Life and Death

We know days are rife with meaning. Some more than others. We remember birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, national events, some with an intensity that binds us together collectively. Kind of like in high school or college when groups of us couldn't wait to deconstruct the latest TV or movie, and being part of the discussion made you feel included in something bigger and cooler than yourself.

And certain days just transport you back to a moment in time, or moments in time, that have lingered above us for years and years and years.

April 20 is one such day. It is filled with enough personal, social and cultural history, life, death, and celebration, well, to fill several lifetimes and generations.

It is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titantic as it plowed into an iceberg. But it is also the centennial of Boston's heralded Fenway Park, which has more personal significance to me than the tragedy of a luxury ocean liner.

Fenway Park's inauguration conjures up memories of my first baseball game in 1967 on the last day of the regular season. I was eight, and my father scored two tickets from our family friend, David Schechner, whom we've always referred to as uncle, to the little bandbox in Boston that houses still our beloved baseball team. The white Boston Red Sox pennant, with red and blue lettering, my father bought me that day as the Sox clinched the American League pennant, hangs in my garage 45 years later.

April 20, 2012 is my mother and stepfather's 15th wedding anniversary. I remember meeting my stepfather Fred's family for the first time that day many years ago outside a synagogue in Windsor. Fred had been a widower for a few years before he met my mother at a dance club in Hartford, CT. My only regret from their wedding day is that I shared with Verna moments before the ceremony why April 20th was historically significant. Adolf Hitler was born on April 20th, 1889.

"I wish you hadn't told me that," Verna said. "It almost ruins the day for me."

"But we triumph over Hitler if April 20th becomes a day when we celebrate life," I said.

Verna wasn't buying it. She was quite happy for my mother and Fred but she always associated their wedding date with an ignominious day in history.

April 20th is also the official anniversary date of death for a dear, dear friend's husband, who collapsed in front of her and her two-year old daughter while my friend was 7 months pregnant. She triumphed over death as she held her family together following Erik's sudden demise and after she met and married another wonderful man, Evan, and twice added to her family with a son and a stepson. But this woman, whom Maya adores and lovingly calls Auntie La-La (her name is Hyla), lives now with the constant fear that her two daughters may have inherited the rare genetic condition that caused Erik's premature death.

April 20th is also National Pot Day, something I didn't know about until fairly recently. And it appears National Weed Day got its start right here in Northern California. Its roots go back to San Rafael High School, which is about 3 miles from where I live, in the 1970s, and the "holiday" may have been popularized in the early 1990s by some--surprise--Deadheads, followers of the Grateful Dead.

I'll be honest: I have no plans to honor 4-20 at 4:20 by lighting up a joint now or at anytime. But the marijuana celebration on April 20th just adds another layer to an already meaningful day.

And April 20th could very well be the last day that Stan W., a long-time resident at the retirement community where I work, remains on earth. A true renaissance man, who has been an actor, dancer, musician, lawyer, and true intellectual, Stan has had two strokes in the past 20 days. He is resting somewhat peacefully on hospice at a local Kaiser, surrounded by family and friends and lots and lots of the music he adored.

A proud Jew, Stan regularly performed in a local Irish Ceili band, drummed on North African instruments weekly at a local pub, and led a rhythm class at our community at which residents banged and banged on Stan's homemade instruments: plastic containers filled with beans or chair legs. Or he shared instruments he'd acquired--maracas, drumsticks, other shakers--while samples from his vast collection played on a boom box and Stan narrated a folkloric history of musical genres from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

I thought about Stan a lot today when his daughter told me his death was imminent, on a Northern California spring day when the temperatures neared 80 and the sky was cloudless and as you peered outside the colors seemed more vibrant. But death still hung and hangs in the air.

Monuments are built; monuments are destroyed. Life is fleeting. Stan, a man who loved to debate politics and art and history and music, a man who rehabilitated himself from the depths of a near paralyzing stroke a few years ago to become fit enough, as he slowly lifted himself out of his motorized cart, to lead exercise classes (strength training and Tai Chi), is about to die and leave us a legacy of someone who dared to speak up and out for what he believed in, who dared to have a vision of a better world and community and then put it into action.

Just a couple of months ago, he took a casual conversation he and I shared about possibly starting a chorus at Drake Terrace and forcibly recruited the right people and launched a weekly sing-a-long that attracts 20-30 residents. Last week he called our executive director, and in a garbled voice laid out his vision for a dedication party later this year when our back patio fountain sprays to life regularly for the first time in a few years.

