Musings of a Jewish Mom

Tag: family

  • Jeff

    This Thursday, May 1st, 2025 would have been my brother Jeff’s 62nd birthday. This is the first birthday that I can’t say happy birthday to him in person.

    I really loved/still love my little brother. Just because I can no longer see him in his physical form does not mean I love him any less, perhaps more. 

    Jeff and I shared a love for many of the same things: books, music, comedy in any form, films, and God, although he probably would have called it Higher Power.

    My brother’s life was shaped by being born with a broken heart (literally). From infancy my parents’ had the knowledge that their baby boy had a serious birth defect (more than one actually). As he got older the effects of these defects became more and more apparent. The blue fingernails and progressively bluish tint to his lips was an outward sign we could all see. He couldn’t do sports as a little boy although I know he would have really liked to. So he used the muscle that he could use which was his very agile brain. Boy was he smart. At a very young age I remember he knew every US President by heart and could recite it for you. He was an avid reader and a really good piano player. 

    His life was also punctuated by frequent visits to a pediatric cardiologist who specialized in congenital defects. My parents had to go into Manhattan each time he had a checkup, which they tried to make into something pleasant by taking him to a different restaurant each time (there are plenty there to choose from).

    Some time after his Bar Mitzvah the doctor really sounded the alarm that if Jeff did not undergo open heart surgery soon he would be lucky to make it to age 18. My parents were very very scared since this was still relatively new surgical territory.

    But at age 16 Jeff had his first open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic. I was privileged to be there to help my mother, who, needless to say, was very very nervous. Again, at age 18, Jeff needed to undergo a second open heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic. I went with him and my mother to be a support. I distinctly remember the day of this second surgery, October 6, 1981. As my mother and I sat anxiously in the waiting room while they operated on Jeff, the news came on the television that Anwar Sadat had been shot to death. Most older Americans can recall what they were doing when they heard that JFK or MLK was shot. Younger Americans can tell you what they were doing when they heard about the destruction of the Twin Towers. I can add to that memory repertoire with my recall of the moment that I heard that Sadat had been killed. It was a particularly painful moment as his death made me a lot more skeptical that peace would take place in the Middle East.

    Back to Jeff. Thank God he recovered and went on to live a productive and sober life. He became a librarian and married a human angel named Cindy. He was the proud stepfather of Charlie and Lucinda and the proud pet dad of many a fur baby. 

    He had a great sense of humor and we both shared a love of the absurd. 

    This Thursday, on his birthday, I will be getting my left eye surgically enhanced. I like to believe this is Jeff’s birthday gift to me. Since he no longer needs a physical gift from me, he is giving me one. May this gift of balanced, clear vision enable me to give something back to this world. My brother Jeff was all about service. He ministered to countless alcoholics in their hour of need. May my new vision be part of his legacy, and that this gift will be used in the spirit of service. Amen.

  • Do I Look Fat in These Genes?

    I really loved my paternal grandmother. She was an amazing woman, brilliant, multilingual, and tough as nails. Because of her determination and quick thinking, she was able to get my father’s family out of Austria just in the nick of time. She was a Polish Jew who emigrated to Austria when she married my grandfather who was an Austro-Hungarian Jew. She was probably the only literate person (except perhaps for the Catholic priest) in the small country bumpkin town that they lived in. Other villagers used to come to her to read the letters they had received or to write ones when anything official came up. She spoke Polish, Yiddish, Hungarian and German fluently when the family still lived in Kittsee. When, not by choice, the family moved to Shanghai in 1938, she adapted and learned Cantonese, Japanese, Russian, English and many of the other myriad languages that were spoken in the Hongkew Ghetto in which they lived. She was so smart that she not only learned these languages but learned them fluently. I can still remember when I was about 6 or 7 she told me I was an instigator. A what? I had never heard that word before and when I looked it up in the dictionary I was very upset. Was I a bad girl? But the point is that even though English was far from her first language she knew it well enough to admonish me with a less common word. That’s smart.

