Jew Eat Yet?

Fifteen

 

Today is my daughter Leah’s 15th birthday. She has grown and matured so much during the past year that it just takes my breath away. I’ve been documenting the day of her birth in all sorts of ways since I started this blog. I rambled on and on about her 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th birthdays, but this year the only thing I feel like expressing, the only thing that seems to matter is my love for my first-born child. I feel so full of love for Leah that I am *almost* rendered speechless. She is an amazing person, so full of kindness, authenticity, talent, and creativity. Her love and support during this year of heartbreak, challenge, and joy has been truly life-saving.

The other day I was going through our ancient desktop computer looking for some old files. When my laptop was stolen last year, I lost many photos and videos, including most of the digital footage I had of Leah. As I searched our older computer, my mouth dropped open when I came across two short videos of my daughter that were taken with the first digital camera I ever owned. Tears came to my eyes as I watched the little girl she once was. I feel honored to be able to watch Leah blossom into the woman she is becoming but sometimes it’s hard to let go of that little girl. 

To mark her 15th birthday, we all went to Color Me Mine and hand-painted mugs for Leah which are now being fired in a kiln. I hadn't been in that place since we did the same thing four years ago today when Leah turned 11. Our group today included me, Kendall, Charlie, Leah's mom Sophie, Sophie's parents Claude and Martine who are visiting from Paris, Kendall's mom Betsy, Leah, and three of her close friends. A real blended mishpocha! Charlie even dipped his feet in paint and left his footprints on a mug for his big sister. Hard to believe that when my son turns 15, Leah will be 30 years old! Egads! 

I love you, Leah, and wish you the best that life has to offer as you continue to follow your passion and dance to your own beat. I am so happy to be your dad.

Christmas with the Jews

 

Above is a photo of Leah and Charlie in their matching onesies at the Christmas Eve party we went to at Kendall’s mom’s last night. For all my anti-holiday yammering in years past, I secretly love Christmas and most of what it stands for. I just don’t want to go anywhere near a mall, that’s all. We spent Christmas Eve day with family and friends. My friend Shari is visiting from Chicago and we also spent some time with my daughter’s French grandparents (my ex-in-laws) who are visiting from Paris. Off to Kendall’s sister’s this morning for some more family togetherness. I mostly wanted to add this post so that “Auschwitz” was no longer at the top of my blog on Christmas Day!

I wish everyone who stops by here a warm and fun holiday, surrounded by people you love.  Charlie is having a great first Christmas, even though I keep reminding him that we’re Jewish and don’t believe in that clinically obese negative role model in the red suit. Here are some more photos of Charlie from earlier this week, taken by his Auntie Campbell who gave us a bunch of these framed shots for Christmas.

    

And a few more shots from the Big Day...

 

...and a Happy New Year!   

Jennifer Jones and Auschwitz

 

I guess that title is misleadingly provocative, but both the movie star and the concentration camp were on my mind all weekend. The Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Jones died on Friday at the age of 90. On the same day, the famous iron sign reading “Arbeit Macht Frei” (“Work Shall Make You Free”) was stolen from the gates of Auschwitz. I was repulsed that anyone would steal this sign and flabbergasted that it was possible to do so since this is one of the most (in)famous sites on the planet and the thieves had to cut through rows and rows of barbed wire and metal bars to make off with the heavy iron. Worldwide condemnation was immediate. 

The chairman of Yad Vashem called the act “an attack on the memory of the Holocaust and an escalation from those elements that would like to return us to darker days.” Authorities dispatched police and search dogs into the surrounding forests to look for the thieves. Sound familiar? Except 65 years ago they weren’t looking for a sign in those Polish forests. Dreamed up by the Nazi masterminds of the Final Solution, “Arbeit Macht Frei” represents one of the biggest lies told to the million Jews (and many Poles, homosexuals, and Gypsies) who were murdered at Auschwitz. Yet some people today, especially a growing number of young people in Europe, believe that Auschwitz was primarily a work camp. It may be grossly unfair to make this comparison but I wish government officials around the world back then were one-tenth as concerned about what was happening behind those gates as they now seem to be about the stupid sign. But never fear—after a weekend-long search, the sign (cut into three pieces) was found and the five thieves apprehended in a snowy forest about 400 kilometers from Auschwitz. Wow, where there’s a will…