April 20th is just one of those meaningful days that sticks with me and is filled with memories of sublime joy and gut-wrenching sadness. Life certainly goes on and on. Bless us all.

Mahalo!

This is going to be my last blog entry for a while. I need to hunker down and get serious about writing the memoir of our cancer journey.

If I had to choose one thing I like best about going on vacation it would be the freedom. Vacations mean not being tied to a schedule, worrying about getting up at a certain time, fixing breakfast, shuttling kids to school, working, preparing dinners, or shepherding kids to the park.

Vacations mean going with the flow. You may have a daily plan--sightseeing at a particular spot--but the vibe is usually relaxed and open-ended.

Lest anyone think I am a hippie wannabe on vacation who floats around singing kumbaya and stares at waves lapping the shore, I have had my tenser moments. Several years ago, when Verna and I were engaged, we went to Costa Rica after she got her teaching credential. We stayed at some beachside cabins in Tortugero, and I badgered the gentle proprietors about when they were serving lunch so I could fit a run into my afternoon.

Verna was rightfully livid with me for not being able to appreciate our hosts' generosity and stop focusing on whether or not I worked out one day.

But, for the most part, vacations are about letting go, releasing most control, and seeing what surprises lurk inside every experience.

What follows is a selective travelogue of our recent trip to Hawaii, June 12-19.

Monday, June 13:

We decide to tour the USS Arizona Memorial. My father-in-law, Martin, a former Marine and Merchant Marine, says, "It's supposed to be the best memorial on the island."

I worry how kid friendly the memorial will be, especially for five-year old Maya. Martin and Miguel sharing the experience together is great inter-generational bonding and will teach Miguel some of our nation's history through the personal lens of a close relative who was about his age when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor.

But I am not sure about Maya. As soon as we arrive we pick up tickets for required video to sail over to the actual memorial site, a 10 minute boat ride away. I say to the attendant, "Is the movie appropriate for my daughter who is five?"

"Sure," he answers. "Though there's some bombing towards the end."

"OK," I say to him, Miguel, and Martin, "we'll just wait outside. Is that all right?"

"Certainly," the attendant responds. "You can meet them afterwards and then board the boat."

Miguel and Martin think I am babying Maya. "Are you going to raise her in a nunnery?"

"Her mother died last year," I say quietly. "She was traumatized enough. I'm not going to subject her to the movie."

On the boat ride over to the memorial, Miguel confides, "You were right. The movie was not appropriate for Maya."

The memorial is solemn, reverent, and somewhat moving. I think Miguel is bored, and Maya is just Maya. She has enough energy for whatever we are doing. We later climb atop and inside a submarine, which both of them think is cool. We eat dinner at Gordon Biersch, a brew pub fairly popular in the San Francisco Bay area.

Tuesday, June 14:

Beach day. Martin decides to venture out on his own, for he loathes surf and sand. The kids and I explore the Ala Mauna Park about 3 miles from our apartment. It is a nice but not spectacular Hawaiian beach--waves crashing against the shore, palm trees waving in the wind, sunshine, warm breezes, saltwater redolent in the air.

But I sense we could do better, so we return to the car and venture another three miles west to Waikiki. The beaches there are close to spectacular. There are far more people, the ocean is nearly bath water warm, and the waves have some edge.

We park the car outside the Rock Island Cafe, a 1960s themed eatery, filled with posters, knickknacks, bobbleheads, Life magazines, keychains, license plates, lunch boxes and more, all festooned with images from popular cultural icons of nearly 50 years ago, as sixties hits blare on the speakers. Miguel orders a chili cheese dog, Maya opts for chicken strips, and I get the veggie burger.

Then, with Hawaii 5-0 music screaming from the heavens, we hit Waikiki beach. Miguel and I immediately plunge in and start bodysurfing. Maya lolls about on the shore, afraid to come in much deeper than her knees. But as the surf's intensity increases, she is knocked down to the watery sand several times, twice completely covered by water, but each time she bolts up giggling and squealing in delight. Her smile is as bright as the sun.

"Dad, you are watching Maya, right?"

"Yes."

On the way back to the car, Miguel says, "Can I buy a ukelele?" We'd earlier passed a small store tucked around the corner from the beach.

"Sure," I say, and it turns out they offer free lessons every morning at 10. Prices range from $49-$3500. I purchase one that includes a tuner, DVD, a live hula dancer, and music book, all for under $100.

