Here's a picture of me and my six cousins on my mother's side (Dad was an only child.) We always called ourselves "the lucky seven." Every Thanksgiving we carried on at Aunt Rose's house in Syosset, LI, Rosh Hashanah was at Grandma's in Brooklyn, Passover at Aunt Evelyn's in Queens, and Hanukah at our house in North Bellmore, LI. Now the sisters and one cousin reside in our hearts. The rest of us have dug new roots in New York, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, but the distance doesn't separate us. Last night we spent two hours in our monthly Zoom gathering. Still lucky after all these years.

Autumn in My Life

 

After a particularly brilliant autumn, now we can see the distant mountains through the forest out back. Nighttime temperatures are beginning to linger into morning hours. And I'm looking forward to cozy time in my art studio, less influenced by the lure of outside activities. There are cycles in every aspect of nature and so around and around we go. 

 

The weeks fly by, the year falls behind me, and I'm floating on good feelings. It seems that the older I get, the more I'm content with who I am and all that I have today. I don't need a stuffed turkey or lights or gifts to heighten my gratitude. 

 

The anniversary of my liver transplant (November 20, 2006), reminds me how every moment, every person, every decision and action is precious. Don't postpone joy.

 

 

Reach Out for a Hug

Spring is awakening, we're getting vaccinated and can carefully socialize once again. Is life going "back to normal"? I hope not. Let's move forward to incorporate lessons learned: what's really important and what we can do without; new ways to stay connected, find meaning and pleasure in our lives. The older and more compromised among us were most isolated and had the hardest times. Now it's time to offer a hug. Find someone distinctly older or younger than yourself to connect with. Being good to others is good for our selves.

From Facebook a while back. Still a worthwhile read...

"When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte, Nebraska , it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
 
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found the poem below. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. The old man's sole bequest to posterity went far and wide and was published in the "News Magazine of the St. Louis, MO Association for Mental Health".

Crabby Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . . .. . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . When you're looking at me?
A crabby old man . . . . . Not very wise,
Uncertain of habit . . . . . With faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . . . . . And makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . 'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . . The things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . . . .. Lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . You're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am. . . . . . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . As I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . .. . . . With a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . . Who love one another.

A young boy of Sixteen . . . . With wings on his feet..
Dreaming that soon now . . . . . A lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . . My heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . .. That I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . . With ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons . . . . . Have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me . . . . . To see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . .. . My loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me . . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future . . . . . Shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . Young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . . . And the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man . . . . . And nature is cruel.
Tis jest to make old age . . . .. . Look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . . . . . Grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . .. . . Where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . . . . . A young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . My battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . .. . Life over again.

I think of the years, all too few . . . . . Gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . That nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . Open and see.
Not a crabby old man . . . Look closer . . . See ME!!

Remember, we are all either old or getting old. Think of  this poem when you meet an older person you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within.

The best and most beautiful things of this world can't be seen or touched. They must be felt with the heart.

PLEASE SHARE THIS POEM. 

Continuous Beginnings

For 13 years I've been required to appear each Fall or Spring at New York Presbyterian Hospital for an extremely brief appointment with my liver transplant doc. At the end of September this year, Michael and I made that annual trek. I had scheduled the visit to overlap with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah.

Closure

My check in at The Center for Liver Disease and Transplantation
at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center is always short because my liver transplant was so successful. This year's visit with my transplant specialist, Dr. Robert S. Brown, provided a different kind of closure. It turned out to be a real turning point for me.

ShaSha Says: Timing is Everything

• How do we know when to take the car keys away from Dad? 
• How do we know when Mom is not really on top of the family finances anymore?
• How do we know when it's time to give power of attorney over our affairs to our own kids?

There are reference books galore on how to gauge a child's developmental process, but not a one that I have discovered on timing the slippery slope into old age. This is because while our situations have a lot in common, the variables are ever so unique.

How do we know "when?" We don't know - not for sure. 

ShaSha says ~ 

Do your best to talk honestly with those you love about sensitive issues as early in your adult years as you feel comfortable. Be bold in talking about strengths and  weaknesses in a matter-of-fact way. Take the lead in opening up on topics often considered "private" or "we'll get around to it when the time is right" - finances, end of life desires. This goes in all directions: talk with your parents, talk with your children. Be a model of openness so that having this kind of discussion is a routine practice. 

Beyond that? 
You just have to trust your gut as well as your intellect. 

Remember:

What Do You See?

