An Unexpected Bridge

I’ve gotten my booster in anticipation of an upcoming flight to Reno. It will be the first time I’ve been on a plane in two years and not for something I had ever envisioned, a memorial service for my brother who passed away last month. Needless to say the loss of a sibling is not something I ever wrapped my brain around in any serious way, figuring there was much time before I would have to cross that bridge.

I was sandwiched in the middle between a younger sister and older brother, only a year and a half younger than my brother. As a child, I had a rather competitive nature and was quite frustrated  that I could never catch-up to my brother in age. Just when I arrived he moved forward another year. It became our joke when I would call him to wish him a happy birthday. 

"You still haven’t caught up," he teased. 

“That’s OK,”I assured him.  “It’s not a good thing if I do.” 

I reflect now on the fact that unless similarly ill-fated, I will catch up.  It is a wake up call to my own mortality. I wasn’t ready for the suddenness of death after a short illness, nor in quite this familial proximity.

My siblings spread out in different geographic and life directions. We found different paths through life, different careers and family configurations. Our parents remained at the core as we each checked in frequently and they had strong relationships with each of us tailored to who we were.

When they passed away, I reflected on how that might change my sibling relationships. We no longer had the core that joined us. Would we just spin into our separate orbits? My sister and I had strengthened our bond as we supported our parents in their later years. While very different, we share many values and worked well together as a team. That had deepened our respect for each other’s talents and our trust in each other.

My brother and I were not close which in some ways makes a loss more challenging. We had many divides and politics was a significant one in recent years. He worked in radio, conservative talk radio. When we spoke we inevitably veered into our very divergent political views. There was little room for common ground and we often tripped over that proverbial, dare I say, elephant, in the middle of the room. “La,la,la,la, I’m not having this conversation,” I would sing out, fingers in my ears, when we’d stray into that danger zone. In one of my last emails to him, I told him that we could talk about family, pets and the weather, but not politics. A string of emails on his dog followed. 

As I went through old picture albums, pulling photos from our childhood, I found many of us together as children and I began to recall our shared history, often just flashes in memory. I remembered when as a toddler I struck out on my own in search of the milkweed pods that so fascinated me. Just when it was beginning to dawn on me that I didn't know quite where they were, my brother pedaled up to me on his tricycle to announce with an impressive air of authority, "You're lost!"

Fred the magician

At childhood birthday parties he performed as a magician to the rapt attention of little girls in party dresses. Later I would sneak into his room to figure out how the tricks worked. Mirrors! 

Susan and Fred

When our grandmother lived with us for several years he gave up his room and had a rollaway bed in the bedroom that I shared with my sister. At night we would play cards with a flashlight under the covers. 

And when he commandeered our bathroom as a darkroom for his photography, I remember feeling somewhat envious of this passion that possessed him even as I banged on the door demanding access. Some time after that our lives diverged along with our beliefs about the world. The common ground slipped from beneath our feet.

So now I go to the memorial to acknowledge the reality, to hear his “tribe” share stories which he would certainly have enjoyed, to be there for his family and to join with my sister. And no doubt I will still argue politics with him in my head wherever he resides.

In My Family

Occasionally I reread past blog posts, a bit like one might reread a journal, for I have eight years of my life well documented in these pages.  I notice that in many of my posts, I say "in my family we..."

Value education,
Love words,
Write protest letters,

Have strong opinions,

Value creativity, 

Make use of failures,
Speak up...

All defined within the construct of a family, one which now has lost those two central people who created it.  Fortunately my sister had two daughters and so the family continues. My nieces were close to their grandparents and absorbed much of those underpinnings directly, as well as through my sister and perhaps a bit of me.

 I've also written about my grandparents who were immigrants and how that immigrant history informs my politics. Who we are doesn't spring out of nowhere. It is born in a family of beliefs, in a family of experiences that are passed down to us and within a heritage and cultural history. It is one of the most important things we get from family.  Whether we concur or rebel, it influences our world view.