The United States had aerial reconnaissance photos of Auschwitz as early as April 1944 along with firsthand reports about activities in the death camp. But despite urgent entreaties by many to bomb the tracks to prevent more cattle cars full of human cargo from entering the camps, the Roosevelt administration refused, always offering the excuse that the priority was simply to win the war. 

Two months after American spy planes had flown over Auschwitz, the film “Since You Went Away,” starring Jennifer Jones, premiered in Los Angeles. This is one of my favorite wartime films, focusing exclusively on the travails of those left behind on the homefront. Co-starring Claudette Colbert, Joseph Cotten, a teenaged Shirley Temple, and Jennifer’s real-life husband Robert Walker, this David O. Selznick extravaganza presented a warm and cozy view of all the values that our boys were supposedly fighting for. While pure propaganda, it is a charming film that gets me every time, and I think Jennifer Jones gives one of her best performances. Jones and Walker play young lovers in the film, even though their rocky marriage was crumbling and Jones would soon marry producer Selznick. No matter that he was actively courting her, he still instructed the PR folks to present Jones and Walker as the perfect Hollywood couple, raising their two young boys in total bliss. It was good for the film.

A year earlier, Jones was forced to keep her family on the down-low since the studio was trying to project a different image for her. I wrote about Jones’ Oscar-winning performance in “The Song of Bernadette” several years ago after attending a special screening at the Motion Picture Academy. Jones was supposed to attend but fell ill at the last moment and sent a note instead. 

 

The film depicts the story of a French peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous who, on February 11, 1858, had a vision of the Virgin Mary in the city dump of Lourdes. A spring appeared in the grotto there which quickly became known as a source of healing waters. Thousands still flock to Lourdes every year and some of the reported cases of medical healings are pretty amazing. The Church actually has very strict procedures for classifying true “miracles” and since Bernadette’s time there have been only 66 official proclamations of healing miracles at Lourdes. I’m sure skeptics can explain away the so-called miracles but at the very least they’d have to take a serious look at the recuperative powers of the waters. The Catholic dogma that engulfs “The Song of Bernadette” is a bit much to take but the film does give a nod to those who question the “truth” of Bernadette’s visions. A title card in the opening credits states a line that is uttered later in the film by one of the people who come to accept Bernadette’s stories of the Lady in the Grotto: “To those who believe in God, no explanation is necessary. To those who do not believe in God, no explanation is possible.”

As melodramatic as it is, I always loved “The Song of Bernadette,” particularly Jennifer Jones’ ethereal performance as the peasant girl. Sure, whe was 24 playing 14, but so what? She succeeds in coming off as a true innocent even though the studio couldn’t resist adding a bit of mascara and rouge to the pure visage of her impoverished character. Selznick had lobbied for his discovery to get the part and she beat out many much bigger actresses for the role. In the screen test she had to look at a stick behind the camera and act as if it were the Virgin Mary. According to director Henry King, the other actresses just looked, but Jennifer saw! While she had made several earlier films under the name Phyllis Isley (it was Selznick who came up with Jennifer Jones), 20th-Century-Fox touted “The Song of Bernadette” as her first film and conveniently left out any mention of Robert Walker and their two children in the publicity campaign.

