THE METROKOSHER UNDERGROUND
Folks say that if I wore a baseball cap and let myself get real grubby, I could be a body-double for Michael Moore. Well, I am about to blow the lid off a cabal that may rival the sensationalism of Fahrenheit 9/11. If you are a strictly by-the-book kosher-observant Jew, I am warning you: You probably want to stop reading this now and shift your attention to one of those kashrut apologia tracts issued by the Orthodox Union.
We owe Mark Simpson a debt of linguistic gratitude for introducing us to the prefix “metro,“ which he loosely used to mean “really not, but maybe really, but then again, maybe really not.” His original context was “metrosexual,” a sexually ambiguous, narcissistic guy who preens just a little too much over the style of his clothing, hair, cuisine, wine, a little “too in touch with his feminine side.”
My dagger-witted friend Binyomin Cohen coined the term “metrodox” to describe the young “kinda orthodox” singles of the Upper West Side. This is the crowd that asks “your place or mine?” after the midnight Service of Penitence and is as likely to do shooters on Thursday night as it is to recite Kiddush on Friday night.
And now it’s finally time for guys like me to ‘fess up in the name of another cadre of metros, an underground of demi-sinners, the “metrokosher.” How many in the cabal? Huge, in my estimation. Most of the metrokosher cabal lives outside Jerusalem-on-the-Hudson, where kosher restaurants – many tolerable and some even pretty damned good – are abundant. Our core transgression is that we have chosen to find our fortune beyond Teaneck. Thus, we are still pretty self-conscious about putting a name to our level of kosher commitment and the perceived hypocrisy of “strict at home and loose at our favorite dining establishments.” So we would stop short of considering this an “outing.”
Many of us metrokosher still travel in, or on the periphery of, the orthodox Jewish world. The most kindly of our by-the-book kashrut-observant coreligionists wistfully tolerate us, or simply ignore our foibles. We are roundly condemned, excoriated by the less tolerant among them, no credit for effort that falls short of perfect, just the denunciation that “You might as well be eating traife.”
And technically they are probably right. So, from an icky-picky legalistic perspective, let me not dwell on the minutiae that we metrokosher do not observe, because they are mindboggling and probably condemn us all to same hell as . . . David Rosengarten and Al Franken.
By its very nature, metrokosher plays fairly fast and loose with the rules. Clearly, we will not eat pork, shellfish, beef and poultry that has not been ritually slaughtered and prepared, and milk and meat in combination. After that, “what we do” and “what we don’t” eat out is pretty much the oxymoronic free-for-all of conscience.
Some metrokosher borderliners stay away from anything in restaurants beyond cold foods like salads. Culinary snobs thumb your noses, but salad bars for these folks can be a welcome metrokosher respite from the daily same-old same-old at home. And, if the cold-only folks push the envelope just a little further and go for sushi, upscale places like Minado (in the New York/New Jersey area, Boston and Atlanta) present an endless variety of ocean-fresh rolls and nigiri and the most beautifully displayed oriental salads.
Speaking of sushi, whoever brought the genre to the USA, should be blessed by an eternity in the radiance of heaven, as my sainted mother would say. A little abstinence from shellfish here and there, and otherwise a metrokosher feast for the eye and palate. And, as Atlanta’s Ludlow Porch used to say, “If you take the leftovers home and warm them up, they taste just like fish!”
Ah, the Sunday brunch, another gift to the metrokosher. The more elaborate the better. Platters of smoked fish more abundant than Zabar’s . . . well, maybe not, but you know what I mean. Whole poached salmon. Permutations of salads that make you marvel at the Embassy Suite chef’s infinite creativity with artichoke hearts. Pastries, don’t get me started. Am I the first one to ask to substitute smoked salmon (not lox) for Canadian bacon on eggs benedict?
And then, fish as the culinary centerpiece of a lovely night out on the town. Now the tour de force of the finest restaurants. Every imaginable variety. Fresh. Meticulously prepared. Simplicity. Clean, delicate flavor, nuances and textures to which neither beef nor poultry could ever attain. The culinary psalm and lyre of the metrokosher. I have been to classical and avant-garde seafood restaurants from coast to coast, and if I could give them six stars, I would. Yet, I would chuck them all for a simple filet of broiled Lake Superior whitefish at the Mother Church of seafood restaurants, the now nostalgically dilapidated Cape Cod Room at Chicago’s Drake Hotel, where I lost my metrokosher virginity some three decades ago.