Some of us grow up in a religious tradition that influences our perspective. Mine was as a Reform Jew and it echoed and supported the beliefs of my family, one grounded in questioning and challenging, in speaking up for what we believe is right.  That perspective is

My niece's cape at the DC Women's March

*

often the wellspring of creativity.  Questioning allows us to see the world through fresh eyes.

We also grow up in a community.  I grew up in downstate Illinois in what was a pretty conservative area. Sometimes we define who we are in opposition. I found little to rebel against in my family's belief system, but I did define myself in opposition to the politics around me. In high school I used to work in political campaigns to meet people who thought like I did. My candidates invariably lost.

We each have a story defined by family, religion, community and our life experiences. We also absorb the experiences of our family as if by osmosis, not always realizing the source, but absorbing the message.  As a reader I have always valued story, it is the focus of my artwork and my writing.  

I've been working on a project for many years that grew out of interviews with Jewish elders. It has grown from interviews to artwork to public speaking and hopefully in time will be available in a book.This project has been important to me because I think it is important to acknowledge and understand the history that defines who we are, that underlies our beliefs which in turn feed our actions. Family history tends to become important to people as they age and begin to lose the people who embodied that history, but even if we don't take that deep dive into family history research, it is important to share our family stories and their embedded values with children and grandchildren. As I explored questions around family history, I ran across the research by Marshall Duke and his colleague Robyn Fivush.  They work within Emory University's Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life and have found that young people who know about their family history have more effective skills in dealing with life challenges. They call this awareness our "intergenerational self." For this reason alone we all need to be family storytellers, linking past to present and ultimately to future.

But it is not just about the next generation. We also need to remember our stories ourselves, to keep ourselves centered in challenging times, to remember the values and traditions from which we come and to act in ways that are consistent with that which is integral to who we are. In this time of turmoil, I take a deep breath and remind myself, "In my family we value education, we value creativity, we write protest letters, we have strong opinions, we speak up ..." 

*Text on cape: My Great-Grandma Immigrated, so my Grandma could Learn so my Mom could Work, so I can March so my nephews will see women as Equals

The Road Not Taken

We've been enjoying a bit of California sunshine as we visit my stepdaughter's family. While we miss having them nearby, we enjoy the more extended time we get to share with them when we visit. This visit was to meet our newest grandson Vann, just two weeks old.  


As someone who chose not to have children for a myriad of reasons, it is always an interesting perspective for me on the road not taken. By opting out of that path, I chose to develop certain aspects of myself over others, exploring one self at the expense of another. When we immerse ourselves in my stepdaughter's family life, I begin to see glimpses of that alternate self. 

I have always watched both of my stepdaughters with admiration. They seem to take the challenges of child rearing in stride and enjoy the time they share as a family. They each have a true partnership with their respective spouse and each is very engaged in all aspects of child rearing. I, on the other hand, never felt old enough to have children nor envisioned that life.

When we visit I am struck by the natural affection that the children express and in turn arouse in me. We help them with their homework and hear of their latest passions, be it magic or juggling or artwork. In turn I introduce my interests as we draw on the iPad or play word games in which I try to define each word as we go. Might as well make it educational. We snuggle close as we interact in a way I don't recall as a child, building connection with touch.


One morning the three year old crawls into bed between us for a snuggle and I am pleased that she feels that level of comfort. My husband who usually can be found cradling our cat now substitutes his two week old grandson. He has a natural calm that seems to lull both cat and baby. By contrast I move quickly and can't stay still so am not as comfortable a perch.


What I find fascinating is that I recognize parts of myself in my stepdaughters and their children. It doesn't require a blood tie to identify with qualities I share or admire qualities that are very different from me. It is in that act of empathy or appreciation that we begin to build connection.

I am grateful that I have this opportunity to connect across generations, to watch children develop their confidence and talents and to enjoy the communication with my husband's adult children. Even when we choose one path, we sometimes are fortunate to get a chance to revisit those roads not taken.