Wednesday, June 15:

We return to Waikiki with Martin, who plans to hike to Diamond Head, for Miguel's lesson and a full day on the soft sand of the beach. After Miguel's 30-minute class, we plop ourselves down next to three women. Miguel and I race into the ocean while Maya dances lightly on the edge of the water. He stays in while Maya and I lounge on our towels and engage the three women, obviously alone, whom we learn are scientists from Oslo, Norway. They work for Norway's Radiation Protection Authority.

We invite Eva, Ingrid, and Tonje to lunch. They are all single (though Eva was married and has a six year old daughter) and they share the opinion that Norwegian women are choosy and independent. The trio loves to travel and has no need right now for a serious or sustained relationship.

We part ways after lunch, and the kids and I head to the beach. Miguel and I rent boogie boards, which make our version of surfing even more enjoyable as we glide atop the water.

Thursday, June 16:

I take the kids to a local water park, about 30 minutes outside Honolulu. Maya waits while Miguel and I quickly go on two bigger kids' water slides, before I take her over to the kiddie section where she frolics down several slides and in two wading pools for hours and hours and hours.

Every hour or so, Miguel checks in and he and I do a slide together, while Maya dutifully sits on the bench at the entrance/exit. Miguel seems happy, though, to be on his own. By the end of the day, neither of them wants to leave when the park closes at 4:30.

Friday, June 17:

We journey to Haleiwa, about 30 minutes from Honolulu on the island's North Shore. Haleiwa is a sleepy town, with a Hawaii-tourist-hippie-artsy vibe. Before our arrival, though, we make a 90-minute pit stop at the Dole Pineapple Plantation, and spend nearly one-hour inside the world's largest pineapple maze, searching for 8 stations with various icons we need to stencil onto our tickets.

Haleiwa is also known for being the sort of gateway to Hawaii's most famous surfing beaches, including the granddaddy, Bonzai or Pipeline Beach. Once we get there we decide to skip lunch and sample what one friend said is Hawaii's best shaved ice at Matsumoto's, where the line of hungry customers snakes around the store.

The shaved ice is good but very sweet.

Saturday, June 18:

I drive the kids to Hanauma Bay, a protected beach surrounded by massive mountains, dense forests, and blue-green water, which offers the island's only snorkeling. Miguel, Maya, and I suit up and he and I venture out toward the algae encrusted rocks, where we see a rich variety of fish--tang, surgeon, trigger, butterfly, parrot--in blurs of yellow, white, black, orange, blue, green, and gray.

Maya dons her snorkeling gear but swims close to the shore because, in her own words, "I don't want to sink."

While we are sunning ourselves on the beach, a cooling breeze whipping off the bay, I see two women, one much older, heading into the water. The older one snaps several photos of the younger one. I get up and announce to Miguel, "Watch me."

Then I step into the water and say, "Would you like me to take one of both of you?"

Gurjit, the mother, and her 19-year old daughter, Sevan, are visiting from London. I tell them that I was widowed last summer and this trip was planned immediately after Verna died.

"I lost my husband 13 years ago," Gurjit says.

She is a therapist specializing in the sexual abuse of children. Her husband had been en route to his mother's funeral in India when the taxi driver fell asleep. He died three days later thousands of miles from home in a village outside his natal home in India. She was left to care for Sevan and run the restaurant her husband owned (and was named Sevan's).

For eight years, Gurjit slept three hours a night and managed the restaurant and worked full-time as a therapist.

Sevan gazes at her mom as her mom shares the story, "She's my hero," says Sevan, who is in college two hours away but comes home every weekend.

"She's my hero," I say.

Sunday, June 19:

On the not quite five hour plane ride home, on Father's Day, as Maya sleeps with her head on my left arm, Miguel and I watch Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau, a fairly enjoyable and well-acted drama about love and fate and destiny. I think of Verna and how we always felt we were somehow destined to meet, fall in love, and create a family. We never anticipated breast cancer and her death five weeks before she turned 46.

I have tears in my eyes as the movie ends and Damon and Blunt are locked in an eternal embrace that basically alters the course of their lives and allows their fates together to prevail. I am sad about my loss but grateful for the 20 years we were together. Twenty years where Verna and I basically knew what the plan was, how we'd allowed our lives to be scripted and how our choices would unfold.

Oh, there were surprises, but none as exciting as when we went on vacation. Having learned from my rigidity in Costa Rica and one other vacation early, early in our marriage, by the time we stormed Cabo San Lucas in the summer of 2008, on what was our first vacation alone in 11 years and last one as well, we were a bundle of sublime bliss and relaxation.

On one hand, I wish I knew the plan for me for the next 20 years. On the other, though, the uncertainty lends itself to the possibility of daily adventures. Life will unfold for me and my loved ones, but for now I am content to treat it as much as possible as a vacation, not completely sure of the details, the direction, or even the outcome. Just enjoying the journey.