A final word on fish: If you are a metrokosher carnivore, as I am, and you have had more than your share of finest filet, I issue this challenge. Ask them to sear a tuna loin for you at Prime in Atlanta, and let me know, honestly, if you can tell the difference.
Ethnic cuisine and metrokosher? Remember that most oriental cuisines use meat as a seasoning, not a mainstay. They do otherwise only to satisfy the American flesh-lust. So, simple off-the-menu adaptations of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Thai should pose no problem. And, regarding Indian, a personal favorite, vegetarian is a Hindu virtue. Italian, too, should be a no-brainer. Cajun is a little tricky, but not impossible.
Take note of something here, if you haven’t already: The more upscale the cuisine, the more likely you are to find metrokosher satisfaction. Aside from a cranky, arrogant chef here and there, finer restaurants are intent on accommodating their patrons, making substitutions, working with you outside the menu, and using market-fresh surprise ingredients. We have even occasionally had wonderful experiences with fine table d’hote establishments by calling a day or two in advance to discuss menu variations. And, we just won’t deal with crabby chefs.
What about metrokosher lower end and fast foods? For those who are so inclined, this is still a tough call. Fish filet and fries at McDonalds? Maybe lard, maybe not. Likewise Long John Silver’s and the rest. Red Lobster, perhaps a better bet. Coming from the South, particularly Greenville, what about the venerated meat-and-three? Again, pretty dicey. I will tell you off the record, though, that the fried flounder at McBee’s is virtually grease free and there are enough varieties of salad that you need not dabble in veggies cooked in mystery meat.
Please indulge me in one more tad of apologia about strictly kosher at home and metrokosher out: Ones home may not be ones castle, but it is the epicenter of the sanctity of family life. It deserves a level of holiness that transcends the foibles that might become our modus operandi out on the streets of the secular city. Hypocrisy? That’s a judgment call that each one of us must make individually and then one day answer up to God.
I resist submitting this commentary to any Jewish periodical or discussing it with my rabbinical colleagues. No matter how many “but’s,” “however’s” and caveats I place upon it, the Cuisinart of self-righteousness would likely grind me into a rustic paté. Somehow, though, in a culinary forum, a few of my metrokosher comrades might step out of the shadows, not for justification or catharsis, but simply for a little of the empathy that comes from an at-ease, “Yeah. Me too.”
So, to you, my partners in the metrokosher cabal: Maybe if we aren’t ready to do kosher strictly by the book, we ought to at least double up on our charity, compassion, kindness, generosity and love of neighbor. Then, we can leave it up to God to figure out how the right and wrong in our lives measure up.
June 28, 2004
June 20, 2004
A HEALTHY COMMUNITY BEGINS WITH ITS MAIN STREET (6/20/04)
I know that I am getting old: Aches and pains. Handfuls of pills. Agreeing too much with O’Reilly. Less envy of big city life. More wistfulness of how life used to be in my little town.
Main Street was, hands down, the source of strength that made my little town great. The houses of worship certainly helped make it so. But, everyday commerce really provided the glue. Doing your shopping or taking a stroll was not an antagonistic experience. It was friendly. It was welcoming, kind and honest.
After almost a half-century, let me stroll it with you one more time:
First came Pete’s, “the corner store,” where you could look at comic books, nary a Playboy in sight, a soda fountain for a nickel Coke. Then came Ike, a barber who knew how to give a close crew cut, my dad’s only prerequisite. At Levinson’s, a baker’s dozen for my mom, two cookies for me. Then, Falk the Butcher. If I looked bored as mom put in our order, Mr. Falk handed me a broom and told me to sweep the sawdust. He always had charity boxes on his counter for charities that he supported.