A Well-Fitting Suit

It has been slightly over a month since my mom passed away and it doesn't feel as if she's gone. I've written about the concept of "ambiguous loss", first introduced by Dr Pauline Boss. It is that kind of loss one experiences when someone is gone, but not gone or conversely here, but not here. An example of the former might include someone who disappears on a plane over the ocean, the latter could be someone with Alzheimer's. It is a loss unaccompanied by societal support of grieving. 

So now I'm on the other side of this equation, unambiguous loss. I was with my mother as she took her last breath. I spoke about her at the funeral and have been the recipient of others' support. I must confess that it still feels quite ambiguous. Death is such an inconceivable concept to wrap our brains around, perhaps it just won't seem real until time has passed. I may need to go through a Thanksgiving without Mom at the table for reality to set in or perhaps that week that looms on my calendar, scheduled for disposing of my parents' belongings, the detritus of long lives. In the middle lives their negative space, the outline of their presence like the chalk figure at a crime scene. I've written of my mother's daily collaging, her cutting and pasting. It sits on her kitchen table undisturbed, cut out images waiting to be secured to the page in an unfinished collage. Neither my sister nor I can yet bring ourselves to dispose of it lest we lose the fragile sense of her presence that lives in that space. 

With both parents gone, I've been thinking a lot about parent-child relationships, what we know of each other, or think we do. When my father passed, I was struck by how little I knew the man that the outside world knew. I wished I had known him in that way. I was also suddenly aware of our similarities. Much of my understanding came from the paper trail that he left. His meticulous nature, echoed my own or rather I suppose mine echoed his. There were many flashes of recognition. I was also struck by his understanding of me. I was surprised to see that he had named me as his executor when I was in my 20s, newly out of college with a social work degree. I had always assumed it was based on my later career in finance. He knew his children and their potential better than I realized.

It was different with my mother. We always understood each other. There was a similarity in our wiring when I was a child. An introspective nature, a love of books, a curiosity that was fed by a love of learning. We also shared a certain unease with the world, a shyness that friends now often fail to see in me. My mother saw it and recognized it as her own. She worked hard to not let it imprison me and to do that she had to work to not let her own nature imprison her. I was a child who was hard for her to raise because she had to try so hard to give me the courage she struggled with herself. Oddly my ace in the hole was my father's nature. He just plowed ahead and did what he wanted to do. I grew up witnessing that foreign quality and over time began to own it in myself. I am a mix of them both and that is a good thing. They tempered each other and now they temper me. I don't need to look far to see my parents. I wear them like a well-fitting suit.

There are differences as well. Some qualities I would do well to emulate. My mother was a much kinder person than I will ever be. I have my moments, but for her it was a fundamental part of her gentle nature. In yoga when we set an intention, I used to send her love and energy. Now I decide I will try to honor her with kindness. To find those opportunities in everyday life to reach out to another.

My parents live on in the temporary space of things, in the temporary space of me. It is what I do with their presence that matters now.

A Two-Sided Coin

Tomorrow is Fathers' Day. No more do I go in search of cards that speak to some signature trait of my dad. It was never easy to find the right card. My father didn't play golf or fish or watch sports. All the cards that were designed for the prototype dad didn't seem relevant to our world. We weren't gushy so nothing about the best dad in the world and truth be told our relationship had its challenges. I certainly wasn't a Daddy's girl so that genre also fell by the wayside. I used to wonder what a typical father-daughter relationship was like and how did mine fall so far outside the sphere judging by the range of cards. If I was fortunate, I found one with some humor that spoke to some childhood experience.

It is now the third year since my father's death. Now Fathers' Day is a celebration for my husband. A different holiday all together. My son-in-law texts me to check his size. We gather at his daughter's for a combination Father's Day/ birthday party for our granddaughter. My husband has a strong relationship with his daughters and raised them post-divorce. I remember when his oldest daughter warned me early in our relationship to be good to her dad because he was a pretty special guy. I was touched to see the strength of their relationship.

