Golder: In Memoriam

There are many ways to kill a pet fish, and Adam Gopnik killed ours from the pages of the New Yorker. With callous disregard to the feelings of Golder the goldfish (who was “golder” than her two friends, GottaGo and Elephant), Gopnik talked about his 10-year old daughter and how he had tried to “fob her off with fish.” We were away at the time, but our subscription obviously arrived and broke Golder’s little fobbed heart. She was dead when our neighbor arrived with the next day’s food.

Like all pets, fish mean what we project onto them. As a graduate student, my pet hedgehog was accused of being lonely, sleepy, or hungry depending on which of the roomies was tending her at any given moment. In the Costume Shop at the Williamstown Summer Theatre Festival one summer, the best gauge of the mental state of anyone entering the room was what they said to the goldfish bowl at the door. Quite obviously it wasn’t the goldfish who was feeling “sexy,” “tired,” “paranoid,” or “hungover,” but that didn’t stop actors, directors, and designers laying themselves bare by noting those moods in the fish.

But, however displaced, those projected feelings are real. When we got back from holiday, my older daughter was upset at the loss of her fish. As she observed, Golder had always been a good friend to the other two fish. She’d always swum in the middle of the aquarium and she’d never fought for the sinking tablet food. It wouldn’t be the same without her. A picture was drawn, in memoriam. Taking her cue, her younger sister repeated the sentiments with more bombast and tears. Once having worked out these feelings, though, the girls were able to move on from their initial mourning stage and replace Golder with Golder II, aka Goldie.

Concern about how easily Goldie would fit in with the others faded as she proved as easygoing as her predecessor. We marked the day of replacement so we could remember Goldie’s birthday. All seemed to be going well, but a chill shivered down my warm late summer spine as I projected my own fears onto the fish. One day my girls might return home to find me too all fobbed out, only this time it probably wouldn’t be Gopnik’s fault. In that case, would they be able to replace me with Dad II, aka Daddy?

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: death, pets

Oh, Amy.

You sexy, filthy thing. You charmed us with your old-school bebop style and sailor-swearing Cockney chatter. You repulsed us with your hideous heroin-skinny limbs and helpless alcoholic pathos. You introduced us to Mr. Donny Hathaway and the term “fuckery.” You were hard-core and brittle as an old bubbe’s bones; you made the nervous breakdowns of pop tarts like Britney and Demi Lovato look like toddler tantrums.

Most of all, you held us captive, our mouths hanging open, our toes tapping no matter how old or self-righteous, with that voice—that soulful, husky voice that reached deep down and brought heaven and hell together, funneled forth from a 90-pound songbird teetering on F*@# me stilettos.

You were never a nice Jewish girl. Too many tattoos. So much public barfing. But watching you tearfully hugging Mama Winehouse with an armful of Grammy awards, we felt the pride for one of our own. We concentrated on the music, not the shanda. That’s why “Rehab” could pop up ironically on bar mitzvah DJ rotation. No longer.

In terms of creating your own legend, you couldn’t have picked a better time to self-combust: All the great ones died at 27. Jimi, Janis, Jim, Kurt—they all killed themselves through whiskey and needles and pills and playing with guns. Whatever your special recipe for destruction was, you join the pantheon of those who couldn’t handle the fame and fortune and artistic pressure, those who possessed heart-breaking talent but no sense of self-preservation. Welcome to the club.

Though many have recently reveled in the schadenfreude of your stage stumbles and wicked hot messiness, so many of us were rooting for your salvation. To hear that sober album. To maybe watch you marry a nebbishy Jewish businessman who adored you and see the tabloids scurry over how you got fat when you had babies. To cheer when you appeared svelte and mature in 2018 to release a smokin’ comeback that knocked us out all over again.

Instead, for generations to come, your songs will resonate with and be downloaded by every disenfranchised global youth with a penchant for jazz and weed. Your addictions will serve as a morality tale. You will be the poster icon for the ultimate Bad Girl. Whatever you believed came after death—if you ever thought about it at all—you’ll achieve immortality, at least in this current cycle of human civilization. It is in our sick world, I suppose, the zenith of artistic achievement. So congratulations.

We only wish we could have heard more.

This article originally appeared on YoYenta.com

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: amy winehouse, death

You know you are in pretty bad shape when you scurry past a girl behind the makeup counter at a department store after returning a pair of pricey shoes you bought on a whim, who shouts, “Let me show you something for the dark circles around your eyes.”

I wish I would’ve stopped to listen. In the midst of the hectic past week, my dark circles were the last thing I thought about. In fact, I didn’t even know I had them. A mom with dark circles around her eyes? Unheard of, right?

This week was different, however. I wasn’t sure if the circles were caused by the fact that I had just found out my aunt passed suddenly in Israel, comforting my mother as she sat shiva, or the fear of explaining death and shiva to my 5-year-old son.

Death is probably the worst thing to try to explain to a child. I will take the “where do babies come from” speech any time. Simple, egg + sperm = baby. Death, not so simple.

I thought about hiding the fact that “something was wrong” from my son, because no matter what your view of the “afterlife” is, or if there is one really, let’s face it, death sucks. Read the rest of this entry →

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: death

The tiny Jewish cemetery in the mountains looks a lot like this.