Max of Max’s Hardware was our scout leader. He could pitch a tent in solid granite. Next came Fahey’s Fixit for broken lamps, irons, whatever. In back, Jones – half-glasses on the tip of his nose – could fix anything while regaling us in stories of the Negro League. Finally, Harry Levin’s Clothiers, where I was made to look like a “fine young gentleman” in a scratchy suit that made me fidget when stuck in a pew between my mother and father. Oh, we did have one “modern” supermarket, an IGA that was so cozy that I can still tell you the names of everyone who worked there.
That was the Main Street of my little town. But, let me tell you a couple of other things about where I grew up: My Main Street was Devon Avenue. And my “little town” was Chicago. My Chicago had nothing to do with Marshall Field’s and Michigan Boulevard. Those were trips to the Big City, dress-up occasions that were more than a little intimidating.
I realize that my healthy upbringing did not come from being a “Chicagoan.” It came from having wonderful parents, of course. But, it came even more from a neighborly neighborhood, a main street lined with welcoming businesses, and a community with a strong sense of self-identity.
You may certainly join me in reminiscing if you have seen the place of your formative years morph from a strong, supportive “little town” to an indifferent, even daunting, monolith. Dare we dream that the best days of healthy neighborhoods and welcoming Main Streets may yet lie ahead?
Get real, you say? What kind of earthshaking changes would local the local environment have to make to build the spirit of Main Street, not merely occupy space on it?
For starters, how about businesses becoming more family-friendly? Why will moms and dads drive extra miles to shop at mega-store A rather than mega-store B simply because the former has a supervised play area for their kids? What about incentives for employees to get more involved with their kids and neighborhoods? How about businesses giving incentives for good grades and perfect attendance? I remember that in my first days of college, I stopped for lunch in a little local deli. “Where are you going to school?” the counter guy asked. I told him. “You bring me back straight A’s after your first semester, and anything on the menu is on me!” Well, I did. And he did. In New York City.
I think you get the picture.
It’s way too soon to toss hope of neighborhood renewal on the rerun pile with Andy and Opie. We have seen what happens when a child grow up in an indifferent community. Unless s/he has had the fortune of encountering one or two people who really care, the numbness into which s/he grows will produce more a robot than a truly human being.
If we want our kids to grow up human, first we must take back our Main Street. Make it a safe, friendly, supportive place to spend our comings and goings. Neighborhood energies and resources will soon gravitate toward that nucleus, and as energies coalesce, healthy communities will be reborn.
And then, I’ll treat you to a Coke at Pete’s.
I know that I am getting old: Aches and pains. Handfuls of pills. Agreeing too much with O’Reilly. Less envy of big city life. More wistfulness of how life used to be in my little town.
Main Street was, hands down, the source of strength that made my little town great. The houses of worship certainly helped make it so. But, everyday commerce really provided the glue. Doing your shopping or taking a stroll was not an antagonistic experience. It was friendly. It was welcoming, kind and honest.
After almost a half-century, let me stroll it with you one more time:
First came Pete’s, “the corner store,” where you could look at comic books, nary a Playboy in sight, a soda fountain for a nickel Coke. Then came Ike, a barber who knew how to give a close crew cut, my dad’s only prerequisite. At Levinson’s, a baker’s dozen for my mom, two cookies for me. Then, Falk the Butcher. If I looked bored as mom put in our order, Mr. Falk handed me a broom and told me to sweep the sawdust. He always had charity boxes on his counter for charities that he supported.
Max of Max’s Hardware was our scout leader. He could pitch a tent in solid granite. Next came Fahey’s Fixit for broken lamps, irons, whatever. In back, Jones – half-glasses on the tip of his nose – could fix anything while regaling us in stories of the Negro League. Finally, Harry Levin’s Clothiers, where I was made to look like a “fine young gentleman” in a scratchy suit that made me fidget when stuck in a pew between my mother and father. Oh, we did have one “modern” supermarket, an IGA that was so cozy that I can still tell you the names of everyone who worked there.
That was the Main Street of my little town. But, let me tell you a couple of other things about where I grew up: My Main Street was Devon Avenue. And my “little town” was Chicago. My Chicago had nothing to do with Marshall Field’s and Michigan Boulevard. Those were trips to the Big City, dress-up occasions that were more than a little intimidating.
