What is there to be thankful for?

A year ago I wouldn't have been able to come up with a single answer to that question.

Last Thanksgiving I was still deeply in a state of shock. Living each day like a spelunker who'd lost his flashlight: terrified, confused, and groping in the darkness that surrounded me hoping without expectation to find a way back out into the light.

While the holidays, especially those that are family-centric, continue to be difficult on me, with the passage of some time I am able nonetheless to find somethings to give thanks for today.

I am thankful that Karen didn't suffer. Someone asked me once whether I believe in God, because they felt if I did it would be natural for me to be angry at God for what happened. Without going into too much detail of my personal beliefs, I said that I do believe in something more powerful than myself and beyond human comprehension. However, I do not believe in an omnipotent or omnipresent "being" watching over the world. Nor that God had any more to do with Karen's death than with Plaxio Burress catching Eli Manning's pass in the end zone with 0:35 left in Superbowl XLII.

If I were to think about God as such a shepherding entity, however, my feelings woudld be of thanks. Obviously this is not thanks for what happened, but thanks for HOW it happened. In the past year I have considered the thousands of ways things could have been worse. Karen could have suffered from a long and painful illness, deteriorating over a long period of time. She could have been "saved" at the hospital, only to exist as a shell of the person she was before. Because none of these things happened and Karen died without pain or suffering, I am thankful

There are also countless ways the actual events played out that would have made continuing in life for me infinitely hard, not to mention effected so many others more detrimentally. If it had happened one day later, I would have been at my office and she in front of her 3rd grade class. If it had happened one week early, we would have been in the middle of the Adirondack Mountains and it would have taken an ambulance upwards of an hour to arrive. Indeed had I just gotten up 30 seconds earlier to go to the bathroom, I would forever be tormented with a myriad of additional pains, regrets, and questions. Because I was there with her at the very last moment, I am thankful.

But more importantly, I am thankful that I shared my life with Karen, albeit for far too little time, and learned what true love is. I was married once before. When that ended, I felt lost and devoid of love. In fact I recall sitting with my brother one evening at a bar and saying to him that I didn't think I would find love in this life, let alone ever remarry. As I talked, I told him that I felt I would never find true companionship, that it wasn't worth even trying and risking more heartache, and that I was accepting that I would be alone. Karen changed all this. For as much as I might have given her at the end of her life, she gave me as much if not more. Through her I experienced unconditional love and learned what it means to find one's soul-mate. She restored my confidence, taught me to trust in others, and how to live life to the fullest. It is hard for me now to find the joy in my day to day, but I know that having had it once it does exist and I can hopefully find it again. Because of all this, which came from my time with Karen, I am thankful.

I've written about many things in the past year and have tried mostly to speak about myself and my own experiences. I've tried not to sound like I'm sermonizing or lecturing others on life. On this Thanksgiving, however, I hope you'll excuse a bit of that for a moment.

We live in a fast paced world in which so much is focused on things like jobs and commercialism. There is a constant effort to look to the next thing, whether that is the next promotion, the next model of car or television, or the next task that must be completed. Because of this, some of us don't appreciate what is right before our eyes and that - as trite as it sounds - the real pleasures are in the moments between things. Those unquantifiable, almost insignificant exchanges and experiences with our loved ones and friends. Those are the things I treasure from our time together. Sure I reminisce about our trip to St. Martin, our wedding, and honeymoon to Canada, but it is the everyday, almost mundane events that stick out so much - and which I miss the most.

So as with everyday, but especially on Thanksgiving when so many are surrounded by family and the stresses that can create, I hope you are able to find happiness and pleasure in having these moments together. That you do not take for granted the loved ones in your life, are able to look past moments of argument or discord, and find joy and contentment in life. I'll be the first to admit that this is a difficult task for me to do given all that I have lost. But if I can pass along one lesson from my experience it is this: I would trade everything for the chance to have Karen back and 'suffer' those things at which I once would have been annoyed - leaving a dirty dish on the counter when the dishwasher is right there, not bothering to replace the toilet paper, or even leaving the window open when it starts to rain - because, in the end, it is her doing all this.