My husband’s mother died almost seven years ago, of a heart attack. One day she was teaching first grade, the next day she was gone. She’s buried at a beautiful, quiet cemetery up in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York. We drive to the Catskills every summer to visit family, and always stop at the cemetery along the way. The experience has changed over the years. First we were dating, then we were married. Then I was pregnant, then we brought our baby. But every year we stand by her grave, and tell the story of our lives over the past year.

So it didn’t occur to me that I should do anything differently this year. In the car on the way up, I decided that the best way to talk about things with my almost-2-year-old was to say, “This is where we go when we want to talk to Bubbe Sharry.” I was actually proud of this brilliant idea. And then we got out of the car.

Abigail was tired and a little bit cranky. Dan had her help him collect rocks to put on the gravestones (his grandparents and some cousins are buried there too). She liked finding rocks. And she liked putting the rocks in their places, and noticing the flowers and bugs in the grass. But then we started talking to Bubbe Sharry and that didn’t go over well. I started tearing up, and when I tried to explain that this is where we go to talk to Bubbe Sharry, Abigail said, “Want to see Bubbe Sharry!”

Then I really started to cry. (Of course seeing her mommy cry only made things worse for our 2-year-old!) Abigail, I want to see Bubbe Sharry too. I wish I’d really known my mother-in-law. We were lucky to have met twice. Rumor has it, she liked me. I liked her. It would have been nice to have been able to hear more about how she raised children. And I’m sure we wouldn’t agree on everything, but I would’ve liked to have known her.

Explaining death to a 2-year-old is complicated. And perhaps close to impossible—they’re so young. But as luck would have it, they have selective little memories. Abigail seems to have forgotten the cemetery, but she certainly remembers the chicken nuggets she had for lunch that day. Us adults, on the other hand, have long memories, filled with the people who’ve come before us, who made us who we are, and whom we thank for giving us the gift of life. Ashkenazi Jews name our children after our ancestors who’ve passed away, both to honor their memories and in hopes that the child will have some of the traits of the deceased. We knew from day one that Abigail would take after her namesake Bubbe Sharry—after all, they both were multiple-sneezers. And we hope that she’ll take after her grandmother in many other ways: her kindness, her warmth, her hospitality, and her incredible love for family.

And if collecting rocks at the cemetery is part of helping our daughter take after her bubbe, well, I don’t think it’s such a bad plan after all.

• Posted in Baby & Toddler, Parenting
• Tags: Bubbe, cemetery, death, Grandparents, mother-in-law

I think that when you become a parent you discover an entire new set of fears.  It can include, but is not limited to: germs, food additives, antibiotics, vaccines…<insert fear-of-the-month here>.  My husband and I, well, we are afraid of dying.  Not the fear of slowly wasting away in a nursing home, but of dying young, soon, perhaps tomorrow.  Alex’s mother died without warning when he was seven years old and my father died when I was four.  This shared experience bonded us together from the night we met.

I often wonder how this will affect the way we raise our son.  I suppose it will take time to see how our neuroses manifest themselves.  I can recognize two ways so far.

The first way is none too detrimental, I think.  It’s just that I take pictures.  Hundreds of them.  I update my Picasa albums and YouTube channel obsessively, and I pounce on every online deal for canvas prints, photography sessions, and photo albums.  I have spent countless hours working on these photo albums.  At first my husband couldn’t understand why they were so important to me.  I asked him if he wouldn’t pay any amount of money to have something like this of his mother.  If something should happen to either of us, Aiven could put a story together from the pictures, videos, albums, and blog postings.  Alex and I would do anything to have the story of our deceased parents, so now I find myself documenting everything about our own lives.

The second way our fear of death manifests itself is that Alex and I try to live for today more than worrying about the future.  Thus, we take more risks than our peers and more than our families are comfortable with.  We strive to keep our eyes open to the extraordinary moments, opportunities, and memories unfolding before us.

Alex and I decided a few months ago to leave New York City.  We love it here but it is too expensive; we did not want to both work crazy hours just to pay the rent and childcare.  At the moment, we are both unemployed, lacking health insurance (COBRA wanted $2500 a month–hiss!), and packing up our things to go into storage.  Most people would be scrambling to find jobs.  Instead, we are about to embark on a journey for 82 days to Ireland, Scotland, England, France, and Spain.  We figured that before we reboot the daily grind, we should take an extended vacation.  Unplug.  See the stars.  Most importantly, bond with Aiven, as a couple, and as a family.

After this adventure we are relocating to Austin, Texas.  My husband may have a job when he arrives there, or he may not.  We don’t even have a place to live.  To top it all off, I cashed in my 401K.  It wasn’t a significant sum, but it will pay for the summer.  I could have waited until I was 65 to use it, but who says I am going to be around then?  I would rather spend the money now.  The most important consideration for us was that we may not have this opportunity again for many, many years…if ever.

Some might accuse us of being irresponsible, unstable, or gambling with our child’s future.  We call it not living with regrets.  I just hope that we do not live to regret it.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: death, fear, featured

Ronia and I took our second long bike ride today, and it was a little less joyous than the first.

