Fry Guy's Thinkerings

Do marathoners improve with age?

2011-11-09T12:46:00.001-05:00

Based on my personal empirical evidence it would seem so.

Last year I ran the marathon in 4:30:04, a very respectably time for a first time runner in my age group. This year I was worried that my time would be slower because I was unable to train as consistently as before because I was back working. However, and despite stopping and/or walking several times because of late mile cramping in my legs, something that didn't occur in 2010, on a day that saw the course record broken by two and a half minutes, I shattered mine by running the course almost a full 22 minutes faster, crossing the finish line in 4:08:09. If I can keep this rate of improvement I'll be competing against the elite men in a couple of years!

In all seriousness, this years race was - once again - an amazing experience. Not only did I run it faster than I expected, or could have anticipated, but thanks to the generous support of so many friends and family, along with donations collected by the other 216 members of the Team this year, we raised close to $800,000 to support the family of Hole in the Wall Camps. A truly remarkable amount by any perspective.

The race itself couldn't have taken place on a more perfect day. Without a cloud in the sky and balmy temperatures in the high-50s to low-60s, the course was exceptional. It was probably thanks to the amazing weather and a familiarity with the course, but my pace started quick, something in the range of an eight and half minute mile, and continued at that until around about mile 21. Over the final 5 miles, however, my pace began to suffer as the accumulated effects of the day built up in my legs and my thigh muscles began cramping up on me. The cramping was in addition to a developing pain in one knee caused, I believe, from an an abrupt lateral movement to avoid a fellow runner who tripped in front of me around mile 8. These combined to force me to walk at times and even stop completely in order to massage and stretch my muscles. Were it not for the fatigue, I was on pace to run a sub-four hour time, which would have literally floored me. As it was, I finished just slightly longer than that but in a fantastic time nonetheless and one that I am exceedingly happy about.

The gorgeous early fall weather also made for exceptional conditions for spectators, and they were out in absolute droves. Portions of the course that weren't very crowded last year were lined with people and sections known to be popular viewing spots, such as Fourth Avenue in Park Slope, First Avenue between 59th and 96th Streets, and Central Park, were absolutely overflowing with people. In fact the "canyon of sound," just after the Queensboro Bridge, known for attracting some of the largest crowds along the course, was lined almost 10 people deep.

The only downside to my pace and the day was that because I was running more quickly than expected, my friends and family, who saw me on 4th Avenue in Park Slope and planned to see me again on 111th and 1st and then once more on 107th and 5th, missed me those other times because I already passed those points when they got there. Of course if the reason I missed them was because I was running faster than expected, that wasn't such a bad thing in the end. After all, I got to see them at the best part: at the post-race finisher party with my finisher medal around my neck.

So now I'm already thinking about next year. Who would have imagined I'd go from running one marathon to preparing for a third. And, once more, I expect to run for Team Hole in the Wall and hope to have your support.

Thanks to one and all and stay tuned for pictures.

Bib Number 44578

2011-11-03T12:10:00.000-04:00

For those of you who don't know, I'm running the NYC Marathon again this year and the race is only a couple days away. I want to thank all those who contributed generously to Team Hole in the Wall, the charity that I am running with again this year, and to let you know that although I've reached my minimum it is never too late to make a donation. Please click here to be directed to my fundraising website.

One of the amazing things about running the marathon is seeing the thousands, if not millions, of people lining the route cheering us along. But while the throngs of supporters is motivating, nothing compares to seeing familiar faces in the crowd. If you're going to be among the crowd and want to better your chances of seeing me, or want to track my progress from wherever you are, you can click here to see the various options available to track runners in near real time using your cell/smart phones. I will once again be wearing my Team Hole in the Wall jersey (white with green sides and sleeves) and my bib number this year is 44578.

However, one thing I learned from 2010 is that it is far easier for me to find you than it may be for you to spot me among the 47,000+ runners passing by. So if you do plan to come out, please let me know where you'll be, which cross street and side of the course, and I'll keep an eye out for you. Also, while places like the areas along 4th Avenue in Brooklyn, First Avenue around the 59th Street Bridge, and Central Park are the popular sites for fans to gather, stretches in northern Manhattan and through Harlem (approximately mile 18 - 22) have way less spectators - making it easier to spot people - and is where support was most important for me last year.

Thank you all once again for your continued support and I'll be looking for you along the course.

One and done? Nope.

2011-05-04T11:38:00.003-04:00

Last year I signed up for the NYC Marathon with the intention of doing one and being done. What I didn't expect, and what I wrote about here and here, is what a great and fun experience it would be. Sure my legs were sore for a day or so and there was a few moments around mile 22 that I seriously questioned my sanity, but despite that it was an amazing thing to be a part of....which is I why I've decided to run again!

Unfortunately, I didn't win a spot in the race through the lottery so have decided to run again with Team Hole in the Wall, the same charity I signed up with last year -- actually, even had I gotten a number from the lottery I would have joined the team anyway. As I wrote about last year, Team Hole in the Wall is a fantastic organization that supports camps where children with serious, life threatening illness can spend time being kids at no financial cost to them or their parents.

Like last year, in order to run I must first meet my fundraising goal of $3000. If you are one of the many who supported me last year I hope you'll do so again this year, but if you weren't able to before I hope you'll consider making a donation this time around. Yes it will help me get on this year's course but, more importantly, you will be helping so many deserving children. Please visit my donation homepage and show your support today (there is also a link there for a off-line donation form if you prefer to contribute that way).

Thank you for your support!

