2013.04.21 - Staying Alive

The afternoon I came to say goodbye to my father, I found him in his bed staring blankly into space, mouth agape and waiting to die. He’d been diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia eight years earlier and the disease had run a hard course over that time: his breathing was labored and getting harder; he couldn’t talk, swallow or eat; his attention span was minimal and his ability to communicate was nearly non-existent. Now that he was in hospice, he was drug free for the first time in over a decade, something I was hoping might make him more available.

I pulled up a chair next to his bed and gave him a kiss. He didn’t respond, something to which I’d become accustomed. The only sounds in his room came from the bubbling machine that was pumping oxygen into his nostrils and the semi-regular cries that came from other patients in his wing of the nursing home. The walls were covered in wallpaper that made me recount a trip I’d taken to Columbus, Ohio in 1982 with the middle school orchestra when I’d eaten a lot of potatoes with my host family. On his dresser stood a colorful bouquet of flowers my wife had brought over earlier in the week.

Reflexively, I covered the silence in the room by recounting his grand daughter's 6^th birthday party from earlier in the day. But, after only a few minutes, I began talking slower and slower until I just stopped. I’d been gifted with all of this incredibly precious alone time with my father — a rare treat for a man with such a doting family — and here I was talking about six-year-olds jumping on trampolines and leaping into pits of foam blocks. I chuckled. Sometimes, I feel the universe bumping into me repeatedly. This was one of those times. And in a flash, I realized the reason that I was visiting this particular afternoon: it was to say goodbye. Forever. 
I cleared my throat and took a breath. Per his living will, it was Dad’s fourth day with no food or water. I grabbed his hand and looked at his face.

“Dad, I remember when I was younger and I asked you to explain to me how you told your patients — sometimes in front of their families — that they were going to die. And you answered, 'You just do. You don't lie or beat around the bush. Patients and their families should know the truth.' Thank you for teaching me that, Dad. And I want you to know that if you're still holding on to anything, anything at all, that you don't have to anymore. It's OK for you to go now. We'll miss you. I'll miss you, but we're all going to be OK."


I was choking on my words. I couldn’t help it. There was something there in the back of my throat. I felt it, it was sharp, and it made it incredibly difficult to speak. And, for the briefest of moments, I realized that although my condition was temporary - a result of my emotional state - my Dad’s condition was permanent. No talking at all. Not ever again. So I shared thoughts and memories, hoping that my talking would simply be enough for both of us.


"You would have loved our wedding, Dad. The ceremony was outside, it was at the height of the Fall, the sunlight was perfect, and you could smell and taste and the air as it rushed in right off the Pacific. We put the Chuppah under three giant sycamore trees. And since you and Mom weren't there to walk me down the aisle, I decided to do something I mentioned to Jamie when we teenagers. Only, I didn't tell anyone in advance, just the soundman. As the wedding party filed in, a sting quartet was playing a lovely song, but then, when it was my turn to enter the congregated, they stopped playing. Instead, the soundman pressed play. And the Bee Gees song Stayin' Alive came over the load speakers and everyone just lost their shit as I danced my way right down the center aisle and up to the chuppah. You should have seen the look on your daughter's face. Jamie nearly shit her pants she was so shocked. Then, the reception and the party: the cocktails were amazing, the food was incredible and I even got to sit in with the band and jam on the piano. The only thing missing was you and Mom."


"I remember my bar-mitzvah trip to the Middle East. When our plane landed at Ben Gurion airport in Israel, we got ushered onto a bus that drove us across the tarmac to the terminal building. During the short drive, I noticed you were crying. And I'd never seen you cry before. So I began crying too. 'Why are you crying,' I asked you. 'Because I'm so happy,' you said, 'My family is in Israel, and I brought them here.'"


