Life and Death

Grandpa

February 21, 2011 by Jack Steiner 37 Comments

Dear Grandpa,

You died about 4.5 years ago and much has happened since then. I don’t think that I have told you about all of it. In fact I am sure that I never told you that they fired me the day of your funeral. Didn’t tell you about the text messages and emails that they sent me during the funeral asking me to call in. My phone was off so I didn’t get them during the service. It was only when I got back to mom and dads that I discovered them. They called me again and told me that they they were sorry that you had died and that I shouldn’t come in the next day.

I haven’t aired this sort of dirty laundry here, at least not this story. I haven’t shared it for a variety of reasons but for some reason today feels like an appropriate time to share some of it. I took the call in the car and said what I had to say. Then I walked into the house and looked at my father. He has your blue eyes you know. I didn’t say anything about it. I didn’t mention it because it wasn’t that important. He had lost his father. Just a short time earlier we had stood graveside and he had told us about how you were his hero and how much he would miss you.

How could I tell him. I know my father and I knew that he would try to comfort me. I knew that he would say fuck ’em and tell me that I was better off. All true and all accurate. I had been trying to get out of there so they made it easier. But the moment wasn’t about me. It was about my father. Grandma was long since gone and so was Uncle Jimmy. Once you died that meant that dad was an orphan, albeit a 60 something year old orphan, but an orphan nonetheless. I didn’t know how he would feel. I mean I knew that he would miss you terribly but I didn’t know if it would be made worse by not having Uncle Jimmy around. There are things that siblings understand about parents that no one else can get, not even a spouse.

So I walked inside, picked up my daughter and hugged her tight. Her brother came over and grabbed my hand and tugged on it. It seemed surreal, you were gone, the construction on the house wasn’t close to being completed and I had two small children. I did my best to hold a poker face, but you know that it is not something that I am very good at it. You and dad were/are card players. Maybe it is more accurate to say that dad recognized my tell and asked me to tell him what happened. Really, I shouldn’t be surprised that he knew that there was something more. How many times did the three of us sit together communicating in silence.

Anyway, I told him what happened and got the expected response from him. I made a point of shifting the conversation quickly. I didn’t want to focus on me. I was furious about it. Even though it was demonstrative of the character of the people I had been working for, it wasn’t right. But there is a time and place for those things and that was neither.

I remember walking to the bathroom next to my old bedroom. Our picture was hanging on the wall. It is the one of you, dad, your father and myself. I am about 18 months or so in it. I remember staring at it and thinking about how young you looked in it because you were. I was 37 when you died and you were about 92. So in that picture you weren’t even 60. Can’t tell you if you had gone gray yet because the picture is in Black and White. 😉

Your great granddaughter talks about you relatively often. She likes to pretend that she is you. She hikes up her pants and and acts silly. It is bittersweet to me because she doesn’t remember you. Sure, she knows who you were and she recognizes your face in pictures but she doesn’t know the grandfather that I remember. When I coach her soccer team and see my folks on the sidelines it reminds me of you and it makes me smile because she is building the same sort of relationship that we had. But I am selfish and I want more time with my grandfather.

I am selfish because I got a small taste of getting to know you as a man and not a boy. I miss your stories. We can’t tell them as well as you could. I miss sharing secrets with you. Sure, whenever I come to visit you I make a point of telling you one or two, but it is not the same as having you sit across from me. You never knew about this blog but you would have enjoyed it. You always enjoyed my writing and most of the time I enjoyed sharing it with you. I qualified that because when I was younger it was harder doing that.

Blame it on youth. You always said that you couldn’t screw an old head on young shoulders and you were right. Life changes us, or should I say life experiences change us. I have written a bunch of posts about you. There are keywords in them that trigger memories for me. And I share those memories with your great grandchildren. They are all getting so big. I look at my nieces and nephews and my kids and I am amazed. You would be proud of them all.