Andrew

The Land of Milk and Honey

2011-02-19T15:31:00.000-05:00

Well I’m back in Israel. I know it might sound strange to be abroad again, especially since I just started a new job, but this isn’t an ordinary trip. Several months ago my eldest niece, Madelyn, was bat mitzvahed and this year our synagogue decided to organize a trip to Israel for those celebrating this milestone. Naturally, as an uncle with a zeal for traveling, familiarity with the country, and no job I offered my services as chaperon. Thankfully my new employer understood this prior commitment and generously agreed to my taking 10 days off so soon after starting work. So here I am.

We left on Thursday night and, after an uneventful – and surprisingly on time – flight, arrived at Ben Gurion airport Friday afternoon. It is always such a thrill when the plane touches down here, not the least because it seems to be one of the few times when people still clap upon landing, but with the new terminal there is something missing. No longer do you deplane down a staircase and onto the tarmac so gone are the scenes of people kneeling to kiss Eretz Israel – it just isn’t the same to kiss the carpet of a jetway. That said, the airport authority has installed the biggest mezuzah I’ve ever seen at the entrance to the arrival hall and passport control area. So that’s something I suppose.

With our arrival formalities done we boarded our bus for a quick trip to Haifa. For all but one of the kids, this was there first time setting foot in Israel so on the way north we stopped along the beach near the site where so many Jews fleeing Europe in the 1930s and 1940s were detained by the British, who controlled the entire region at the time. Despite a bit of jet lag it was a moving moment to stand within sight of such a place and say the shehecheyanu, a traditional Jewish prayer that is said to celebrate special occasions such as this.

Today we joined with several Israeli peers, some of whom our congregation's kids are staying overnight with this evening, to tour several sites around here. One of the most interesting was the area burned by the recent forest fire in the mountains surrounding Haifa. Seeing the charred earth and trees, especially in such close proximity to towns and the prison (the one to which 40 guards were headed to help evacuated when their bus was caught in the fast moving wall of fire and killed) that were nearly engulfed in the inferno, was a stark reminder of just how precarious much of our man-made world truly is. From there we went to a nearby Druze village for a lunch feast of traditional salads, appetizers, and fire roasted chicken. Except for a brisk wind that wreaked havoc on napkins, cups, and anything else not sufficiently weighted down, it was a picturesque and extremely tasty meal.

Tomorrow we're off to Tel Aviv, then the Upper Galilee and Golan Heights before the final days in Jerusalem with a day trip to Masada and the Dead Sea. It goes without saying that as exciting as it is being in Haifa and meeting their Israeli peers, all the kids are eagerly looking forward to these days the most -- as am I to be honest.

[Yes I'm taking many pictures but due to a spotty internet connection I will likely wait until I return Stateside to upload any.]

Becoming a citizen again

2011-01-28T12:01:00.002-05:00

I made the news on Wednesday! Okay, maybe you didn't actually see my name, but if you heard about a drop in the rate of unemployment, it was me they were talking about. Yup, after almost sixteen months of voluntary unemployment, I returned to the working world this past week. As I explained in my earlier post, I left the practice of law with an eye toward returning to the hospitality business. After taking time for myself, which I've documented pretty well here, I reevaluated my goal of opening my own place and realized it was a little premature.

While I've worked in many restaurants over the years, it has primarily been as a server and not on the management side. Therefore, I decided to seek out a position where I could re-acclimate myself to working in the hospitality industry while gaining more knowledge and experience on the business aspect of it. I began reaching out to anyone I know with contacts in the field in hopes of gaining a foothold with a restaurant management group or other similar company. After many meetings and interviews, I was offered and accepted the position as wine manager at Maloney and Porcelli in midtown Manhattan. My first day was Wednesday, hence the dip in unemployment this week. Just doing my part to help the economy.

I'm really excited for this job. On the one had it fits exactly what I was hoping to do by allowing me to be on the floor interacting with the servers and customers while bolstering my wine related knowledge, but also gives me the opportunity to learn the ins and outs of managing a business with an eye toward pursuing the eventual goal I had for myself when I left law. Indeed I don't think I could have hoped for a better fit. As part of Fourth Wall Restaurant Group, which includes other notable restaurants such as Smith and Wollensky, Post House, and The Hurricane Club, to name a few, I get to be part of an organization with an established history and reputation for exceptional service. (And in bit of poetic irony perhaps, the restaurant is named for a pair of lawyers who specialize in the industry.)

Only two days into my new job and I already know I made the right decision. Sure there are things that need getting used to, but as much as it is an adjustment starting work at 4 pm, ending at or after midnight, and being on my feet most of the time, the way I feel when I'm in the whirlwind that is a busy restaurant during evening service is unlike anything I ever felt in my prior profession. I feel comfortable, in control - even if sometimes that feeling is an illusion - and, most importantly, happy and in my element.

As I've come to starkly realize over the past years, no one can know what the future holds for them. I certainly could never have imagined the tragic turn my life would take nor conceive during those dark days that I would ever be where I am now. I can't say whether or not I'll reach the point when I have my own business or what other turns - good or bad - that my life will take, but for now I am once again paying taxes (hence the citizenship concept in the title) and doing something I really enjoy.

Podcast Premiere

2010-12-29T11:51:00.003-05:00

Recently I hosted a Couchsurfer from Washington state who, among many other activities, has a politically oriented podcast that he does with two friends. After hanging out with him for a few days and discussing various topics he asked if I'd ever be interested in coming on the show. Being a bit of a politically opinionated person, I thought why not. So, as the snow of blizzard 2010 fell on Sunday, I logged on to Skype for a conversation with Roni and Joe that would become Episode 111 of Don't Worry About the Government. I won't go so far to say I contributed anything earth shatteringly insightful but do think I lent a little to the podcast. You can listen to it here and hear for yourself.