I realize that my healthy upbringing did not come from being a “Chicagoan.” It came from having wonderful parents, of course. But, it came even more from a neighborly neighborhood, a main street lined with welcoming businesses, and a community with a strong sense of self-identity.
You may certainly join me in reminiscing if you have seen the place of your formative years morph from a strong, supportive “little town” to an indifferent, even daunting, monolith. Dare we dream that the best days of healthy neighborhoods and welcoming Main Streets may yet lie ahead?
Get real, you say? What kind of earthshaking changes would local the local environment have to make to build the spirit of Main Street, not merely occupy space on it?
For starters, how about businesses becoming more family-friendly? Why will moms and dads drive extra miles to shop at mega-store A rather than mega-store B simply because the former has a supervised play area for their kids? What about incentives for employees to get more involved with their kids and neighborhoods? How about businesses giving incentives for good grades and perfect attendance? I remember that in my first days of college, I stopped for lunch in a little local deli. “Where are you going to school?” the counter guy asked. I told him. “You bring me back straight A’s after your first semester, and anything on the menu is on me!” Well, I did. And he did. In New York City.
I think you get the picture.
It’s way too soon to toss hope of neighborhood renewal on the rerun pile with Andy and Opie. We have seen what happens when a child grow up in an indifferent community. Unless s/he has had the fortune of encountering one or two people who really care, the numbness into which s/he grows will produce more a robot than a truly human being.
If we want our kids to grow up human, first we must take back our Main Street. Make it a safe, friendly, supportive place to spend our comings and goings. Neighborhood energies and resources will soon gravitate toward that nucleus, and as energies coalesce, healthy communities will be reborn.
And then, I’ll treat you to a Coke at Pete’s.
June 17, 2004
“YOU AND YOUR GODDAMNED SHABBOS CANDLES”
Next door to us, Rose lived with her daughter, son-in-law and grandsons. Rose was the quintessentially grandmotherly-looking hausfrau of the Old World style: rotund and buxom, always swathed in an apron, hair pinned up, sitting quietly, folding the laundry, mending the grandkids’ clothes, her low humming punctuated by an occasional “oy vey.” Atypically for a Jewish grandmother, though, she did not cook or bake, for reasons that at age ten I had yet to surmise.
I saw Grandma Rose almost whenever I played with her grandsons. My mom did not think that they set a good example for me, so she frequently encouraged other friendships. But they lived next door, and we played ball at the same speed, so the issue was moot. Grandma Rose liked me. She would call me over, pinch my cheek, offer me a cookie and then retreat to her corner.
Back in the 50’s, most of the families on Seeley Avenue evolved into three generations under one roof as one grandparent died and the other moved in because of financial constraints, or more usually, because that was simply the way things were. No denying that even in the most loving household would strain trying to accommodate a multigenerational family in two bedrooms, one bath, and maybe an enclosed back porch. And you need not be a sociologist to imagine the complexities of “Old World versus New World” and the stigma of “grandparent as interloper” in such cramped quarters. I shared a bedroom with my grandmother until I went off to college, no doubt creating a casebook full of neuroses.
So, none of us, including the Wilson’s, were in an enviable situation. Grandma Rose, though, awoke each morning to a fresh world of cruelty beyond that which other grandparents knew, which she accepted with neither martyrdom, nor pathos, nor anger, but silent resignation. Her fate destined her to live out her days in the home of mean, boorish, foul-mouthed children and bratty, disrespectful grandchildren.
To this day, I do not believe that she was simply getting what she paid for by raising a rotten daughter and reaping all the pain that ensued. As a simpleminded, poor, Yiddish-speaking immigrant in a strange land, who worked as a mediocre seamstress to put food on the table, Rose did the best that she could.
It was not so much that she herself was a frequent object of their anger. I would hear the daughter, son-in-law, and even the boys, snap at her, “Shut up!” which was cruel enough, as she would shrink to her corner and resume her sewing and humming.