My dad was not the stereotypical father. He was a complicated man, often difficult, wrapped up in his world, driven, self-absorbed, quick-tempered and impatient. He was also a doer, clever at making things happen, creative, a visionary and a principled man. He believed in speaking up, not standing passively by. He was fluent in speech and the written word. An excellent problem solver who delighted in being able to help others. Great to have in a crisis, not so easy in the everyday. He wasn't an easy man to grow up around, but he made an indelible mark, not only on me, but on many who were close to me. My ex-husband revered him. Somehow my father understood what he needed and encouraged him when he most needed it. Ditto for my female friends who he encouraged and helped as they sought careers in traditionally male professions.

I have come to realize how much of him is in me and how much he shaped each of his children, good, bad and otherwise. He liked to be in control and didn't like his universe disturbed. He used to say, "in my house you live by my rules". So I moved out at seventeen and having control of my life has been a central principle since. When I talk to my younger sister I realize she too possesses that need for control. I love her dearly, but give us too much time together and we clash over whose in control. We both responded to my father's need for control and our childhood lack of it.

Somewhere along the way, I accepted my father for who he was, a mixed bag with good and bad traits that were often interrelated, flip sides of the same coin. He lightened up later in life. As a grandfather he was able to express his love and adored his two granddaughters. Later in life as memory faltered he reached out to his children with a new fondness that often touched me.

As I've gone through my dad's papers I've had many shocks of recognition. We share many qualities. I have a better understanding of the pride he took in many of my accomplishments for I now know he recognized himself in me as well. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Posted with Blogsy

A Family by Choice

I wrote about my mother in my last blog entry, the family member I was lucky enough to acquire at birth. When friends struggled with difficult mother-daughter relationships, I always felt like I won the lottery. As I got older we negotiated a different kind of relationship, one of a friendship of peers. On Mother's Day I began to give her cards that said how grateful I was that she was a friend as well as my mother. Because we had such a wonderful relationship, I found myself recreating it with other women of her generation. My husband's mother became a mom to me and many of my friends are my mother's age with daughters my age.

I have a close friend who is of my mother's generation. Not too long ago I gave her a card that spoke of her as part of the family that I select, the group of people who are not related by blood, but by bonds of the heart. I find it interesting that for family members one of the greatest compliments we can give is that we would select them as a friend. With non-family members it is that we would select them as family. We don't get to choose our family and so many people have at least one family member that they could never imagine being linked to were it not for an accident of birth. If we are lucky we have family members we would select as friends and if we are still luckier we have friends who become part of our extended family.

It is sometimes easier not having the bonds of family. You don't bring the baggage that comes with history. You come to it as a fully formed adult and can share your better self, not the self who used to have temper tantrums when you didn't get your way. Similarly you don't carry the history of failing to be the perfect parent you had imagined you'd be. And you don't carry the same burden of expectations, more free to let each other be who they are. The drawback is the same as the benefit. You don't start out with that shared history that can bind family members together when it's not driving them apart, the knowledge of how you've become who you are.


 My elder friend always tells me that you need to develop younger friends as you age and I am realizing that my friendships with my mother's generation are ultimately time limited. Most are in their 80s and 90s. I never chose to have children and my one regret was that I wouldn't be able to recreate the wonderful relationship I had with my mother. I realize now that I have been recreating it in a different way and in both directions.

I have always been grateful that my husband had daughters with whom he built a strong relationship. They are a wonderful fringe benefit of our relationship. When I entered the picture, I had a new role to negotiate. Who was I going to be? Stepmom seems like an odd title, too many echoes of wicked stepmothers from fairy tales. I use it for lack of a better word, but act as friend and hopefully a family member of choice, something you earn over time. I try to be there for the people I care for. I learned that from my mother. She has always given me a consistency of presence that I could depend on and has expressed her love through a willingness to offer whatever I needed, a listening ear, good judgment without judging and a belief in my better self. That is no small thing.

