My Husband's Last Words And The Road To Recovery

My husband’s last words to me were: “Drive carefully.”

It was night at the hospital and my daughter and I were leaving to go home for a couple of hours.  At that stage, he could no longer speak, so he wrote those words in a special notebook. He didn’t write that he loved me or ask me to take good care of our daughters. But when I looked at his words, I understood that that was what he'd meant.

Living in the suburbs for many years first in the US and later on in Israel, driving was a central part of our life. Still, my husband never completely trusted me, and suspected that when I was preoccupied or upset, I didn’t pay enough attention to the road.

He was right.

This instruction had a clear and literal meaning. He just wanted to make sure that we would make it home safely at that dreadful day. But I feel that those seemingly simple words have a broader, even symbolic meaning.

For me, his words implied that he expected me to move ahead, but to be cautious. At the time, focusing on the world around me was a real challenge. It took a while to be able to make sense of what was there, and then to bring myself to make plans for the future.

Throughout the years, whenever we went on vacation, my husband and I took turns driving. Now it was only me; no one would take over when I got tired.  

Many believe that last words sum up who the person is. In the case of my husband, I feel that his last words illuminated an important aspect of his personality.

When he was diagnosed with Stage IV lung cancer five months earlier, my husband told me that he had made a decision to be a role model to our daughters during his illness. I am convinced that this choice made it easier for him to come to terms with his imminent death. He even decided on a motto for this "project."  Paraphrasing a well-known political saying, we were expected to fight cancer as though there was no death, and to make peace with death by being prepared.

For example, since my husband was the one responsible for our finances, we went through all the books and wrote down the names and numbers of important contacts. We were prepared. But we kept the information in a folder with the cheery name, "After 120. " We were hopeful.

Although my husband refused to call it a battle, we lost him to cancer at the age of 55. It was nine years ago this week. To this day, whenever I get into my car, I think of his warning, especially if I am not at my best. It always cheers me to remember that even when he knew that he was dying, my husband did not miss the opportunity to take care of us one last time.

--

PS: The inspiration for this post was an episode of This American Life about last words.

"To live in hearts we leave behind/Is not to die.” Thomas Campbell

The essay appeared in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/my-husbands-last-words-and-the-road-to-recovery/

"Unknown Sister": Na'amat's Journey To Poland

Earlier this year I saw on Facebook that Na’amat, the Israeli women’s organization, affiliated with the workers’ union (Histadrout), is taking a group of women to Poland. That trip, entitled: “ Unknown Sister” will focus on the forgotten heroines of the Holocaust.

I signed up immediately, going on such a journey with other women feels like a an easier, perhaps more accessible,  introduction to that chapter in the history of my family and my people, which until now I tried not to think about.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/unknown-sister-naamats-journey-to-poland/ 

Those Who Are Absent From The Seder Table

In recent years, just before Pesach, together with anticipation I also experience a feeling of loss. I am already sad thinking of those who would be absent from my Seder Table. The list is getting longer every year: it includes my parents and my husband who are no longer alive, my daughters who are abroad, and my only brother who will celebrate the holiday with his family.

People complain about spending the holidays with their family, and psychological studies have proven and quantified the existence of a particular holiday stress. In Israel, a family-centered society, it is common that unmarried people flee the country, regardless of the destination, just not to be around when every one else is with the family.

Since we spent many years in the US away from Israel, not being here during the holiday is not a good solution. On the other hand, at the risk of appearing Scrooge-like, it dosn't work for me to spend the holiday with a lucky family that doesn’t have a list of those who are missing from the table.

Please keep reading in the Times Of Israel 

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/those-who-are-absent-from-the-seder-table/

Israelis At The Thanksgiving Dinner Or Strange Food And Football

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/israelis-at-the-thanksgiving-dinner-or-strange-food-and-football/

Rabbi David Kalb wrote in Ha’aretz today that Jewish people love Thanksgiving: “Jews and Thanksgiving: A Love Story”.  He argues that “There should be no surprise in the way Jews gravitated toward Thanksgiving. It all boils down to two common denominators between our religious holidays and this American one.”

Although giving thanks is an essential part of Jewish religion and eating turkey on Thanksgiving means that Jews can participate in the celebratory dinner, my own experience with the holiday does not necessarily bring to mind similarities between Jewish and American traditions, quite the contrary.