"And I remember when you took all of us to Disney World in Florida. We were on a shuttle bus from the parking lot and heading into the main gates of the park. And, suddenly, you began singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song. Loud enough that others could hear you. And I wanted to melt into my seat. But, son-of-a-bitch: everyone else on the bus joined in with you, Dad. You had the entire bus singing along with you. And I went from being embarrassed to being proud of you."

"And I remember one of our first baseball games at Veterans Stadium. You took me to see the Phillies that night because Steve Carlton was pitching and you knew he was my favorite. He actually hit a home run that night which made everyone at The Vet go insane..."


I didn’t have a plan as I shared these memories and thoughts; I just wanted Dad to know what I was thinking about him. I didn't even know if he could hear what I was saying and I certainly hadn't seen any evidence to support that he did. As the disease progressed and his abilities declined, I'd gotten into the habit of just talking to him and trusting that my message would get through one way or another. More than that didn't really matter. Even if the message was difficult to say. Which, clearly, it now was.

"I don't... I don’t really know if I feel comfortable saying 'goodbye', Dad. So how about I just say 'So long, for now...?' Would that be OK?". And he smiled. He fucking SMILED!


And because I hadn't seen my Dad communicate so clearly for days, because he was bed-ridden and at the end of his fourth day without food or water, because I hadn't really known if he could even comprehend what I was saying... this simple act, this slight facial movement was, truly, like a miracle. Because of that smile, I knew: I knew right then and there that I had my Dad back. He was there. He'd been listening and he'd heard. 


The grapefruit in the back of my throat clenched. I leaned forward in my chair, put my head on his chest, wrapped my arms around his body and sobbed, the kind of sobs that shake your body in violent convulsions. And I just tried to let them come. I said "I love you" over and over even as the chokes were getting stuck in the back of my throat.


Some minutes later, I had to move my glasses off my face to blow my nose. When I put them back on, I half-jokingly said, "Do you like my new glasses?" and Dad nodded. I just shook my head in amazement and smiled. For days I hadn't seen him communicate in much of any way and now here we were with him smiling and nodding at me. My heart leapt. I felt like I'd entered an alternate reality. Which made my next action easy to decide. 


"I'm going to meditate now, OK, Dad? This is what I've been doing one or two times every day for five years and I want to do it with you. I just close my eyes, breathe and then listen for my mantra. I'm going to hold your hand, OK?" I moved my chair closer, took his left hand in my right, sat up straight in my chair and then closed my eyes. And then, after I found my mantra, something extraordinary happened: 


I entered into some kind of temporal dimension, a “jet stream consciousness” where I was able to effortlessly time travel with my father. I had no idea it was going to happen and I certainly had no control into which times I travelled, but the experience was similar to watching TV while someone else changed channels. Only, I wasn’t just watching these various channels, I was actually in the action, experiencing different times in history.


I first found myself forty years in the past, experiencing Dad as a thirty-year-old man, when I was four-years-old and he was healthy, vital and the biggest person in my world; that morphed twenty-six years backwards in time when I saw Dad as a small, only child, playing alone with some of his toys; then I shot ahead fifty years to when I was aged thirty, confused and learning how to live my own life as an adult; then forward again, another twenty years, where it was me who was the father, fussing over my own child, enveloped in joy and in love with this precious, new cargo; finally — much later into the future — I saw myself as a grandfather, surrounded by the two generations that came after me. And there, at the end of my life, I felt a quiet knowing and a compassion that was unmistakable. Everything — my decisions, my family and my life — was as it should be.


Lost in time: pleasantly so.

It ended as abruptly as it started, somewhere in the middle of my meditation. My remaining meditation felt chaotic and when I opened my eyes after thirty minutes, I remembered where and when I was but my head was swimming. Dad’s eyes were open. I squeezed his hand to get his attention. He looked at me.

“Listen: Mary and I have been talking about having a baby. If it's a girl, we’re thinking about naming her Allana, after her grandfather, who, I wish could have had the chance to meet her." He blinked, slowly and there was a softening. I didn’t imagine that, either: because I’d had his attention earlier, I knew that he’d heard me.