Two years

2010-11-16T09:12:00.001-05:00

Another attempt at original poetry to describe how I'm feeling on the second sadversary because to say more is too hard. I've never considered myself a poet but the words just came to mind and I went with it.

* * *

I think of you
And want to hold you
I know you're not here
Yet want to call you

I don't know how to reach you
So I keep doing what
I think you'd want me
To do

The days pass
I miss you all over again
And again
You're in my heart
And mind
And breath
But never again with me

I pour another glass
And remember

And remember
Love

Three-nine

2010-11-15T23:29:00.002-05:00

Today I celebrate my 39th birthday. Tomorrow I will mark two years since Karen died. Dates that are inextricably linked for the rest of my life. Forever will the happiness of one day be tempered by the sadness of the other yet, at the same time, the pain of the 16th made just a bit more bearable by the joy and love from friends and family from the day before. A sort of calendric Yin-Yang.

So much has taken place in the previous year: a fantastic trip to Asia; ran the NYC Marathon; traveled to various parts of the country reconnecting with old friends; watched my eldest niece become a bat mitzvah; took additional, much needed time to contemplate and process all that has taken place in my life, just to name a few things.

Notwithstanding all the things I accomplished and enjoyed over the past twelve months, today, as I did last year, I am once again thinking about the last (and only) birthday Karen and I spent together. Despite what was to happen less than 24 hours latter, it was a fabulous day. I am almost tempted to say it was the best day of my life, which got me thinking about that phrase and how, or even whether, someone can honestly say it.

“The best day of my life.” How could one actually make that statement unless they know either they will have no more good – or potentially great – days or somehow manage to have their final day on earth be the culmination of all their happiness and dreams. Sitting here now I can say that I have had several wonderful days, one of them being my 37th birthday in 2008. Another of my best days would certainly be August 17, 2008, our wedding day as well as November 7, 2010, the day I achieved my long time goal of completing the NYC Marathon. But can I truly say that any of those were my "best day"? Perhaps no, because as amazing as everything I have lived so far has been, it still might be, as both my parents said in separate places in my high school yearbook, the best could be yet to come.

I would like to think, however, that were Karen able to answer the question she would be able to say that her final day was indeed her best day. It was undoubtedly the best I shared with her. I think it was even better than our wedding day, which was of course the happiest day I had with her, because we were not constrained with all the family pressures and could just be ourselves at our own pace. Saturday we did all the things that made us both happy. We lounged in bed. Had brunch at a nearby restaurant and then strolled unhurriedly in our neighborhood. Later we went into Manhattan for a matinee, drinks at the top of a hotel in midtown, and then dinner at Aquavit. It was all fantastic and Sunday began just as amazingly.

We awoke to a beautiful morning. Lounged around our apartment before seeing my whole family for brunch. After, we once more wandered around the neighborhood and bought several new maternity dresses, after which Karen called and left a message for her mom as we walked to a local cafe we'd been wanting to try for some time, which indeed had phenomenal food. So good in fact, that Karen began to fill out the comment card, something neither of us ever did. Of course, as you probably already know by now, it was at that point that the most fantastic 24 hour period turned into a nightmare.

But that is not what I'm thinking about now. What I'm thinking about is how we did everything wonderful and how she lived life to the fullest right until the end. I also think she would say on that day everything in her life was achieved and she truly was enjoying her best day. She was with the person she loved and felt most secure and comfortable with, while doing the things she enjoyed most. She also spoke or contacted nearly all the most important people in her life, whether that was in person with my family or by phone to hers. Perhaps there was an inner feeling she had that urged her to do all the things she did that day or maybe it was just a continuation of the way she lived her life. But whatever the reason, I truly believe (and hope) that she was at her happiness when the worst happened and would say that November 15 - 16, 2008 was the best day of her life.

My Marathon Story

2010-11-13T13:37:00.004-05:00

Once in a while there are things that you plan for that exceed your expectations when they happen. They are rare, but those moments do exist and this past weekend was one of them for me.

When I was young, my father registered to run the NYC Marathon. By his recollection it was 1978, only the second or third year the course wound through all five boroughs of New York City rather than being confined to Central Park as it has originated. Due to an injury he sustained during training, however, my father was forced to withdraw around mile 16. For me it didn't matter that he finished or not, I can still vividly recall him training and going down to 4th Avenue in Brooklyn to see him run by. More importantly though, a seed was planted in my mind - an allure of this spectacle called the NYC Marathon.

I remember trying to imagine what it would be like to run it, how old I needed to be to enter, and even developed a fantasy of being the youngest runner to compete, this despite not even being able to run around Prospect Park let alone the unimaginable distance of 26.2 miles. As I grew older, the idea of actually running the race began to take on almost legendary implications; a seemingly unattainable goal. Due in large part because I didn't really find running an enjoyable thing to do. Sure I played soccer in high school and college, but that was a different kind of running. For me, back then, the idea of running for such a long period of time seemed like the kind of thing that only certain people were capable of doing. My distance sport for many years, until this year actually, became bike riding but thoughts of the marathon still permeated my mind.

Not just any marathon though, the NYC Marathon. Perhaps it has something to do with my dad's attempt, or maybe it has something to do with how Frank Sinatra's lyrics resonated in anyone from New York (or elsewhere), or possibly because I continued to go to the race at times to cheer people on as they ran it - many times along the same stretch of 4th Avenue and later in Central Park on a couple occasions. Whatever the reason, when I thought marathon I thought NYC and almost always said "next year." Well, as you already know, 2010 was "next year."