The more pervasive, day-in, day-out, cruelty that surrounded Rose was an inescapable cloud that I could only imagine sucked more life out of her with every breath. The shouting in that household was incessant. The cursing. The threats. The screaming. The slamming doors. The explosions over whether to watch Championship Bowling or Ben Casey. Mother or father chasing one or the other of the kids down the hallway, then beating him with “the strap,” a WWII brass-tipped army belt. And Rose, fully cognizant of all that was transpiring, humming and sewing and an occasional “oy vey.”
Rose, I learned, was quite a good cook. But, she dared not dabble in the kitchen because she was kosher, and the family liked its bacon, pork chops and ham. Rose, meanwhile, would eat her slice of challah, a piece of cheese, perhaps a salad or a can of tuna.
One bit of Rose’s Jewish sentiment, though, went unchallenged. She lit her Sabbath candles every Friday afternoon, in a modest candelabrum, perhaps pewter, that she brought from the Old Country. The sentiment went unchallenged until one winter Friday afternoon. I was over playing with the boys as shrieking erupted from the kitchen. Rose had lit the candles a little too close to a dry cleaning bag. The bag caught fire instantly, ignited a towel and scorched some of the wallpaper. By the time we had run down the hallway, the fire was out. In her hysteria, though, the daughter insisted on calling the fire department to “make sure there wasn’t any fire in the walls.” The hook-and-ladder, of course, made for a terrific show, during which the daughter repeatedly humiliated Rose by telling and retelling the story of her stupid, burdensome mother, with increasing relish.
Back inside now, mother cornered Rose and berated her in front of me and the grandsons: “You and your goddamned Shabbos candles! You and your goddamned kosher! You and your goddamned challah! You and your goddamned Yiddish! I wish all of you would go to hell!”
Grandma Rose retreated to her corner . . . but this time she did not hum.
Do not ask me what happened next. Sometimes, like Eliot said, the world ends not with a bang but a whimper. Oy vey.
Next door to us, Rose lived with her daughter, son-in-law and grandsons. Rose was the quintessentially grandmotherly-looking hausfrau of the Old World style: rotund and buxom, always swathed in an apron, hair pinned up, sitting quietly, folding the laundry, mending the grandkids’ clothes, her low humming punctuated by an occasional “oy vey.” Atypically for a Jewish grandmother, though, she did not cook or bake, for reasons that at age ten I had yet to surmise.
I saw Grandma Rose almost whenever I played with her grandsons. My mom did not think that they set a good example for me, so she frequently encouraged other friendships. But they lived next door, and we played ball at the same speed, so the issue was moot. Grandma Rose liked me. She would call me over, pinch my cheek, offer me a cookie and then retreat to her corner.
Back in the 50’s, most of the families on Seeley Avenue evolved into three generations under one roof as one grandparent died and the other moved in because of financial constraints, or more usually, because that was simply the way things were. No denying that even in the most loving household would strain trying to accommodate a multigenerational family in two bedrooms, one bath, and maybe an enclosed back porch. And you need not be a sociologist to imagine the complexities of “Old World versus New World” and the stigma of “grandparent as interloper” in such cramped quarters. I shared a bedroom with my grandmother until I went off to college, no doubt creating a casebook full of neuroses.
So, none of us, including the Wilson’s, were in an enviable situation. Grandma Rose, though, awoke each morning to a fresh world of cruelty beyond that which other grandparents knew, which she accepted with neither martyrdom, nor pathos, nor anger, but silent resignation. Her fate destined her to live out her days in the home of mean, boorish, foul-mouthed children and bratty, disrespectful grandchildren.
To this day, I do not believe that she was simply getting what she paid for by raising a rotten daughter and reaping all the pain that ensued. As a simpleminded, poor, Yiddish-speaking immigrant in a strange land, who worked as a mediocre seamstress to put food on the table, Rose did the best that she could.
It was not so much that she herself was a frequent object of their anger. I would hear the daughter, son-in-law, and even the boys, snap at her, “Shut up!” which was cruel enough, as she would shrink to her corner and resume her sewing and humming.