I am not who I was when you died. Too much has happened but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Changes come and we do our best to roll with them. Just know that you are missed and loved. And when I punch out a boy or two for trying to date your great granddaughter I’ll tell them that you helped teach me how to throw a punch. Something tells me that would make you smile. I love you grandpa, got to run now and play dad for a while.

This was part of The Red Dress Club Memoir Prompt.

Grandma

February 19, 2011 by Jack Steiner 10 Comments

Dear Grandma,

I haven’t spoken with you in quite some time and I am not really sure why. I suppose that one could say that it is because you died last year. You died on the day of my 14th anniversary- that is a hell of an anniversary gift. I remember wondering what one does for the 14th. You know how they have that list of things you do, one year is paper, another is diamond, gold etc.

Well, I am not quite sure where death fits on that list. Granted I don’t really pay attention to these things nor do I limit myself to conventional items. You know me, I march to the beat of my own drummer except that dude has no rhythm. And so it goes.

I went to see grandpa today. I try to see him as often as possible. You do know that no one ever thought that he would outlive you. We all expected you to be here longer than you were. Granted you were 96 so no one can call you a slacker or suggest that you didn’t uphold your end of the bargain, but still… Until the last few years you were a powerhouse of energy.

No one believed that you were really in your nineties. Mom says that you had more energy than anyone she knew and I believe her. I remember you walking the stairs to do laundry. You were in your eighties and you refused to let me carry the basket. You do know that you got me into trouble with that one. I got yelled at for not being a gentleman, but I didn’t bother arguing about it.

I don’t say this to upset you, but grandpa is prone to crying now. He misses you terribly and I understand, albeit differently. Seventy-six years of marriage is something that I can’t begin to understand on anything other than the most basic level. You never read this blog but I have written about you here many times. I have written about all of my grandparents.

My thoughts and memories are collected here in this blog. Think of it as a journal that we keep on the computer. Anyway, grandpa cries. He tries to hide the tears but there is no hiding the pain in his voice. I don’t think you would be surprised to hear that he loved you deeply, intensely. Somewhere in this blog is a post where I wrote about his fear of not being able to take care of you.

He told me about how you when you were 16 you would jump on his back and he would run. He told me that he couldn’t believe that he wasn’t strong enough to carry you anymore. He told me that he didn’t see an old lady, but the girl he fell in love with. I get it. I can see those things. When I go visit I often go alone because he doesn’t want his great grandchildren to see him struggle to keep it together.

So I make a point to visit sometimes without the kids and then when he cries I don’t say anything about it. It is a polite fiction that we both live with, but it is not always easy. He doesn’t cry all the time. We have entire conversations where he is composed, but the conversation always comes back to you and that is when things get rough. I’d ask for your advice, but….

There is a lot going on in my life too. So much to tell you, so many stories. Grandma, I am going to be 42 in May. Forty-two, how did that happen. Yesterday you and I walked down Fairfax to buy ice cream. Ok, so maybe that memory is pushing thirty something years, but it feels recent to me.

And did I tell you how big my children are. We booked a Bar Mitzvah date. Granted it is 2.5 years from now, but time moves so quickly. I am frustrated Grandma. There are things going on that just aren’t working for me, but I am actively working on making changes. I am pushing and pulling and doing my best to just go with things. Did I ever tell you that I always admired how easily you adapted to whatever happened.

You made it seem effortless. I know that there were times when it wasn’t. I know lots of things and lots of stories, but still. You were always one of the happiest people I know. To be clear, I wouldn’t say that I am unhappy, but I am not joyful either. That is why I am working on making the changes.

Anyway, it is after 2 AM and I need to get some sleep. But before I go I want to ask that if somehow these words reach you, can you go visit grandpa. Can you somehow let him know that you are not really gone. It would mean more to him than you know.

Love,

Your oldest grandson

Five Minutes

February 15, 2011 by Jack Steiner 44 Comments

This post was inspired by the The Red Dress Club memoir writing prompt. The one below is based upon the prompt as opposed to this one. For those who don’t like clicking, the prompt was imagine that after you have died your daughter/son will be given the gift of seeing a single five-minute period of your life through your eyes, feeling and experiencing those moments as you did when they occurred. What five minutes would you have him/her see? Tell us about them in the finest detail.

