Here's a map marking the exact location of the bench -
View Karen's Bench in a larger map
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Prospect Park bench and angels again?
Today I got an email from the Prospect Park Alliance to let me know that the plaque on the bench adopted in memory of Karen and James had been installed. I still want and plan to have of a small-ish ceremony to commemorate it, but with the last minute word it would be hard, if not impossible, to arrange for it to happen before I left for Israel on Monday. But I wanted to see it, so tonight I went with my mother for a first visit.
For those of you in New York, you know what a beautiful day it was and the park was very crowded with people enjoy the perfect spring weather. It was the right kind of day to see it. There was a vibrancy and energy in the park and I'm glad I went. I had wanted to take a picture of the entire bench showing where it is located, but there was someone sitting at the other end of it and I didn't think it proper to impose on him to be in the picture or ask him to move. Here, however, is a close up snap shot of the plaque itself:
I will take another picture when I go back tomorrow or Sunday, but as you can see the plaque is very nice and I think it is a touching tribute to them both. In addition, the view from sitting on the bench is quintessential Prospect Park, made even more perfect by the blossoms on the trees:
My mom and I sat for a little while talking. It was a peaceful way to end a long week and to think about the upcoming trip to Israel. On the Long Meadow in front of us were all sorts of people out enjoying the weather, the road was busy with bikers and runners, and the paths crowded with dog walkers and pedestrians. Which is why what happened when we left was so shocking to both of us.
There is path from where the bench is to the Garfield Place entrance that we were following. It is a "herd" path, but well worn by people getting to and from the Long Meadow. As we were walking I looked down and noticed a folded up bill, almost like a piece of origami. I bent down in mid-sentence and picked it up. How could the same thing happen again? I've been walking in Prospect Park more times than I can count since Karen's death and the time I "found" the $120 (read my earlier post, "Angels in the Architecture," if you don't know what I'm talking about here) but in all those other visits and walks throughout the park I haven't found even a single coin. Now, this day, when the plaque was installed and what would have been our eight month wedding anniversary, there is money once again in my path in Prospect Park. Not to mention that countless other people must have walked right past it, but I for some reason spotted it.
My mom and I, just as I was with Jon and Sharon on the other day, looked at each other in momentary stunned silence. Karen letting me know she is keeping an eye on me? How could we not think that. Was I once again looking for "angels in the architecture"? Perhaps. But when I unfolded and looked at the bill closer my mind was all but made up. The serial number is 11000163. An 11 separated from a 16 by three zeros. 11/16, November 16, the date Karen died. I am the one writing this and even I don't believe it myself. Between this and the others things that happened what else is one to believe? This is now WAY beyond coincidences. There is no mistaking that she is with me and letting me know she is looking out for me. I feel it on a day-by-day basis, but things like this just confirm it.
* * *
For anyone in Brooklyn, or planning on being, the bench is located along the path that circles the Long Meadow near the Garfield Place entrance. To find it, enter through the Garfield Place entrance, cross the road and follow the "herd path" to toward the Long Meadow. There will be three benches just to your right on the paved path, it is the leftmost one if you're looking at them from the path. I don't know how to mark the benches, but here is a map of its location (the three benches are actually visible as little rectangles seeming to protrude to the left of the path):
View Larger Map
Please let me know if you want further detail on how to locate the bench. I hope you you do visit it will provide some measure of comfort and I will also be posting details on whatever ceremony ends up being planned for it when I'm back in May.
For those of you in New York, you know what a beautiful day it was and the park was very crowded with people enjoy the perfect spring weather. It was the right kind of day to see it. There was a vibrancy and energy in the park and I'm glad I went. I had wanted to take a picture of the entire bench showing where it is located, but there was someone sitting at the other end of it and I didn't think it proper to impose on him to be in the picture or ask him to move. Here, however, is a close up snap shot of the plaque itself:
I will take another picture when I go back tomorrow or Sunday, but as you can see the plaque is very nice and I think it is a touching tribute to them both. In addition, the view from sitting on the bench is quintessential Prospect Park, made even more perfect by the blossoms on the trees:
My mom and I sat for a little while talking. It was a peaceful way to end a long week and to think about the upcoming trip to Israel. On the Long Meadow in front of us were all sorts of people out enjoying the weather, the road was busy with bikers and runners, and the paths crowded with dog walkers and pedestrians. Which is why what happened when we left was so shocking to both of us.