My first order of business was just getting into the darn race, let alone training for it. With so many people vying for a limited number of entries I decided the best option was to find a charity on whose behalf to run. There are many but when I looked on the marathon page my eyes immediately fell on Team Hole in the Wall. As I explained in my earlier blog post, I was drawn to the team because of its mission and my own personal connection with attending sleep-away camp as a child. I was exceedingly excited when they accepted me and began my fundraising immediately as well as continued my training in earnest.

The fundraising was made easier by the wonderful generosity of family and friends who responded to my initial email request with numerous donations. Within a very short time I had nearly reached my goal; it was more than a little humbling to see such an immediate and overwhelming show of support. Training was another story. Having never really been much of a runner and recalling my father's story of suffering a training-related injury, I consulted an online marathon training regiment. Actually I compared two and created a sort of hybrid of them both, drawing aspects from each but keeping true to their common underlying principles and mileage limits. Through the summer I steadily added miles to my runs while paying close attention to my stride and running form -- having been impressed as to the importance of both in preventing injury. I also got properly sized for new shoes to avoid suffering the unfortunately common fate of loosing toenails.

Soon I went from barely being able to complete a lap of Prospect Park without breaking to walk, to reaching milestones such as a third of a marathon, to a half, to over 20 miles in a single day. My weekly totals climbed from 10-15 to 30-40. When before I could feel the pain in my legs the day after running 4 miles, now I would run those same distances almost as a warm up. I thanks to the concentration on form and pace, I was feeling none of the discomfort in my knees that I'd previously experienced. As the days closed in on the marathon day, I began confirming what I'd wear for the race and running long distances in each combination of clothes so that nothing would be tried for the first time on November 7.

When I picked up my number and bag of marathon-related swag from the Marathon Expo on Thursday, November 4 I felt ready. Nervous and excited for sure, but ready as I'd ever be. I felt confident about my training and every aspect of what I was prepared to wear and eat on the day of the race. All systems, as they say, were go. I was consumed by the prospect of running the race, but Saturday evening would prove to re-shape my mindset of what I was involved in.

Team Hole in the Wall had a gathering the evening before the race at the Roosevelt Hotel in midtown. The last - and perhaps only - time I'd been to the hotel was for a Federal Bar Council reception to which Karen accompanied me. That was one evening, almost three years ago, but has always stayed with me as vivid memory. A room full of lawyers and judges fresh from their offices and chambers and Karen, striking an image of beauty and poise wearing a gorgeous blue dress, holding my hand as we walked among them. Were I not smitten with her before, that evening surely sealed the deal, as well as - dare I say - endeared herself to all who met her there. So there was already an emotional aspect to what I imagined would be a more or less routine pre-event meeting that evening. How wrong I was.

Not really knowing what to expect, I said hello to the few people from the organization that I'd met at the Marathon Expo and found a seat at the periphery of the crowd. Soon after, a gentleman, Jim if memory serves me, came and introduced himself. He extended his hand saying "thank you for running." He continued by explaining that his son attended one of the Hole in Wall camps and was already excited to go back next year. As he continued, he gave an emotional account about how important the experience was for his son but, just as importantly, what a difference it made for him, his wife, and their other children. How the time at camp not only allowed his son to behave like a child and enjoy life, but permitted the rest of the family to have a moment, however brief, when they could live like a "normal" family and focus on other things than his illness. It is an aspect of the camps that I knew from reading their literature but until you hear the words coming from a grateful parent's mouth it didn't truly hit me. If I still needed an inspiration to run the following day, Jim and his family were it.

Later during the meeting runners were offered a chance, in true camp fashion, to stand and tell the group a little something about themselves and their reason for running the marathon. Initially I was hesitant to say anything but as the stories got told I felt the desire to share mine as well. After, as has happened so often when I talk in public like this, several people, including Jim, came to offer their condolences and best wishes for my future. Leaving the meeting I felt re-energized and eager to run for me, for Team Hole in the Wall, and for all the children and families whose lives are touched by it.

The following day, as I ran with my team jersey, I saw many supporters along the race and soaked in the positive reinforcement showered by the cheering section at 76th and 1st Avenue. Repeatedly along the course I felt shivers run along my spine and send goosebumps to my arms. Initially I thought they were caused by the cold, or the need for water, or because of the long road ahead of me that day. Soon, however, I realized it was because of none of those. Rather, it was the emotion of the day. Being on the road toward 26.2 miles as the achievement eluded my dad in 1978 due to injury. Working toward a goal I'd secretly harbored since a child but never believing was something I could do. Thinking about Karen even though, as I mentioned before, she'd think me crazy for doing it yet knowing she'd be there cheering for me along the route and the end. But also for the importance of what I was doing to the lives of all those who attend, or have children that attend, the camps. Between these emotions, the roar of the crowds, and the perfect weather, it was a spectacular day to run the NY Marathon and an experience I don't think I can ever fully duplicate....but think I will try to next year.

Thank you all again for the support and donations to help me achieve my goal.

Thank you to all the staff and volunteers of Team Hole in the Wall -- we might have been the ones running, but you are the ones that made the possible.

Finally, thank you New York for making the day spectacular.

26.2 miles in 4:30:04

2010-11-11T15:56:00.001-05:00

I set two different alarm clocks and my iPhone for times ranging between 4:15 and 5:30 a.m. There were many things to jeopardize me waking in time on November 7: changing the clocks back an hour at 2:00 a.m.; rumors of an iPhone bug effecting alarms set prior to daylight saving time ending; and a general concern of power failure/surge or some other freak occurrence - not that I can actually recall ever having such a thing happen to any other alarm clock I've set in my life but Murphy's Law being what it is I wasn't taking any chance.

