids in Brooklyn, showed up at the reunion after Shabbos ended; a group of us met him on Sunday for brunch at a Kosher Jewish Deli across the street from the JCC. Robin S., who works at the Jewish Community Center in Jacksonville , Florida, peppered her speech with wonderful Hebrew words and Jewish references.

Artists, musicians, lawyers, scientists, activists, community organizers, educators, doctors....so many lives, so many stories. Throughout the weekend we spoke to each other about our families, our work, our life journeys. We remembered our shared past, not with nostalgia, but with sincere appreciation. In those days without cell phones and social media to distract us, we spent quality time together. The whole heartedness and kind presence of my peers gave me pause.

A bit of an outlaw, I have often identified with the words of Groucho Marx: “I’d never join a club that would have me as a member.” But BBYO was something much more than a club. We belonged to each other. We used to practice embodying “ruach” or spirit. We sang and danced and learned together. At the end of each meeting we would form a circle, cross and hold hands, sing and sway and listen as we took turns summarizing what we had gained from the gathering.

And so, it is with this tradition in mind that I write this piece, reflecting that my friends and I have indeed come full circle.