I find people to be fascinating. They are endlessly amusing creatures who like to think that the things that they do are based upon logic and reason, yet they aren’t. They rarely do anything that isn’t arbitrary in nature. We don’t like to admit these things. We don’t like stare at our own foibles or accept our own mortality.

It is late afternoon and I am seated on an American Airlines airplane waiting to fly back to Los Angeles. The seat belt sign is on and the flight attendants are preparing for takeoff.

My toe is tapping and my knuckles are turning white from gripping the seat. For a moment I wonder if I can crush the armrest with nothing but my fingertips. I am trying hard to think about anything and everything other than my father.

He lies unconscious in a hospital bed some 30 miles away from the airport. He is being kept alive by machines and medication. The flight home will take almost six hours and it is possible that he will die while I am in the air.

A short time earlier I sat next to his bed and spoke softly to him. In the midst of the beeps, clicks, clacks and whirling noises made by the machines that keep him alive I told him about his grandson and reminded him that his daughter-in-law is pregnant

Asked him to wake up for me, begged him to open his eyes and acknowledge me. Asked him not to die because I needed him. Told him that I want him to celebrate my 35th birthday with me and squeezed his hand, but he didn’t squeeze it back.

The captain makes a few announcements but I can barely focus. I don’t know what to do. I am not panicking because dad wouldn’t panic and so I won’t. But he is unconscious and I can’t do anything to help save his life- not from 3,000 miles away.

I close my eyes and think of my son. He is almost 3.5 and I can’t believe that there is a chance that my father will die before they really get to know each other. I can’t believe that he might not get to meet the baby who is yet to come.

Dad is a huge presence in my life and always has been. I feel guilty leaving him. I feel guilty leaving mom there. I hadn’t realized until this moment that he was/is human.

But I can’t stay. I am a father and I learned from my dad that I have to take care of my family. My grandparents don’t know how serious this is. I didn’t tell them that I wasn’t sure if he would survive long enough for me to fly out and now I have to do it all over again.

I remember telling dad and grandpa about my uncle dying. I remember the pain in my father’s eyes and how I made grandpa cry. I told him that his youngest son was dead. Am I going to be forced to tell him about his oldest too.

The plane pulls away from the gate and begins to taxi towards the runway. For a moment I consider jumping out of my seat and demanding that they let me go. I am sitting close to and emergency exit. I calculate the distance between the door and my seat, figure that I can get there fast enough to open it and jump.

It is crazy and I know it. But my father might die. There is a voice telling me that I am betraying him by not being by his side.

He wouldn’t have left me. That is not how our family works. I am the only son. I know him differently than my sisters. My grandfather wouldn’t leave me either. I can see him crying, can hear grandma say no. The moment haunts me. It is one of a few that stick with me.

The engines roar and as the plane gains speed I am pressed back into my seat. Now all I can do is wait and make silent promises to the future.

Endless Blue Skies

February 14, 2011 by Jack Steiner 2 Comments

This post was inspired by the The Red Dress Club memoir writing prompt. Technically I have to write one based upon the prompt they gave. Stay tuned.

You don’t expect bad news to come on a day with endless blue skies and convertibles filled with beautiful women. The kind of news that I got that day should have accompanied by thunder and lightning. One should feel as if war is raging on the mountaintops.

There should be an epic battle raging between Zeus and Hades. It should feel like the end of days is at hand Armageddon.

But the day that we heard about D wasn’t like that. It wasn’t even close. It was exactly as I first described, beautiful. It was a picture perfect day.

I should have been outside. I should have been roller blading or hanging out at the beach. I should have been staring at hard bodies in bikinis or washing my car. Any and all of those things would have been appropriate and far better than what I was doing.

You are not supposed to make the calls that I made that day. Not at 29. Friends don’t die of terminal illness not at 29. You don’t spend the summer watching your friend waste away. At 29 you don’t watch the disintegration of a beautiful mind, except I did.