As it turned out, I barely needed a single one of the redundant systems. I had actually been awake and laying in bed for about half an hour when the first of the alarms went off. Not that I slept for long mind you, but I'd already been told by several people that it is quite common, and not to be concerned, if one doesn't sleep much or well the night before the marathon. So, with the world around me still dark - couldn't even call it pre-dawn - I got up and started what, as I described in my other post, was to be one of my most memorable days.

Before I went to bed the night before I laid out all my clothes and prepared my snacks, water, electrolyte drink, etc., so I wouldn't need to worry about forgetting anything. NY1's weather report was showing a chilly temperature of 37 degrees so I hoped my selection of pre-race layers would be sufficient to keep me warm during the hours of waiting before my 10:40 a.m. start time. Once dressed and packed I realized I was "ahead of schedule." It was just 5 a.m. but my bus, which was departing from a running store a block from my house, wasn't going to leave until between 5:30 and 6. Rather than wander aimless around my apartment for several more minutes I decided to head out into the cold, still dark night.

It was a bit surreal. Inside I knew this was the start of a big day but everything around me was still and silent. Perhaps it is cliché to say the calm before the storm yet that is how it felt. I walked down streets normally busy with pedestrians and cars passing nor seeing even a single one of either. It wasn't until I turned onto 7th Avenue that I saw lone figures, each carrying a clear plastic bag like mine and dressed in warm clothes, although not truly warm enough for the outside temperature, making their way to the only store, other than the 24 hour bodega, open at that hour on the street. We were pilgrims beginning our journey individually but gathering together in the warmth of Jackrabbit Sports. Inside the store was packed full of bleary–eyed men and women. There were greetings exchanged as friends came through the door, while others asked one another about their previous marathon experience, if any, while still others sat in pensive silence.

By just after 5:40 I was on board the first bus of four to depart. As we headed toward the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge we drove along 4th Avenue where we'd later be running down in the opposite direction and saw the traffic enforcement tow trucks removing the few remaining cars along the avenue. However, once we crossed the bridge and arrived in Staten Island, the starting point for the marathon, the reality of the moment began to set in. Just past the bridge's end, before the toll plaza, bus after bus lined up to discharge passengers while orange jacketed volunteers greeted and guided us along the road's shoulder to the entrance of the starting area. Even though it was still early, the area buzzed with excitement and loudspeakers were broadcasting instructional messages in a multitude of languages - French, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, German, to name the few that I recognized and recall now. The multi-language announcements were matched by the the cacophony of languages being spoken by the hundreds of runners around me. There could be no doubt that this is truly an international event.

Now came the waiting. With a field of over 45,000 runner, the NYC Marathon has three starting waves beginning at 9:40 (after the elite women and wheel chair divisions have already departed) and continuing until the last leaves at 10:40. I was in the final wave. Thankfully Team Hole in the Wall had a tent in the Charity Village that not only provided shelter from the wind but was stocked with hot coffee and snacks. However, because I didn't take the team bus from mid-town, when I arrived there were only two other runners, who'd also taken alternate transportation to the start, in the tent. Indeed the Charity Village itself was nearly deserted for at least the next hour and a half yet suddenly, in the time it took me to enter and leave one of the many porta-potties, the area was packed with people. It was as if all team buses arrived simultaneously.

Over the next couple hours as the sun rose the day really began to take shape. Helicopters began appearing in the skies above in preparation of the start, announcements began calling Wave 1 runners to the starting corrals, and cannon blasts could be heard announcing each start - first the wheelchair division, then elite women, then elite men and Wave 1. By the time Wave 3 was called to the corrals I'd finished my breakfast, removed a couple layers of clothes, and stretched my legs and body as I'd done on my many training runs. With excited and nervous butterflies in my stomach I made my way to the start.

By the time I walked crossed the Staten Island in front of the toll plaza the energy of the crowd around me was palpable. This was it. I couldn't see the actual starting line, a combination of the other runners and a corridor of buses used to separate the waves form one another, blocked my view but I knew it was so close. The sound of the PA announcer could be heard announcing the final preparation, then a cannon bang, and the first chords of New York, New York began. We were underway. The crowd began to move forward, slowly at first, then gaining momentum as we approached the official starting line. The clock read just past five minutes from the starting gun when I stepped over the starting mat at just barely a jog but began picking up speed as we headed onto the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

What the NYC Marathon course lacks in hills it makes up with bridges and the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge begins the race with a nearly one mile up grade. How many times had I driven over this bridge? In all sorts of weather. At every time of the year. But never like this. Always among the most spectacular views, whether looking northerly at the Manhattan skyline in the distance or southerly out at the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean each it is something to behold, now it was not only a perfectly blue, cloudless day to accentuate the scenery, but moving at a mere 10 miles an hour along the very edge of the bridge allowed me to savor every angle and image spreading out before me.

Coming off the bridge we came into contact with the first groups of people cheering along the sides of the route. There weren't many at first, just a few groups here and there along the streets of Bay Ridge, but soon we hit 4th Avenue and all hell broke loose. There were bands and throngs of people lining both sides of the street. It was, as I've described before, the beginning of the worlds largest block party - and it seemed all of Brooklyn had come out to celebrate.

As I ran down 4th Avenue, watching the street numbers tick off, I knew that each block was bringing me closer to the first spot where I knew friends and family were waiting to cheer for me. That isn't to say people weren't cheering my name. Like so many others I had my name written in large letters across my jersey, eliciting shouts of "GO DREW" from complete strangers. Just past 12th Street (I think) I saw a Team Hole in the Wall sign held aloft on a pole, the other end of which was held by my mom. I made a bee-line towards her, my brother, sister-in-law, nieces, and friends with arms waving. After a moment of celebration and a hand off of a bottle of electrolyte drink, I kept on into mile 8 with renewed energy and the sight of the Williamsburg Bank Building (now known as 1 Hanson Place) in front of me.

