Breathe In, Breathe Out

Today is Ziggy's yahrzeit...the 17th anniversary of his death on the Hebrew calendar, the 16th of Sivan. His 73rd birthday happened to have been last Friday, the 29th of May. 

In real time, his birthday in 2009 was on a Friday; we had a rollicking Shabbat dinner...complete with the traditional angel food cake with chocolate frosting. My folks had flown in, the Senior Son was home for the weekend, and the Junior son and future Mrs. Junior Son were going to have their tenai'im...their official betrothal....on Sunday. It was a heck of a weekend.  Ziggy witnessed the document, we all signed around him, my machatenista and I broke a plate with a hammer, and everyone yelled MAZEL TOV, even though our hearts were all breaking because we all knew he would not be at the wedding in the fall.

My Steve left the building the next Sunday evening, after sunset. 

This year, the timing just seems too eerily close. And I don't feel like writing much of anything at all. So here's ZJOD published from May 29th, 2002. 

The Tip o'the Day is eerily prescient. 

Adjusting for time zone differences, I was born, almost to the exact
hour, on the 500'th anniversary of the fall of Constantinople to the
Turks.  This coincidence is a triviality of such small historical
import that even my mother, who took her master's degree in history,
never mentioned it.

To memorialize that long-ago military victory in our family's own
special way, I was unwittingly duped into accompanying the wifely
person and junior son to a 500+ person surprise party.  They enticed
me there by claiming it was the local high school's annual athletic
awards banquet.  On the way to the venue, I bluntly told the wifely
person that this event had better not be a front for some sort of
surprise party because, at my newly advanced age, I just couldn't
take those sorts of surprises any more.

She just smiled and said, "Oh, Honey... I know how you hate that
sort of thing.  I would never do that to you."

This woman can't lie to save her life.

But I have to tell you, I was almost sucked in.

Upon being seated, we were all treated to rubber chicken followed by
a nearly endless array of coaches, each describing in exquisite
detail the determination, work ethic, forthrightness and true grit
of this year's crop of student athletes.  The junior son's name was
even mentioned a couple of times.

Just as the event was apparently winding down, Matt, the school
athletic director (who I've known fairly well for most of the junior
son's high school tenure, and who is a fairly accomplished jokester
in his own right), stepped to the podium.  The entire room grew
silent as he scanned the crowd.  Finally, his gaze swept in my
direction...  and stopped.  Without saying a word, he held my gaze
while he reached into a shirt pocket and took out a folded sheet of
paper.

"Oh, Hell!" I thought.  "The wifely person's put him up to this.
Now he's going to announce it's my birthday and then 500 people are
going to sing that stupid `Happy Birthday' song and I'm going to
have to sit here and act like I enjoy it."

He adjusted the microphone.

In near panic, I began to wonder if it wasn't too late to dive under
the table before the spotlight swung in my direction.

Finally, he spoke.  "Hey, everybody!"  he said with a big grin while
staring right at me, "Thanks for coming!"

Boy!  Was I ever surprised!


On that cake-coffee-and-presents-at-home-later-with-Walter-Mitty
moment, Ziggy's Joke o' the day is from Wendy:

	A man's perfect breakfast:

	He's lying in bed.
	He just got laid.
	She just left.
	He is on the cover of the Wheaties box.
	He's single,
	and his girlfriend is on the cover of Playboy!

	A woman's perfect breakfast:

	She's sitting at the table.
	Her son is on the cover of the Wheaties box.
	Her daughter is on the cover of Business Week.
	Her boyfriend is on the cover of Playgirl,
	and her husband is on the back of the milk carton.

                             Ziggy's Tip o' the day:

	Next time you think that getting older is bad, consider the
	alternative.

       

                            

Collateral Damage

Today was my mom's fifth yahrzeit. The Senior Son, the Junior Son, and my Big Brother put in appearances at zoom minyan this morning. Everyone got to say something about Mom/Bubbe. She was a towering presence in all our lives. The Senior Son stated what we all knew to be true....never get on her bad side. As some who spent waaaay too much time on her shit list, I can say with absolute certainty it was never much fun. But I learned lots of lessons in the proverbial dog house.... many of them actually useful. Of course, I've never mastered the art of getting FIVE knuckles in my mouth at once during periods of duress. She was a world champion knuckle biter. As much she drove me crazy, which she did on a regular basis, (admittedly a short trip,) I miss my mom a lot. I miss the secret signals, the eye rolls, and "the look." All moms have one, y'know, the look that can stop a clock mid-tick. I miss the sympathetic sighs, the conspiratorial chuckles, and her favorite question: what is this really about?