There is path from where the bench is to the Garfield Place entrance that we were following. It is a "herd" path, but well worn by people getting to and from the Long Meadow. As we were walking I looked down and noticed a folded up bill, almost like a piece of origami. I bent down in mid-sentence and picked it up. How could the same thing happen again? I've been walking in Prospect Park more times than I can count since Karen's death and the time I "found" the $120 (read my earlier post, "Angels in the Architecture," if you don't know what I'm talking about here) but in all those other visits and walks throughout the park I haven't found even a single coin. Now, this day, when the plaque was installed and what would have been our eight month wedding anniversary, there is money once again in my path in Prospect Park. Not to mention that countless other people must have walked right past it, but I for some reason spotted it.
My mom and I, just as I was with Jon and Sharon on the other day, looked at each other in momentary stunned silence. Karen letting me know she is keeping an eye on me? How could we not think that. Was I once again looking for "angels in the architecture"? Perhaps. But when I unfolded and looked at the bill closer my mind was all but made up. The serial number is 11000163. An 11 separated from a 16 by three zeros. 11/16, November 16, the date Karen died. I am the one writing this and even I don't believe it myself. Between this and the others things that happened what else is one to believe? This is now WAY beyond coincidences. There is no mistaking that she is with me and letting me know she is looking out for me. I feel it on a day-by-day basis, but things like this just confirm it.
* * *
For anyone in Brooklyn, or planning on being, the bench is located along the path that circles the Long Meadow near the Garfield Place entrance. To find it, enter through the Garfield Place entrance, cross the road and follow the "herd path" to toward the Long Meadow. There will be three benches just to your right on the paved path, it is the leftmost one if you're looking at them from the path. I don't know how to mark the benches, but here is a map of its location (the three benches are actually visible as little rectangles seeming to protrude to the left of the path):
View Larger Map
Please let me know if you want further detail on how to locate the bench. I hope you you do visit it will provide some measure of comfort and I will also be posting details on whatever ceremony ends up being planned for it when I'm back in May.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
HAZON Bike Ride
I leave for Israel in less than a week and the bike ride begins in two weeks. Mentally I am prepared and looking forward to the trip, but physically I wish I had done a little more training. I suppose I am hoping that optimism will supplement whatever deficiencies I have in my physical preparation. We shall see.
I wanted to thank everyone who contributed and helped me exceed my fundraising goal. It was actually quite remarkable how quickly I met the required minimum and how donations continued to register even after that benchmark was reached and long after my single fundraising email was sent. I remain in awe not only from the response of my family and friends, but of the number of donations from friends of friends, many of whom I've never met, and even strangers or people I've only had brief interaction with until now. You have humbled and honored me.
Many people have been asking me about the ride itself so I thought I would pass along the information and details I've recently gotten from the organizers.
First of all, the ride will be from Tel Aviv to Eilat with a total riding distance of about 320 miles over four days. The course departs from Tel Aviv along the coast, then heads inland through Rishon LeTsiyon and Kiryat Malaki before arriving back on the coast at Ashkelon for our first night. The second day we travel along the edge of Gaza until about 10 miles from the Egypt boarder before heading south-east to our second night stop at Mashabim. From Mashabim is it almost due south to Mitzpe Ramon, then to Ketura, before the final day into Eilat. You can see a complete map of the route by clicking here.
Unfortunately, the ride is not all downhill as I was led to beleive. In fact there are a couple significant climbs and even a couple whose grades are in the 4-6% range, as you can see on this elevation profile:
As challenging as hills are, they have never really concerned me too much. I would much prefer a day of hill climbing to riding into a head wind any time, since you get the pay off a downhill after the climb and there seems to be a bunch of nice ones including the final ride into Eilat.