4th Avenue was great with so many people - friends, family, and strangers - lining both sides of the wide boulevard, and even in the middle median in places, but when the spectators and runners get compressed into the narrower streets of Williamsburg the energy really seemed to pick up. Whether or not there were more people it certainly felt like it. Shouts and cheers, not to mention songs from the various bands, reverberated and powered me through the rest of Brooklyn until I found myself on the Pulaski Bridge, running under the 13.1 mile banner marking half that half the marathon was done.

The course through Queens was fairly short but with similarly intense pockets of cheering as had been throughout Brooklyn. What Queens did, however, present was the challenge of several rather sharp turns - sharp, that is, for one that has already run a half marathon and who's legs are responding less and less to instructions other than "stride, stride, stride" - leading to the notorious ascent up the Queens Borough Bridge. Having watched the television coverage of the lead runners in years past, I was well aware of how the commentators described the experience of the bridge. Not only is it an ascent like the Verrazano, but unlike the opening bridge it has to be climbed on legs that have already covered nearly 16 miles and with the absence of the cheering crowds that helped get runners to it.

On to and up the roadway we went. My pace undoubtedly slowing slightly as the whole pack ran in near silence along the lower level. Amazingly, however, about halfway up the climb a crowd of runners in front of me began singing happy birthday to one among their ranks. It was quite remarkable and has to rank as one of the more unusual places I've participated in the songs singing. As we finished and began down the bridge toward Manhattan a new sound became audible. Just as the TV commentators talk about the period of running in silence across the bridge, they mention the canyon of noise on the other side as the route enters Manhattan for the first time and the cheering could clearly be heard long before any spectators were in sight.

The first Manhattanites were perched along the walls of the bridge but as we made a sharp pair of left turns leading to First Avenue we encountered multitudes. Hundreds, thousands of people were lined 10 deep behind barricades as well as clustered above on balconies along both sides of the avenue. And the noise. Yelling, cheering, ringing cowbells, blowing horns, creating a cacophony unknown to me before then. I'd been told by several prior runners that the crowds can help revive your energy at that point but also could lead a runner to break their pace, so I concentrated on staying on pace while soaking in the awesome amount of support and positive energy being directed at me and the other runners.

The Team Hole in the Wall cheer zone at 76th Street provided yet another, more focused cheering section. Dozens of supporters shouted wildly as I passed by, slapping high-fives with many, encouraging me ever northward. However, as the crowds began to thin north of 96th Street my first signs of fatigue began to show. I kept running but made a deal with myself: when I reached the next bridge, the Willis Avenue Bridge, linking Manhattan to the Bronx, I would walk the ascent, eat a packet of Hammer Gel, and assess my overall condition before I would resume running. After all, at 19.5 miles that point marks almost the longest distance I'd run to date. So, true to my word to myself, that is just what I did and it was the best decision I could have made.

Upon reaching the crest of the bridge, gel packet ingested and feeling generally positive about my legs and body, I started running again. Not long after I struck up a conversation with a fellow runner to my right. A simple exchange of pleasantries at first, she would prove to be invaluable for the remaining miles. Initially it was I helping her recover from cramping by suggesting she take on Gatorade at the next fluid station (she had until then only been drinking water and therefore not replacing the lost electrolytes) but soon we were alternatively cajoling, cheering, and even, at times, coercing each other to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

I confronted my wall soon after we crossed the Madison Avenue Bridge back into Manhattan. We were just past the 21 mile mark, coursing through Harlem, when my energy seemed to slip away from me. My legs were still, reluctantly moving but the thought washed over me that I still have 5 miles to go. Perhaps short given the amount I'd already covered, but an impossible distance to consider in the moment. Jean, my running mate, feeling much better than when we'd started pacing with each other, pushed me on. Thanks in no small part to her encouragement, I rounded Marcus Garvey Park and saw the cross-street numbers decline steadily until we were at 111 and the tops of the trees in Central Park could be seen over the heads of the spectators. I knew the end was near.

As the building lined canyon of Fifth Avenue gave way to the street bordered by Central Park, we begin the second to last hill of the run. On any other day, this gentle half mile slope might seem like next to nothing. But not today. Today it stood between me and the entrance to Central Park and the final 2 miles of the race. The crowds grew larger as we approached 90th Street and the sweeping right turn into the park near the reservoir. This is the area I'd watch the runners on two occasions while living on the Upper West Side and the lines of well wishers were as deep as anywhere else on the course so far, but I knew that ahead was my father and step-mother. Knowing this and feeling the end so close at hand, my pace picked up slightly. Then even more when I actually saw them. What an energy boost, and I'm not merely speaking about the energy gel packets my dad passed to me as I ran by them. (It was also shortly after passing them that I came upon Edison Pena, the Chilean miner, who was running in his first marathon as well. He understandably struggled but did complete the race. A true source of inspiration.)

From there the race became a joy. Even with 25 miles in my legs I felt nothing. I almost floated out of the park near the Plaza hotel, along Central Park South, and toward Columbus Circle. Shortly after re-entering the park I passed under the 400 meter banner and felt a jolt of adrenaline....I was about to finish the New York Marathon. Up a final, short incline I could see the grandstands and the finish line arches. With new found energy welling up in me, I picked up my pace to what felt like a sprint, and ran the final meters slapping high-fives with the spectators. I stretched my arms over head and crossed one of the most famous lines in sports. I had done it!