"Am I going to see you tomorrow, Dad?" I asked. "If so, that's OK but if not... I’ll miss you and I love you. Now gimme a kiss..." I leaned over his face and he puckered up, again: just shocking. I kissed his cheek multiple times in devotion and loss and such terrible fear that I'd never see him again. I stroked his hair, held his neck, looked into his eyes, and - after a taking a breath - said:


"You were a great Dad. You were such a great dad. You're my daddy."

Then, the time for words had passed. I put my forehead on his and cried. And then, despite the other remarkable events that had already transpired during our visit, Dad found a way to top it: he reached out his left arm and put his hand over my arm, holding onto me while I held him. For a man I've watched nearly motionless for the past week to suddenly demonstrate the strength to smile, to nod his head, to pucker up and kiss and to reach out his arm to hold me?


There are no words for that.


Forty-four years of my life plus seventy of Dad's slammed together in a nuclear fusion of love, creating more information and emotion than my paltry human brain could process. It was a miracle. It was a remarkable, unexpected miracle and I don't know how else to put it. For about seventy-five minutes, I had an audience with my Dad for one last time. I was there with him, only this time, he was also there with me.


Now, it was even harder to say goodbye because I knew Dad was still in there: still alive inside that tired, failing body of his. I wanted to experience him more, protect him more, and try to save him more even though I logically understood all of that was futile now. But that’s one of the ironies of love: it makes us emotionally yearn for the things we logically know are impossible.

One last hug, one last kiss and one last look into his eyes. Then I said goodbye, turned and walked from room 509 and into the hallway, into that just-too-bright fluorescent light which lit the outdated 1950's wallpaper. As I drifted towards the locked door by the nurse’s station at the end of his ward — The Horizon Ward — I passed the other residents' rooms. Each room had a photo cabinet just outside the door showing pictures of the residents from earlier moments of their life.


Life, then death: the most natural and shocking thing imaginable.


Mom died twenty-two months ago. Now, Dad's going to die. He'll be dropping his physical form so that his spirit can head off to greener pastures. And it's going to happen within a few days. But not for me. I'm not going anywhere: I'm witnessing his last, few, precious moments. I'm surviving my father. He's dying, but I'm staying alive. 


Stayin' Alive. 


This one's for you, Dad.

2013.05.16 - The Middle of the Flower

I'm not "fine". Everything isn't just "OK".

I'm still getting up in the mornings. I'm still going to work. I'm still suiting up for what I need to do to earn money. But I'm not fine. I'm certainly acting that way sometimes. And sometimes I certainly feel that way. And it's true: I have moments where everything is just fine and dandy. And in those moments I forget what a string of losses I've suffered in the past two years: two cats, two parents and an uncle.

I'm still raw. I still hurt. I still want to crawl up into a ball and sob. But a lot of tears haven't come yet. Some have. Mostly what's come, though, is sleeplessness, troubling dreams and a desire to write every thank you note I can to make sure all that "work" is done and people know how polite I am that they showed up for me.

Also, I seem to want to change everything: my profession, what I do, where I live, the car I drive and, honestly — I can't do that. I'm going fucking crazy because I'm coping with loss by trying to control and bend everything around me to my will. I can't do that. It's not an obtainable goal. Certainly not at the expense of my sanity (or my wife's for that matter). And it's certainly not at all  a good idea to make all of these changes at once. Hell, I don't even know if it's worthwhile to make any of these changes in my current state.

For starters, none of these changes will bring my father back. Worse, I haven't thought through any of these changes. Not fully. And acting on incomplete impulses won't necessarily bring happiness. Changing my environment by changing my car or the location of my home won't necessarily bring happiness.

The trick is somewhere in the middle, in the pocket of the wave. Somewhere, in the middle of the wave is that sweet spot where I'm in harmony with my surroundings and everything is clear in the moment. Feeling my feelings, but not necessarily acting on them at every moment; considering possible changes and feeling how those changes make me feel but not necessarily acting on those changes without thorough investigation; trusting instincts but being able to discern them from stronger, sometimes overwhelming emotions.

