The Practical Prejudices of Konrei's Father

I've been thinking about my Dad today. Actually, there haven't been any days that I don't think about him. I was discussing the meaning of the Statue of Liberty with someone, and it made me think about the day my Dad first saw the Statue of Liberty, which was January 1, 1947. He'd made the Northern Passage in winter and was violently seasick all the way, which may be why my father never got into sailing when I did. 

But here he is in Key West. That's not a MAGA hat. It's an FBI hat (in microprint it says "Female Body Inspector"). My Dad liked the hat, my Mom not so much, and "some schmuck" swiped it at some point, much to my mother's relief. Was there connivance? I don't know. 

My friend's remarks about Lady Liberty made me think of my Dad's prejudices. He had them, and they were weird. They were practical prejudices. My father hated no one because they were any of the usual suspects. The worst word I ever heard him use that might be considered "racial" was "Schvartzer" and since "Schvartzer" means "black person" in Yiddish and my Dad grew up speaking Yiddish, I think he can be forgiven for calling black people black people. 

He didn't have those kinds of prejudices. He might have complained that undocumented aliens should get in line (after all, he did!) but explain to him that they were fleeing war and death squads and that there were kids involved, and my father would start talking to my mother about making up the guest room. 

He despised people who gamed the system (i.e., "welfare cheats") but only because people who cheated were taking unfair advantage of people who weren't cheating. He couldn't give a damn about the system itself. "For what they spend on one airplane they could feed twenty people for a year." On the whole, he thought the government did a "shitty job" of taking care of the poor, the sick, the old, the disabled, and little kids, and he was all for increasing benefits. 

He'd unionized his job. 

He disliked bosses. He disliked cops. On the whole, he disliked anyone in a position of authority, or at least he didn't trust them: "Don't ever totally trust anyone in a uniform. Power makes people crazy." 

He would know. 

I think he was the only white guy in America who thought O.J. should walk. And because Mark Fuhrman was a liar who'd messed with the evidence. "I think he's a Nazi," my father would hiss at the TV. 

From the time I was very small my father would tell me that I would never really understand anyone until I'd walked a mile in their shoes. When I read "To Kill A Mockingbird" for the first time, Atticus' advice to Scout didn't particularly impress me even though it's the crux of the story. My Dad had been saying the same thing to me for years. He'd never read "To Kill A Mockingbird." I'm pretty sure he'd never even heard of it, at least until I rented the VHS tape in the 1980s. All he said was, "Isn't that Gregory Peck? This is an old movie. Black and white. Oh, he's right."

So, here's to my Dad, FBI Special Agent nonpareil, union organizer, fighter for social justice, enemy of Fascists, my own personal Atticus Finch, and the man who taught me that fairness was something you could strive for, not just see as an ideal.

The Oak and The Aspen Tree

FRIENDS WHO GO DARK --- THE OAK AND THE ASPEN TREE:

  

This has been on my mind a bit lately, maybe because it's the shank of sailing season up north. Years ago, when I crewed regularly on two boats every week (and irregularly on others from time to time) I had a friend who was what we'd call in the Sailing Fraternity a "Stalwart Shipmate" (yes, we liked to sound like we were rounding the Horn while we were piddling across Long Island Sound and invading New England on beer runs), and he was a good friend on dry land as well. 


After I left the great North Shore and moved to the Spanish Main (that being Miami), he and I kept in touch regularly, and when I traveled back to New York I always managed to visit with him.

And then, one time, I called him (from Florida); he didn't pick up, and never returned the call. Thinking that "Everybody has lives" I didn't think anything of it, and from time to time tried again. No response. Finally, after a few attempts over the course of time, I left a very precise message:


"I don't know why you don't return my calls. I have to assume it is by choice. If I have done anything to offend you I am not aware of it. Please call me so we can clear the air. If I don't hear from you after this, so be it. This will be my last call. But I hope I do hear from you."
 
Nothing.

Most of my friends are people I've known for many years (Sandra Daum Berger were talking the other day about how we've known each other for about 40 years, and I've known Karen Wagner Peters for over 50). Literally lifelong. And during those decades there have been times when we haven't kept in regular touch, but we also never lost touch or lost track of each other. There have been people who have come and gone, but I consider myself very fortunate to know people who have stood the test of time, and more than a few. And there are people who are more recent, but whom I believe will be around for a long time, like Claudia Banta and Bud Jiho and Debra Myoan Annane, my sangha family, and others.
 