We spent our first real Thanksgiving as a family at the home of a colleague of my husband. They taught together at a university in a small Midwestern town.

We were curious about this national American holiday and excited about spending it with with real Americans, as opposed to being with our Israeli friends. It felt especially meaningful  since only 8 months earlier we became the proud parents of an American, our first baby girl.

The invitation was for the early afternoon. When we got there  at the  appointed hour we found our hosts downstairs in the den watching TV. To our great amazement, they didn’t turn it off upon our arrival. Obviously we were meant to join them and watch the football game together.I felt that it was odd, perhaps even a bit rude.

When dinner was served  and we moved upstairs to the dinning room, we saw another TV set not far from the table. As Israelis we were used , to lively holiday dinners in which we gathered around the table, eating, talking, and laughing .Here there was little interaction as the game was still going on strong.

I always believed that surviving  army food meant that I was not a  fussy eater, However, Thanksgiving presented  new challenges. The  flavors, smells, and appearance of the special holiday food felt very foreign. Till this day I have yet to get used to the taste of the famous pumpkin pie.

The strangeness of this experience emphasized how far away from home we were.

Gradually Thanksgiving has become one of our favorite family holidays, right after Passover and Rosh Hashana. We made changes and celebrated it our way. But we gave thanks to our good life and good fortune in this wonderful and strange county called America

Back in Israel the idea of people watching football  during a holiday dinner, suddenly seemed absurd. So to make sure that I didn’t make the whole thing up I googled “Thanksgiving “and Football” and discovered that it was all true:

NFL Football on Thanksgiving: An American Tradition By James Alder

“Thanksgiving is a holiday that is steeped in tradition. After all, it just wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without the turkey and dressing and the pumpkin pie with whipped cream. And, of course, it just would not be Thanksgiving without NFL Football.

Pro football has become as big a tradition at Thanksgiving as the turkey and pumpkin pie, and if your Thanksgiving celebrations are like mine, most of the football fans head right for the television as soon as they hit the door.

http://football.about.com/cs/news/a/thanksgiving.htm

Happy Thanksgiving

Instead Of Berlin? See Under Zoo Aretz Zoo

My father left Berlin for Palestine in 1934, he was only 21 year old and was able to obtain a certificate since the firm  he worked for relocated  to Israel. The rest of his family was not so lucky, his parents and one brother were killed by the Nazis, and another brother survived the war but remained permanently scarred.

Then in 2000, my daughter decided to study music in Berlin. It was right after she had attended a music festival  in  Weimar, Germany. It was part of  the newly founded East West Divan by Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said.

I got the first reminder that, sixty years later, Berlin was still not just any other city even before she even moved there.  My daughter  showed my father the location of her future student housing. Looking at the address, my father realized that it was the same address as his old school. Indeed once she moved into the dorm, she sent a photo of the memorial statue indicating that this was the site where the Jewish School, Adas Israel ,used to be.

In the five years that my daughter stayed there I visited Berlin several times. In 2000 the city had not yet become a desired destination for Israelis. It was still a relatively sleepy town, at least on its east side where it was dark and empty at night and no one spoke English. Even the city’s landmark --: Potsdamer Platz, had not been completed yet, and the government offices took their time moving into the new  capital.

Around the same time my father moved into a sheltered living. As we were packing  his belongings we found a pile of old letters from his family  back in Berlin. The letters dated from 1934, when my father left,  till 1939, when the family was forced out of Berlin. We knew about the letters  but my father never talked about them and I don’t remember   him looking at the letters. .

We decided to loan the letters to the Jewish Museum in Berlin, there is not that much material about domestic Jewish life in Berlin at that that time and the museum was excited to have them. The letters were transcribed (since my grandmother wrote in Gothic letters), typed out, and then translated into English (since I don't know German).

Nothing dramatic was described in the letters, but  they expressed  fear and despair. My grandparents hoped that my father, their oldest, son would be able to help. They urged him to write more and reproached him for not doing so. One brother thanked him for the books which he had sent from Palestine, and the other brother was grateful for the new suit that he had gotten from him. They all appreciated my father for all that he had sent and apologized for always needing more, they were proud people..