The world goes on. People get up and go to work. And so, too, do I. And I do it today because, honestly: I don't know what else to do. Sometimes, the best thing to do when the unimaginable strikes is to do the ordinary. But to also trust that change is happening. And that I'm slowing unfolding and opening like a flower. The flower hasn't fully bloomed so I can't yet see what's in the middle. I'll need to wait for that.

But it will come.

2013.05.12 - Animals

We humans are animals on this planet, just like all the others.

We like to forget that, of course. In fact, most of us can't remember that fact unless we consciously try to because we've designed a very elaborate structure around us in order to help us forget our animal status: we have cars; we purchase food from all over the globe at our corner market; we have the Internet; we have special rooms for bathing and elimination; we travel in planes to far flung and distant lands; we have hospitals to help heal and cure us; we have free will; we create staggering works of art in every discipline; we house other animals in our homes; and we've launched some of our humans on rockets to land on the moon, another heavenly body that lies a quarter of a million miles away.

That's pretty impressive work for a bunch of animals.

But we're still just animals. Our greatest challenge is that modern life has given us the illusion that life is always easy, comfortable and controllable. But nothing makes the illusion come crashing down like death. 

Last night, right on schedule, my cat Boober jumped up onto the bed to watch me fall asleep. Minutes later, as I drifted out of consciousness, I remember thinking that if i just moved my arm down, I could touch him. But then I was gone, off into a fitful and jerky dreamworld. By the middle of the night, my legs had wound up so far on my wife's side of the bed, that she left the bed and went out onto the sofa to continue sleeping. I didn't calm down after that, however: I was literally kicking at objects in my dreams, waking myself up from time to time due to the movement. Ironically, during the night, the Shiva candle we'd lit one week ago for my father extinguished.

When I woke up, the kitten we adopted was on the bed next by my feet. When she saw that I was up, she rushed over and began licking my skin, something she's become fond of doing. I meditated while being groomed. About a half-hour later, I wandered into the kitchen to make some coffee. Mary was already up for at least an hour. We kissed. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and poured my coffee. We began to talk. 

Then my phone rang. I looked at my watch, saw that it was 8am and thought: who in the hell calls me on a Sunday morning at this hour?!! So I picked up. 

"Is this David?" I didn't recognize the voice.

"Who's calling, please?"

"I have your cat. I have Boober."

"My cat?! But how is that..." My sentence trailed off. Although Boober wandered around our property, he never crossed the street, and he hadn't strayed onto anyone else's property for nearly a decade. So I was confused: how could this woman have my cat?

"Listen," she said. "I, it's... I have bad news: your cat is dead and I think that —" before she could finish the sentence, I'd spun around and looked outside. I don't know why I did that, but I did. There he was. On the lawn. Motionless. Right there in the front yard. And I began wailing.

"Nooooooooooo! NoooooooNoooNoooooNooooooooooooo!" Mary rushed over to me not sure of what was going on. I began sobbing. "I see him on the front lawn," I said into the phone. Mary spun around and realized. He wasn't even fifteen feet away from us but neither of us had noticed him after we'd gotten up. Mary began crying and instantly hugged me deeply and wouldn't let go. I felt sucker punched. Like someone just took an iron and smashed it across my face. I started crying and moaning. In my grief, I sounded like the animal I truly was. 

"I'll come right over," said the voice and the call ended. We wandered outside and there was a cat. And it looked an awful lot like mine. But it's fur was all wet and matted down from having been watered by the automatic sprinkler system. I put my hand on him. He was already stiff. I couldn't see his face, so I turned him over. And then there was no mistake. Then there was no mystery anymore. Then there was no illusion. My cat. Boober. Dead.