The more pervasive, day-in, day-out, cruelty that surrounded Rose was an inescapable cloud that I could only imagine sucked more life out of her with every breath. The shouting in that household was incessant. The cursing. The threats. The screaming. The slamming doors. The explosions over whether to watch Championship Bowling or Ben Casey. Mother or father chasing one or the other of the kids down the hallway, then beating him with “the strap,” a WWII brass-tipped army belt. And Rose, fully cognizant of all that was transpiring, humming and sewing and an occasional “oy vey.”
Rose, I learned, was quite a good cook. But, she dared not dabble in the kitchen because she was kosher, and the family liked its bacon, pork chops and ham. Rose, meanwhile, would eat her slice of challah, a piece of cheese, perhaps a salad or a can of tuna.
One bit of Rose’s Jewish sentiment, though, went unchallenged. She lit her Sabbath candles every Friday afternoon, in a modest candelabrum, perhaps pewter, that she brought from the Old Country. The sentiment went unchallenged until one winter Friday afternoon. I was over playing with the boys as shrieking erupted from the kitchen. Rose had lit the candles a little too close to a dry cleaning bag. The bag caught fire instantly, ignited a towel and scorched some of the wallpaper. By the time we had run down the hallway, the fire was out. In her hysteria, though, the daughter insisted on calling the fire department to “make sure there wasn’t any fire in the walls.” The hook-and-ladder, of course, made for a terrific show, during which the daughter repeatedly humiliated Rose by telling and retelling the story of her stupid, burdensome mother, with increasing relish.
Back inside now, mother cornered Rose and berated her in front of me and the grandsons: “You and your goddamned Shabbos candles! You and your goddamned kosher! You and your goddamned challah! You and your goddamned Yiddish! I wish all of you would go to hell!”
Grandma Rose retreated to her corner . . . but this time she did not hum.
Do not ask me what happened next. Sometimes, like Eliot said, the world ends not with a bang but a whimper. Oy vey.
June 10, 2004
LEAVE AWE UNEXPLAINED (6/10/04)
Someplace between sainthood and damnation lies the legacy of Ronald Reagan. I have my own opinions. I am already tired of hearing and talking about them, and I bet you are, too.
Honestly, the only emotional connection that I have had with the President’s death has been in its lone metaphysical moment, one that is likely to get swept aside by all the political blather.
Reagan’s daughter Patti reported that in her final visit, her dad looked up at her for the first time in months with perfectly clear eyes, eyes of recognition, resolve and love. The metaphysics of the moment lay in his eyes having been unresponsive, closed, dimmed for so long, before that moment of absolute clarity that formed the bridge between life and death.
Perhaps you, too, know the metaphysics of that moment. I do. My dad also had descended deeply into Alzheimer’s. He, too, had been bedridden, barely conscious, uncommunicative for months, eyes closed or dimmed, no recognition. His breathing became labored and we knew that death was imminent. Yet he struggled. I tried to communicate:
“Daddy, it’s time for you to let go. Do you understand?”
As expected, no response.
“Daddy, it’s time for you to join Zayde in Gan Eden. Please let go.”
Still no response.
“Daddy, I promise to use all of my energy to make sure that Mommy is safe and healthy and taken care of. Do you understand?”
On the assurance of my mother’s safety, his eyes opened wide. He looked at me for the first time in months, years, with complete clarity. He feebly announced, “Uh-huh.” A moment later, I watched him slip into the next world.
And, indeed, I did take care of my mom. I certainly ask no accolades. Whatever I could give her never could return to her the care and unconditional love she bestowed upon me, even through the hardest of times.
But, then it was her time to go. She knew it, and we knew it. Linda and I were her constant companions in ICU for three days and nights. With each day, as expected, she drew drowsier, less conscious, more detached. So, while she could, we sang all the old Yiddish folk songs and show tunes that we knew. When she couldn’t, I would sing them to her. We retold well-worn savory family meiselach one more time. She asked to recite the Final Confession and Shema Yisrael while she was still conscious enough to do so.
At 10:00 on the third night, the heart monitor’s waves turned loopy, then flat. Again, as with Daddy, her eyes turned metaphysically crystal-clear. And something else: She took her last breath, then “something” not of this world rose from her deathbed. No one can convince me but that I was watching my mother’s pure soul rise from her body and ascend heavenward.