One of the main tensions in the film is between Jennifer Jones’ innocent and somewhat “backward” Bernadette and the devout but ambitious head nun, Sister Vauzous, played by Gladys Cooper. Even when the rest of the skeptical townspeople start believing Bernadette’s story of the Beautiful Lady she saw at the grotto, Sister Vauzous is a hold-out. She torments Bernadette as an attention-seeking lunatic and bitterly wonders why this young girl, who has never suffered a day in her life, should be chosen to receive the apparition of the Holy Mother, when she, Sister Vauzous, is not chosen despite the fact that she works herself to the bone, her gnarled hands, tortured body, and aching eyes serving as testaments to her undying faith. It is only at the end of Bernadette’s young life, when the nun discovers that the girl has been silently suffering from unimaginable pain for many years due to bone cancer, that she finally believes the girl is worthy of the heavenly vision. My Catholic friends concur that this message that terrible suffering is a necessary step to divine salvation was drummed into their heads at every turn (thus creating many lifelong issues). I’m glad that Jews don’t subscribe to that particular creed. In our religion, there are no extra credit points given for suffering great pain in silence. Au contraire—kvetching is practically a religious rite.

Perhaps the most controversial casting in the film was sultry screen siren Linda Darnell as the Virgin Mary. Oy, wouldn’t it have made more sense to have Bernadette’s visions appear as a light on Jones’ awestruck face instead of using sexy pinup girl Darnell, already known for several high profile scandals? To top it off, Darnell was pregnant during the filming! Novelist Franz Werfel wrote the book on which the film was based. He was an Austrian Jew whose books were burned by the Nazis, and when he escaped to France after the Anschluss and found refuge at the Catholic sanctuary in Lourdes, he vowed to one day to “sing the song of Bernadette.” His book was an immediate bestseller with the wartime population desperate for stories that provided inspiration and relief. Werfel sold the story to Hollywood and came out here with his wife, Alma, the renowned former spouse of Gustav Mahler. During the making of the film, Franz Werfel was so horrified to learn about Darnell’s appearance as the Blessed Mother that he threatened to take his name of the picture. But producer Darryl F. Zanuck wouldn’t budge. He just removed Darnell’s name from the credits and lied to Werfel that they were using an unknown actress in the role.

It was only a few weeks ago that I included Jennifer Jones on a list of the remaining stars from the Golden Era. I fear that the actress is largely forgotten today but she made some truly memorable films. In addition to the two I mentioned, I thought she was perfect for MGM’s take on “Madame Bovary” and I was always haunted by her portrayal of Jennie Appleton in the unusual film “Portrait of Jennie.” 

I was less enamored with (but always watch when it’s on TV)  “Love Is a Many Splendored Thing” in which Jones plays Dr. Han Suyin and feels compelled to tell everyone who will listen, “I’m Eurasian, you know.” Her role as “half-breed” Pearl Chavez in David O. Selznick’s “Duel in the Sun” remains a camp classic. Selznick was at his meddling worst during the overblown production of this film. In one famous exchange with the film’s composer, Dimitri Tiomkin, Selznick told him, “You don’t understand, I want real fucking music!” Tionkin angrily replied, “You fuck your way, I fuck my way. Fuck you—I quit!” The two eventually made up and Tiomkin’s music was used in the final film.

Throughout her career, Jennifer Jones somehow managed to keep the Hollywood gossip hounds at bay. This was a remarkable feat considering how big she was and the fact that all three of her husbands—Robert Walker, David O. Selznick, and art collector Norton Simon—were famous in their own right. In her later years, she was on the board of the Norton Simon Museum and worked to promote mental health issues, especially after her daughter Mary Selznick committed suicide. Her decision to stay out of the limelight played a role in her largely forgotten status today but she seemed to prefer it that way. “My mother told me never explain, never complain. Even as a young actress, I determined I would never give personal interviews, since they made me so uncomfortable…I respect everyone's right to privacy, and I feel mine should be respected, too.”

Little Drummer Boy

 

My son is descended from a long line of ultra-orthodox Jews. I wonder what his ancestors from the shtetls of Poland would think of his latest performance as the Baby Jesus? Oh, relax…while I considered going whole hog and creating a life-sized nativity scene for the following video, I ran out of time and simply placed Charlie in a Moses basket to simulate the manger. As if to punish me for my sacrilege, our Jewish pit bull Emma destroyed the basket a few hours later in a fit of righteous indignation.

