Ralph Waldo Emerson

I've spoken about Emerson's essay Experience, and specifically this section, to several people over the past months. Before November 16, I think I'd only read excerpts of his work in high school English class and never do I think I came across this essay - or at least I don't recall reading it if it was assigned. I found myself re-reading it last night and was once again drawn to this passage.

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The only thing grief has taught me, is to know how shallow it is. That, like all the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into the reality, for contact with which, we would even pay the costly price of sons and lovers. Was it Boscovich who found out that bodies never come in contact? Well, souls, never touch their objects. An unnavigable sea washes silent waves between us and the things we aim at and converse with. Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate - no more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If to-morrow I should be informed of the bankruptcy of my principal debtors, the loss of my property would be a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would leave me as it found me - neither better nor worse. So is it with this calamity: it does not touch me: something which I fancied was a part of me, which could be torn away without tearing me, nor enlarged without enriching me, falls from me, and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into the real nature. The Indian who was laid under a curse, that the wind should not blow him, nor water flow to him, nor fire burn him, is a type of us all. The dearest events are summer-rain, and we the Para coats that shed every drop. Nothing is left us now but death. We look to that with a grim satisfaction, saying, there at last is reality that will not dodge us.

Father's Day

I knew this day was coming, just as so many others I'm dreading. I've tried many times in the last day or so to write something to share my memories about Karen getting pregnant, but every time I do the words seem too melodramatic and cliched. Instead my thoughts keep turning to how I'm feeling now on this day.

First of all, until I met Karen I never really envisioned myself as a father. I thought it was something I wanted, but never really was able to see myself as being one.

When Karen got pregnant all that changed. Experiencing it with her and watching James grow brought a joy to my day I'd never imagined. The first time I went with her to the doctor for a sonogram was amazing. It was the visit to the doctor when we found out that he was a he. As we watched the monitor, James moved around and then, before our eyes, opened his mouth and let out a big yawn. I held onto Karen and kissed her with tears in my eyes.

To say I was looking forward to being James' father is an understatement. I was more excited for it than anything, except for being married to Karen, in my life. While I never held James in life, I felt him and his presence. Not just from the sonograms or from what Karen was saying she was feeling, but in the weeks before her death I was starting to feel him. Not just gentle, what was that kind of feeling on Karen's stomach, but several forceful and unmistakable movements. In fact on one occasion, as we were sitting on the sofa, I had my hand on her belly and felt him press against my hand with such strength that it was as if he was saying hello to me. I'd never felt anything like that in my life and it brought such joy and pride to me. I could think of nothing more than being his father and raising him with Karen.

I cradled James in my arms once but, as many of you know already, tragically I never held him in life. It is something I think about almost as often as I do about loosing Karen. Just as I ask over and over again why Karen was taken from me, I ask why was James never given a chance? Why would I never see him grow and be a father to him in life? Never seeing the boy, teen, man and, perhaps eventually, father he would become?

But I was his father. I am his father. This Father's Day should have been full of joy for me, but it isn't. I am James' father and will always be, but cannot find or even imagine any of the happiness that should be there. This is yet another day that all I can contemplate is getting through it and, like all the others, I will because it is what I need to do for him, for her, and for me.

A fearful thing to love

Today during Shabbat services I was reading some of the poems in the Aleinu and Mourner's Kaddish section of our Mishkan T'filah. I thought I'd read them all over the past seven months of going to services, but guess I missed this one by Chaim Stern. It really touched something in me:

It is a fearful thing to love
what death can touch.

A fearful thing to love,
hope, dream: to be --
to be, and oh! to lose.

A thing for fools this, and
a holy thing,
a holy thing to love.

For
your life has lived in me,
your laugh once lifted me,
your word was gift to me.

To remember this brings a painful joy.
'Tis a human thing, love,
a holy thing,
to love
what death has touched.

The hits that hit from outta nowhere

In the past, I've called it ambush grief: those moments of memory and sadness that come upon you when you're not expecting it. Lately I've been thinking about the various significant dates I've yet to cross - our one year wedding anniversary being the biggest one after the obvious - but as much as I can prepare for those, it is the little moments that surprise me out of nowhere that seem hardest. Perhaps this is specifically because they're occurrence comes as a surprise.

Halloween is still months away, but this evening my mind turned to it. It was getting late and I was watching a movie, when I decided to make myself a snack. I pulled a new bag of edamame, which has become my movie watching snack of choice, from the freezer. It was all so normal and natural, but when I went to open the bag things changed. I opened the drawer and reached for the handle of what I thought was the scissors I paused. Instead of the scissors I was holding the pumpkin carving tool we bought at Pathmark off of 2nd avenue on the night of October 30, 2008.

Karen, as I'm sure most if not all teachers, was having an Halloween party the next day and we were picking up a few last minute supplies. Two of which were pumpkins to be carved into Jack-o-Lanterns. The carving tool was almost an afterthought of a purchase, but having tried in the past to carve pumpkins with regular knifes I suggested we invest in one. It was, in my opinion, well worth it. That night, while Karen rested and worked on her lesson plan for the abbreviated day, I carved the two pumpkins into the best Jack-o-Lanterns I could. Then, after the carving was done, I rinsed, roasted, and salted the seeds so that she could take them to class and let the kids try them.

The roasting, however, took longer than I thought and by the time I was done Karen had already gone off to bed. I tried to pack everything up as best I could and then joined her. The next morning, as we had been doing nearly every morning, I walked with her to school, the two of us carrying the pumpkins, food, and decorations for the party. I only heard later from parents about how she greeted the class at the door that morning wearing her Mardi Gras mask and explaining to them that she was Karen's European cousin Katarina, in town to cover the class.

While I never saw her playing that role, I can see it clearly in my mind. Her joie de vivre matched only by her theatrics and character acting, which came across as effortlessly as her students own playful nature. I picture her standing at the door, greeting each costumed student in her lilting faux-French-accented English, joyously describing the little town in, perhaps southern France where she came from and how excited she was to meet Karen's class. I think back on that and on the things I knew about her as a teacher and think, she is the kind of teacher I would have loved. She loved her class and loved teaching. For her it was a chance to leave the adult world for the day and be a kid again. That isn't to say she didn't take her responsibilities seriously, she did almost to a fault. She recognized the importance of her job and her effect on the students, but she also knew that kids needed to be kids and made sure they HAD FUN even while they were learning.

I know that Karen would have been an amazing mother. She positively radiated it. As I stood in the kitchen this evening, bag of frozen edamame on the counter and pumpkin cutting tool in my hand, I knew that James had a mother that would have done anything for him. She would have made sure he grew up surround by unconditional love, with the encouragement to be whatever he wanted to be, and most of all with the encouragement to experience the wonders of the world as she did and beyond.

It is strange how a simple $2.39 piece of plastic and metal from a supermarket can become such a power item and evoke so many feelings. Yet that is how the memories flow, triggered by the seemingly ordinary or routine things and instances.