Light all the candles (8th Night of Hanukkah)

menorah on 6th night

It is the 8th night of Hanukkah tonight, and so we're done. Hanukkah came early this year, putting us at a bit of a disconnect with the rest of the country. We'll be well all done before the Christmas frenzy is in full bore. But so it goes some years.

Last year Christmas Eve was the 5th night of Hanukkah, the holidays overlapping nicely. Next year, thanks to simultaneous oddities of the standard western and Hebrew calendars, Hanukkah will actually cross paths with Thanksgiving, beginning the night before!

I'm still weaving in and out of my seasonal ennui, some days lighter, others darker.  Holidays are always about family, family, family and I am missing some members of mine. This week the universe conspired to remind me of my father constantly, now gone nearly three years.

I sat down to get a cup of coffee in the middle of the day on Wednesday and gather my thoughts, when I noticed the man seated next to me in the cafe, heartily enjoying a bowl of potato leak soup, one of my father's favorites. I just had to get a some myself, the silent tears dripping off my face and dropping into the bowl rendering it a bit on the salty side. Just how Dad liked it.

I was thinking about the last months of my father's life, how even up until the very bitter end, when he was barely eating anything, becoming more of a skeleton day by day, I could still often get a little soup into him, if nothing else.

Nabeyake udon or vichyssoise, pasta fagioli or avgolemono, clam chowder or chicken noodle, goulash or gazpacho; the man loved soup. And every time I make some, I conjure Dad up, if just for a little while.

And then on Thursday night, my husband and I got to spend some time with dear friends who are a generation older than we are (but young, so young in spirit and full of life).  I love them to pieces and we had a wonderful dinner and lively conversation and I enjoyed every minute of it while simultaneously feeling so sad that my father is gone and my mother fading fast. And there was our friend Al (OK, I'll name drop: Al Jaffe) a year older than my mother, but still working, still living completely independently (yes, it probably helps that his lovely wife Joyce is a decade younger, but still, that makes her no spring chicken herself).

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OK, this post was supposed to be going up yesterday, on & about the 7th night. I had written this much by Thursday and was going to finish Friday. But then I came home from my intense all day appointment in Brooklyn (the impartial hearing concerning Jacob's schooling) having been pretty much in a bubble all day, to find the news... the school shooting... all anyone can talk about, think about. And I froze.

How can I write about a cheerful holiday, about missing my father who got to live a long, fulfilling  life and become really, really old before he died, in the wake of this immense and senseless tragedy, in the wake of twenty dead children? And yet, there were my thoughts, up until Friday evening.

And so I am walking around dazed and shell shocked today; doing what I have to do, boys to basketball, lighting the final menorah, feeding everybody and washing up the boys weekly five loads of laundry. Because life, for the living keeps going on.

I cannot write about Newtown yet. I don't know if I ever will. There is no sense to be made of it. And, for once, I truly have no words. Except to say that we need vastly better mental health services in America, and with less stigma attached to getting them when we need them.

And so I'll end here, rather abruptly perhaps, because there is no way to stitch this into a smooth and seamless post. There was regular life, skipping, trudging, shuffling along. And then... the thousand ton boulder dropped into the middle of it. And aftermath. There's always aftermath.

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To conclude: last year I shared the Maccabeats & Matisyahu's wonderful Hanukkah song with you, this year I'm sharing a new song from Matisyahu... and hoping everyone had as happy a Hanukkah as possible, in spite of all the insanity and tragedy in the world.

Hanukkah Lights

The light of a thousand menorahs (actually about 20)

This past Sunday was my husband Danny's family's annual Hanukkah party. It's a giant extravaganza that has been going on forever. Early in my husband's childhood, it took place at Aunt and Uncle's homes, and then, as the family grew and grew, in his father's Bronx kosher catering hall.

Since the demise of that, it has continued, every year in varying locations, public and private, the common factors being: large, latkes, and loud.

I married into a BIG family. (Did I mention having come from a tiny one, I had always wanted a bigger family? Did I mention that one should be careful what one wishes for?)

Fortunately they are warm and welcoming, inviting and inclusive. My first experience with the Danny Family Hanukkah Party took place in 1998, the year we began to date. (That year it was in the city, as we took over half of Ben's Kosher Deli.)