Every year Neil Kramer creates an online holiday music festival on his blog, Citizen of the Month. It's a wonderful event and I’ve always contributed Hanukkah songs to the concert. But this year, even with Orrin Hatch’s new addition, I couldn’t find a decent ditty about the Maccabees or the Festival of Lights that I cared to record. I also wanted something that would incorporate the new addition to our family. So I jumped across the aisle and sang one of my favorite carols from childhood. There are about a trillion versions of this song floating around, from the David Bowie/Bing Crosby duet I recently posted to versions by everyone from the Trapp Family Singers to Marlene Dietrich to Jessica Simpson. Bob Dylan just recorded a version of the song on his brand new album, “Christmas from the Heart.” Really, Bob? I thought you decided you were Jewish again. (Oy, I should talk.)

Of course the 1968 Rankin-Bass TV special was a holiday staple throughout my childhood. Narrated by Greer Garson, the show featured the Vienna Boys’ Choir singing the popular song. In our video version, Charlie, Leah, and I get help from the Walton kids (yes, those Waltons!) who recorded their own version of the tune years ago.

Enjoy! (And forgive me, ancestors!)

My Daughter, Martha Cratchitt

 

I am the perfect theatergoer. I love the theatre so much that give me a talented cast of actors and a decent script and I am more than willing to be transported to any place or time period in this or any other world. By contrast, I’d never make it as an actor. Besides having zero talent in that direction, I know I’d become incapacitated by grief and depression every time a run of a play came to an end, as if my new family had been mass murdered by a sociopath in the audience. I’ve seen my actress daughter bond with her castmates dozens of times over the years only to be ripped apart on closing night, never to lay eyes on most of them again. She always takes it in stride, in fact I think she enjoys the constant freshness of her casts, but I experience each final curtain call as a kind of a death. How can you be so close to a group of people for so long and then stand by as that particular collection of human beings is blown to bits? To be honest, I’m not sure my attachment/abandonment disorder is limited to the theatre. Part of me always felt that way at the end of a school year or leaving a job, even if I didn’t care for the people involved.

But there’s something special about the theatre. Watching Leah interact with her on-stage family members in her current production of “A Christmas Carol,” I truly believe she is up there with her parents and siblings during those two hours. I am especially moved by Leah’s relationship to her mother and father, the destitute but loving Cratchitts, as played by the very talented Diana Martin and Doug Haverty. I believe every second of their scenes together—the love, the challenges, the sadness over Tiny Tim’s condition, as well as the family’s hopes for the future. Everyone is a joy to watch in this production, including the children. Believe me, I’ve seen plenty of plays starring kids who had no business being within 50 yards of a working theatre—if I had the authority to issue restraining orders banning them from the thespian life, I would do so. But these children are all pros and completely make you believe in their characters. If you want to see this splendid holiday production before it closes on Sunday, you can get tickets here.

Charlie went to his first play the other night. We were worried about taking him and made sure to sit near the exit in case he started crying. We were hoping he’d sleep through the show but he stayed awake the whole time, riveted to every word, especially those spoken by his talented big sister. A new theatre lover is born! Here he is in the theatre with his grandma. Coming from a staunch theatre family, Kendall and her sister Brooke were also dragged taken to many a theatre production starting at a very young age. But were their theatre outfits as cute as Charlie's Christmas pyjamas? 

Leah and I were very disappointed in the new Disney version of "A Christmas Carol" starring Jim Carrey as Scrooge. Great 3-D special effects but I never shed a tear during the whole film. And if you don’t cry when Scrooge changes his entire life and becomes the personification of all that is good about Christmas….well then, that is a failed production. My favorite version of the story is the 1951 film starring the wonderful Alastair Sim. The end of that movie always makes me cry like a baby. I also have a soft spot for the 1938 MGM version starring Reginald Owen as Scrooge and real-life couple Gene and Kathleen Lockhart as the Cratchitts with their real-life daughter June Lockhart playing the role that Leah now has. That film also featured Andy Hardy’s girlfriend Ann Rutherford as the Ghost of Christmas Past.