My heart sank. I inspected his body: no cuts, gashes or blood. His eyes had rolled back and his tongue was out. It didn't look like he'd been attacked, hit by a car or injured. He just looked liked he'd wandered out onto the front lawn and then died.

"My dogs were sniffing at him this morning and wouldn't leave him alone," said a voice. I looked up and saw a woman. She had a white trash bag. "I didn't realize that he wasn't moving, but once I saw, I pulled my dogs back...". It was my neighbor, the one who'd called me minutes earlier. I vaguely remember thanking her and then... we were alone with Boober and a trash bag. We brought him inside so the kitten could see and smell him and then, after wrapping him, put him in the freezer. We'll bury him later in the week.

I'm walking around in a fog so thick I can't feel my brain. But my heart? My heart is pounding. 

After waiting over two weeks for me to return home from my father's deathbed and funeral, after keeping me company for the Shiva we held here in Los Angeles to honor my father, and after giving me a week to settle back into something resembling a normal routine for myself, Boober had left the bed, gone out the cat door in back of our house and then wandered out front and into the grass in yard. He hadn't been sick, he hadn't needed any special foods, medicines or surgeries, and he hadn't been suffering. My old boy just laid down when it was his time. 

I haphazardly texted my family. And then I called the vet in Santa Monica - the same vet where I've taken Boober and his brother, Velcro since I adopted them both. I explained what had happened and asked the staffer for Boober's birthday. She checked and said "September 1st, 1994". She paused, then said "You don't see cats living that long anymore. It's really, really rare...." And that he was.

I know I've just lost a father, but this cat — this magical, all-loving, four-legged, nearly-black fuzzball — watched me grow from a young adult into a man. He saw me behaving badly, making stupid choices, hurting myself and failing, sometimes miserably. 

He loved me anyway. 

I rescued a kitten from under a dumpster over at Zankou chicken and adopted him into the family. That same cat knocked over trash cans in the kitchen to search for food for at least two more years and frequently fought with both Boober and his brother.
 
Boober loved me anyway.

He saw his brother Velcro die after having spent every day of his life playing with him for nearly a decade. 

He kept on living.

And then he saw me excel, learn, grow, mature, meditate, laugh, cry, stabilize, and, ultimately, settle down with a wonderful wife. 

He kept right on loving me, begging for chicken, wanting to sit on my lap, or climb up on my chest when I got into bed and being a general love whore.

And when Mary and I rescued and then adopted two feral kittens late last year, Boob was the definition of a Zen Master: unfazed, unburdened and unable to do anything other than continuing to love. And beg for chicken.

Yesterday he was here and I was playing with him outside and scratching him under his arms, something he very much loved. Today he's no longer here. Another powerful reminder that everything in our universe is temporary. Another powerful reminder to love now, no matter what. Another powerful reminder that if your life isn't filled with love, you can go grab yourself some at any time you choose.

Seventeen days ago, my Uncle died after battling pancreatic cancer. Two weeks ago, my father died after a ten-year struggle with Lewy Body Dementia. This morning, I learned that my crispy, bony cat had died of old age, after taking himself —literally and figuratively — out to pasture. 

So goodbye, my friend and godspeed. Thank you for loving me when I didn't know to love myself, for cuddling me when I couldn't hug myself, and for climbing up on top of me, contented, when I couldn't find peace for myself. You will be remembered, cherished and very sorely missed as a part of my family and certainly as a large part of my LA story.

In the end, we're all just animals: I'm just lucky I got to learn from some of the best. So wherever you are now, Boob: I just hope there's as much chicken as you'll ever, ever want. 

Your student,
David

2013.05.08 - The Shoulds

Today was just an incredibly full and wonderful day. I took the week off work to have some personal time and boy it's really paid off in spades.