Volunteers placed a medal around my neck, a mylar blanket (which I have a new found respect for) over my shoulders, and post-race bag in my hands. I shuffled forward with the hundreds of other runners, sipping slowly on water and trying to assess my physical condition. There are many stories about runners passing out, throwing up, or being general delirious at the finish line. They are all true. Thankfully, with the exception of a little loss of balance for a moment, none of those ills affected me. But I saw more than my share of misery and felt for each pained runner. (I should note that the race officials were very good at attending to these runners and I saw more medical services in this one area than I think I'd ever witnessed before. Indeed the NY Times did a great article about the new methodology the planners are now using.)

Once I was able to exit the park at 77th Street I headed downtown to Team Hole in the Wall's post-race meeting point, which was at the ABC Studios on 66th Street. What this meant is that after running 26.2 miles I essentially walked another to completely finish my race. That half mile back from the park exit seemed to take longer than a mile on the race course, but once at the meeting point I was surrounded by my family, which had seen me along the route and then come into Manhattan. It was a perfect way to finish such an amazing day.

It took a lot of work and hundreds of training miles, but the satisfaction of finishing the race is indescribable. Although my goal was to break 4 1/2 hours, I am not about to complain that my official time was 4:30:04. After all, there is always next year.....

(Stay tuned for an additional post about the marathon and additional pictures when they become available.)

Marathon Day Countdown

2010-10-29T12:53:00.004-04:00

After hundreds of training miles and two pairs of shoes the marathon is now a little over a week away. Despite struggling at the moment to put a little flu bug behind me, I'm feeling physically ready for the run and growing more excited by the day.

I want to thank all of you who contributed to Team Hole in the Wall in my name allowing me this fantastic opportunity to join with tens of thousands of other runners on November 7 as we travel through the five boroughs. I hope, for those of you who live in the New York area, you will also come out to root us on along the course - if you've never been to the marathon and seen it first hand it is truly something to be experienced. Here is a link to an interactive map for you to precisely see the course.

My bib number is 48739 and will be starting in Blue Wave Group 3 at 10:40 a.m. Here is link to estimates for arrival times along the route, but you will be able to track my progress, whether you're along the route or not, in real-time using the NYRR's Athlete Alert system. There are several options available, including text updates and an iPhone application, and information on them all can be found here. If you do plan to come out and cheer, please let me know where you plan to be and on which side - in relation to my running direction - you'll be standing. I will do my best to be on that side of the route. There are about two hundred members of Team Hole in the Wall and we'll all be decked out in team shirts so hopefully you'll be able to spot us (me) in the crowd.

Thank you all once again and hope to see you next Sunday.

In support of the Prospect Park West bike lane

2010-10-20T11:28:00.002-04:00

On a slightly different topic than what I've written about here in the past, I wanted to post a copy of the email I sent to members of the New York City Council in support of keeping the bike lane along Prospect Park West. For those not in the area, the Department of Transportation earlier this year reduced the number of vehicle lanes on Prospect Park West from three to two, converting an area between the curb and parking lane to a separated bicycle lane. Predictably, not all are happy with this change and some are calling on its removal and restoring the road to three lanes. I am totally in favor of keeping it since, in my opinion, the change is beneficial to pedestrians and cyclists alike and is of minimal inconvenience to motorists.

Here's what I wrote:

Dear _______,

I am writing to voice my support for the bike lane along Prospect Park West and encourage the City to continue in its efforts to create more. As I resident of Park Slope for over thirty years and avid cyclist, it is my feeling that this lane, and the others throughout the city, is a benefit to our community and increases pedestrian and cyclist safety.

I have long enjoyed the visual appeal of Prospect Park West's grand thoroughfare but at the same time felt it to be quite dangerous. Growing up and, for most of my adult life, living a block from the Prospect Park, I consistently viewed the three lanes of traffic along Prospect Park West as one of the more difficult streets to cross. Not only would drivers take advantage of the relatively open flow of traffic to speed but would routinely accelerate even faster in order to catch the few lights along the route. This scenario made it very challenging to cross the three lanes of traffic, especially when one considers that many of the people crossing to access the Park are elderly, school aged, parents with strollers, etc. Indeed my earliest memory of Prospect Park West as a young child was of a vast, seemingly insurmountable expanse of asphalt where cars careened past all but cutting off access to the Park. Installing the physically-separated bike lane along Prospect Park West was a great idea not only because it shortens the distance necessary to cross from three lanes of active traffic down to two, but provides great safety for bikers and slows down vehicular traffic.

I understand that there are many in the neighborhood that complain traffic speeds have actually increased due to people accelerating to make up for lost time due to congestion - specifically that with two lanes traffic backups occur when there's a double parked car or driver who stops to park in a legal spot. However, these same drivers would in all likelihood be speeding just as much - if not more - were there still three lanes of traffic. Moreover, this consequence of reducing the number of lanes on Prospect Park West should no more warrant the removal of the bike lane any more than it suggests expanding Eighth Avenue to three lanes because such backups occur there as well. Again, speeding is not the result of a narrower roadway (indeed I believe it is quite the opposite and happens more often on wider streets with greater traffic flow) but rather on the attitude of individual drivers. The answer to speeding and reckless driving is not to expand the width of roadways but to increase police enforcement.

Complaints against the bike path have also been raised by pedestrians that say crossing it is dangerous because they have to look both ways. This argument too, however, ought not to result in removal of the bike path. The need to remember to look before stepping onto the bike path in the short run is vastly outweighed by the long-term benefit of having the separate areas for pedestrians and cyclists. Yes, it is a change and something new for long time residents to remember to do, but I doubt anyone would now argue to remove the traffic lights on Garfield Place, First Street, Fifth Street, etc., because when they were first installed people were not familiar with them being there and had to remember to pay attention. As a child I was taught to look both ways before stepping off the curb whether there was a walk signal or not. This ought to apply whether that means stepping into the street or a bike lane.