In Leah’s production, put on by the Group Rep at the Lonny Chapman Theatre in North Hollywood, the spirits of Christmas past, present, and future are handled brilliantly through the use of life-sized puppets and masks. This musical version of the Dickens classic was adapted by Richard Hellesen and David de Berry. And the play makes me cry every time—what more could you ask for? Being a professional theatre, no cameras were allowed inside, but I couldn’t resist taking a few short clips with my cell phone. And, forgive me, I can’t resist posting them here as a remembrance of Leah’s Christmas family. Sorry, Group Rep, and please forgive the sound and image quality and the large bald head of the man sitting in front of me. But I just wanted to record my Martha for posterity. (Soon there will be a restraining order against ME at all local theatres!)

Orrin Hatch Loves the Jews

 

Tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, the eight-day celebration commemorating the rededication of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem after it was trashed by the armies of Syrian King Antiochus in the 2nd century B.C. The Maccabees, a Jewish rebel group, led a successful revolt against the occupying forces and, as most of you probably know, a miracle occurred in that there was only enough consecrated oil to burn in the Temple for one day but it burned for eight days—the time it took for them to prepare and consecrate more olive oil. Nes gadol hayah sham! Hallelujah!

In years past, I’ve written about Hanukkah with a heavy dose of cynicism, decrying the attempts by secular Jews (and corporate America) to turn the holiday into a “Jewish Christmas.” But this year I am full of Hanukkah spirit thanks to the new savior for the Jews: the right-wing Mormon senior senator from Utah, Orrin Hatch. Oy.

Have you heard Hatch’s new Hanukkah song that he penned just for us? “Anything I can do for the Jewish people, I will do,” Hatch told The New York Times. “Mormons believe the Jewish people are the chosen people, just like the Old Testament says.” (Do they also believe that we’re chosen to go to hell since we don’t accept Jesus as the Messiah? Just askin’.)

To be honest, while I disagree with almost everything the ultra-conservative Republican senator stands for (except for his support of stem-cell research), I think it would have been very cool if Orrin Hatch had done what countless Jewish writers have failed to do over the centuries—compose a decent English-language Hanukkah song. And since so many of the great Christmas carols were penned by Jewish writers (“White Christmas,” anyone?) it would only be fitting if Hatch wrote a killer song for his Jewish friends. Given that he wrote the song with Madeline Stone, a Jewish writer of Christian music and that it was recorded by Syrian-American singer Rasheeda Azar, I was hoping that this freak show would rock the house. Except…it doesn’t. Poor Orrin’s song sucks just as bad as “I Had a Little Dreidel.” And as it spreads across the Internet as fast as the Maccabeean Revolt, I’ve seen it described as Hatch’s hip-hop ode to the Jews. Hip-hop? You be the judge:

Yeesh. But thanks for the attempt, Senator Hatch. It’s almost as good as the song “Heal Our Land” which you wrote for your friend George W. Bush’s second inauguration (“Heal our land, Heal our land, Guide us with thy hand, Keep us ever on the path of Liberty.”) In the end, I think the following religious classic retains its title as the best Hanukkah song to date:

Happy Hanukkah to all! May you all enjoy your own miracles this year!

Merry Christmas from the Crosbys

 

Watching Bing Crosby and his young family warble Yuletide classics every December was a staple of my childhood. I don’t know why I looked forward to these Christmas specials so much, they were pretty schmaltzy affairs and tended to feature guest stars I wasn’t that interested in such as Kate Smith, the Lennon Sisters, Mac Davis, and Karen Valentine. Of course sometimes the family, decked out in matching red ensembles with white trim, welcomed guest stars that I was more excited about: old-time friends of Bing's such as Cyd Charisse, Bob Hope, and Fred Astaire and newer stars such as Carol Burnett and, in a now infamous performance, David Bowie. Bowie appeared on the final Christmas special just prior to Bing's death and it was a memorable if somewhat bizarre exchange. Take a look:

I think I was obsessed with the Crosby family for the same reason I was obsessed with other TV families of the era from the Bradys to the Waltons. As my own family was imploding from the nuclear blast of my parents’ ugly divorce, I longed to escape into what I believed to be perfect family harmony and support. It was easy to identify with the Crosbys. Children Harry, Mary, and Nathaniel closely mirrored the ages of Bruce, Sue, and Danny Miller. Mama Kathryn was exactly my mother’s age and just as pretty. While the Millers of Chicago never got together in matching Santa outfits to sing carols as did the Crosbys of Beverly Hills, their public family dynamic satisfied so many of my fantasies about how a healthy functioning family behaves.