D was one my closest friends and in many ways more like a brother. He was a guardian of secrets and a trusted companion. He was a pilot and a scientist. He was a son and a brother. He was deeply in love with his girlfriend and making plans for a future that he would never have.

Now he is a memory that many of us share.

It was around 7 AM or so when my telephone rang. I answered it on the second ring knowing that it was bad news. The voice on the other line belonged to his little brother and though it didn’t break I could hear the anguish hiding behind his words.

There was no sugar coating it. No description of him passing away nor attempt to explain it and I didn’t offer one either. It seemed hollow, fake and inauthentic for me to tell him that his brother was taken or that G-d had some special purpose for him.

He asked me to make some calls and I said yes. Thirteen years later I still remember the feeling of horror and dread that morning. I felt like the Angel of Death.

It was unreal. I’ll never forget how Heather screamed no in the phone and began sobbing. Thirteen years later the echo of her screams lives in my memory. Thirteen years later I remember how an hour before the funeral we gathered in my condo and drank a toast to D.

We stood there in my living room silently trying to make sense of the senseless. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and tried to center myself. I pictured a moment in time, D and I were in his plane flying over Los Angeles.

We’re 23 and talking about girls and life. I look out the windshield at endless blue skies and he asks me if I remember double dating in Santa Barbara. I say of course and he asks if I remember someone walking in on my girlfriend and I. I nod my head and tell him that whomever that was killed the moment. He starts laughing and he tells me that he knows that wasn’t true.

He explains that girls talk and tells me that Debbie talked to Karen about that time. A big smirk crosses my face and I tell D that I hoped he learned something. He says “screw you” and we keep flying into the blue.

I am covered in sweat now. We’re at D’s funeral and we’re burying him. We who loved him are taking care of this because we can’t stand to let some stranger do it.

The sound of dirt falling on his coffin is intermingled with loud sobs that come from all around me. Sweat drips into my eyes blurring my vision and I stop shoveling. I look up and make eye contact with D’s mother.

Tears stream down her face and I look up in time to see a small plane fly overhead.

Daddy, Please Don’t Die

November 4, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

My son asked me not to die. In a quiet voice he looked at me and told me that he didn’t want me to. I don’t think that I’ll ever forget that night. It was December of 2004. We had finished opening Chanukah gifts and lying in his big boy bed. Just a few weeks away from turning four, he looked at me and said please don’t die.

The thought of dying without getting a chance to see him grow up was heartbreaking to me. I couldn’t imagine not seeing this little boy become a man and couldn’t imagine who would teach him how to become one. It was shocking to me because until that point I didn’t think that it had ever occurred him that one day his parents would be gone. He was too young to understand death, so why would it ever occur to him to apply it to me.

I know, it was naive and foolish on my part to think so- but that is what I thought. So when it happened it really threw me for a loop. I was glad that it was dark so that he couldn’t see me choke up or the tears in my eyes. When I think back on that moment I can see some of it more objectively than I once did because 2004 was a very tough year. It was the year that my own father almost died and I suspect that played a role in how I reacted.

This is all tied in with why I wrote A Father’s Blessing. There is a purpose, a rhyme and a reason to all of this. These posts aren’t written for self indulgent reasons or sheer sentimentality. They are a living record of my life and those I love. These are fragments of my life, moments in time that are frozen in memory. They’re a chronicle that one day I will pass along to the children so that they have something hard and tangible to remember me by. So that they know that their father loved them fiercely and so they see some of the thoughts, ideas, fears and feelings that make me who I am.

And on a selfish level they provide that forum in which I can collect my thoughts and try to understand what it is I think or feel. So that I can take a look back at those moments and smile or frown at the tapestry of life I am creating. The parade of endless images are part of what I use to pay homage to that which deserves the notoriety.

But it would be wrong of me not to include my daughter in this discussion because the dark haired beauty has talked about this too. I remember her screams. Daddy You Died. That was what she said, in her soft voice. I remember holding her while she sobbed on my shoulder and doing my best to calm her down.

