Of Red Geraniums, Orange Marmalade Cakes, and Yellow Towels; Of Mother's Day

Hello My Dear One,

It was Mother's Day recently here is the United States and instead of perseverating on the painful relationship I have with my own mother, I chose to focus instead on my wife and her journey as a mother.  This year was the 10th anniversary of the burial service for my wife's mother, Linda. She passed on Christmas Day, 2013 and because of the icy winters of the Northeast, we were unable to return her to the earth for nearly 5 months.  This is a painful reality for those of us who live in climates that render the ground beneath our feet frozen solid, immobilized against all manmade equipment.  So, we preserve the body, have the memorial or funeral service, and after the thaw we relive the pain of the loss as we part with our loved one again.  Although there is a sense of completion at this second service, it is often lost to the reopened wounds that have only just begun to heal and scar over.

In our case, the wounds ran deeper, as the burial took place the day before Mother's Day, 2004.  My young wife, not yet 30 years old, had lost her mother less than 5 months before.  And the next day, Mother's Day, would be her 1st as a mother herself with our then 10 month old son.  What an aching duality she must have felt at that moment.  To be watching the body of her mother leave her for the last time, while holding the gift of the new and unbridled joy of healthy, happy child who was loving her as she had loved her own mother.  I have not experienced this in my life, nor will I ever, yet I can feel her sadness a decade later as I recall that day.

But let me return to the burial itself.  Let me tell what can happen when one is open to the G-d that has more for us than just grief.  Often there is something special, extraordinary, and inexplicable that occurs at these "plantings," these burials of our already long gone friends and relatives.  There is something out of the ordinary that brings us a renewed sense of the continuation of our lives and the presence of the Holy within and around us.  In our case, it was a hawk.

I have a physical remembrance of standing near the graveside, hearing words, looking at my wife, and wondering what solace might be found there.  As I felt the air moving around us, heard the birds in the trees, smelled the fresh flowers, and saw the blue sky through the treetops, I felt a hand on my shoulder, and saw the smile of a friend as she pointed up to the sky.  There, circling in majestic arcs was a hawk, surveying us and all that was around.  As she spoke the word "look," my wife and I both looked up and saw the magnificent sight.  It was as if, in that moment, G-d had given us a a reprieve from the darkness of looking down into a grave.  Rather, we were compelled to look up and see the soaring hope of the life that was still ahead of us.  We gave meaning to presence.

When we ascribe meaning to parts of our life experiences, we create truths for our own comfort and resiliency.  Within the Jewish and Christian traditions, the physical reminders of our covenant(s) with G-d contain the ancient rituals of breaking bread and drinking wine while speaking prayers of blessing.  Every time we share in a meal where we give outward thanks, we create a truth about experiencing the Holy with our most basic physical needs of food and drink.  I believe that all of creation can be a witness to G-d and the blessings that can be had when one is open to them.  From bread and water to the most sacred of religious practices, we are in the presence of Holiness when we use the material gifts that G-d has supplied us with.  Like manna in the wilderness or fish for the multitudes G-d gives us tangibles to access a G-d that is too great to be comprehended by us.  In our family this Mother's Day there were 3 things of material existence that were given spiritual significance, and allowed us to access that Holiness, that enormous G-d.

Red geraniums, an orange marmalade cake, and a yellow hand towel.

Long before my mother-in-law passed she always said that if reincarnation was possible, she wanted to return as a red geranium.  I am sure I could delve into all the reasons for this, but frankly I enjoy the mystery of it more.  Every year I buy my beloved wife a red geranium, on or around Mother's Day, as a reminder of Mom's wish, and as a reminder of my shared memories of Linda.  This year I found a beautiful hanging basket filled with the bright red flowers and tons of buds waiting for their chance to bloom.  It was a remembrance of the gift of a human life and how love had the power to change so many lives.

Mom's Red Geranium

The orange marmalade cake has its roots, not in my mother-in-law, but in my wife's love of a series of books by the author Jan Karon, The Mitford series.  In it, there is a character who bakes this special cake for friends and family, often annoying her husband during the holidays due to the cost of the ingredients.  It is more than just a delicious treat, it is actually an expression of love and caring as the baking process requires many steps, attention to detail, special ingredients, and a lot of time and patience.  The cake was a gift of gratitude for the love that continues to change the lives of our sons as well as our own.

Orange Marmalade Cake

The yellow hand towel has a unique place in this trinity of everyday sacraments, reaching back over 20 years.  In the late summer of 1993 my wife was preparing to attend college, 2 hours away from home, and would be living in a dorm for the first time in her life.  As she collected the necessary items for her new journey, her mother also purchased things for her to bring.  Numerous toiletries, clothes, and bedding were secured for her future life in college, but there was a need that Linda provided with her unique pragmatic approach to life.  She bought a set of mustard yellow hand towels, high quality no less, that if one were being generous in describing them would say they were ugly at best.  The reason for this was intentional, because Linda believed that no one would steal these towels due to there color.  And sure enough she was right, because twenty plus years later, we still have those hideous towels.  They've never been stolen, no matter how much we would have wished them to be.

The "Still not Stolen" Yellow Hand Towel

And here I choose to ascribe one more bit of meaning to these three items, that their colors represent the relationships between mother and daughter.  The red geraniums and the yellow towels are primary colors that when combined create a secondary color, orange, in the form of the cake.  You see, the deeply imprinted devotion of a mother's love for her daughter was bonded with a promise of love that would transcend mortality.  And this has given new life to the daughter who is a mother herself.  The red of the future along with the yellow of the past blend into the orange of the present.  And although this interpretation could easily be called false, I believe that the sacred meaning is greater than the "truth."

In the end, we find our ability to have meaningful experiences with the Holy, with G-d, with our sacred truths where we are, not where we are supposed to be.  Through the process of living into these truths we can begin to see ourselves within the heart of G-d and the universe itself.  Whether it be through flowers, cakes, and towels, or bread, wine, and blessings, we are capable of entering into relationship with G-d.  And when we do that, we are able to enter into relationships with others.  And it is only then that we can witness the true, unique, and unconditional love of G-d. 

Thank you for continuing to seek the true love of G-d with me on this journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

Ari

Of Unhidden Easter Eggs and Unwanted Rabbit Holes

Hello My Dear One,

It was a hell of a Holy Week this year.  I found myself pulled as usual in multiple directions, Passover, Easter, the Bipolar I nightmare that is the month of April, excessively high blood glucose levels, and dealing with a school vacation that robs me of my routine as well as a week's worth of pay.  Spring has never done much for me, I love summer, but that's another story.

Anyway, as far as the Holy Week issues, I could have defaulted to my old standbys of religious discord as the basis for my current distress, however that would have been a lie.  This year I have been more at peace with who and where I am on my spiritual journey than I can ever remember.  I watched and listened as the Jewish and Christian holidays and traditions danced, dovetailed, and diverged as they always do.  I marveled at their relationship and my relationships with each of them.  In reality my problems with Holy Week have far more childish roots, or at least, reasons that are rooted in my childhood.

The angst I experience each year stems from what I didn't get to do as a child, what was not done for me, and how I leap down the rabbit holes of distortion over and over again.  Every year I perseverate on the missing elements of the holidays and the ones that I as an adult am now responsible for.  There is a deeply wounded place within myself that recoils at the jobs that are now mine.  And there is but one reason that underlies my petty unwillingness to participate in a manner befitting an almost 40 year old.



My parents never hid easter eggs for me.