And so I seek to be the best of me. A listener, a problem solver, someone others can depend upon to be there and to offer whatever I can consistently and freely. Hopefully some of the gifts my mother gives me.

And I try to go with my strengths. Many years ago one of my stepdaughters had a problem with some shutters that didn't fit her windows correctly. The store refused to replace them until I wrote one of my carefully crafted letters. Instant action! I was soon dubbed the family's resident writer and editor for anything requiring carefully chosen words. Over the years I've edited school papers, drafted letters and provided career counseling and financial advice. 

With my elder friend who is legally blind I have assumed a different role. In the course of our friendship I often help her to organize files, submit medical bills on-line and read interesting articles to her. I recall my dad delighting in being able to offer his assistance to his kids as well as doing little mitzvahs for friends. It was his way of expressing his love for his family and gratitude for his friends, something that he didn't do as well in words. Perhaps I am not too different.

Recently I had a friend tell me that I never make her feel that she is an imposition on me. I was pleased to hear that, but had not thought about that as a quality of friendship. Obviously it is. We modulate our friendships to adapt to what someone is willing and able to provide and we save our deeper friendships for those who are there when we need them, who show up. On the short list of family by choice there is no such thing as imposition. So I try to be my better self with friends of my mother's generation and with the generation after me, slowly building my family of choice.

Joy in the Everyday

My mother is losing memory. We don't often use that dreaded A word. She lived in fear of it much of her life having watched her mother descend into that abyss. We are not in denial, it's just that even in a somewhat diminished state, she is so much more than a label.

Now in her late 80s it is finally catching up with her. A once voracious reader, she can no longer retain a complex plot in her memory. I used to discuss books with her in our then weekly phone call. And we are not talking light reading. I went to the library with her recently to find a book of short stories that might suit her memory today when on the shelf I saw the book Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. I recalled when my mother had read that 1000 page book and savored it. Now that would be far too complex a book and for just a moment I permitted myself to mourn that loss. For the most part though we deal with the new normal, grateful to have my mother in whatever form.

Her day still starts with her newspaper as she pursues a new pastime, cutting and pasting. We are not talking about the computer variety. Each day she goes through the paper and cuts out articles and images that speak to her. She glues them into a notebook for posterity. She is now on book five. She says to me that everyone needs something to do and what would she do if she didn't cut and paste. My mom used to teach first grade so I suspect this is a familiar activity. I was quite amused when I last visited her when I saw she had created a page of food pictures. Juxtaposed with these pictures of food was a Family Circus cartoon. The father is reading Snow White to his children and they get to the part where she eats the poisoned apple. Dolly, the little girl exclaims, "she did it again, didn't she hear when we read it last time". 

I've heard that even when people lose memory they retain their temperament. My mother has always been a kind and loving person, grateful for the small joys in life. When we were young she would call us to the kitchen window to see a bird or a beautiful sunset. I still see that person. My father used to call her the original innocent because she saw the world through fresh eyes. It is why she was such a good teacher. She could see the world as children do. When I traveled with her, her delight was contagious. I find myself thinking that her temperament has eased this transition. She still lives her life with joy and gratitude.

Now as spring arrives she often delights in flowers. My cousin sent me a note about my mother's sister turning 92. Her memory is gone and she no longer speaks. I mentioned it to my mother and she told me that once she was very close to this sister and would love to speak to her. We discussed sending a card, but as I listened to my mother kvelling over her flowers, I suggested we send flowers instead. My mother loved the idea. If nothing else the flowers would bring my aunt pleasure. The next day my mother had forgotten we had this conversation and when I reminded her she loved the idea all over again. I made a mental note that if she ever gets to my aunt's stage, remember to surround her with flowers. And then another mental note, why wait, as I ordered some flowers for Mother's Day.