I'm troubled by the fact that some of these people have chosen to "go dark" recently. We all have lives and issues, and as we're growing a bit older some of those issues are becoming more serious --- our own health concerns, concerns (as I understand) about aging parents, issues with grown children who may be in need in this "wonderful" economy, issues with spouses.
We are at a time of life when mutual support has become utterly crucial, and far too many of us are not getting that support. 
 
I know far too many men who have NO FRIENDS except their wives; they are completely isolated, utterly within themselves, and their only socialization outside of home consists of beer-drinking and watching the Giants trounce the Pats on Sunday afternoon. But they can't confide in their beer buddies. It wouldn't be "manly." Whatever that means. And unless a man is fortunate enough to organically develop a "bromance" (in which all the world becomes a buddy movie) he can't turn his Sunday crew into an encounter group. I recently came across one guy who was desperate to be "wanted" by his wife; he went so far as to break down tearfully in front of her, to which she responded by telling him how much he did for her, how much he was valued --- in short, how much he was "needed." That's a very different thing, and he felt worse than before. The poor bastard. 

Men are made to suffer in silence because our vulnerability equals our own destruction. I have been around just long enough to have learned that that is utterly wrong, but there are men out there who will disagree with me until the day they die. The poor bastards. 

Such men are the types who engage in adolescent dick-measuring contests when they are no longer adolescents, the types who call "dibs" on women they see at a distance (this goes on even among adult males, sadly), the ones who tell the bad jokes we laugh at in some embarrassment --- "Hey, what's that useless piece of flesh around the vagina? It's called a woman!" --- the types who turn every interaction with another male into a contest, as I experienced a while back: "Thanks, dude! You just fucked up any chance I had of getting laid!" It was disrespectful on several levels and I didn't like it, not one bit, so I responded, "Oh, well. You could always go fuck yourself." He wasn't worth any more than that. But he was just stupid, and I'd seen it happen before, so I still felt a little sorry for him. The poor bastard. 

And I say poor bastards because they just don't know any better. Hopefully, they will learn as I did and they will know better, but I'll vouch for the fact that that learning curve is paved with broken glass. That curve leaves wounds, but not of the obvious kind. 

Many men, too many, are too conditioned to macho-ing it out, to taking the beating, to valuing their wounds and scars not for the experience they represent but for the appearance they create. 

In 19th Century Germany, swordcraft was still an art, and it was commonplace for young men to allow themselves to be cut about the face as proof of their masculinity. Of course, the idea that only a less-adroit swordsman would allow an enemy within their defenses to be wounded held no currency. The reality is that the most skilled swordsman is the one with the least scars.

And even I've seen fights where men literally kept getting themselves hurt to prove how much they could stand. Until they literally couldn't stand any more. And fell down. But they were proud of themselves. Even lying in their own blood they laughed. 

There's a misapprehension about evolution, that somehow only the strongest survive, which is taken to mean the largest, most muscular, toughest, most stoic, and the most inflexible, standing against all challenges like a stone wall (to reference an old Civil War moment), but Zen says that in a windstorm the aspen tree is more fortunate than the oak. We need to teach ourselves to be aspen trees. Too many of our oaks die too young. I must have about a dozen people now on my Facebook Friends List who are simply "Remembered." A grove of oaks which I honor with my own peculiar druidry.


We are living through a strange and, dare I say, evil period in our cultural history. This may surprise many of you --- I was never very political. I also was a Republican for 25 years and considered myself moderately conservative, by which I meant "live and let live." I never gave a damn about who married who, or whether you chose to terminate your pregnancy --- that wasn't my business --- and I believed --- and still believe --- that Civil Rights are universal and not based on classes, protected or otherwise. Everybody gets to vote in my universe, everybody gets to access the social safety net, and you even get to keep your goddamn guns if you behave responsibly with them. 

Politically, the most I would say is that I was a Progressive (they used to be Republicans) and a Bull Moose, after my favorite President, Col. Roosevelt. 

My cousin Keith was the real politician in our family, and we would debate --- not argue, debate --- the issues of the day. As the GOP drifted into Jesusland and then into Naziland I realized that it had no place for me. Now I'm fighting fascists in my own country. I'm sorry if some of my Trump-supporting friends and relatives took umbrage at my outrage and cut off contact, but I am fighting in my own way for a better America where we are all created equal. "With malice toward none, and charity for all," to quote my second favorite President, also a Republican. 