It appears trivial in a way, never having been gifted with the opportunity to seek out plastic eggs filled with jellybeans, candy, or coins.   It seems silly, to be sad over children's holiday games that ultimately do not enhance the spiritual meaning of the religious tradition.  And it even seems a little pathetic that I, a trained theologian, become morose at the thought of Easter morning because there will be no hidden eggs, no basket, no store bought candy waiting for me when I awake.  My desire for religious growth is buried under a heaping mound of missing chocolate bunnies, stringy vinyl easter grass, and those damned plastic eggs.    

Now, for sake of transparency, I will admit that I did receive easter baskets in my youth, they did have candy in them, albeit from the fancy candy store from our beachside town, and that there were indeed plastic eggs with goodies in them in the basket itself.  Mind you, the coins within the eggs suffered from a dirty, sticky, cough drop infused coating that made the money seem more like a scrounge through the bottom of my mother''s purse than a special treat.  The amounts weren't even clever, just assorted clumps of change that my mother had in fact fished out of her purse that afternoon.  Oh, and the dreaded black jellybeans were in other eggs.

But these childhood slights are not about the traditions themselves, not the actual hunting for eggs, or shrink wrapped, toy filled, plastic baskets from the local department store, but rather what they represent. They represent the normal that I longed for that was never achievable in my nuclear family.  I wanted adults to be adults and hide the Easter eggs for me to find, just like my neighbors' families did.  I wanted to believe in the Easter Bunny, but just like Santa, the Tooth Fairy, and every other childhood fantasy staple, that desire was crushed on a yearly basis.  My parents were people unwilling or unable to play the magical roles that create a foundation for playful innocence and joy in a child.  Instead, they chose to explain how the magic tricks were done, leaving behind no mystery for me to be amazed by.

So, I hid the easter eggs for them.  I was the Easter Bunny.  I was the magician performing for my parents.  At the tender age of 9, I secretly hid the eggs and ensured that each one was found.  I hid those stupid plastic eggs for people who should have been hiding them for me.

So, like most years, Easter morning arrived this year and once again there were no eggs to be found.  In fact, because there is often a hectic rush to church on Easter morning, the Easter Bunny visits our house while we are at church.  Translate this statement to mean that when the church service ends, one parent must rush home, hide the eggs all over the lawn, make sure the baskets are ready, and display the handwritten note from the Easter Bunny himself stating how many eggs he has left for the boys to find.  This final touch ensures that each child will have an equal number of eggs at the end of the affair.

It was my parental turn this year, so I came flying home to be the Easter Bunny again, 30 years later, this time as a father attempting to perform the magic for his children.  And as my stomach turned, I hid the plastic eggs, and did my best not to fall into the rabbit holes of my mind, where the sadness, unworthiness, and fear reside.  I tried to hide the eggs skillfully and with joy, but most of them just ended up barely hidden in obvious places.  And in retrospect this lax effort was not a mere fall into the rabbit holes, it was a knowing leap.  

As I squeezed into the darkened tunnels that twist and turn, creating a never ending maze of fear and disappointment, I willingly stayed in the confinement of distorted thinking and behaviors.  It is not a truth I want to disclose, but I wasn't the parent I wished that mine had been.  I didn't bring my best that day, and I didn't miraculously evolve into a better, richer, more fully actualized version of myself.  No, I limped along, tried to make the best of it, and still managed to be an unpleasant fool to be around for the rest of the day.  

At the end of the day I had still done more than my folks ever did, and I knew that my boys were happy with whatever magic I had managed to create.  And in the days since then, I have realized more and more that I can see the rabbit holes before I fall flailing into them.  It doesn't mean that I won't fall or leap into one, but it does mean that I don't have to, and that I can climb out before I get sucked down further.  Just like the disappointing plastic eggs of youth, those rabbit holes are not filled with what I need, want, or even desire anymore. 

What I need, want, and desire is to be a man of integrity, dignity, and inherent value, and I want that for my sons as well.  I want them to know that they are loved.  And maybe, if I can watch where I'm going, I can lead them away from the rabbit holes that I've fallen into too many times.  Maybe, I can lead them to the hidden eggs where the treasure is in the finding, and not what is inside.

Thanks for joining me along this crazy bunny trail of a journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

- Ari   

Of a Lump in My Throat

Hello My Dear One,

I began writing while still hospitalized for a virulent bacterial infection, and although I am now back home safe and sound, I want you to hear what my thoughts were at the time, and what they are now.

I have been sitting here for days, in hospital, battling through a PeriTonsillar Abscess caused by a virulent strain of Strep A that attacked me nearly 2 weeks ago.  I have been pumped full of meds, had 2 CT scans, a procedure done at 10:00pm on a Sunday night with only a few shots of Lidocaine, a needle, a knife, some clamps, and the warning "Don't Move."  I have been on a restricted diet, monitored day and night, and have learned that apparently I don't breathe all of the time while I sleep.  And all of this because of a lump in my throat, a puss filled abscess on the back side of my left tonsil, that grew from 1cm to 2.5cm in less than 48 hours.  I have been subjected to a battery of tests, all because of a lump in my throat.

And all of this has led to a different lump in my throat, not a physical one, but a figurative one that is often described as the way one feels when faced with a sadness that is too great for initial speech.  We even refer to it as "getting choked up" in the U.S., when we are overcome with emotion that might make us cry.  Because here is the U.S. we are not as quick to show our sadness, particularly as men, and more so when in public.  We say that we are "choked up" because we cannot speak the words, or cry the tears when faced with the flood of real emotion in times of sorrow.  This to me is in itself a sadness, however I am just of guilty as this as most of those around me.

Now all of this could well lead into an exploration of cultural norms and mores, how men and women react differently to emotions, and what it means to be a member of a society that prizes violence and heroism over intimacy and relationship.

But I want instead to talk about the lumps in my throat.  I want to explain what has brought me to this place of a physical lump, and to the figurative one as well.  I want to explore the feelings that got me into all of this and also out of this.

I got sick with Strep A nearly 2 weeks ago, and I started a course of antibiotics almost immediately.  I felt a little better, tired, but better, and thought I might even be able to return to work at the end of the week.  But all too quickly I was much sicker, and I was failing fast.  After 2 emergency room visits I was sent to a larger hospital and began a lengthy process of recovery.

But I wondered, why did I grow this crazy puss filled thing in my throat in the first place.  Why me?  I know I have amazing skills at growing cysts, this is at least the 5th in the last 15 years, but really?  An abscess on a tonsil?  One that was growing at an alarming rate, and slowly blocking my airway?  I was literally getting choked up by this growth in my throat.

I knew that from a medical standpoint it was a potential that comes whenever someone has strep throat, and it can happen especially if there is a history of tonsillitis, and/or a weakened immune system, such as mine.  Having diabetes has always been a liability, but sometimes I forget how much of one it can be.  My health is often more at risk than others and I need to protect myself through preventative measures in a more aggressive fashion that I frequently do.

Further, I work in an elementary school and am exposed to all manner of bacteria, viruses, sickly kids, and other environmental health risks.  It can be a highly stressful position, where I never feel like I have enough time to complete everything I want to do in my day.  That sense of unfinished business can be trying at times no matter how much I try to walk away from it when I am not there.  And I never really stop thinking about the kids I work with.  I want to bring them my best self, my most creative ideas, and something that might make learning a little better, a little easier, a little more enjoyable than it has been in the past for them.  I want to engage them and make them lifelong learners too.