I read the letters only once, I couldn't look at them again. It wasn't that I had forgotten earlier about my family or about the Holocaust, but I thought that I was able to disconnect the old from the new. Yet after reading the letters Berlin was never the same for me.

Berlin is a great city, and right now it is also a metaphor for better opportunities and better life for young Israelis who are disillusioned with the situation here. Back in 1975, in similar circumstances, the great satirists of the time ( B. Michael, Hanoch Marmari,  Kobi Niv, Ephraim Sidon, and  Dudu Geva among others) produced a brilliant, and funny, book of social commentary: Zoo Aretz Zoo. One of their remedies was  that we'd all move to  New Zealand.  Perhaps we could use that as a metaphor instead of Berlin?

 The essay appeared in The Times Of Israel

http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/instead-of-berlin-see-under-zoo-aretz-zoo/

My Daughters' Little Brother or From Dallas to the Holy Land

 JUL.15.2013 

When my girls were young my older daughter was afraid of dogs. Full disclosure: she wasn’t the only one, my husband wasn’t that comfortable around them either. In order to cure their fear, I suggested that we get a dog. As a devoted father, my husband  agreed and we looked for a small dog that was good with children. 

Wolfie, our toy Pomeranian, became  my daughters’ little brother. We got him when he was 7 months old  and since then his tiny paws have hardly touched the floor. My daughters carried him around in their arms (or tucked under their arms), made him rest in their laps and sleep in their beds. He was never left alone and they even dressed him up in their baby clothes. When finally the girls were away at school the exhausted dog spent the day resting.  

Several days prior to his arrival my younger daughter got up  in the morning and said “I dreamt that we had a little dog and his name was  Wolfgang” and so it was. Wolfgang Amadeus Raz was welcomed to our family, and like that other genius, his name was shortened to Wolfie.

Wolfie was a true Texan. Born and partly raised in Dallas, he came from a lineage of pure breed champion show dogs. But since he was born with several defects (an over-bite and a weak knee), he was sold as a pet.  His breeders looked for a good family to adopt him, and before we  were chosen our whole family had to pass an interview. Even on the night when we took Wolfie home my girls had yet another grooming lesson, and had to promise one last time that  they would take good care of the dog, which they always did. . 

The newcomer Wolfie had already been neutered when he joined our family. Sometimes when my husband felt frustrated in being surrounded only by women in our family, he would turn to little Wolfie and commiserate “the men in this family are in the minority and even you, my friend, are fixed.”  It wasn’t a very politically correct statement, but our good-natured  Wolfie didn’t mind.

At the age of 3 Wolfie crossed the Atlantic and immigrated to the holy land with us. Like the rest of the family, he had to get used to the change and to be adaptable. Instead of a big house with a swimming pool, two-car garage, and a large garden in the suburbs of Fort-Worth, his new home was a tiny  2 bedroom apartment on the 3rd floor of a building in the center of Tel Aviv. Moving into town also meant that he no longer heard the sound of summer cicadas in an otherwise silent night; the constant noise of cars and sirens kept him awake at night.

Having Wolfie with us made the move to Israel much easier, as he was always there waiting for my girls when they came back from school, and new friends were happy to come over and play with the friendly dog.

 Tel Aviv remained a scary place for Wolfie. He didn’t like to take walks anymore, and was terrified of crossing  the road.  Unlike my girls who eventually got used to Tel Aviv and loved it, he never became a city dog. It was a great relief for him once we moved to the suburbs and Wolfie resumed being a Texan dog. 

In retrospect, I wonder why did we buy a pure-breed dog, instead of taking a rescue from a shelter? How come that a young  Toyota Corolla family owned a Rolls-Royce dog? But revisiting this decision, I realize that we wanted to minimize risks and to make sure we got a dog with a known personality from people who  loved him. 

 Children often ask for a dog but later, lose interest and let their parents assume responsibility caring for the pet. For us getting Wolfie was one of the best decisions we made as a family. Perhaps it was because of Wolfie’s lovely personality, but even when we lived on the third floor with no elevator in Tel Aviv, my daughters felt that it was a privilege to take care of Wolfie.  And if you can believe it, in spite of his minute size, our Wolfie cured all the members of my family of their fear of dogs.