Mother and Child Reunion

I wanted to do something special and memorable for our first Mother's Day without Verna. So I announced to the kids, “Let's bring some photos to the cemetery and share a story or memory of Mommy.

Miguel lowered his shoulders and shrugged in full teenager mode, “Do I have to?”

“No,” I said, “but Maya and are going to and you have to come with us.”

He brought a tennis ball and asked if we could play catch. “No, Miguel, it's a cemetery. We are going to be reverent,” I said, using a word I purposely knew was unfamiliar to him. “This is a sacred space.”

Then he asked if he could bound downhill over and across other grave markers. “No,” I said again, “do you need to ask?”

We knelt by Verna and her mother's grave marker. I wiped away some dried leaves, dirt, and grass, and emptied the water from a few flower pots. Someone had left fresh flowers that the deer had already snacked on.

Maya chose a photograph taken last August, less than two weeks before Verna died. Verna rests her head against the olive green cushion on our living room couch, a thin smile stretched across her lips, her face steroids puffy, clasping a completely naked Maya in her arms. Happiness is etched on Maya's face, the fingers on her left hand gently touching the cross around Verna's neck, her ears sparkling from what were then days old earrings.

I brought a photograph from 1997, just a week or so after we'd found out Verna was pregnant with Miguel. We are at the home of her best friend from kindergarten, Rose, and her husband, David, wearing Raybans and opening a bottle of champagne. I am wearing a homemade tie-dyed t-shirt and my formerly ubiquitous fanny pack. Verna has a black v-necked shirt and jeans shorts.

We were still stunned and elated that we were going to be parents. Verna was not quite 33. I'd just turned 38. I told Miguel and Maya how excited we'd been when Kaiser confirmed that Verna was indeed pregnant.

Miguel tossed the tennis ball. “Miguel, “ I said sternly. Maya flitted near me. My sister-in-law, Donna, showed up with her eldest daughter, Jillian, who turns 21 this year on what would have been Verna's and my 20^th wedding anniversary.

Maya walked around the grass and gravestones with Jillian, then Miguel on the periphery started chasing the girls. Donna and I reminisced yet again about the surreal and awful times of last year, the pain crises that sent Verna to the hospital several times, the decision to defer her care to hospice, the tears, the anguish, and finally the reality that Verna's death was imminent slamming against us all like a vicious wave.

Later in the day, I said to Donna, “I felt so alone,” referring to me being Verna's primary caregiver the last two weeks of her life, totally responsible for administering and increasing the narcotic cocktails, and wavering about what was best for her, the kids, me, the rest of the family.

She responded, “It's time for me to give you a hug,” as she pulled me to her chest like a mother comforting a child.

Maya brought home a photograph of herself from school, a multicolored construction paper background, wearing a sweet smile as she gazes at the photographer, probably a preschool teacher. The picture is soft-framed with a blue matte and a white border, three flowers and a bumblebee on the corners.

Underneath the picture it says, You're the best! “It's a Mother's Day present for Mommy,” Maya said. “I wish I could give it to her.”

“Me, too,” I said.

Just three weeks ago, Maya stamped her foot outside our garage and said, “Daddy, I am angry. I want Mommy to come down and be with us, and hug us.”

“I know,” I said.

“And that's why I have been so grumpy,” she said apologetically. “Because I miss Mommy.”

I hugged and kissed her and wished I could bring Maya her Mommy down from Heaven, to sit on her bed so they could affix stickers in Maya's Disney princess sticker books.

But, alas, it is not to be. I know that, as do Miguel and Maya, but that still does not erase the longing, the confusion, the pain.

As Miguel and I walked upstairs on Mother's Day for his nightly routine (teeth brushing, one toss of his Oregon Ducks football, and then I read to him), he said, “I want to find a picture of Mommy and me and make it bigger and then put it in a really nice frame in my bedroom.”

I was temporarily speechless. Finally I said, “Sounds like a great idea.”

And completely reverent.

I Am Missing You

"I ain't missing you since you've been gone away
I ain't missing you at all
No matter what my heart might say."
~John Waite

"What's up honey?" I said into my cell phone last night as I joked with our neighbor who was expecting Maya and me for dinner. Miguel was already at their home.

"Was that Mommy?" asked Maya who was finishing up her first dinner with other neighbors. She thought if I said 'honey' it must be Verna.

"No, that was Corinna, wondering where we are," I answered. "But that'd be really cool if we could talk to heaven. But we can't."