But even with all of these factors, I'm not sure I can blame this round of illness on much of any of that.  No, I think deep down that my own emotional conflicts over theological school, call, meeting the needs of my family, and ignoring my own health were the real culprits this time.  My inability to put my own physical, spiritual, emotional, and intellectual needs ahead of anything else is always detrimental to my body, as it decides to shut the whole system down to keep me from wreaking any more havoc on myself.  Just like the encapsulating cysts that I excel at growing, my body eventually encapsulates me in a cyst so that I too must be drained of the puss that I have accrued within my spirit.

Much like the physical abscess I had blocking my airway, my emotional airway was blocked by an unwillingness on my part to acknowledge that I was doing too much.  I had taken on projects, and work, and commitments I could in no way fulfill, and yet I tried to take on more.  From my innermost self that wants to be loved, I continue to put myself into those vicious circles of offering too much in return for too little.  Over extending myself is not truly a sign of flexibility or the ability to multitask, rather I see in my own life that it is merely a way of running oneself ragged and incapable of doing anything.

I was in so much denial about how overwhelmed I was that I had even stopped really caring for my diabetes.  I suspect that this a key player in my prolonged illness.  Diabetes is an autoimmune disorder, and when it is improperly managed, the body cannot respond to bacterial or viral attacks with enough strength to properly fight off the illness.  My blood glucose levels had been rising and my overall average was up as well.  I drank coffee laden with sugar, creamers, and sugary syrups.  I ate candy bars, donuts, cakes, cookies, and way to much protein.  I lowered my immunity and suffered the consequences.

But what about those figurative lumps in my throat?  Well, as I sat there, stuck in that bed, I began to see how much I missed my wife and children.  I realized how much I missed my work life.  I realized how much I missed my freedom to go to a grocery store and by some fresh fruit and vegetables.  I realized that I missed my life.  And that, that missing of my own life, was what brought the true lumps to my throat.

For nearly 40 years I have suffered from the belief that my existence was not truly important to the world, or even my own family's.  I didn't feel that my wife really needed me to exist, and of course she doesn't need me to exist per se, but to have a loving and fulfilling life we need each other.  Our existences are dependent upon the love that we create and share as two grown adults in the life altering bond of marriage.  We need each other.  And that emotion was overwhelming enough to bring a lump to my throat.

And so too, being a present, loving, nurturing father to my two magnificent sons.  Likewise my colleagues, my students, my friends, and the people with whom I share my stories of what it means to be intersex and transgender.  I meet each person exactly where they are and allow them the space to share with me their struggles and their triumphs.  What greater importance could there be in life?

And we have all been granted this opportunity.  We are given the gift of our lives to live into and share with others.  We are connected by our experiences, by our comings, and our goings in life.  We are connected by something as simple as a smile, or as profound as a lifelong relationship filled with hardships and joys that push us to be better people than we could have ever imagined.

Yet there is one more element to this magic, G-d.  Because I believe that it is the G-d outside of us, and the G-d within each of us that creates these opportunities to experience this brief flicker of time we have been granted.  And perhaps this brought the biggest lump to my throat.  The knowing that the G-d within me and the G-d within each housekeeping staff member, CNA, nurse, and doctor created a place of care, healing, and recovery for me, for my family, for my work, for my friends, and for the very people who cared for me during my illness became a truth that changed my life.  I mattered.  They mattered.  My existence here and now has meaning and value, and my absence would be a loss.

As a new week begins, I come to it with an appreciation for another day to be.
I am here, and my life has meaning.  Thanks be to G-d.

Thank you for having meaning in my life, in the lives of others, and for choosing to be a part of the lump in my throat.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Call, Of Discernment, and of Teaching

Hello My Dear One,

It is now Autumn, the season that brings a cooler breath to our lungs, more vibrant colors to our eyes, and the needed space for a quieter reflection as the earth begins to prepare itself for the coming hibernation.  For many, this is a time of contentment, a time of settling into a deeper place that came with the activities of summer.  It is a time of discernment for all of us as we prioritize what we must do in order to make the coming months safe, warm, and nourishing in all ways possible.  It a season of planning ahead.

In my own days of fall, I am in the midst of a discernment process, one that I have experienced multiple times before and will undoubtedly repeat in years to come.  It is listening to my call to ministry and what exactly that call is.  It is a remarkably, and achingly difficult thing to do, to sort out my own emotions from my delusions, my desires from the needs of others, and whether the voice I hear is G-d's or my own.  This process is what gives us the ability to serve others the way that G-d wants us to, but only if we can truly, truly listen.  And for a person with mental health issues, well it is even trickier to know what to listen for.

So, I have once again explored the possibility of attending theological school.  I have even visited a campus and reveled in the academic opportunities and enjoyments that come with being in a graduate school setting.  I loved the camaraderie, the jokes, the intimacy, the theological discussions, and the hope for a deepened faith life and practice.  I was nearly giddy with the thrill of course work, readings, exegesis, and frozen yogurt runs at 11:00 at night.  Yes, the sheer exuberance that comes with academia for a lifelong learner, is like an alcoholic beverage to me.  I am intoxicated by the very potential for more study.

To make the letters even sweeter.

And I believe that as a Jew, this is normal.  It is, I suspect, an inborn calling within all who are members of the 12 tribes of Israel, to physically long for learning.  We get our first taste of the Aleph-Bet with actual honey, to make learning a sweet process, thus ensuring that we will want to continue.  It will also probably lead us to being diagnosed with some form of pre-diabetes or diabetes within our lifetimes, but so what? Being able to read is more important than a functional pancreas, right?

We become "men" and "women" at our Bar and Bat Mitzvahs when we have learned how to read Torah well enough to participate in Shabbat, speaking ancient words, sharing the sacred space where words take on meanings that we would otherwise not ascribe to them.  And in some communities we still gift the newest "adult" of our group with a fountain pen, to further impress upon them, and us, that reading, discussing, and writing about G-d is what makes us truly "grown-ups."  Funny story, one of my young cousins, herself preparing for her upcoming Bat Mitzvah, was attending a Shabbat service with all of us to celebrate my Uncle's 80th birthday.  After we celebrated the occasion during the service, my Uncle jokingly asked where the new fountain pen was, and my dear, sweet, modern cousin, asked in earnest, "What's a fountain pen?"  Apparently, we should have said something like a stylus for your iPad.

Heck, we even call our spiritual leaders, Rabbi, a word that means teacher.  It is as if Jews see the need for someone to provide educational opportunities in order to grow, as well as someone who can provide comfort during our times of trial.  And Rebs of old inspire and teach through the Talmud, a collection of explorations and answers to every possible life scenario, and most importantly at least 2 answers that completely contradict each other.  That's right, there are multiple answers to life's questions and there, codified in volumes of texts, is the very answer to the mystery of spirituality itself.  There is no one right answer.  We humans cannot grasp the enormity of G-d, and when we try to answer questions with an either or solution, we show our limitations as created beings.  With G-d there are no "either/or" answers to life, rather, it is "both/and."  Within the first few verses of Torah, in Genesis, the term for G-d used during the creation of humans is a plural, meaning the divine.  G-d is both/and, singular and plural, greater than the entire cosmos, yet within each atom that it is composed of.

So, in my current (perpetual) discernment process, I am seduced by the opportunity to delve again into the words that create meaning within my life.  I have a visceral response to the idea that I could spend hours upon hours sitting in a library, pouring over texts, writing, thinking, imagining, believing, and dreaming about what each letter could mean.  It's true, I would love a life of academia, filling my mind to the brim with every last bit of knowledge I could fit in there.

And yet.

And yet.

For as much as I have a call to learning,  I have a deeper call to teaching.  And of course the two calls are really one in the same, but it is how one chooses to live into them that can have remarkably different effects on the people around you.