So once again, thank you all for your donations and support in making it possible to go on the trip. To reiterate what I said in my fundraising email, my time in Israel back in 1994 proved amazingly beneficial at a time of decision and self doubt in my young life. I fervently believe that the person I am and the person Karen fell in love with was formed in large part by the seeds sowed there. This has been a devastating past five months, with the last couple weeks being especially so. The chance to engage in the contemplative and self-healing activity of bike riding in a place of such history and emotional significance, I hope, will provide some much needed restorative energy.
Lastly, while I've already exceeded my fundraising goal I welcome anyone who still wishes to make a donation to do so by following this link.
Thank you all once again.
I wanted to thank everyone who contributed and helped me exceed my fundraising goal. It was actually quite remarkable how quickly I met the required minimum and how donations continued to register even after that benchmark was reached and long after my single fundraising email was sent. I remain in awe not only from the response of my family and friends, but of the number of donations from friends of friends, many of whom I've never met, and even strangers or people I've only had brief interaction with until now. You have humbled and honored me.
Many people have been asking me about the ride itself so I thought I would pass along the information and details I've recently gotten from the organizers.
First of all, the ride will be from Tel Aviv to Eilat with a total riding distance of about 320 miles over four days. The course departs from Tel Aviv along the coast, then heads inland through Rishon LeTsiyon and Kiryat Malaki before arriving back on the coast at Ashkelon for our first night. The second day we travel along the edge of Gaza until about 10 miles from the Egypt boarder before heading south-east to our second night stop at Mashabim. From Mashabim is it almost due south to Mitzpe Ramon, then to Ketura, before the final day into Eilat. You can see a complete map of the route by clicking here.
Unfortunately, the ride is not all downhill as I was led to beleive. In fact there are a couple significant climbs and even a couple whose grades are in the 4-6% range, as you can see on this elevation profile:
As challenging as hills are, they have never really concerned me too much. I would much prefer a day of hill climbing to riding into a head wind any time, since you get the pay off a downhill after the climb and there seems to be a bunch of nice ones including the final ride into Eilat.
So once again, thank you all for your donations and support in making it possible to go on the trip. To reiterate what I said in my fundraising email, my time in Israel back in 1994 proved amazingly beneficial at a time of decision and self doubt in my young life. I fervently believe that the person I am and the person Karen fell in love with was formed in large part by the seeds sowed there. This has been a devastating past five months, with the last couple weeks being especially so. The chance to engage in the contemplative and self-healing activity of bike riding in a place of such history and emotional significance, I hope, will provide some much needed restorative energy.
Lastly, while I've already exceeded my fundraising goal I welcome anyone who still wishes to make a donation to do so by following this link.
Thank you all once again.
Monday, April 13, 2009
My Passover plagues
I don't think I appreciated how difficult Passover was going to be. Karen and I never celebrated the holiday together and she never joined me at the Seder table. Last year she traveled to Turkey on a trip we booked just as we started to date, so while I missed her being there in 2008 I understood. After all, we both had lives before we re-met one another and there was no reason for her to change her plans just as there was no reason for me to change my Thanksgiving plans of 2007 that had me flying from The Hague to Los Angeles to spend the holiday with friends there.
Anyway, so as this year's Passover began to creep closer I really didn't think much of it. I thought it would be sad not to have her at the table, just as it has been sad all these Shabbats since she died. How wrong could I have been.
These past days have been some of the hardest for me. I am constantly feeling like I am on the edge of breaking down. The reality that I was forgetting was not that my sadness would come from the memory of Karen not being there, but from the prospective loss of her and James from this Passover and all those future ones.
Passover is a family holiday. It is not celebrated in the temple but rather in some one's home surround by loved ones. Many of fondest and most vibrant memories of childhood come from the Seders I attended. The past few week or two I've been feeling anxious and a little different, but I kept attributing it to my having to get re-acclimated to work and as well as preparing for my trip to Israel. It wasn't until the day of the first Seder that the weight of what was happening began to hit me.