Last weekend we celebrated Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Mike and I spent some time outdoors in the chapel of nature and many more hours watching an inspirational service streamed live online from Central Synagogue in New York City. Last night I participated in an equally inspirational discussion of Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re In Without Going Crazy. The two have several threads in common.

Yom Kippur is a fast day. People sometimes mistakenly think that the act of fasting is, itself, a type of penance, the way we purge our souls of accumulated sin. Not true. A one day fast is a short-hand way to experience suffering, which reminds us people are always suffering, even when we are not. Active Hope asks us to “honor our pain for the world,” rather than turning away from the mess we’re in because it is too painful or we don’t know how or feel powerless to make a difference. 

The Yom Kippur service calls on us to recount and ask forgiveness for the ways we personally caused suffering in the past year—through our decisions, thoughts, words, actions, and omissions—rather than thinking we can hide these sins from ourselves, others, and, most importantly, from G-d. The authors of Active Hope likewise ask us to “acknowledge that our times confront us with realities that are painful to face, difficult to take in, and confusing to live with.” In both cases, we begin our quest for something better, something more life sustaining, by being honest about the error of our ways.

We gain individual strength to make things right by participating as a community in the Yom Kippur service, which emphasizes that the spiritual purpose of life according to Judaism is tikkun olam, meaning “to repair (or heal) the world.” This suggests all people have a shared responsibility to heal, repair, and transform the world—beginning with ourselves, but not all by ourselves. 

Similarly, Joanna Macy and Chris Johnstone encourage us to “draw on a sense of fellowship, belonging, and connection…as if we are remembering our root system. This is a power-with (rather than a power over)…that we can draw on, that acts through us.” Both sources tell me now is a time to realize the importance of our connection with the Earth and all life on it and to feel gratitude as well for the unknowable forces that propel life. Now is the time to be willing “to find and play our part,” to ask ourselves, “Does the way I live my life support the changes I want to bring about?” And to build our relationships with like-minded people.

Finally, Yom Kippur is an opportunity for redemption, to begin anew inside the Gates of Heaven. Having humbly purified ourselves, we have drawn closer to the essence of Spirit, we have made at–one-ment with a merciful G-d and set our intention to faithfully practice tikkun olam in the days to come.  Macy and Johnstone put it this way, “In the model of co-intelligence, we’re never alone in (our) endeavors. A larger story is taking place, and we’ve just chosen, or been chosen, to play a particular role in it.”

Hope

Our mission is to plant ourselves at the gates of hope-not the prudent gates of Optimism, which are somewhat narrower; nor the stalwart, boring gates of Common Sense; nor the strident gates of self-righteousness, which creak on shrill and angry hinges (our people cannot hear us there; they cannot pass through); nor the cheerful, flimsy garden gate of "Everything is gonna be all right," but a very different, sometimes lonely place, the place of truth-telling, about your own soul first of all and its condition, the place of resistance and defiance, the piece of ground from which you see the world both as it is and as it could be, as it might be, as it will be; the place from which you glimpse not only struggle, but joy in the struggle. And we stand there, beckoning and calling, telling people what we are seeing, asking people what they see.

Excerpt from an article written by Victoria Safford which appeared in the September 20, 2004 edition of The Nation. Adapted from The Impossible Will Take A Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear (Basic Books)

 

Inside Out

There was a time in my life when I wanted to learn to play golf. Not because I enjoyed the game, but because my adorable, supportive, and sports-addicted husband really wanted me to be a partner out where he spends so many hours. So I invested in lessons by golf pro Mike Hebrons who espouses, "The inside moves the outside." Of course, in golf this essentially means the center of one's body - the core - must wind up and release first in order for the shoulders, arms and ultimately the club shaft and head to gather energy, speed and power to send the dimpled little ball where it needs to go. But it means more than that in golf and in life.

I never could get the hang of golf, but decades later I am still happily married. Partly because I took away from those hot days on the driving range perhaps the most important underlying lesson Hebron was offering. The head and the heart are just as important as any muscle in our body when we are looking for success. Concentration and intention. Desire and planning. These are the powers that get us where we want to go.

I may not love golf, but I do love my honey. I won't stand out in the sun with him for hours on end, but I won't stand in his way either. I concentrate on win-win and enable his hobby. I plan to see his smile when he unwraps a new club on his birthday. I help him pack for four days of golf with his brother and friends because I value his pleasure as much as my own. I listen to his tales of pride and woe upon returning from each and every round. And so our hearts remain entwined although we spend our days at arms length from one another. It's what's inside that counts.