If I choose to throw myself headlong into a world of academia, a world of abstraction, and a necessary laser like focus, I will likely lose the connection to my family, friends, and community as I become ensconced in my world of books.

If I choose to throw myself headlong into a world of teaching, a more concrete world, and a necessarily large world view, I will likely grow in my relationships, and have more to offer to those I love.

And, as the Talmud would offer up, both options are right, both options are wrong, and there are infinitely more options than those that I have created.

In my life today though, I know that for as much as I love academic challenges within higher education, I learn far more when I am teaching those who require a little more, a little extra, another set of eyes, or ears, or hands, or neurons in order to learn for themselves.  Everyday, every single day, I am blessed to be able to go to work, experience totally different world views from my own, and get hugs from people half my size.  Being an educator in an elementary school is the best thing I've ever done in my life, save for being a good husband and father.  Being a positive male role model for boys and girls who may not have one is a priceless gift that I have been given to share.  Being allowed to be myself grants me more knowledge than I will ever be able to contain.

And that brings me right back to my discernment process and my own sense of call.  Those dreams of academia, of discussing and debating, of questions that lead to more questions, of philosophical dilemmas worked through in the early morning hours over beer and sleep deprivation, each dream more tantalizing than the next.  But they are just that, dreams.  They are not goals.  They are fantasies, and in all truth, they are fantasies that I have already fulfilled in my seminary days.  I've lived them all.  And I have a life that calls me now to dream new dreams, make goals, and live them out in the here and now.

It is seldom easy to put a want on hold.  It is seldom easy to prioritize which task must be done first.  Should I work on the outdoor tasks before the snow falls?  Should I work on tightening up the inside jobs in my house before the cold winds blow through the cracks in this old farmhouse?  Are the questions I pose literal, figurative, or both?  In the end it probably doesn't matter, whether or not they are reality nor the actual order of the tasks.

In the end I know that whatever decisions I make will have consequences for more than just myself.  Each choice will affect my wife, my sons, my job, my community, my faith, my sanity, and my time to enjoy the changes in the seasons that continue to fly past me.  Each choice isn't about me, it is about the family I have created, and the family that I have chosen to be a part of.

It has been nearly a year since my Deconstruction, and I can't bear to think of putting my loved ones or myself through that again.  Ultimately, I know that a choice to return to theological school, regardless of the reasons would eventually lead to that, and that is not a choice I wish to make.  I am a far better man than I was a year ago and as such I know when it is time to put the good of myself and of my family first.

Teacher, Scholar, Family man.

So, will I regret not attending theological school?  Maybe.  Would I regret not being here for my family, for my students, my community, my friends, or even my own life?  Yes!  I recently read that one should live the way you want to be remembered in your eulogy/obituary.  Meaning, that I want to be remembered for my love and devotion, my volunteerism, the differences I made in others' lives, the way I helped shift understanding of what it means to be transgender, intersex, and interfaith.  I want to be remembered for the good that I did, the Tikkun Olam, and not the times I left my family for my own personal gains.  

So, it is time to plan ahead then, to prepare for the coming hibernation of the wintery world that is coming.  And my plan is to stay the course.  I have found my call in teaching, and in so doing, I will always be able to fulfill my desire to learn.  There are exams for me to take, classes to complete, and teaching that needs to be done.  And there is the constant learning of being a husband and father to my ever evolving family and its growing needs.

May it be so that there is always more to learn.

Thank you for continuing to learn with me, and to teach me on this journey together.

Be well.  Love your neighbor as you love yourself.  And remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Sandwich Baggies Filled with Pennies, Glitter, and Angel Wings

Hello My Dear One,

My apologies for not writing sooner.  With the beginning of summer and the end of the school year it has taken a few weeks to adjust to my new routine.  It has been an evolving one and given my usual resistance to such things I believe I'm doing as well as can be expected.  

So, I've wanted to write about Borderline Personality Disorder from a slightly more academic perspective for some time, but somehow I just can't seem to do it.  I simply cannot wade through millions of words telling me what I already know.  

Still, I know that I need to explore what this illness has done to me from a different vantage point. I need to find my own answers, to bring a spiritual voice to the scientific one, to know that there is an inherent gift within the madness that balances the destruction of the fury.  Simply put, I need to see G-d within the storm.

So, the other day, as I delved even more deeply into the memories of my past, during a therapy session, I saw the core place of brokenness within myself.  I've long dealt with a crippling belief that in order to keep the peace I must sacrifice my own wants, needs, and desires to be happy so that the other person(s) I am in relationship with will love me.  It is a debilitating condition that has led to hurt feelings, mistrust, anger, resentment, depression, and a host of other complications.  It has always been my job to make others happy, and throughout my life it has usually been at the expense of my own happiness.  One of the most devastating memories resurfaced during the EMDR session and I saw that it was still playing out in my day to day life even though the event occured nearly 25 years ago. 

I was a young 14 year old, a freshman in high school, awkward, and with massive underlying mental, physical, and emotional disturbances that were yet to be diagnosed and my family had just undergone a radical upheaval.  My grandfather had passed away less than 4 months before and that summer I had been biking around town and found my father embracing a woman, who was not my mother, at my special beach.  There in plain view it was obvious what was happening, and after getting his attention I pedaled home as fast as I could to tell my mother what I'd seen.  They soon arrived at the house and the lies began.  Everyone knew they were lies.  But they continued anyway.  Within a month, this interloper was living in the apartment above our home along with her son who was only 8 months older than I.  Suddenly I was living in an obviously polygamous home that no one dared claim for what it was.  

Within a few months my mother finally garnered the courage to confront my father and his mistress about the truth.  I had gone to my grandmother's house next door, and was working in the basement shop to feel connected to the grandfather who had died too soon.  I was sad, but also hopeful and expectant that this hell I had been plunged into would be over.  Once the truth was out, there was no going back, and I would be free from the nightmare of this love triangle.

As I sat and fiddled with the tools in my grandfather's workshop, I heard my mother come in and she sat down on a wooden stool next to me.  "So?" I said, and she stated the truth of the affair, all the gory details of the confrontation, ad nauseam.  "So when is he leaving?" I asked 15 minutes later as her ramble had slowed to a dull roar.  "He's not."  she said.  "WHAT?!?!?!?" I screamed?  And in her Borderline Personality Disorder reality she explained why he was staying, that she had been unwilling to force him to make a choice between the two of them.  In fact, I remember the comparison that he gave to her, saying that having to choose between his wife and his mistress would be like having to choose between vanilla or chocolate ice cream.  

Seriously.  Even at 14 years old I knew that this was a blatantly ridiculous and infantile response to being caught breaking your wedding vows and that any damn fool who believed it was as pitiful as the one who said it to them.  Yep, my 48 year old parents had reverted to being 4 year olds, unable, unwilling, and irrational toddlers who along with a 40 something year old mistress had decided to throw a collective temper tantrum in the sandbox of my already horrifying life.  

I was put into an untenable position, informed that my happiness was not important and that if I wanted any attention at all I had to play along and sacrifice what I knew was what I wanted and needed in exchange for "love."  This message was the one I incorporated into myself and have continued to play out all these years later.  The why of it all became clear as I saw the "adult" players in the drama.

My mother was incapable of facing the truth that her marriage was over and that despite the financial hardships that were possible, she actually had monetary and emotional support from her extended family.  But the beast of BPD stood its ground and bellowed and hollered at the prospect of being abandoned one more time.  It was in that moment that the person whose only job was to protect me from harm had decided to abandon ship and save her own warped security over mine.