I got up at 5:30am and went surfing in Malibu with Rich. The waves were waist to shoulder high as the larger sets rolled in and I scored a couple of rides that brought me instant joy and laughter. Then off to breakfast with my dear friend Denise. We talked about some of the powerful lessons that both life and death have been revealing to us recently which I found very spiritually connecting. Later, I had lunch with my childhood friend Debbie whose father died when she was fifteen. We laughed as we always do, caught up and I shared my experiences of watching Dad die over the past month. After that, I went to a a big 'ole Hollywood blockbuster in 3D IMAX with my friend Keith and my lovely wife. Just something fun to add to an already lovely day.

But I remember a moment that I had this morning as I drove up PCH. I suddenly felt guilty about the fun I was about to have in the ocean. And I thought: shouldn't I be mourning more? Shouldn't I be more sad and crying and upset for having just lost my father? Or shouldn't I be in synagogue saying prayers for him? The next moment, I got my answer: absolutely NOT.

Because I realized that the greatest way I can honor a man who loved to do what he did is to enjoy every minute of every day for as long as I have days left to enjoy. But my life hasn't looked that way if I'm truly honest. That's because for over 40 years, I've been navigating the world by charting a course based, in large part, on obligations or "The Shoulds" that other people told me: you should go to an ivy league school, you should choose a career more stable than acting; you should be a writer or a rabbi; you should come home to visit more often; you should marry a Jewish woman, and so forth. It's important to note that these were all other people's ideas for me that I tried adopted as my own because I didn't feel that I had alternatives.

One of the biggest lessons I'm taking from Dad's life and death is that we need to let go of doing things out of obligation and instead focus on doing things that we love doing. All of us. It sounds so simple as to be child-like, but there it is. Feel like you should stay in a relationship that you feel is bad for you? Walk away from it. Feel like you should stay at a job you despise because you think you have no choices? Then remember that you always have choices and options.

And when I start to imagine a world where I get up and do what I love every day, it gives me such excitement and hope that I can't contain myself. And when I start to imagine a world where everyone is doing that as well, it makes me think there's nothing we can't achieve.

2013.05.06 - Longboarding

There's no denying the reality of Dad's dying today. There's no shiva to help absorb the shock of his passing. There's no religious mechanism in place to help the process have deeper meaning or resolution. And today, for the first time, Mary and I didn't spend the entire day together at a nursing home, or on a plane, or at a funeral, or at a shiva or dealing with family matters. She had her own day and I had mine.

And the reality of being alone with my thoughts and emotions hit pretty hard. I had myself of course. And I had my own practice of meditation. And I gave myself "things" to do: returning chairs, returning prayer books, buying a few things for the kitchen that Mary had requested and... I took myself to the movies. Which was a nice distraction, I suppose. But when I walked back out into the light of day, something awkward happened: people were going about their lives. They were shopping, chatting, eating and I couldn't understand how none of them knew about Dad, about his ten-year illness, about his decline, about his death and funeral. They were all just... unaware of him and of me. And I felt a wave overcome me and a bench appeared, so I sat down and just sobbed. And the sadness rolled through me and shook me this way and that for few seconds and then subsided.

But it's just under the surface now. And it's raw and red and simmering. And it's not going away. And there's nothing I can do about that. Which is fine. Because I'm not supposed to do anything about it: I just have to accept it and not fight it. It's bigger than me. I get it. I already know from surfing that no matter how big the wave, no matter which direction it's pushing or charging that there's a sweet spot there in the pocket. And in that spot, perfect harmony is achieved, perfect balance between me and the wave where I don't have to fight it, just simply allow it to propel me.

Of course, there are some days when you look at the water and think, there's no way I'm getting in to something that turbulent. And maybe this is one of those days, but I don't have a choice as to whether or not I get into my own life. I'm here. Dad's not, but I am. My life goes on and the waves continue to drive the way they do. Bigger, steeper waves usually require short boards because they're fast and  maneuverable.

Today, I accept that I'm on a longboard. My turns are slower and less precise but, then again, there's also more room for standing up and finding balance. And for that — at least for the moment — I'm incredibly grateful.