After making rudimentary funeral arrangements, I went home and actually slept quite restfully. My only dream that night gave me even more reason to believe that trying to stuff all of life’s experiences into a little rational box is a bunch of hooey:
In my dream, my mother was asleep, tucked in beautifully, in a room bathed in the most radiant sunshine. I shook her lightly, and she awoke with a delightfully loving smile.
“Mommy,” I said softly, “they told me that you had died.”
“Oh no,” she comforted me, “they can’t do that to me.”
Let Dr. Freud, et al, be damned. And along with them anyone else who maintains that awe is to be analyzed, not simply savored. I do not want anyone to explain to me what I saw and felt, and certainly no one to tell me that only the feebleminded take refuge in granting power to the inexplicable.
This obsession with trying to “understand” everything isn’t always such a great idea. Sometimes you just have to savor things that are beyond comprehension and give faith and credit to the All-Knowing One, who, as we know, don’t make no junk.
Someplace between sainthood and damnation lies the legacy of Ronald Reagan. I have my own opinions. I am already tired of hearing and talking about them, and I bet you are, too.
Honestly, the only emotional connection that I have had with the President’s death has been in its lone metaphysical moment, one that is likely to get swept aside by all the political blather.
Reagan’s daughter Patti reported that in her final visit, her dad looked up at her for the first time in months with perfectly clear eyes, eyes of recognition, resolve and love. The metaphysics of the moment lay in his eyes having been unresponsive, closed, dimmed for so long, before that moment of absolute clarity that formed the bridge between life and death.
Perhaps you, too, know the metaphysics of that moment. I do. My dad also had descended deeply into Alzheimer’s. He, too, had been bedridden, barely conscious, uncommunicative for months, eyes closed or dimmed, no recognition. His breathing became labored and we knew that death was imminent. Yet he struggled. I tried to communicate:
“Daddy, it’s time for you to let go. Do you understand?”
As expected, no response.
“Daddy, it’s time for you to join Zayde in Gan Eden. Please let go.”
Still no response.
“Daddy, I promise to use all of my energy to make sure that Mommy is safe and healthy and taken care of. Do you understand?”
On the assurance of my mother’s safety, his eyes opened wide. He looked at me for the first time in months, years, with complete clarity. He feebly announced, “Uh-huh.” A moment later, I watched him slip into the next world.
And, indeed, I did take care of my mom. I certainly ask no accolades. Whatever I could give her never could return to her the care and unconditional love she bestowed upon me, even through the hardest of times.
But, then it was her time to go. She knew it, and we knew it. Linda and I were her constant companions in ICU for three days and nights. With each day, as expected, she drew drowsier, less conscious, more detached. So, while she could, we sang all the old Yiddish folk songs and show tunes that we knew. When she couldn’t, I would sing them to her. We retold well-worn savory family meiselach one more time. She asked to recite the Final Confession and Shema Yisrael while she was still conscious enough to do so.
At 10:00 on the third night, the heart monitor’s waves turned loopy, then flat. Again, as with Daddy, her eyes turned metaphysically crystal-clear. And something else: She took her last breath, then “something” not of this world rose from her deathbed. No one can convince me but that I was watching my mother’s pure soul rise from her body and ascend heavenward.
After making rudimentary funeral arrangements, I went home and actually slept quite restfully. My only dream that night gave me even more reason to believe that trying to stuff all of life’s experiences into a little rational box is a bunch of hooey:
In my dream, my mother was asleep, tucked in beautifully, in a room bathed in the most radiant sunshine. I shook her lightly, and she awoke with a delightfully loving smile.
“Mommy,” I said softly, “they told me that you had died.”
“Oh no,” she comforted me, “they can’t do that to me.”
Let Dr. Freud, et al, be damned. And along with them anyone else who maintains that awe is to be analyzed, not simply savored. I do not want anyone to explain to me what I saw and felt, and certainly no one to tell me that only the feebleminded take refuge in granting power to the inexplicable.
This obsession with trying to “understand” everything isn’t always such a great idea. Sometimes you just have to savor things that are beyond comprehension and give faith and credit to the All-Knowing One, who, as we know, don’t make no junk.
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