My father's mistress, a woman who had her own traumatic past and mental illness was driven to believe that this arrangement was a perfectly viable option.

My father, the adult alpha male of the pack, not wanting to lose out on the attention and sexual rewards of finally having 2 women fighting for him chose to hide within the perverted gratification of his new life.  Having grown up knowing he was unplanned, that his mother wasn't supposed to be able to have more children, that his older sister was the golden child, and going through puberty at the age of 8, led him to crave the all of the encompassing insanity that passed as "love."  Now, at long last, he had 2 women, the madonna and the whore, the replacements for the mother and sister who treated him as less than, and he held onto it for 6 long years clinging to belief that he deserved this reward for all that he had suffered and sacrificed.  My father once confessed to me that he had moved away from his academic opportunities, friends, colleagues, and his own parents, because a doctor had told him the only way to manage my mother's instabilities was to move her as close to her parents as possible.  He bought a house 1/8 of a mile from them and regretted it until the day he sold it more than 25 years later.  

But here is where I can start to see G-d in the storm.  In all of this madness there was a home, next door to me, the very one I was sitting in that day, where my grandparents moved when I was 3 years old.  It was my refuge.  It was my sanctuary.  It was my safety.  And there was G-d enfolding me with the love that I needed through my grandfather and grandmother.  Although Grampa had just died, the love and caring he gave me still filled my heart.  And my Grama, who was literally right above me at that moment, continued to support me for the next 3 1/2 years before her own death.  I was loved, and it was in part because my father had taken the advice of random physician so many years prior.  Were it not for that act of Divine Intervention, would I have known the grace that my grandparents gave me?  I don't have an answer to that question, but I am grateful and grace-filled regardless.   

So why now?  Why am I revisiting all of this now? Why did it come up in therapy when I felt that I was nearly done with this mess?  Probably because I have almost finished emptying out the house that my mother drove away from nearly 6 months ago.  I've been packing, cleaning, hauling, dragging, loading, selling furniture, planning several yard sales, online sales, and picking up the pieces of rubble that surrounded her home.  I have literally collected the broken shards of glass, seashells, plastics, etc. that were spewed around the building, one by one, and I have thrown them away.  Discovery During one of the last times I was there, I was cleaning out a dresser and found a sandwich baggie filled with pennies and glitter wedged behind one of the drawers.  Inside were maybe a dozen coins and over a hundred beads, and multicolored stars, doves, and angels made of shiny plastic and metal.  It was the perfect metaphor for my mother's life.  This see through plastic bag, tied off with a weird knot, full of valueless items mixed with sand, grime, and who knows what else stuck in an obscure location, almost lost and forgotten had someone not chosen to clean up the mess.  This discovery said it all.  Her life has always been in full view for everyone to see, and it is filled with things that a child reveres, but an adult knows to be too little to support a life.  It is shiny and filthy all at the same time and the painful emptiness of it is hidden away from the outside world.  Her beast had stashed it away from the peering eyes that could have seen the truth of who she really is.  And it was I who found it, just as I always have, and always will. And this is where I truly find G-d at the eye of this storm.  It is my nearly 40 years of living on the edges and often in the middle of the whipping winds of her hurricane that I have learned compassion for others with mental illness.  I have struggled through my own beast's madness, and I have absorbed the only gifts my mother was truly able to give to me.  Her crazy has made me tolerant and accepting of individuals who have fallen victim to their own beasts' sadistic ways.  More importantly though, it has given me the compassion and love for myself and my own beast that she could not.  I can finally see the crazy in myself, accept it, tolerate it, love it, and manage it because I know that G-d is present. As I reprocessed the traumatic event in therapy, my therapist asked me what the 14 year old me needed to know to help deal with the event and the subsequent pain.  I said aloud "Little One, you are already loved, and you will make it, you have made it, you are surviving the madness, and you are choosing to live in spite of the deconstruction of your life around you."  I continued on, "You are so loved, you will be able to show and give this love to others who need the compassion that no one else will give them.  This is a gift.  You will spread out your grand white wings, surround yourself with G-d's love, and then be able to enfold others with the graceful feathers that will soothe and comfort each and every person you meet."  I told that 14 year old kid to know that the 38 year old was ok, and that in time those horrible years would be relegated to the past.   "Hold fast, Little One, you are loved." And those are the words I say in my heart each day when I meet grown and little ones who don't yet know that there is hope for them.  That is my gift.  I thank G-d for being in that storm of my life and in the lives of others, letting us find our own wings to prevent more damage to our fragile selves.  I thank G-d for the chance to embrace each person I meet with my wings, and to attempt to help them find their own in the process. Pennies, Glitter, and Angel Wings And so, as I looked over the baggie filled with pennies and glitter again, I finally saw the angel wings gently surrounding it.  I saw that my mother's uncontrollable beast had left behind a secret hope, that one day someone would love it too, that someone could see the value and the worth of its seemingly meaningless and disconnected contents.  This tiny capsule of madness was a reminder to look beyond the obvious, to search for meaning in chaos, and to remember that G-d  is always in the storm.   And with that I begin the process of freeing myself from the madness that was only surrounding me.  And I can finally unpack my own sandwich baggies of mental illness and search for the gifts my beast and G-d have hidden away for me.          Thank you for sorting through the pennies, glitter, and angel wings on the journey. Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself. -Ari

Of Motherhood, of True Blessings, and of Light

My Dearest One,

It was recently Mother's Day here in the U.S., and I find myself torn about what I need to write, especially given the other parts of my life that have been tugging at me.  My call to teaching and how that is translating in my life.  My growing confidence in my own abilities and strengths.  My deepened understandings of how to be a good employee, colleague, subordinate, and friend.  But the importance of motherhood, particularly in my own life, is a subject that aches to be explored.  So, here we go.

As most people know my mother was decidedly not the maternal figured I needed, wanted, or desired.  She was and is a woman unto herself whose vision is limited to that which magnifies her own worth and existence.  She is an eccentric, crazy, narcissistic, and neurotic ball of self centered agony, waiting to burst open like a cyst of infection.  Her moods, words, and actions are like a poison that will slowly reach toxic levels for those around her.  This may sound harsh, I realize, but for those who have lived within her sphere of destruction this description is all too real.

Yet, my own life partner, my heart's desire, my wife, is the complete and total opposite of the tragedy of my youth.  She is a selfless giver of time, passion, exuberance, radiance, forgiveness, and unconditional love for her two children and for me.  She is a blessing to all who meet her and who know her.  She works to provide the maternal gifts of hope, peace, and joy not only to her own family, but also to each person she encounters.  She is a gifted woman and I could not be the man I am today were it not for her.  And I mean that in absolutely every sense possible.  I could not be the man I am today without her in my life.  I would not have had the courage to become who I am were it not for her love and support.

As a transgender/intersex individual my wife chose to support me through a change that threatened to dissolve our marriage by an 80% margin.  She wants me to be happy.  As a man with severe mental illness she has chosen to uplift and uphold me through each psychotic episode.  She believes in me.  As a man who has struggled with self worth, and an upbringing that has nearly broken my spirit more times than I can count she has chosen to live with this darkness.  She shows me a light that I cannot see on my own.  As a man living with a beast deep within his soul she has chosen to stand her ground in the face of its hateful, spiteful, and hideous outbursts that have emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and physically attacked her and her children.  She wants the real husband and father I am called to be.

For all this and more I simply cannot find the words that would ever say what her gifts have meant to me throughout the nearly 15 years of marriage we have shared.  Through every wrenching heartbreak and every elated delight she has been present to the man I am, the one I was, and the one I can only pray that I will someday be.