I came home from work intending to change out of my work clothes quickly before heading over to my brother's. As soon as I closed the door to my apartment everything changed. I literally felt the walls close in on me. I stood in the kitchen, staring at the pictures of Karen and me that cover the refrigerator, and began to shake. I realized that this Seder was supposed to be the first on with MY family. It was supposed not only to be the first one where Karen would sit next to me, but also the first one where James would be. It shook me. Devastated me. Where had everything gone? What had happened to the life I thought I had. The life I was supposed to be enjoying.
My knees gave way and I'm not too proud to say that I spent several minutes on the cold tile floor of my kitchen. It couldn't be like this, I thought. The world bears no resemblance to what it did before. I've heard people say this is so unfair, if not the most unfair thing that could happen. Fair. That is a word no longer in my vocabulary. Just and unjust each have also faded from my sense of reality. Replaced by nothing. A void yet, if ever, to be filled.
I slowly regained my legs and stood. It seems I am constantly dipping into the well of strength that supported me when I came back to our apartment for the first time, when I stood up at her funeral, when I added my two shovel fulls of earth to the grave (one for her and one for James), when I said Kaddish the first time, the second time, the third time, the sixty-seven some odd time and counting, when I went back to work, when I.....but how much more is there in that well? I felt I might have reached the bottom. Slowly I dressed. I knew I needed to do it, that for Karen, for James, and for me, I had to go to the Seder.
With me I carried a Kiddish cup my father and step-mother gave to Karen and me the week before she died when we were in the Adirondacks. It is a beautiful glass blown piece of art they brought back from a recent trip to Venice. Along with Elijah's cup and Miriam's cup, on the Seder table was that cup to remember Karen and James. Two seats empty this year, and for years immemorial, at my Seder table.
As the Seder started, led by my brother, the emotions hit me like a tidal wave. When we prepared to drink the first cup the tears began to roll down my face. My brother, who has and remains a rock for me despite what I know is his own overwhelming pain and suffering from the loss of Karen and James, said a few, short beautiful words to remind us all that even in the midst of the joy of Passover the sadness of live and death are never far. It is, indeed, one of the things Jews consistently remind themselves, but this wasn't the sadness of a long ago tragedy like the destruction of the Temple or the Shoah, but something that touched everyone around the table, and beyond, profoundly and intimately.
Somehow I made it through that moment, although it might have been the first time I could have dipped my karpas in the salt water of actual tears. There are so many more dates approaching that I have no idea how I will be able to handle them. Mother's day. Father's day. Holiday's. Birthday's. Anniversaries. Etc. I now look at the calendar like a checker board, each day marked with its own impending grief. But I will face them. One at a time. I am without my family, the family I was to be building with Karen, and that is a hole in my heart and life that can never be filled and can only be watered with more tears.
As always, my loved ones and friends are with me. So while I don't know how much more I have in that well of strength that I keep dipping into, what I do know is that if there is anything that will help replenish what I draw out it is the strength and support from all of you.
* * *
BTW - If not evident by the tone and flow, I wrote this post a bit more by stream of consciousness and let myself get caught up in the emotion of the moment.
Anyway, so as this year's Passover began to creep closer I really didn't think much of it. I thought it would be sad not to have her at the table, just as it has been sad all these Shabbats since she died. How wrong could I have been.
These past days have been some of the hardest for me. I am constantly feeling like I am on the edge of breaking down. The reality that I was forgetting was not that my sadness would come from the memory of Karen not being there, but from the prospective loss of her and James from this Passover and all those future ones.
Passover is a family holiday. It is not celebrated in the temple but rather in some one's home surround by loved ones. Many of fondest and most vibrant memories of childhood come from the Seders I attended. The past few week or two I've been feeling anxious and a little different, but I kept attributing it to my having to get re-acclimated to work and as well as preparing for my trip to Israel. It wasn't until the day of the first Seder that the weight of what was happening began to hit me.
I came home from work intending to change out of my work clothes quickly before heading over to my brother's. As soon as I closed the door to my apartment everything changed. I literally felt the walls close in on me. I stood in the kitchen, staring at the pictures of Karen and me that cover the refrigerator, and began to shake. I realized that this Seder was supposed to be the first on with MY family. It was supposed not only to be the first one where Karen would sit next to me, but also the first one where James would be. It shook me. Devastated me. Where had everything gone? What had happened to the life I thought I had. The life I was supposed to be enjoying.