It's the tradition in his family for people to bring someone to the party when it gets "serious" because it will be noted that there is a date along and there will be kind-hearted teasing about it. It is also where new engagements, upcoming Bar Mitzvah dates and impending additions to the family will be announced with much joy and congratulations.

As I may have mentioned here before (in last year's Hanukkah party post, as a matter of fact) as we walked to the subway together afterwards, heading back to the Upper West Side where we both lived, I remarked to Dan: "I've never been hugged and kissed by so many people I just met in my life." Like I said, warm and inclusive.

Big cousins = big fun

Since then we have stuffed our faces with latkes in the city and the burbs - both Jersey and Westchester - at cousin's homes, kosher delis, synagogue social halls, seminary dining rooms and hotel banquet halls. This year's constellation was Westchester & hotel. Well suited to the growing cadre of young ones who needed halls to run and play touch football in.

When Ethan and Jake were born there had been a baby lull in the family, the youngest cousin's kid being four, with a huge gang in their late teens to late twenties. But when the boys were nine months old, another little cousin joined the family, and since then every year has seen the addition of one to two new ones.

My estimate is that there were about eighteen in the ten and under crowd on Sunday.

A big part of the tradition is that every family brings a menorah, and they are all lit together at the end of the meal. This year, for the second year in a row, we let Ethan do the actual lighting of ours (sniffle, he's no longer my baby, sniffle).

Ethan chanting the candle-lighting blessing (Hebrew School paying off)

Jacob loves all the lights

There is also an obscenely huge Table of Presents that everybody drops their gifts onto when they come in (not pictured this year, for some reason, my documentary photographer skills falling somewhat short). And the final official event of the party is the present toss, where the gifts are handed out to the (mostly) kids and an unwrapping frenzy takes place amidst squeals of delight.

Presents!

"Thanks, Aunt Patty!"

Jacob groking his Star Wars book

One note of sadness crept into the festivities for me: the absence of my mother. Part of the inclusiveness of Dan's family is that my parents were invited to any and all events. Even though they were from a rather different side of Jewish culture (secular, bohemian) they did often come to the Hanukkah parties and other festivities and were warmly welcomed. 

For the past two years it was lovely to see my mother surrounded by the swirl of family and children, enjoying the scene, even if she wasn't quite sure who anyone besides her two grandsons were.

This year, wheelchair bound and hours of driving away in Long Island, taking her was out of the question. Sigh.

But let's end on a lighter note: Happy Hanukkah to y'all!

It's October 6th again, isn't it?

I was having another rollercoaster day yesterday. Actually they are all pretty much rollercoaster days, these days. Just the nature of the beast right now. But yesterday I was really feeling it.

It started a few minutes before six in the am, when Ethan padded in to tell me he had gotten up to pee and just couldn't get back to sleep. Nearly an hour and a half before he truly needed to awaken.

When I went in to their room to get Jake shortly thereafter, he woke up crying and yelling, exactly the same way he'd gone to sleep the night before.

Getting both kids out the door to school?  Took everything out of me, and it was only eight am.

The sky was crackling blue. It was a beautiful, seriously beautiful day.

But my heart just wasn't in it. I felt off. Going through the motions, but not fully inhabiting my body.

My ten-thousand item to-do list shortened only slightly, in spite of much doing all day long.

And Ethan was a cranky tired beast when I picked him up from his playdate, on our way to synagogue for our Hebrew School's annual Sukkot celebration.

In synagogue, however, there were moments of grace, of beauty. Standing one arm around each boy, my husband just to the other side of Ethan, swaying and singing ancient melodies my ancestors had chanted unto hundreds of generations back, I felt my heart opening, softening. I felt connected to something vastly larger than myself, a thing braided of community and spirit; a rooting that was much needed, deeply felt and vastly appreciated.

Jake looked over to me at one point and offered up a rare spontaneous "I love you Mommy." Ethan leaned against me and snuggled into my shoulder (he may have taken a little nap).

And then Ethan melted down over the lack of soda or pizza at the potluck supper. Declaring lasagna and other delicious food "disgusting." Sigh. He had Challah bread for dinner. And water. (But how come I'm the one who feels like a prisoner?)

And today? I was even offer (I know that's not an actual word - but do you really want to pick a fight with me today? No, didn't think so.)

And then I noticed the date.