She has shown me what a mother can be.  She has shown me the tasks that a mother is charged with when she enters into that most sacred bond of bringing a child into the world.  She has shown me what love is.

And she has shown me when a mother must let go and give her child the room to grow and become who he or she is called to be.  She has shown me the truest form of grace when she has allowed our sons to fail and then comforted them in their grief.  She has shown me the depths of her soul as she has cried each time our boys board the bus for the first day of school, year, after year, after year.

It is her determination, will, and strength that make her who she is.  And it was in the loss of her own mother over 9 years ago that I saw this the most.  She cared for her mother, a woman who had lost much in her life, who finally came to live with us in a converted barn so that she could be close to her children and her first grandchild.  My mother-in-law was a study in perseverance and she passed this gift on to her daughter with love, laughter, and humility.

Linda was a woman dedicated to providing a life for her children no matter the personal cost.  I remember vividly the early years or my wife's and my courtship as we would eat together at her mom's diningroom table.  There would be warm comforting food spread out for all of us, even after she had worked all day as a nurse in a geriatric facility.  She commuted a half an hour each way, driving from one state to another to work in that nursing home.  She would come back home, make coffee, take care of her beloved hound dogs, and then prepare a meal.  She would wash, dry, and hang up her one uniform by the time the food was ready, and we would gather at the table, talking, laughing, and trying to find both the money and an excuse to go buy "carrots" from the local store.  Despite the pain, anger, and disappointment Linda experienced throughout her life, she still managed to keep a sense of family for her kids.

When she died at the agonizingly young age of 57 from lung cancer on Christmas day, there was a tear, a rip, a gash really in the fabric of our family quilt, one that has taken years to carefully stitch back together.  Of course, as with any wound, if you look closely enough you will see where the delicate sutures have been placed, a puckering at an edge, an uneasy tightness, or a slackening where once it was taught.  Thankfully, my wife is a master quilter, both literally and figuratively, when it comes to our family.  We are all kept physically warm by her beautiful fabric creations.  We are also kept emotionally warm by her creations of love that sparkle in each of my sons' eyes and in the way we walk through this world together.  

Losing her Mom just 5 months after becoming a mother herself was one of the cruelest fates I can imagine, and though many people have given greatly of their time, their love, and their support there will never be another Linda for my wife.  And I see this most as she wishes that her mother could have been here for the births of her other grandchildren, and shared in the magical delight of being a grandparent.  Though my mother-in-law and I rarely saw eye to eye, I would give anything to have her back for the sake of my own wife's happiness.  And that is something that I can only say because of the love that my wife has given to me.  I am not the man I once was.  I am not the man I will be one day.  Rather, I am the man who can be present to the love of his life and want her happiness more than his own.  It is only when you have been loved unconditionally that you can do that.

There are so many memories and stories about the past that I could tell, but most of them are not mine to share, not really.  I will only tell tales about myself and so there is just one that I want to disclose for now.  It's about the love and hate for one's own mother that deep down Linda and I shared.  Though her mother was by no means anything even close to mine, the parent/child dynamic is universal and our own interpretations of our upbringings are personal memories that defy historical truths.  But the fact of the matter was that she had a tough time dealing with her own mother.  As a young woman she moved out of the house, got an apartment, and didn't call for 3 weeks.  I understood.  

"Retro Chic"

And yet, sitting in her diningroom one night looking around at the plate shelf that encircled the room above our heads, I saw a set of porcelain canisters.  They were brown on the bottoms, with white rims and bright flowers wrapping around them.  They were what would now be called "Retro Chic," but nearly 20 years ago they were more "Dated" and "Ugly."  So, I asked the lingering question in my mind, "Where did you get those?" figuring that they might have been an unasked for wedding, housewarming, or birthday gift.  The answer came as a crazy surprise, but one that I completely understood as well.  She replied "I bought those for my mother with money from my first paycheck after I moved out."  Because, after 3 weeks she felt badly about her break for freedom and wanted to apologize in a tangible way, proof that her independence was working out.  I knew exactly what she was talking about.  

Later, when she moved out of her house and into mine, she called her daughter and her son, and myself to come and divy up the items from the house that she no longer wanted.  I was the only one who wanted that "ugly" set.  I plan on keeping it and passing it on to my children and/or grandchildren along with the story of a strong, independent, and caring woman.  

So, this Mother's Day I celebrated my wife with a special cake she's always wanted, got a card, and made some tasty meals.  We ate one of the meals we always had at her Mom's house and we watched my wife's favorite Disney movie, and then one of the boys' favorite Disney movies.  Nothing fancy.  All family.  

"I love you Linda Mom"

And that's what I finally, finally, understood when it came right down to it.  Having the family you want will never be the family you get, because nothing in life works that way.  But having the family you need is precisely what you will get, because that's exactly how life works.  And when you realize that what you need is making you into something better than you could have ever imagined, then you don't really want for anything.  It is a puzzle that I suspect I will struggle with for the rest of my life.  And I am truly blessed to have that opportunity.


Thank you for helping me to put the pieces of this puzzle where they belong.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari      

Of Silence and Presence

Hello My Dear One,

It has been more than a week since I returned from my all too quick trip for the burial of my uncle in New York, and the subsequent visit with my newly widowed aunt.  It was a whirlwind of travel, emotions, conversations, and hastily eaten "food" as I covered more territory in less than 48 hours than I have ever done in my life.  I set up a "base camp," a hotel room in Massachusetts, on Tuesday night around 9:00pm and was back in my hometown by 2:45pm on Thursday afternoon.  In that period of time I drove for more than 15 hours, buried my uncle, visited with my aunt for 4 hours, slept, exercised, shopped, bathed, ate, and prayed.  I'm certain I did much more, but my memory of the events has become a bit blurry.

It was a long and hard trip despite its brevity.  In all of it I tried to remain present to my own grief, my own connection to G-d, and my purpose in being wherever I was at the time.  I attempted to see the darkness of the loss as a shadow under the illuminations of the love that remained.  I contemplated my parents who are now entering their 70's and who are increasingly aware of their own mortality.  I contemplated my own mortality as well, and the many times I had suffered so greatly under the weight of the beast of my mental illness that I had believed suicide to be my only answer.  That perspective, that insight, that vulnerability within myself allowed me to see how far I had come and how much I had to live for.  Honestly, it showed me how much I wanted to live, and I was surprised at the revelation.  For most of my life I have wanted to die.  But now, I want to live.  The transformations within myself didn't end there.    

Another change came as I discerned my purpose and role within my aunt's life at that moment.  I initially thought that I would have little to no role, as we have often been at odds over many, many things.  But this was not the case.  No, she needed me.  She needed my presence.  And so, I was present.  I was a presence for my aunt, who was able to let out her true emotions with the only relative on my uncle's side of the family who attended.

I must note that her brother did come up with his wife, however during the luncheon at the nursing home after the burial, he spoke mostly of himself, boasted of things, and complained about his daughter.  Despite sitting directly next to his sister, he appeared completely oblivious to the fact that she had just lost her husband/partner of 52 years.  I was less than impressed, and I learned why this was the first time I'd ever met the man, my aunt had been sparing me and herself the embarrassment.

Largely though I was there, and that was my purpose, and for once, I allowed myself to be that.  The words I have always tried to fill the silences with no longer poured from my lips.  My need to control the emotions, the surroundings, myself, was not there.  My needs were not what were important at all in that moment, and for once I was able to see and honor that.