Years ago I gave my mother a homemade gift at a time when her memory was quite good and I never thought of it worsening. I purchased a ceramic jar that had the label "memories" carved into it. I then wrote out memories that we shared or that I had of her, some from our trips together, some from my childhood. The act of doing it touched me. It was a litany of what I love in her. The jar sat on a shelf high on the bookcase until I noticed it on a recent visit. I took it down and together we drew out each memory and remembered it together. Some she recalled, others took some assisted remembering. My sister lives closer and goes in weekly. On one of her recent visits she heard a noise in the kitchen and poked her head in. There was my mother laughing at a memory from the memory jar. She then proceeded through each memory.

I sometimes wonder how I would make that transition to an uncooperative brain, hoping against hope that my brain will behave. I am much more driven, less prone to smell the roses. I think about the activities that engage me and realize most would not be sustainable in the face of declining memory. Then I remember De Kooning. As he descended into Alzheimer's he continued to paint. Someone set up his palette each day and turned him loose. I hope if necessary someone will do that for me.

I have always admired my mother. She was and still is my standard for kindness. She never fails to see the good in another person and speak to the best in them. Similarly she has always seen the good in the world around her and delighted in what it has to offer. Just being around her has always encouraged me to be my better self and I realize that she still has lessons to impart. And so as Mother's Day approaches, I honor my mother's ability to find joy in the everyday and to face each day with gratitude. I can only hope to learn to do the same.

Posted with Blogsy

Shared Memories

On the occasion of Mother's Day I've been thinking about my mom and how fortunate I am to still have her in my life. Sometimes I feel a little uneasy when I write of her, worried that I might inadvertently violate some zone of privacy. Frequently I read her my blogs and I recently asked her if it felt uncomfortable when I wrote about her. She replied," No, you're a writer and that's what you're supposed to do. You go right ahead and write about what is part of your life".

My mom has always been my best cheerleader and it is actually an amazing thing to go through life with someone always in your corner. I sometimes wonder if I've stored up enough affirmation from her over the years to be able to carry on someday with only her voice in my head. Since my father passed away she has taken on his voice as well adding, "your father would have been so proud" to her "kvelling" (Yiddish for bursting with pride).

My dad used to call my mom "the original innocent" and that captures her well. She is a kind and loving soul who sees the best in people and in doing so, nourishes it. When I was growing up, my closest friends sought her out for advice and counsel. Neighborhood children used to knock on the door for her. When she went back to school as an adult she became a first grade teacher and she was one of those teachers that everyone remembers. She could see the world through a child's eyes, with a freshness that eludes most of us.

When I was in my 30s a coworker lost her mother at an early age. It was the first time I thought about the fact that someday if we live long enough, we all experience that very fundamental loss. I remembered my mother telling me once that she used to think about how she could create wonderful memories for her children to carry through life. I began to think about how I could return the favor and do that for her.

My mother loves art and used to have a postcard gallery of her favorite paintings in the kitchen when I was a child. She was especially partial to Klee and Roualt. She also had a collection of artist books with color plates of their paintings which could be detached. When I was still very young she let my brother and me choose a painting to hang over our beds. I had Van Gogh's sunflowers and my brother had Van Gogh's boats at Saintes-Maries. Not the typical wall art of a child's room.

My mother was always curious about the world and as a voracious reader she journeyed through books. My father didn't have a particular interest in the stresses of travel so one day I suggested to my mother that we should travel together to see the original artwork that she so enjoyed in reproduction. Over the years we did many trips together and had many adventures. We still talk of when we hitchhiked in France or when the train I boarded pulled out of the station before my mom had time to get on. In shock, I watched her getting smaller in the distance, finally making a split second decision to jump from the train. My mother tells the story of looking down from the Leaning Tower of Pisa convinced that I must have fallen off as I paused to change my film on the side that tilted towards the ground. Her fears were somewhat allayed by the fact that no throng gathered below. We saw wonderful artwork together, seeing those original Van Goghs at a retrospective in Amsterdam and traveling to the areas of Provence where he painted.