My knees gave way and I'm not too proud to say that I spent several minutes on the cold tile floor of my kitchen. It couldn't be like this, I thought. The world bears no resemblance to what it did before. I've heard people say this is so unfair, if not the most unfair thing that could happen. Fair. That is a word no longer in my vocabulary. Just and unjust each have also faded from my sense of reality. Replaced by nothing. A void yet, if ever, to be filled.
I slowly regained my legs and stood. It seems I am constantly dipping into the well of strength that supported me when I came back to our apartment for the first time, when I stood up at her funeral, when I added my two shovel fulls of earth to the grave (one for her and one for James), when I said Kaddish the first time, the second time, the third time, the sixty-seven some odd time and counting, when I went back to work, when I.....but how much more is there in that well? I felt I might have reached the bottom. Slowly I dressed. I knew I needed to do it, that for Karen, for James, and for me, I had to go to the Seder.
With me I carried a Kiddish cup my father and step-mother gave to Karen and me the week before she died when we were in the Adirondacks. It is a beautiful glass blown piece of art they brought back from a recent trip to Venice. Along with Elijah's cup and Miriam's cup, on the Seder table was that cup to remember Karen and James. Two seats empty this year, and for years immemorial, at my Seder table.
As the Seder started, led by my brother, the emotions hit me like a tidal wave. When we prepared to drink the first cup the tears began to roll down my face. My brother, who has and remains a rock for me despite what I know is his own overwhelming pain and suffering from the loss of Karen and James, said a few, short beautiful words to remind us all that even in the midst of the joy of Passover the sadness of live and death are never far. It is, indeed, one of the things Jews consistently remind themselves, but this wasn't the sadness of a long ago tragedy like the destruction of the Temple or the Shoah, but something that touched everyone around the table, and beyond, profoundly and intimately.
Somehow I made it through that moment, although it might have been the first time I could have dipped my karpas in the salt water of actual tears. There are so many more dates approaching that I have no idea how I will be able to handle them. Mother's day. Father's day. Holiday's. Birthday's. Anniversaries. Etc. I now look at the calendar like a checker board, each day marked with its own impending grief. But I will face them. One at a time. I am without my family, the family I was to be building with Karen, and that is a hole in my heart and life that can never be filled and can only be watered with more tears.
As always, my loved ones and friends are with me. So while I don't know how much more I have in that well of strength that I keep dipping into, what I do know is that if there is anything that will help replenish what I draw out it is the strength and support from all of you.
* * *
BTW - If not evident by the tone and flow, I wrote this post a bit more by stream of consciousness and let myself get caught up in the emotion of the moment.
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
The things I should be doing
I shouldn't be doing what I'm doing. This isn't what was supposed to happen.
I should be waking up for midnight feedings. I should be perfecting my diaper changing skills. I should be cooking for Karen and her cooking for me. I should be hugging her. I should be kissing her. I should be making memories with her. I should be watching James grow. I should be growing old with her. I should have a family and we should be living in Brooklyn together.
I shouldn't be thinking about estate issues. I shouldn't be picking out a grave marker. I shouldn't be sleeping alone. I shouldn't be wondering what James would have grown up to have been. I shouldn't have the terrible memories and images from the worst day of my life flashing in my mind constantly as they do now.
I should be happy, but can't imagine that now.
I should be waking up for midnight feedings. I should be perfecting my diaper changing skills. I should be cooking for Karen and her cooking for me. I should be hugging her. I should be kissing her. I should be making memories with her. I should be watching James grow. I should be growing old with her. I should have a family and we should be living in Brooklyn together.
I shouldn't be thinking about estate issues. I shouldn't be picking out a grave marker. I shouldn't be sleeping alone. I shouldn't be wondering what James would have grown up to have been. I shouldn't have the terrible memories and images from the worst day of my life flashing in my mind constantly as they do now.
I should be happy, but can't imagine that now.
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