It's October 6th.

A really crappy date for our family. (In spite of it being a dear friend of mine's birthday - Hello Elizabeth, this has nothing to do with you darling, YOUR October 6th is a lovely date.)

Two years ago today, we buried my 93 year-old mother-in-law who had passed on the 4th.

And eight years ago today?

Jake got his first autism diagnosis.

Some dates you just don't forget, even if on the surface you appear to. The sit subconsciously in the back of your skull coloring everything around them until the light bulb goes off and the connection is made.

Sad, bad, mad anniversaries.

I hate 'em.

Nothing to do but forge ahead, get through it.

And be glad that, to quote Scarlett and Jacob, "Tomorrow's another day."

Hunger

Me, pregnant in L.A., March 2002

Today is Yom Kippur, the last day of the Jewish New Year, the holiest of the holy of the Days of Awe. Also a day when adults are commanded to fast, to take in no food or drink for the entire day, from sundown to sundown (how Jewish days are measured).

There is something lovely about this tradition, and I have always enjoyed the fast, especially how it's the perfect excuse for a delicious little afternoon nap.  Also, Jews being Jews, there is always a wonderful full repast immediately afterwards, a gathering of family and friends to break the fast with, because food is truly what we do best.

But I haven't fasted since 1999.  I married in 2000, at nearly 40. So, time being of the essence, we got "to work" right away in our attempts to start a family. Thus there were two years of trying to get pregnant and then two years of being a nursing mother, and since then, just being an exhausted mom of special needs / high maintenance kids.

Now that the boys are ten, it's feeling a bit ridiculous, the never-ending excuses; so today I am semi-fasting - taking in liquids only - easing into it as it were. Plus it's still my reality that I need too much energy to look after my kids to truly fast.

So I am experiencing some hunger today, which is making me think about past hungers in my life, and an amusing story from my life, that I have yet to tell you...

When I was about four months pregnant with the twins, I took my last business trip to LA. (although I had been a frequent visitor until then, I haven't been back since). My husband, Danny, came along, both to carry on some of his own business and take care of me.

He had also accompanied me on my (similarly last) trip to the Sundance Film Festival that January, and I had truly needed his help as the "morning" sickness combined with altitude sickness to leave me in bad shape some days. (See this post for my entertaining story about nearly puking in a famous actor's lap.)

So, back to the L.A. story... we landed in the late afternoon, and it took MUCH, MUCH longer to get the rental car straightened out than we'd planned. By the time we finally arrived at our hotel, I hadn't eaten for hours. I was famished in the way that only a woman pregnant with twins in her second trimester can be famished.

And then? And then? It turned out that our lovely hotel? Had no onsite restaurant open for dinner. (Breakfast through lunch "coffee shop" only. Grrrrrrr.)

It being L.A., we were expected to retrieve our car (10 minute wait) and then drive up and down the street looking for a suitable restaurant (15 to 45 minute process). Yet I, being about to start gnawing on the desk clerk, found that idea impossible. And might have said so in less than polite terms.

We were then directed to the joint across the street, the House of Blues. Nobody's idea of fine, L.A. worthy cuisine, quite truly a tourist trap. But I didn't care. At this point I was a ravenous, crazy pregnant-with-twins starving lady.

And of course: there was a wait for a table. And once we were seated: the service was molasses slow.

At the table next to us was a couple paying their bill, clearly done with dinner. And their basket of fresh cornbread? Untouched.

Yes, I swiped it. I ate left-behind food off a stranger's table in a restaurant. I had turned all Pregnant She-Hulk: MUST. FEED. BABIES.

And my dear husband, who normally would have been mortified by such uncouth behavior didn't bat an eye. (By this point in the pregnancy, he knew better than to get between me and FOOD.)

Also? He very gallantly manhandled a waiter into taking our order pronto and putting it in as a rush.

(Possibly because he saw I was eying the uneaten half of a steak about to be left behind by a different couple at the table on our right.)

That was truly the hungriest I have ever been, or ever hope to be.

And it's good to remember that right now, today, as 5 pm rolls around and I am feeling a bit peckish, impatient in my wait to return to synagogue; eager to hear the final notes of the shofar's blast reverberate through the sanctuary, echoed by the rumbling of a thousand empty stomachs (including mine), yearning to be filled.