My mother kept a journal while I kept a sketchbook and it is through her journal that I watched myself grow up in my mother's eyes, becoming a separate person who she felt she could rely on, someone who could competently navigate the world, no longer the child she needed to protect and worry about.

Traveling with someone who sees the world through fresh eyes allowed me a glimpse as well. I took delight in her delight. We used to make two lists each evening, one titled Surprises and the other the Kindness of Strangers, taking nothing for granted, watching for the small wonders of the world and the best in people. I had thought I was giving her the gift of memories, but it was something even better, the gift of shared memories.

Posted with Blogsy

Blowing Kisses

I touch bases with my mother daily and today I hung up the phone chuckling.  "I just blew your Dad a kiss", she had said.  "Huh?" I replied.  My father passed away early last year and my mother now marvels that she never imagined she would live an entire year on her own, with a cat no less. She never had a cat before and is as mystified at the connection she feels for this furry creature as the fact that she is managing without my father.

She now hastened to add that my dad's picture had just come up on her picture screen and it was an old one of which she was quite fond, hence the kiss.

My mother is 86 and I am afraid it is too late to introduce her to a computer.  We have, however, often wished we could easily share pictures with her.  When a friend mentioned the Pix-star to me I was intrigued. It is like a digital picture frame, but with some unusual features.  It allows anyone to email pictures to the device.  They then come up automatically on the screen.

Unlike a traditional digital picture frame where someone needs to manage the card, this can be managed from afar and operates via Internet in addition to supporting a SD card. An email with a picture as an attachment is all that is required and multiple people can add to it.  A password enables one to go in and see what is on the device and organize it into folders if you wish or take some pictures off.

The one drawback is that you need an Internet connection and a person who is not computer literate may not have one.  In this case I installed wireless because it made it easier for both my sister and me when we spent time with my mother.  I wanted to make sure she got the benefit of it as well through pictures.

She is amazed when new pictures suddenly appear.  It is like magic.  She looks up as she eats breakfast and there are images of her recent visit with her great-grandson. How did they get into there she asks? She recalls how amazed her immigrant mother was at her world.  Now she often feels like her as she observes ours.  I confide to her that sometimes I'm amazed too.

When I last visited I used my mouse scanner to scan some of her old pictures and added those as well.  For elders whose memories are beginning to flag, it provides a way to keep the important people in their life visible and to remind them of special memories that they share with family members.  Sometimes I'll ask her to describe the pictures and we reminisce together about shared experiences.

When we first installed it my sister sent a message saying not to send more pictures of our late father as it made my mom sad.  A short time later she said to ignore that earlier instruction as my mom decided she liked them.  And now she’s blowing him kisses.

Happy Father's Day Dad

Today is Father’s Day and the build up has felt quite strange to me this year.  My dad passed away in February so this is the first year it suddenly didn’t have direct relevance to me.  Of course that caused me to notice every ad and mention of it.  I thought perhaps in commemoration of my dad that I would share with you a story about him that I learned only after his death.

I’ve been going in to see my mother every few months and part of my task is to wade through the many papers that my father accumulated.  He was a collector in many ways and as he aged it got a bit out of control.  I often recognize myself in his collecting and that too is eerie.  I read the articles that he clipped from the NY Times seeking to divine who he was and realize that they are exactly what I would focus on as well.  In hindsight I recognize a lot of myself in my dad and wish that I had known him better.  He always loved when my mom would say, “You’re your father’s daughter” and now I get it.

As the family historian and the financial person in the family, it is especially important that I be the one to go through the information.  It is painstaking work, a perfect task for a genealogist who knows that gems may be hidden amongst old junk.  I bring to it a curiosity about who my father was and an appreciation of his history as I examine each piece of paper deciding whether to toss, shred, keep or scan.  I make my decisions carefully knowing that once something falls into the junk or shred category it is irretrievably lost.  As a family historian I find myself keeping documents that address health history, life history and career history.  I have found old address books from my parents’ youth and even the early notes from when I began researching family.  My father was rather captivated by the idea and got on the phone to his cousins and distant relatives.  Many of the things that he learned and shared were there in notes, recorded in his tiny script.