As usual I've digressed, but it's all to a point. I have friends who have "gone dark" on me, long-term friends, and even a few relatives. It troubles me. Life is too damned short for long silences. If the reason is political, I call bullshit on it. Long after the worms have eaten Trump's eyeballs and other balls we will still be kith and kin, so knock it the fuck off. Am I really worth so little to you? Because you are worth much more than Trump to me. 

I've tried contacting several of these people. I know they get the messages. They don't respond. I don't know why. Sickness? Divorce? I don't have a clue.Like my "stalwart shipmate" of years passed by, they choose to remain silent. I'll respect that decision, but I don't like it a bit. Listen, you idiots, I love you. If you are having troubles I am here for you. If I can help, I will. That's the message. 

I can't make anybody pay attention, but damn it all, it's about time we all started paying attention to one another again. Life would suddenly become infinitely better if we did. We ought to try it.




Be an aspen tree. There's plenty of time yet to be an oak.

A Family Remade

This meme popped up on someone's feed somewhere last night and it gave me a gentle punch in the gut. It's so true. I have been living with grief for a long time. It's been like the shadow cast by my desk lamp. It hasn't been a friend, but it has been a teacher. 

I was heartbroken when my cat Nuts died of diabetes; he was only six and it was 2004, and I cried hard, especially because he was the smartest cat I ever met. We could actually speak to one another, and he had a vocabulary of a couple of hundred sounds. He could very clearly say, "No." 

"Do you want this?" 

"No." 

He liked to eat the back end of my roast beef subs ("heros" for my NY friends) and he liked spaghetti, and he was very picky about his TV shows (seriously; he liked wildlife documentaries). Anyhow, he died fairly suddenly, and it's always nice to talk about him, but I'm getting a bit off-topic. 

The grief started back in 2004, but it didn't end. 2007 was the beginning of an end for me. On Halloween night of that year, Hope's younger son Bronson rolled an SUV on an icy road in Indiana. Blind drunk, he survived the crash, but the truck had stood up on its nose, throwing him down into the well under the steering wheel. His six foot frame was jackknifed double into that tiny space, and his spine was broken in seven places. He was rendered paraplegic, and for months hung between life and death. 

I remember that night too well. I had actually ended my relationship with Hope at the end of September; there was too much weirdness with her Flavor of The Week, and I was in no fit state to tolerate it at that point; but when she called, hysterical, screaming, weeping into the phone that Bronson was in a car accident, that he was dying, that she needed to go to him, I did the right thing --- She called at 4:00 AM, and by 6:30 she was on a flight out of Fort Lauderdale. You do what's right. 

The Flavor of The Week had blown her off. Bronson was in a coma for weeks. She stayed with him the whole time. She was already sick with the Polycythemia Vera that would kill her (even though it had not been diagnosed yet) but she fought off her own symptoms and focused on her boy. The next few years of strain and stress and sorrow probably accelerated her own decline. She died in early 2013, and Bronson himself died in September of 2013. At least she didn't have to live through losing that child. 

The grief became vast when my Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2007. I can't describe what that felt like. It was a death sentence pronounced, and every day I watched my father disappear a little more, a polaroid going in reverse. I suppose to some extent we were lucky. Dad remembered Mom and Stacey and I right up until the end, and he never went down into that vegetative darkness where he was on a feeding tube and lying in a fetal position. But when he died, my robust father weighed only 104 pounds. He was frighteningly cathectic, a walking wraith. It all started with a minor fall in the Alzheimer's facility where we'd moved him after my Mom could no longer care for him, and his injury (which was very minor) turned out to be not the thing that killed him, but the gateway to a kind of institutionalized neglect, where the hospital staff decided he was too much trouble to worry about. I learned that the pattern was common in hospitals with average patients much over eighty. They simply made a decision that THIS patient as opposed to THAT patient wasn't worth the effort. If he'd been a corporate CEO or an ex-President I am 100% certain he would have survived that crisis, at least for awhile. 

It all began to take its toll on me. In 2009, I suffered two herniated discs and ran my black Solara convertible up a palm tree one night when I fell asleep behind the wheel after a particularly exhausting day. I broke my back, and spent six weeks hospitalized and in rehab. Hope and I were living together again, and she looked after the cats and after me. I spent my 49th birthday in the rehab hospital. She brought a cake and balloons, and fell asleep in my bed, exhausted. She was already dying, but we didn't know it.