L'Shanah Tovah, my friends. And have a Tzom Kal (easy fast).

Full Circles

"Tree of Life"

It's four am and I should be asleep.

I have a long day of driving ahead of me, up to the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts and then back home again.

I am taking Jacob up to camp.

It's the same special needs program at the sweet, wonderful Jewish sleep-away camp he went to and loved last year.

But still, sleep is not coming.

On top of everything else that is making me anxious these days, there is this:

Even though he went last year, even though he is a year older and his communication skills have jumped leaps and bounds over where he was a year ago?

My son Jacob is still quite autistic; still unable to reliably report on his activities; still as likely to answer "yes" to any and all questions asked of him, because he knows that answer makes us questioners happy, as opposed to trying to represent some sort of truth.

"Did you do math is in school today, Jake?"

"Yes!"

"Did you play basketball today?"

"Yes!" 

"Did you go to the moon today, Jake?"

"Yes!" 

(So my son is still an astronaut.)

And also, though he can say "I want..." this or that, will tell you "No, I don't like that!" if he hates something you've given him to eat or wear... still, he doesn't really know how to thoroughly advocate for himself yet.

I worry.

And I'm struck once again by how different my feelings were two nights ago, preparing to send his twin brother Ethan off to HIS one week sleep-away camp; the excitement, the certainty that he would be having a good time, easily able to let the folks there know what he needs, to take care of himself.

Twins. But so different.

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On road, in the early morning of what is sure to be a beautiful day, Jake is in the back seat and we are listening to pop music on the radio.

Driving up to New England, the highway passes through the Riverdale area of The Bronx; means I pass right by the exit I took to go see and take care of my parents for two years, in this, their old car, now mine. Today the exit sign for 254th street brings my heart into my throat, tears burning my eyes.

My mother so diminished and frail now, hurting and in the hospital. I am contrasting that with visions of my parents when they first moved here, back from Florida together, the two of them. So much younger, so full of life in 2005.

Seven years.

And he is now gone and she is in the endgame. And my children are now ten, double digits; on the precipice of launching into teendom. Life flowing in two directions all around me.

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It has indeed turned out to be a beautiful day, the finest of this whole hot miserable summer. I am sitting on a bench in the outdoor sanctuary at Jacob's camp. In the place where, as 14 year old, I had lain a mosaic; now long gone, replaced by a lovely tree of life ark.

This camp has changed over years since 1974, yet also so much remains the same. Walking past the old red barn, chills ran down my spine, memories shuffling past. Last year the special needs camp was held at this camp's sister location nearby. But this year: here.

Last year the opening ceremony was lovely, but did not evoke the past.

This year I sit in this exact same spot as my fourteen year-old self, and past and present swirled together like the light and dark sections of a mixed pumpernickel bread. As we sing the the words of the prayers, my arm around Jacob who is leaning deep, snuggled into my side, I am crying.

Growing up in non-religious household, going away to this camp at fourteen was the first time I was really exposed to Hebrew and prayer. That one summer, four and a half weeks, really, have remained a deep & meaningful time, are a part of shaping who I am.

Not particularly observant now, there is still, somewhere in my core, a rooted sense of Jewish self, an unshakable identity. And I know my one month here at Jewish sleep-away camp instilled that.

People have asked me why my near fervently non-religious parents had sent me here, of all places. And there was the official, and I'm sure true reason: I had always wanted to go away to camp, they wanted to give me what I wanted before it was too late, and this was the cheapest camp they could find.

But I also have to think that they somehow knew, maybe even subconsciously, that I needed this, needed to belong to something larger than just myself and my tiny nuclear family.  

And now I sit, my son at my side, my mother in a hospital bed, physically distant but ever on my mind. And in front of me, in this sanctuary, is a beautiful, sculptural Tree of Life.

A visceral image of what I sit in the middle of every day, these days, caring for the young and the old. Looking backwards and forwards.

But today, trying to be just here. In and of this moment.

And then my son hops up, heeds the call for campers to make their departure. He plants one more kiss on my chin, runs up the hill to the awaiting counselors. Just when I think he's off with nary a glance back, he turns, offers me a big smile and wave and happy "Goodbye, Mom!" shouted at the top of his lungs.

And he's gone.

Jake waving goodbye

I am linking this up with my friend Heather's Just Write