That moment has been on my mind more than a few times recently. People who are dear to me have very sick fathers and though they are grown women, mothers of their own children I hear the sadness in their voices. I hear their fear and I feel for them. I don’t think that we ever reach a place where we don’t want to have our parents in our lives.

*********************

“You made a promise to me and I going to see that you stick to it,” is what he said. I looked at him and smiled. He told me that he was serious and I nodded my head. The little boy who asked me not to die is long gone and now a big boy who has the same name has taken his place.

I stare at this boy and see hints of the little boy he was and shows a few signs of the pre-teen he is soon to become. Not long before this boy had asked me not to play basketball with the guys. I understood why he was asking and in truth part of me wanted to stay- but I told him that I couldn’t because exercise is too important.

It is not an easy request to turn down. The decision to play isn’t done without considering how that impacts him. Basketball is very important to me. It is part of how I maintain my sanity and part of how I fight the battle of the bulge.

When he asked it touched several chords for me. I made him a promise 6 years ago to try my best to stay healthy so that I would be around for as long as possible. So when he talked about keeping promises that is what he was referring to.

Still, between work and school there are limited hours that we can spend together. It is part of why I try hard to find time to take the kids out separately. It doesn’t have to be a long time and it doesn’t have to be anything special.Â

Truth is that sometimes I take them on errands with me because I know that even though it may not be fun stuff it is still time spent together. This parenting thing is a three ring circus that never quits. The thing is that in the circus the clown gets some down time. He doesn’t have to worry about juggling all day and night long. The lion tamer comes out of the cage once in a while.

But being a parent, that never stops. I am not complaining I knew that the job was dangerous when I took it. 😉

Goodbye Grandma

October 28, 2010 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

In Dublin’s fair city, where the girls are so pretty
I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone
As she wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow
Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

A-live a-live O! A-live a-live O!
Crying cockles and mussels alive a-live O!

Molly Malone

Yesterday was my grandfather’s 96th birthday or should I say that it would have been. Hard to believe that so much time has passed and yet not hard at all. I look at my life today and shake my head in amazement. Four years later grandpa would be shocked to see how much has changed, how much has not and how much will be changing…soon.

Four years ago the dark haired beauty was a toddler who didn’t understand death. Now she is pushing 6.5 and has no memories of the man I miss. She recognizes his face in pictures but doesn’t know that those blue eyes had a special twinkle and no memory how he would sing Molly Malone…badly.

I don’t have to close my eyes to hear him or to remember how he would tell me that he didn’t “sing good, but he sang loud.”

So much has happened since then. The boy I wrote about in Walking With The Dead is far bigger and understands life in different terms now. In some respects you can blame him for some of this. I have never forgotten when he asked me not to die.

But in some ways this particular post is driven by my grandmother.

I love you grandma

Grandma died this past March. She died the night of my 14th wedding anniversary, so it is only fitting that somehow her children chose the same granite for her headstone that graces my kitchen counters. The next time I make a brisket I might take some of the juice to the cemetery for the sole purpose of spilling it on her stone. Something tells me that she wouldn’t mind.

There was a time just a few short years ago when my grandfather told me that my grandmother had a great ass for an old lady. I must have given him a funny look because he smiled and told me that he still saw the girl that he fell in love with. He said that he had never been given a greater gift than being loved by grandma and that just holding her hand made him happy.

I never doubted any of that and I suspect that no one who knew my grandparents did either. They were that couple, the one who had the relationship that you wanted to have. Best friends, lovers, partners and life companions.

When I think about my grandfather’s comment it is hard not to smile. It was said with a twinkle in his eye and a giggle like he knew that he was getting away with something. But that is because he was. It was the sort of thing that would have made grandma make a face at him but she still would have smiled. They were married for more than 75 years so she was well accustomed to his comments and habits.

Life never stops moving. Seven years ago I had four grandparents and now I have one.