My Dad died on March 15, 2010. When I came home from his funeral on March 18th I found my cat Reba dead on my bedroom floor. Reba had been a "gezuntah" cat, a big and muscular girl. I always said that Reba would have been hanging out in a bar and playing pool with the guys with a cigarette dangling from her lips if she'd been a human. But I'd never seen a cat so obviously in love with a human being (that being me). She'd pet my nose while I was sleeping, and if I went out of town whoever I asked to look after my cats would tell me that they'd find Reba in the same place every time. Perched on the end of my bed. Petted, she'd hiss. She was MY cat, and only my cat. I had noticed that she was looking a bit thinner lately, but nothing to talk about. But during the weeks that my Dad was declining, weeks when I was rarely at home, she lost a lot of weight. One day I petted her and realized she was skin and bones, but my overwhelmed mind didn't have the ability at that point to process any more sadness and worry. A part of me kept thinking that maybe she wasn't eating much because i wasn't home much. I assume she had some rapidly progressing cancer. So the day I buried my father, I took Reba to the vet's to be cremated. Poor Reba. She didn't even get her own grief time. 

About six months later, my little calico, Jasmine died. That was also very sudden. Kidney failure. She'd had some dental problems which had been treated, and I think the process stressed her. She was only 12 (the same age as Reba), early for a cat to go. Jasmine was very special. She was the only one of my cats ever to have a litter (when she was barely out of kittenhood herself) and she never really grew to adult size. She'd given everything to her babies, Simba and Sylvester, adopted by Stacey, and they'd grown into two gigantic cats (Sylvester weighed more than 30 pounds). Jasmine never forgot what it was to be a Mommy cat. She was gentle, and even people who disliked cats liked Jasmine. I've written a lot about her over time. It's at Konrei Zen, on July 16, 2014. 

 

Jasmine died on September 10th of that hideous year of 2010. 

About six months after Dad passed away, I remember having a discussion with my mother about the dirt on the driveway. She was living alone, coping with my father's loss in ways I will never comprehend, and was fixated on the damned driveway, again for reasons I can't comprehend. She wanted to wash it down. I had once taken a header on the wet driveway, and broken a hand, and I kept telling her it was dangerous to muck around alone and to let the best driveway cleaning service in the world do its job. "Who's that?" "It's called 'rain', Mom." 

Of course, she didn't listen. One Sunday (I wasn't there) she tripped over the garden hose, broke her femur, and aspirated. She ended up with life-threatening pneumonia and on a respirator. Every day I traveled from my place in Boca to Delray hospital, and then to Select Specialty Hospital, a respiratory center, until she was out of danger and could breath on her own. I don't know how many weeks that was. It felt like months. I lived off M & Ms, Wendy's and Coca-Cola with three hours sleep a night for a long time. Mom recovered eventually, but she always used a walker after that, and she always had respiratory issues afterward. And so went 2011. 

 

My cousin Keith died suddenly in February of 2013, and Hope died in April, and I've talked about that many times. My Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015, and died (after beating the cancer) on March 15, 2017, seven years to the day after my father. 

Just re-reading this post has been alarming. Did I survive all this? Am I still sane? How many tears have I wept? To say that the last ten years or so have changed me is an understatement. I'm first learning how much. But now, after this long digression, I've come to the point --- 

Grief is love, unexpressed and sorrowful, for the object of that love has been taken away (on the physical plane) and will not return (in the same form). But if you have a surfeit of love to give, and the depth of your grief is a measure of the depth of your love, then find someone or something, or many someones or somethings, to give that love to. Love is, as lawyers say, fungible. You can spread it around and it doesn't decrease or thin out, miraculously. 

Despite all the pain and loss, I am so so very fortunate, blessed, gifted, to have found people in my life to love. I know that my parents, my friends, that those who are gone, would never object to giving these people, old and newer, the love that has been gathering in the corners of my eyes and in the lump in my throat for so many years now. Not so long as they are worthy of that love, and I believe that they are. Just a week ago I realized that the hollow in my chest was filled for the first time in years.

Grief is love with no place to go? I have found places.

So, thank you, my loves. You may not know one another, but you know who you all are. You are my family remade.