    But…she was a short, fat woman with very flabby underarms. I loved my grandma but boy those batwings were really not pretty. Fast forward to me now, also a Jewish grandma. Besides inheriting her affinity for language, I inherited her figure and her batwings. Boy do I dislike those batwings. I google: how do I get rid of batwings but the solutions always involve exercise so that’s not going to happen. So I’ve got my affinity for language and I’m a short, fat, and now old Jewish woman.

    Do I look fat in these genes?

  • Wonder

    There are some days that are so extraordinary that one must stop and wonder. This past Friday was one of those days. 

    So it was Good Friday according to the Christians. For me it was the day preceding Erev Shabbat of Shabbat Shira, a very significant day of the Jewish calendar. All of that is just interesting background but maybe on a cosmic level something was going on.

    I woke up that morning with a plastic shield on my right eye, which had just had cataract surgery the day before. I could barely see due to the copious amounts of surgical tape that I had affixed there to make sure the shield did not move under my CPAP machine the night before.

    I went to the eye doctor to have the shield removed and to have my renewed eye examined. All good. For the first time in over 50 years I can see out of my right eye without glasses. Hallelujah!

    I came home and shortly thereafter called the South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter to inquire if a dog I had applied for was still available. She is, they said, but there is a family looking at another dog who also want to look at her. Deep breath. I must be philosophical about this. If this dog, who I think is meant to be my dog, is adopted by another family, then she really was not meant to be my dog.

    We drive down to the shelter. When we get there I ask, “is Olive Oyl still available for adoption?” Yes, she is.

    We meet her and inside I am saying “Yes!” as she snuggles up to my ankles. I know this is our new family dog.

    So all of this is amazing in and of itself but not the point where wonder comes in. So in August 2023 our family lost our beautiful dog Eevee after almost 10 years. The grief hit us all hard, particularly my kids. Eevee was such a special girl. She was our “biker chick” huntress. She was so sweet with all of our family but let another dog or any other non-human creature come into her purview and she was a fierce warrior. Sadly, many a small rodent met its demise due to her extraordinary hunting skills. She was, like all of us, a unique blend of attributes—by turns cuddly and cute or fearsome predator. 

    What’s interesting is that in the time since her passing we wondered many times, do we get a new dog? is it too soon? is it ok? Does it mean we don’t love Eevee if we get a new dog?

    We went to the shelters in our area on numerous occasions over the last year and a half. There were a couple of maybes but never the yes.

    Until Friday. So, where the wonder comes in for me is this. When we had been looking for a dog before we got Eevee we also looked and looked. We went to the shelters near us many many times and even traveled to Philly as well. We ended up finding Eevee at what was then known as Cumberland County Animal Shelter.

    Fast forward to April 18, 2025. Cumberland County Animal Shelter is now known as South Jersey Regional Animal Shelter. This is where we had to go back to to find our new family member. It was like coming full circle, as if Eevee was giving her blessing in this adoption. 

    We will never ever forget Eevee or love her any less now that Lily (formerly known as Olive Oyl) has joined our family. But it is as if Eevee is saying to us, it’s ok family, I know you loved me and still love me. I’m ok now but little Lily really needs a family and I sent you to her. Please take her home and take good care of her like you did with me. 

    Thank you Eevee for all that you did for us and for giving your blessing for adopting Lily.

    Thank you Lily for trusting us to take care of you and becoming a new member of our family. We will do our best to give you a great life with lots of walkies and pets.

    Thank you Universe for showing me that Life and Death, Joy and Sorrow are part of one seamless Circle. 

    Now if only I could remember this beautiful sentiment while I’m waiting on hold on a phone call while an AI assistant is not understanding what I need from customer service! The challenge is taking these lofty awarenesses that are apparent at these peak moments of life and incorporating them into the everyday, mundane activities. Thank you for the lofty and the mundane. May it always be so.

    Eevee and Lily