On my second visit I stumbled across a box that contained some items that went into the keep and scan pile and actually gave me great insight into my father.  Oddly they spoke to a theme I’ve addressed recently here, the way in which we are shoehorned into career boxes. One yellowed piece of paper was dated 1947 and was when he was at the University of Denver.  He went there on the GI Bill after serving in the Navy in WWII.  He was 22 years old and had just gotten married earlier that year.  He had done some career counseling trying to decide on his career path and the document I found was their report after a wide variety of testing.  Listed at the top were three career directions:  electrical engineer, high school teacher and social worker.  Under special recommendations they noted, “Claimant should make up his mind in the near future as to course he is to pursue” and at the bottom they noted that they had reservations about the objective of electrical engineer because he had only an average Q score.  When I looked at his testing it noted he had a superior rating in social service. 

So what did my father do with this information?  He was not one to let others' reservations get in his way.  He in fact became an electrical engineer and a college professor going one step further to found the Department of Electrical Engineering at Bradley University where he was its dean for many years.  An eclectic and creative man (a combination that I suspect often goes together), he  then started the public television station in Central Illinois, later becoming the dean of a new department of Communications and Fine Arts.  My father worked tirelessly to start Channel 47 and he did it with a sense of mission that could only have grown from a deep sense of social service so presciently captured in that early testing.

I have written before of the tendency of the business world to assign us to career boxes when in fact our interests may not be so easily circumscribed.  Here was an example of how a creative person with multiple interests was able to incorporate them into his career path.  I can picture him thumbing his nose at the career counselors as he took his interests and assembled them into a structure of his own making of which they could never have conceived. 

A Personal Legacy

This blog was begun around the theme of family history.  This week I have been living a bit of my own family history as we laid my father to rest.  I delivered a eulogy at the service hoping I would get through it without triggering tears.   It felt important to me that I speak publicly about a man who was very much a public figure, but whom I knew through the lens of family.

I last visited my father shortly before he died.  As I walked into the room I was heartened when he exclaimed "Susela", to which I replied "Dadela", and he smiled.  That was our well worn path.  I sat with him and told him a little about what I was working on which ironically was a series of cross generational interviews in the Jewish Identity and Legacy project.  As I've written in these pages, I am interviewing elders and their children about the elder's legacy and its influence on their adult child. As I told him about it, it dawned on me that perhaps I should answer the same questions I was asking of others.

Sitting there with both my mother and father I began to tell my dad what I thought my legacy was from him.  I later wove much of what I told him into a eulogy.   What a wonderful gift to be able to share it with him directly.   A gift for him and a gift for me, nothing unfinished.

Among his many accomplishments, my father, Philip Weinberg, created the public television station that serves central Illinois.  He was a rather eclectic man with the ability to leverage technology to serve his love of culture and the arts.   He was a university professor, trained as an electrical engineer, but very much a visionary.  If something didn't exist that he felt was important, he didn't hesitate to start it.  He started the Electrical Engineering department at Bradley University and was its dean for twenty years.  Later in his career he founded and led the College of Communications and Fine Arts.  In between he built public radio, public television and numerous buildings and performance spaces. 

After his funeral the TV station interviewed me.  "Did you think it unusual that he went from being an engineer to communications and fine arts?" they asked.  "No", I replied as I thought of my own rather eclectic career spanning nonprofits, finance and the arts, a combination that never seemed unusual to me because of my father who encouraged me in all of my pursuits.   I grew up thinking you started things if they didn't exist, you loved your work and of course you would have diverse interests and explore them with passion.  Doesn't everybody? I took that for granted because that's what I witnessed every day.  Unlike the external world that saw what he did as extraordinary, I knew him in his everyday life as my Dad.  From the vantage point of that front row seat, I learned to view his perspective as the norm.  And that is quite a legacy.