So this is what I did instead, I sat silently in her tiny nursing home room.  I sat silently as she talked.  I sat silently as she nodded off.  I held her with muted, nearly silent words of love as her whole body shook with the grief of her loss.  I was silent as she wept in a way that she had never before allowed herself to emotionally be with me.  I was for a brief time, the strength and the courage that she needed.  And it required me to be silently present.

As most of my friends and family will attest I am at heart a "talker" and I like to talk.  I like, no, I love to give talks, lectures, performances in front of any size audience I can get.  I tap into the funnier side of myself, the less Aspie me, who is appreciated and lauded for whatever I have made people fill.  Having grown up in chaos and pain I became a comedian to deal with it, which is common for many of us.  I regularly believe myself to be doing stand-up comedy wherever I am, and I am on pins and needles waiting for the next laugh.  It has an almost addictive quality to it as I absorb the positive reinforcement of people's responses, since this was often the only way I could get positive reinforcement in my family.

An irony to this is one of the conversations my aunt and I had during our visit.  As a small child, and honestly as an adult, I have never really liked talking on the phone.  Perhaps it is the Aspie part of me that doesn't like the phone because I can't rely on what little body language I can pick up on.  It's true that I misinterpret a lot of what is communicated when speaking face to face with someone, but somehow the phone is even worse for me, and I dread answering it.  So, the irony is that my aunt was the only person I would talk to on the phone when I was little.  I would sit at the top of our basement stairs where our rotary phone was mounted on an adjoining kitchen wall and talk to my aunt.  Our conversations were limited when I was 3 and 4, but she had an ability to get me to talk even when I was scared to death of it.  How you might ask?  She would do hand rhymes with me.  Yep, hand rhymes.  Like, "Here's the church, here's the steeple, open the doors, where are the people?" and others.  Hard to even imagine isn't it?  A 40+ year old woman with no children of her own would talk on the phone all the way from her Manhattan condo on the Upper East Side with a little 4 year old who was too shy to talk by repeating hand rhymes while I giggled and joined in.  That takes a  level of patience and dedication that I believe is unmatched in most areas of any of our lives.

So, I sat there reminiscing with my aunt when we were not crying, or waiting, or being, and we talked about the past and how much she and Unc had influenced my life.  She spoke of her heartbreak and of how she now looked back and wondered what it would have been like to have had a family of her own.  I had never once heard her speak of such a thing in my life.  And I realized that deep down that the need to leave a legacy of some sort is truly in all of us.

And it was this legacy issue that could have torn our relationship apart right then and there had I not been able to be silent within myself in the hours and days to come.  It began when I had spoken about how my younger son looks more like me and my older son looks more like his mother with one of the nurses who saw their picture.  My aunt decided to address this issue with me long after the nurse had left.  She spoke about how it bothered her that I had done that.  She went on to say that she knew that all the transitions and changes I had made were important, and that I had needed to do them.  She validated my life choices, yet she was troubled by my comments about my sons.  She wished that I could just say they were my sons and leave it at that.  That I didn't need to say anything else.  That they were my sons, period.  And in response I had a momentary physical response of anger, fear, and disappointment.  My stomach churned and I felt as though I had just been sucker-punched.  I took a deep breath and I tried to explain my feelings on the matter, though neither one of us was particularly convinced, and we moved on to other topics.

I left her room an hour or so later, feeling as though I had just been through something amazing and horrible all at the same time.  I thought about her deep need for me to pray with her at the burial.  I thought about her sobs.  I felt the pain of losing my uncle and the sadness that wrapped around my shoulders like a well worn sweater.  I was shaken and I was tired.  I was hungry.  I was lonely.  Looking back I suspect that my aunt and I were feeling the exact same things at those exact same moments.  I drove back to the cemetery, said a final goodbye to my uncle, and drove back to my hotel my mind running through the hours I'd just lived through.     

I tried to make peace with my aunt's comment, but it stayed with me, this one negative concern, just stung.  I was taken off guard and I ended up calling my wife later that night to ask if my youngest son really did look like me, which by the way he does, even though genetically there is no reason for him to.  She affirmed my belief and reassured me that the comment was a generational issue for a woman who was nearly 80.  Still, I couldn't get past the nagging feeling that there was more to it than that.  Perhaps my aunt's own personal, emotional, or theological beliefs were excluding me somehow and I didn't want to feel rejected by family one more time.  I wasn't sure how to handle my feelings and when I returned to the hotel that night I worked out for over an hour in the gym.  I sweated off the frustration and anger, but the words still persisted in my mind.

I returned to my room and I began repeating a mantra I had heard from a drag queen named Jinkx Monsoon on RuPaul's Drag Race, Season 5, "water off a duck's back...water off a duck's back..." a phrase that she repeats every time she is about to be critiqued.  It is a phrase that means that you should let other people's negative comments about you not affect you.  It is obviously something that easier said than done, however, as I repeated it the dialogue in my mind changed.  The dialogue actually shut off.  Realizing that I had to let the words roll off of me rather than absorb into me made me feel even calmer.  I felt the presence of G-d with me and within me as I drew deeper into the silence.  Eventually, I was able to be completely silent and process the words so that I understood what she meant rather than what I heard.  

And I realized that she was right.  I realized that I needed to stop trying to justify that my sons are really mine.  I needed to accept that they are my boys regardless of biology or anything else.  They are my sons, period.

It was in the silence within myself that I could finally hear what another person was saying and I thanked G-d for the gift of what my aunt had given me, a way to communicate when I was scared to death of it.  Just as I had been silent as a child on the phone and listened to her love, I was able to finally hear her love as an adult.  I was present to her, I was present to her love, and I was at last present to myself.

So, my purpose on that trip, was the lesson I've been needing to learn for a very long time, one that was offered so long ago, and not long ago at all, by my aunt.  That it's ok to be silent, it's ok to let the other person talk, it's ok to be scared, and it's ok to just be present to the moment.  More than 35 years have passed since those phone calls, and less than 2 weeks have passed since I sat in that room, and both have come together to help me be the man I am called into being here and now.  Those are gifts that no money can ever purchase and that can never be taken from you once you've received them.

So, I will continue to listen for the silences in my life, and seek to be present and a presence when and where I am needed.      

Thank you for being present on my journey.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari

Of Saying Goodbye, of Death

My Dear One,

Oh, how life changes in an instant.  One moment we are happy, laughing, and living in a precious time, and the next we are rocked by news that barely makes sense.  And yet, it makes all the sense in the world at the very same time.  Such is that phone call of a loved one to tell you that another loved one has died.  That call came to our house this past week, as my great aunt June, in tears, let us know that my great uncle had passed away Saturday morning.

Harry Garrison Silleck, Jr. was 92 years old, gravely ill, and his body had been deteriorating for years.  But his mind, his intellect, and his wit had persisted until the end.  And although it seems obvious that he would be ending his time here on this crazy planet, it is still unsettling that he is gone.  That a man of his seemingly undying nature would actually die.  I am struck by the reality that I will never again hear his voice.  I am strangely stunned that the man I knew was indeed mortal, and succumbed to death as we all will and all must.  It is a wounding fact that we do not live forever, and it is accentuated when one we have known all our lives passes on.    

And I am saddened that I was unable to say goodbye, particularly because I missed the last phone call he tried to make, and my answering machine cut off before he ever spoke.  My aunt had tried to put him on, but had taken too much time, and the computer didn't know that this was the last time he was trying to talk to me.  He managed to get through to my mother, and ultimately I know that she needed that more than I did, and so I have other memories to think about.  But the questions I have of what he wanted to tell me will linger for some time.