Through Karen I have learned that life is truly too short and that we should be thankful for what we have. Not just once a year, but everyday. I am thankful she was in my life to teach me this lesson and help me to live to the fullest. I hope in some small way, through my own pain and suffering, I'm able to pass that lesson along to others.

One year

Today marks one year since I loss my wife, Karen Rothman Fried, and son, James Alex Fried. Today I have no words of my own. Today I will let the same words by W.H. Auden that I used at her funeral last year speak my thoughts again....

* * *

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message She is Dead.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

She was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the woods;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Funeral Blues
W. H. Auden

* * *

Karen Rothman Fried
12/23/71 - 11/16/08

My love eternal.

My birthday

Today is my thirty-eighth birthday. I feel, however, that I've aged so much more in the past year.

In years past, the days and weeks leading up to my birthday were often times of increased anxiety for me. Not because I was inherently sad or disappointed with turning another year older, but rather I would find myself "taking stock" (as I'm sure so many other people do) of where I was in my life, where I thought I would be, and where I felt myself going. During these years my sleep would be interrupted and I would regularly wake in the middle of the night to contemplate various aspects of my life, often (I'm sorry sad to say) with negative feelings. I had become, in some ways, accustomed to this annual occurrence and expected it.

That was until last year's birthday.

As my thirty-seventh birthday approached, I still woke up in the middle of the night. When I did, however, there was not a negative thought in my mind. Instead I looked over to the woman laying next to me and smiled...broadly. How could I not? Here was a girl I had been attracted to since high school and to whom I never imagined I could be married, let alone date. But married to her was only the start, she was to be the mother of my son and the person with whom I knew I would spend the rest of my life. Looking at her sleeping by side, as I did so many other nights, I couldn't help but consider myself the luckiest man alive. I was so happy and told Karen all of this. Her response? To hug me to her and kiss me deeply.

Last year my birthday was on a Saturday. As we did so many other days, we spent every minute of it together. First was an early brunch at Moutarde, a French bistro on Fifth Avenue, while one of our cats was being cared for at the veterinarian's office. Next we went to Broadway for a matinee of Speed the Plow and then walked over to Hell's Kitchen where we had a snack of Thai food followed by a visit to a baby store to test drive strollers. James had, in the past weeks, begun moving much more and I felt his kicks (or punches) often. Karen and I talked constantly about him and our excitement of becoming parents. After wandering around the neighborhood a little while longer, we headed to the rooftop bar at the Peninsula Hotel before finishing our evening with a fabulous dinner at Aquavit. We were all smiles, each of us feeling like we were on top of the world.



This feeling of happiness and absolute contentment on my birthday, a feeling I'd not had before, lasted a less then forty-eight hours. Joy replaced by pain. Hopes dashed. My future shattered in an instant before my eyes.

How do I celebrate my birthday this year? With tears in my eyes.

18 Heshvan 5770

According to the Hebrew calendar, Karen died on the 18th day of the month of Heshvan in the year 5769. Because the Hebrew calendar is a lunisolar calendar, the dates between it and the Gregorian (or secular) calendar do not match up from year to year. Because of this, the first yahrtzeit of her death falls on today, November 5, 2009, which corresponds to the 18 Heshvan 5770. (Technically, since a day on the Hebrew calendar runs from sundown to sundown, the yahrtzeit began at sundown on the 4th and runs until sundown on the 5th.) As is Jewish custom, last night I said kaddish, lit a candle in her and James' memory, and began a one day fast. While the latter is a custom typically reserved for the yahrtzeit of a parent, just as I have not shaved during the past year - also a custom compulsory only following the passing of a parent - I felt keeping a fast was proper for me to observe the date. In addition, fasting itself is providing me a sense of connection, grounding and focusing me on this day when my mind is awash with so many thoughts and memories - both good and bad.