I was thinking about how she would've handled this pandemic thing while I was queueing up for my Johnson&Johnson single dose vaccine. See, I got the email that my number came up in the county Sunday morning at 10:15. With a single click and a few answers to confirm, I had an appointment at 5:00 at the Viking Hell (aka Vikings Training Facility) right by the old house. The hardest part was waiting to be let into the parking lot. After that, it was pleasantly and remarkably easy. Everyone was lovely and cheerful. I didn't wait 2 minutes before I was shown to a chair and a lovely nurse with what I suspected was a lilting Jamaican accent was swabbing my arm. I was led to another chair, where I could read my book for the 15 minutes until I could go home. Piece o'cake. Door-to-door, it was about 45 minutes worth of pleasantness. 

Driving home, I got to thinking about how Mom would've been driving her doctors crazy about getting Dad vaccinated. She would've been driving me crazy about me getting vaccinated. She would've taken on Bucks County on behalf of my Big Brother and Sister-in-Law to straighten out the mess there, and get them vaccinated. She had a low tolerance for ineptitude, and a lower tolerance for stupidity. I think she would've been okay with my vaccination experience....but only if there had been a Ben's hot dog and half-sour pickles after the event. If nothing else she was practical.

Over 500,000 people have died in the US alone from COVID and its complications. That's a lot of grieving families. That's a whole lotta kids, grandkids, and probably great grandkids who have lost adults who are significant in their lives. I know the grief I experienced with the loss of Ziggy. I had but a few years before I lost FIL, followed by my folks. There are times I think my heart is total Swiss cheese from the number of holes punched through its walls.  Every time I light a yahrzeit candle, I grieve for the life it represents. I try to remember the whole person, not just the good parts. It's important to me that I remember who that was in my life. Some are easier than others. 

Unlike September 11th, there is no date-of-disaster for a pandemic. It stretches out, it lingers, it seems unable to abate. We are all tired of a battle that seems to have no end in sight. Governors lifting mask requirements only play into the foolish-is-as-foolish-does division of government. Have they yet to understand how this disease spreads? In appeasing the anti-mask mob, are they willing to risk more deaths? Apparently so. I totally understand that their state economies are suffering and they want "normal." I get it. But they should, at the same time, post a warning label in that: "Removing your mask increases your risk of infection and death," like the warning on cigarette packs. 

Ziggy would've said this is evolution in action, and I would have to agree with him. It's like the flood and the rowboat joke: 

Sam: G-d, I trusted you! How could you let me drown? 

G-d: Let you drown???? Sam! I sent you a rowboat, then a speed boat,  then a helicopter.... 

You get the idea.

In the years to come, there will be more and more memorials, yahrzeit candles, and moments of silence to remember the sheer number of people who died. Those monuments will not quite stretch to embrace those collateral damage deaths...the ones who could not carry on with a broken heart, the ones left destitute by the pandemic economy and died of poverty, the ones who go unrecorded as pandemic deaths due to this monumental tragedy. There are so many other ways to die when your world is collapsing around you. We will grieve as a nation for a long time when this tide is finally turned. 

And we will blame. Americans are really good at that. We, the People, will find one scapegoat or another at which to point a finger saying, they are to blame for this misfortune. Accepting our own role in how this happened will be rare indeed. 

We will grieve as individuals. There is just no way around that. And I'm sure there will be some Monday in March called Pandemic Memorial Day because, after all, we have National Donut Day and National Bacon Day and National Spam Day.......

What we don't have and seriously need is National Responsibility Day.

Good luck with that. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Day

Walking into Viking Hell for my shot, 

a young Minnesota National Guardsman said "Hey! How's it going for you today?"

I grinned as I said, "Happy to be here getting my shot!"

And he said, "I bet you have a great smile!"

I replied, "How can you tell? I'm wearing double masks!"

And he made my day when he said, 

"I see it in your eyes."

Folks, remember to smile even when you're wearing a mask...

someone will see it in your eyes.