The comfort I needed was met when I saw him last, more than 2 years ago, as he was walking on his own two feet into the emergency room, and still himself.  I spoke with him on the phone a few months ago and he was ever the grand gentleman he had always been.  And just a few days ago, in that now unfulfilled call, I learned from my great aunt that he had loved the birthday card that we as a family had all signed and sent to him for his 92nd year.

So, as a tribute to my Unc, I want to share a tiny part of his story.  Although Unc and I often butted heads, he was the reason I was able to go to college and pursue my dreams.  He fully accepted who I was and who I became.  He danced at my wedding and he loved my wife and my sons as much as if they were his own.  He was a true gentleman and I am grateful to have had him in my life for nearly 40 years.  I hope that you will see through these thoughts and feelings how much I loved him and how his life shaped my own even when I had the total hell of my family attempting to break me apart.   

Uncle Tommy (Tommy was his family nickname and no one outside of the family ever referred to him as such) was born March 19th, 1921, at home, in Putnam Valley, NY to older parents who already had a 6 year old daughter, Margaret Doris Silleck, my grandmother.  My grandmother loved him dearly, and although she passed 20 years ago, he always spoke of what a wonderful sister she had been to him, and her immeasurable love and care for his wellbeing.  Her love for her brother eventually translated into a deep love for me and is much of the reason I survived my brutal childhood existence.  Her ability to care for and about me when my own mother could not, literally saved my life many times.  She gave him and me a foundation that granted us both a tremendous resiliency to a harsh and too often unforgiving world.

Interestingly enough I just found his baby book a few weeks ago as I was cleaning out part of my mother's house.  Though it is over 90 years old it reads much like the ones of today and his milestones were documented by his mother as carefully and lovingly as any parent would now in the 21st century.  Along with it I also found one of my favorite photos of him and my grandmother.  They are posed before the camera, a beautiful little girl and a wide eyed toddler, and the love between them is palpable.  That was the gift of unconditional love that has passed into me even through the insanity I have suffered.

Harry and Margaret circa 1923

Unc, like his sister was extraordinarily bright and both siblings graduated from high school early, she at 16, and he at 15.  He went on to college and graduated at the age of 19, then to law school, earning his J.D. at the ripe old age of 22.  I heard many of his collegiate antics, hardly able to comprehend that he was so young, and interacting with 22 year old men when he was just a boy of 16.  I should note that my grandmother also went to college, a private all female school in upstate New York, graduated and later became a social worker for the State of New York.  She was a feminist to the end, and she taught us all to be strong, independent individuals no matter the adversities we might be facing.  Both sister and brother excelled at defending those who could not defend themselves, albeit in different ways.

The week of his law school graduation he was drafted into the United States Air Force and became a navigator stationed in England flying in bombers from 1943 to 1945.  He received almost every available medal and returned a "hero."  But, like so many others who served during the Second World War, he never spoke of the traumas he endured during his time of service.  It is sad for me to think that another of our WWII veterans has passed on, leaving fewer who remember the realities of a war that involved so little modern technology, or who remember the survivors who were saved from the horrors of concentration camps and extermination, and the victims who were not.

He practiced corporate law for his entire career, working in a prominent law firm in New York City into the 1990's.  He had many lunches with the future President Nixon, another lawyer in the firm, even though my Unc was a lifelong Democrat.  He dealt mostly with railroad law, working cases that would drag on for 20 or more years in courts as disputes were settled.  Yet he was always willing and able to help friends and neighbors with wills, estates, and the like in his tiny hometown in upstate NY.  In the end though he travelled extensively for his career and sacrificed a personal life in many ways for this.  

He met his wife in 1961, they dated for 16 years and finally married in 1977, by which time he was 56 years old and she was in her 40's.  He loved her dearly and conceded to her wishes most of the time.  I know that she loved him too, and that as she faces this next chapter in her life, the first time in 52 years without him, I prayerfully hope that it will be a short one of separation for them.  I do not wish her ill, or dead, though she has been unwell for many years, rather, I hope that they will be reunited in whatever form that takes for them soon.  They were each other's worlds, and I cannot begin to imagine the grief and the emptiness that she must be feeling right now.  So, I look to G-d to offer comfort and peace that will give her what she needs to be on this part of the journey.  

Sadly, they never had children of their own, though I was given incredible status, particularly since I was the only child/grandchild/etc. in my entire family.  A monetary bonus from a case he won in the 1970's was put into a high yield account and 20 years later I had a college fund that would pay for 4 years of college even now.  I was given gifts of financial and personal value, money yes, items like and an electric pencil sharpener I received at least 25 years ago that still sits on my desk, of course.  But I was given so much more in the stories, the time we were able to share, the Holidays he came to Maine for, the uncompromising sense of fidelity that he imbued to me through word and deed.

And I was also given the gift of culture and a world view, visiting Manhattan on a yearly basis.  Going to museums, libraries, concerts, broadway performances, off broadway performances, theaters, films, the planetarium, Central Park, the Russian Tea Room, the Plaza, a horse-drawn carriage ride, and the ability to study abroad 3 separate times, were all gifts from my Unc.  I learned to love the life that he and his wife had, and as much as I love my life here in a rural town in Maine, there are days when I wonder what it would have been like if I'd gone and lived with them in my teens when I had the chance.  In the end I know I wouldn't be the man I am today and I wouldn't want to be anyone else.

Looking back on this suit and tie wearing serious lawyer there is a wonderful juxtaposition of the man in the office and the man at home who indulged a playful whimsy in me whenever possible.  As a tot he would become a scary "monster" growling in my face as I squealed with delight and fear.  He would become a horse on all fours for me to ride around on when he was already well into his late 50's.  Of all the memories I cherish there is one that demonstrated his true love and acceptance of my childhood needs.
I was 7 or 8 years old the summer I purchased a stuffed Snoopy doll at the famous F.A.O. Schwartz toy store, and I was ecstatic with my treasure.  That night I dressed him in his "Saturday Night Fever" tuxedo, and he was allowed to sit at the head of the fancy dining room table at dinner in my Unc's 69th and Lexington condo on the Upper East Side.  I remember drinking milk "on the rocks" and reveling in the inclusivity and welcome that my Uncle was offering me that night.  He fostered in that moment a belief that family could exist even when most days it didn't seem possible.

As I grew older my Uncle challenged me at every turn, wanted the best for me, and loved me in a way I probably never realized when he was alive.  He had told my mother, and myself, that I had more courage, because I chose to transition genders, than he had.  That he would never have had the courage to do or the ability to risk what I did to become myself.  I could never believe this after knowing his history, but I see now how we shared something in that as well.  He did not see his own courage any more than I saw mine.  We both did what we had to do in order to survive.  His battles were fought dropping bombs over Germany, while mine were fought in doctors' offices, hospitals, rural towns, and within myself and my marriage.  We were both heroes in each other's eyes.  Funny how I can only just see that now, I hope that he saw it as well.

There are of course so many more stories about Unc that I could share, his pranks, his vast knowledge of films, his deep appreciation for the arts, his love of horses, the fact that he lived in his boyhood home until he was 90, and everything else that made him who he was.  But just as there is not time for us to live forever, there is not time to tell all those stories now.  I will tell them as they ask to be told, to my sons, to my friends, to my family, to you, as I find myself in the images of a man I would be proud to be, even on his worst days.  I know that he would have done the same for me.


Thank you for travelling this twisting path of the journey with me.

Be well, love your neighbor as you love yourself, and remember to actually love yourself.

-Ari