I knew Bing was older than Kathryn (by 30 years!) but I still remember the shock and disillusionment I experienced when I found out that in addition to the picture-perfect kids he paraded in front of the cameras every Christmas, Bing had a whole other family from his first wife Dixie Lee. These four boys were never mentioned on the Christmas specials. Why not? 

Turns out all was not so idyllic in the Crosby household. Bing’s first wife suffered from acute alcoholism and died when she was only 40. Son Gary had a brief career in a singing group with his brothers, capitalizing on the Crosby name, but created a permanent rift in the family when he published a memoir called “Going My Own Way” shortly after Bing’s death. In his book, Gary alleged that his dad was physically and mentally abusive to the boys, beating them until they bled and regularly calling them awful names. The extent of the abuse was denied by brother Phillip but largely corroborated by brothers Lindsay and Dennis, both of whom had very difficult lives and later committed suicide by blowing their brain outs. Gary and Phillip also died young, leaving nothing left of Bing’s original family today except a slew of bad publicity and a string of denials by Bing’s widow Kathryn and his second set of children. Is it possible that the allegations against Bing by his oldest son were true while Bing exhibited none of this behavior with his second family? I think so—a lot can happen to someone's parenting style in thirty years. Bing was 55 when his second set of children started to come. Kathryn might have also provided a much more grounding influence than troubled Dixie Lee.

Bing's late-life brood definitely fared better and all seem to have fond remembrances of their papa. Harry Crosby left show biz in the 1980s and became a successful investment banker. Mary Crosby gained fame on the TV show "Dallas" when it was finally revealed that it was her character who shot Larry Hagman's J.R. Ewing. Nathaniel Crosby loved golf as much as his dad and in 1981 at the age of 19 became the youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship, a record that stood until Tiger Woods won in 1994.

Despite their differences in age, I hope that Leah and Charlie never feel part of two different families. I strongly doubt that will happen considering the two of them are inseparable and in no way pitted against each other as Bing's two sets of kids seemed to be at times. Here’s a photo snapped yesterday at Leah’s high school. I brought Charlie to pick her up and was immediately swarmed by gaggles of high school girls who wanted to play with Leah’s adorable baby brother. Nothing makes me more popular than wandering around L.A. with my son strapped to a Baby Bjorn. I hope Leah will never feel the need to pen a book to decry my parenting skills, but, like Bing, I can see the psychological benefits of having young children later in life. I think I’m far less neurotic with Charlie than I was when Leah was a baby, sticking a mirror under her nose every 20 seconds to make sure she was alive and agonizing over every real and imagined slight she experienced from other children.

 

I was moved enough by the death of Bing Crosby in 1977 to send his family a heartfelt condolence note. I received the above reply back from Kathryn Crosby. The card included original and appropriate lyrics penned by Bing himself from a song called “That’s What Life Is All About.” In addition to the lyrics printed on Kathryn’s thank you note, the song included verses such as the following:

Life’s never easy all the time
The hills you climb
Often lead nowhere
Of ups and downs
I’ve had my share
That’s what life is all about.

I've known success
Some mild acclaim
And thinking of it gives me pleasure
And I've had some stress
The scars remain
When Lady Luck gave me short measure.

When things went wrong
I'd fake a smile
But that's my style
'Cause I've been aroundAnd having been being around, I’ve found
That’s what life is all about.