Miguel, Maya, and I know Verna is gone from this Earth forever, but that doesn't make the reality any easier to swallow. And I know our devastating sense of loss will eventually evaporate and be replaced by a constant ache in our hearts. For now, though, the sadness and pain I feel is heavy and weighs down everything I do.

Not that I'd want it any other way, but everything seems to remind me of Verna. On Saturday afternoon, as I walked to the neighborhood park, where Maya was waiting for me with yet another neighbor and his two kids, I passed Matt, who was pulling apart the rollers on the bottom of his vacuum cleaner.

"Well, the reason it got stuck, honey," he said to me in mock anger directed at his wife, "is because of your hair."

His comments immediately reminded me how strands of Verna's hair, which was waist long before her initial cancer diagnosis, clogged our vacuum and spilled onto the sink, toilet bowl, and floor of our bathroom.

I wanted to say to him, "At least your wife is still alive so she can shed." But I didn't. Nor should I have gone that far over the edge to hurt a neighbor and friend.

Then late last night, as I was walking our epileptic miniature poodle, another neighbor walked by with tears in his eyes.

"Hey, what's up?" I asked.

"Oh, it's J----," his wife, "she's missing. She and I fought pretty hard a few days ago. She just left tonight, went somewhere without her wallet or driver's license."

He'd repeatedly phoned her cell, but she wasn't answering. He'd also called her first cousin and close friend, but he wasn't picking up either.

Frankly, while I certainly felt sorry for him alone with four kids, ages 5-20, I couldn't really handle the personal drama, nor muster up enough emotional energy to share his pain and truly empathize. I wanted to say, "At least your wife is still alive to run away." But I didn't because even in pain I am not that cruel.

Verna is gone but memories of her are everywhere. When I cross the Golden Gate Bridge, I think of how we biked across it in 1990 when we'd been dating for a couple of weeks. We left San Francisco, Verna on her mountain bike, me on a freebie I'd inherited from a friend whose husband probably should've donated it to a scrap yard.

We breezed into Marin County on a 40-mile bike ride (OK, Verna breezed while I chugged) that Saturday afternoon more than 20 years ago, looped around Paradise Drive and into Tiburon before our ascent through Sausalito and back over the bridge, urban pioneers, exercising our hearts and bodies on two wheels amid the freshness of our nascent relationship.

On Saturday afternoon, I stopped off at the video store for Miguel and me and ran into the director of Miguel's preschool. Just seeing her flooded me with memories. She mentioned how Verna was the best treasurer the school had ever had.

"She was so organized and efficient and dedicated," she said.

"That was Verna," I said, a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

The thing is, I don't want the memories to fade or stop; I just want to feel better and have this deep, dark sense of emotional emptiness, which I know is raw grief, to subside. I happily summon Verna's memories. It's just that I miss her so much, and therefore the memories are also laced with sadness.

But I still punish myself by confronting those memories and testing my ability to handle them. On Saturday night, after Maya and Miguel went to bed, I watched When Harry Met Sally, a movie we'd enjoyed and was in Verna's instant DVD NetFlix queue.

Of course, as I watched Harry and Sally's animosity for one another grow into love, fondness, and deep friendship, as Meg Ryan brought herself to fake orgasm in a diner, and as Rob Reiner featured actual married couples waxing romantic over their long-term unions, I kept thinking, "All of them get a happily ever after except Verna and me."

Not fair. Not fair at all.

Well, tonight I channeled Verna with memories meant to honor her (and sustain our children). I made her pasta with spinach cream sauce, a dish she and the kids renamed green pasta. Miguel and Maya have been asking me to make the recipe for weeks.

It was probably the healthiest dish Verna made, culled from an issue of Vegetarian Times. You prepare the pasta of your choice and top it with a sauce made from cottage cheese, garlic, broccoli, spinach, and milk. You swirl the ingredients in a food processor. I never liked the dish because the broccoli and garlic gave it a overpoweringly pungent aroma. A former boss of mine banned the dish when I brought it in for leftovers. She said the smell permeating the funeral home was not good for the customers.

I was nervous as I poured the broccoli-spinach sauce onto the pasta and began to stir. Would this dish hold up to the high culinary standards established by Verna, who always adored food and cooking?

It certainly was green, and looked just liked Verna's. "How is it?" I asked.

"Good," said Miguel with a smile. He liked it. Miguel liked it.

"Good," said Maya. "Just like Mommy's."

I almost reached over and smeared her face with a garlic green broccoli spinach kiss. But I stopped and just gazed at her smile. It reminded me of Verna.