I was grieving the suicide of a friend, actually my estranged friend’s sister. I had come back from the funeral to pick up Ronia from school and I needed a bike ride.

When I grieved the end of my marriage, I was a stay at home parent, but Ronia couldn’t really talk. She was definitely an impressionable presence, and I tried to balance “keeping it together” with sharing my emotions with her so she would know I had them. It didn’t totally work, I once heard her telling her mother, “Papa isn’t sad! He’s NOT!”

But now that she’s 3 and 1/2, I felt the need to be more explicit. Without consulting a single text on how to talk to a kid about suicide, I dove in when I picked up Ronia on my bike.

“Do you remember my friend from D.C.?” I asked her.

“Are we going there?”

“No, we’re going to West Philly. D.C. is too far to bike to.”

“That’s where Auntie Hannah lives?”

“Yes, but now she’s in France.”

“So no one will be there?”

“Well we’ll see someone we know. But my friend from D.C., her sister died.”

“What died her?”

“She got so sick she didn’t want to live any more. It happens to people sometimes.”

“Oh.”

“We are going to see the people who are really sad about her dying in the next few days.”

“Yes, I want to see the people who are sad.”

She said the last in a curious tone, like she wanted to check out these sad people. And then it was off on our bike. We went even further this time, 15 miles away, to attend something called the Dollar Stroll. I lifted my parental dessert caps–Ronia got both cupcake and ice cream. We ate the fried finger food of several cultures and she got her face painted as a blue kitty (not pink, I happily noted.) She peed on some impoverished plants. I tried to remember she was just a kid and not an allegory for much of world history, and that her pee was better than the litter.

As we rode home, Ronia kept up a steady stream of whining. I have written about the joys of zoning out to your child while riding, the flip side is that it turns out you can ignore them too.

We rode through clouds of Griefbugs, many of which I inhaled, along with Griefdust which made me cough violently. All the while listening to Griefgulls, mourning the loss of my birdlike friend with chirps and tweets.

My eyes teared, but not from crying. I was sore, but not from sobbing. Ronia’s kvetching and my grief swirled away like the wind, only occasionally slowing us down.

Talking to your kids about death isn’t easy. Here’s an article that can help.

• Posted in Parenting
• Tags: Dads, death

My daughter asked if she would be allowed to kill the cow.

Ronia’s first parent conference was ideal from a parenting point of view: her teachers told us she should keep doing what she is doing! She was, of course, perfect.

But perfection is hard to sustain, and Ronia did not merely keep doing what she was doing. She added floor peeing in protest to her repertoire in between her fall and spring conferences. Apparently the toilet was not to her standards of cleanliness, she is amazingly fastidious for a hippie child with a slacker dad, though she apparently has inherited my love of the performative gesture.

When confronted about peeing inches away from a toilet, she recounted how earlier that (morning? week? lifetime? time is fuzzy with a 3-year-old) “my dad was mad when I peed in his bed.” Her teacher, to her endless credit, responded “I think I’d be mad if you peed in my bed.” She made clear she was not telling the story as a criticism of me, but I still felt bad. I had revealed my anger to my child! At her failure to perfectly toilet train! So much so she had told others about it! I am such a wuss.

As the conference unfolded in a brisk 20 minutes, after something about catching Ronia’s acts of defiance, which were subtle but developmentally important for her to have noticed, we came to an actual act of parental malfeasance. I should have saved up my guilt.

I have noted and encouraged Ronia’s morbid tendencies. One day as we walked past a group of workers, one of whom was up in a tree, she said, apparently unconcerned, “I think they’re going to kill him.” Several of her favorite stories feature death, and my all time favorite is when told that her grandparents were going to raise cows for meat, she asked, “Am I going to get to kill the cows?” Her tone was not fearful, but eager. However, Waldorf famously discourages TV use, and apparently one day Ronia was asking if the various stories were going to lead to carnage. Her teachers were a bit disturbed and inquired, at which point Ronia revealed she had just watched a scary movie with her dad. “Something about ghosts?”

Ah yes, Spirited Away, one of my favorites and one I was just a little too eager to show to my child. Even worse, I left her by herself so I could cook dinner. She made two-thirds through the movie then ran in and hugged my legs. “There are monsters!”  she suddenly discovered. The scene was not one of the overtly scary ones (I realized there were several of those to come.) Point taken, and now driven home again all these months later. I let the gentle disapproval wash over me, felt my child’s mother getting angry again. They asked me what other movies Ronia watched and I had to cop to the Princess and the Frog. “The Disney movie?” “The star is from one of my favorite musicals!” I sounded snobbish and self-centered, enforcing my fanboy likes on my child at her detriment.

Next movie night, I thought about how Ronia gets scared of Shadow monsters in Princess and Frog and tried to discourage her from watching it. “I’m not scared of the scary parts!” she protested. I suggested My Neighbor Totoro, the same director of Spirited Away but not as scary. “Oh yeah!” Dinner was cooked, no traumas were inflicted.

• Posted in Parenting, Preschooler
• Tags: death, parent conferences, peeing, Waldorf School