Sing it, Bing. Of course at the end of all of Bing’s holiday specials with his family, he’d gather them around him for a rendition of the most popular Christmas song in history, one that Bing introduced in not one, but two different films. Here’s a clip of my favorite version of this song to round out my salute to Der Bingle and his clans.

I’m Trying to Be a Curmudgeon But My Son Isn’t Letting Me

 

This is how Charlie wakes up most mornings. He opens his eyes and starts smiling from ear to ear. Sometimes he starts smiling just before he opens his eyes. The kid is ruining my act, especially around the holidays. That’s when I’m supposed to be my grumpiest, Scrooge-iest, kvetchiest curmudgeon, railing endlessly against the commercialism of the holidays and how so many aspects of the season turn my stomach. Instead, Charlie’s early morning smiles start me off each day feeling like Scrooge after his transformation. I want to run to the window and throw shillings to the boy passing by in the snow, asking him to buy the biggest turkey in the window and deliver it to the destitute Cratchitts.

I’m constantly amazed at Charlie’s sweet demeanor. I read recently that babies born very prematurely tend to have a much higher threshold for pain. That makes sense, given all that Charlie had to endure during his first five months. After being intubated, poked, and prodded on an hourly basis for so many months, not to mention his six surgeries and constant IV lines, why wouldn’t he be cheerful and continually delighted to be unencumbered by external devices? (Yes, Mr. Evil Eye, I see you sitting there in the corner, threatening to lower the boom as I write about my boy’s happiness and health. Buzz off, please, or you know what will happen. Hint: it involves spitting.)

Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t turned into a complete Stepford Dad just yet, and I’m still a card-carrying Neurotic Jew™ but I must say my tendency to catastrophize every minute of my existence has been tempered quite a bit this year. After going through the hell of losing a child and watching my other son fight for his life, some events that previously would have sent me over the edge have lost their power. Like on Thanksgiving when we had a waterfall of raw sewage pouring out of our 100-year-old pipes. Yawn. Or an hour ago when a car speeding out of an alley on La Brea plowed into me. Big whoop. I wasn’t hurt but my car was damaged. The guy admitted he was completely at fault and as luck would have it, he worked at a body shop a block away which is fixing my car for free. Does that sound like a scam? Like a dentist passing out candy or an orthopedic surgeon tripping people? Nah, I actually trusted this guy who seemed genuinely sorry. Maybe that’s part of my new post-visitation Scrooge mentality.

I do find myself missing our other son, Oliver, more and more each day. I hesitate to write about that because I don’t want people to feel the need to repeat any condolences or to offer their opinions on my grief process. I'm finding that the weight of this grief comes in definite waves. And the more Charlie grows and spreads his brilliant aura to all those he meets, the more I wonder what Oliver would be like and how he would be part of this wonderful time in our family. The sadness is not debilitating and takes nothing away from my time with Charlie, but I see that this particular grief doesn’t seem to lessen with time, it seems to get stronger, or let’s say more “in focus.” I'm thinking a lot about the 4-month-old boy and 18-month-old girl who died the same month as Oliver, beloved children of two bloggers I read regularly. I ache for those families. And I'm thinking about the two people I know who committed suicide this year. I’m so sad that neither of them saw another way out and I feel for the pain that their loved ones are going through, especially at this time of the year.

 

Since I’m already off the tracks in terms of “daddyblogging” in this post, here is a photo taken yesterday of a late-night cuddle between Leah and Charlie. I ask you, how could I possibly hold onto my curmudgeonliness with scenes like this going on in my house? It was great having Leah home for a rare performance-free night. As I mentioned, she’s been working like a dog all fall rehearsing for two shows, including a great production of “A Christmas Carol” you are all invited to attend. Here’s a promo of that show that the theatre put out. You can spot Leah in two scenes—she's the beautiful dancing redhead who looks like she just walked out of 1843. The guy playing my alter ego, Ebenezer Scrooge, is a wonderful actor named Christopher Winfield who makes me cry every time he transforms from pain-in-the-ass miser to holiday lovebug. 

Bah! Humbug! Happy Holidays!