Finally, as a bike rider who does his best to ride with courtesy towards others, including pedestrians, I will nevertheless be the first to acknowledge that there are many others who are not. Yet I would also point out that there are many pedestrians that walk without awareness to their surroundings as well. I have witnessed and experienced first hand as many accidents and near accidents caused by pedestrian inattentiveness as by cyclist action. Providing separate paths for the two reduces incidents of cyclist-pedestrian interactions and thus the chances for accidents is lessen. Since the installation of the bike path I have seen almost no bikes - with the exception of very young children still in the learning stages - on the sidewalk and have seen equally few pedestrians using the bike lane.

Perhaps there was a time when the wide, three lane thoroughfare of Prospect Park West provided a grand boulevard for motorists, pedestrians, and cyclists alike to enjoy, but what it became in recent years was a mile long, drag strip-like stretch of a road slicing between Park Slope and Prospect Park. Drivers hoping to shave minutes from their commute would routinely speed along its length, jumping green lights and ignoring yellow (and sometimes red) in an effort to make the next. Pedestrians had to scramble to cross its expanse and cyclists forced into the dangerous position of riding unprotected and alongside increasingly aggressive and reckless drivers. Providing the separated bicycle lane has provided a reasonable and good solution these issues. The minor inconveniences it might have created or period of adjustment necessary by all in response to it does not warrant its removal.

I encourage you to resist the efforts to return to Prospect Park West to a car-centric roadway and hope you will support New York's effort to make our city more pedestrian and bicycle friendly and safe.

Thank you.

Training Update

2010-09-23T18:48:00.003-04:00

With a little over a month away from the marathon I wanted to thank everyone who made a pledge to Team Hole in the Wall - I have exceeded my goal! - and tell you about how the training is going.

First off, before I began training for the marathon the only times I'd ever done laps of Prospect Park was on my bike (or in my car shortly after I got my license). I think I had ran/walked once or twice around but that was it. Now, doing a lap seems almost easy. In fact, a few days ago I did my longer run, 18 miles, which was 5 laps around the park...a number I barely could conceive of doing even on my bike. But that's what I'm doing now, laps, laps, laps.

So far I have been spared many of the ailments I've heard of people experiencing when doing long distance running. Thanks to a new pair of shoes properly fitted by Jackrabbit Sports - a full size larger than my street shoes - I have plenty of room for my toes (thus avoiding black toe nails), good support across my arches, and minimal rubbing in places that could cause blistering. All things I hope stay as is when I go from 18-20 mile runs to the big one of 26.2.

Another thing to mention is my absolute love for Bodyglide. For those of you who know what this phenomenal product is and what its for you'll certainly agree with me about its importance. For those unfamiliar with it, well let's just say it keeps things moving without annoying (and painful) friction.

I'm also experimenting and testing various combinations of gels, electrolyte drinks, and nutrition for the day of and days leading up to it. It actually makes me wonder if Pheidippides did any such training or contemplation? Probably not. I'm guessing his general just turned to him and said "Run!" and he did. Then again, he probably wasn't pushing 39 when he ran to Athens.

With November 7 just around the corner I am growing more and more excited for the event. I've watched runners participating in this from a very small age and even imagine doing it when I was in my early teens. Never did I actually think I would run it myself but, with all your help, I am just weeks away from that. It is very exciting but nothing - I imagine - as compared to what it will be on the day of. As I've mentioned, I'm running with Team Hole in the Wall but if you're thinking you'd like to join with me and the 40,000 other people running there is still time to get involved. In fact I know that The Fresh Air Fund has spots still available on their running team and would love to have you join with them. If you're interested click here and get ready to hit the road!

Milestones and making beds

2010-08-15T13:56:00.001-04:00

August is a difficult month. One the one hand I try to be happy thinking about the joy I experienced on the 17th in 2008, but of course my memories of that day are marred by the events three months later. So it isn't surprising that, as the days tick by leading up to what would have been our two year anniversary, a sense of disquiet has come over me as I anticipate crossing yet another milestone.

Two years. Has it really been only two years since Karen and I stood under the chuppah? It seems at once like yesterday and a lifetime ago. That day was magical from the setting, to the weather - how the warm August day gave way to a seasonably cool evening with a surreal blue dusk sky, but mainly because of the woman standing with me saying "I do."

I think of that day often and try to use the memories of it to push from my mind the images of her death and the painful days (weeks, months, years...) that have followed and are inevitably to come. I recall the excitement I felt; how the world and future seemed spread out before us both. The anniversaries I looked forward to celebrating. The gifts we'd exchange. The memories we'd forge together.

Traditionally, the gift for a second anniversary is something made from, or having to do with, cotton. Of course there isn't a corresponding gift list for presents relating to anniversaries that are not achieved. Instead, the date becomes a milestone. Another turn of the calendar and mark of what should have been. Naturally, such as milestones are, these are significant dates. The sort of thing that one anticipates and girds themselves to face. But often the mundane, routine moments throughout the calendar that impact on me equally, if not more.

A few days ago I was changing the sheets on my bed. A banal event to be sure. As I did, I recalled how, even before Karen and I were engaged, she had accompanied me to Macy's to pick out the mattress (a funny story that still brings a smile to my face when I think about it) as well as weighed in on the choice of bed frame and headboard. It was clear, even in those early days of our being together, that I wasn't merely buying my bed, but rather was buying ours. For me, that represents the strength of our relationship and our future; together only a few months and already intuitively making a life together.

I stood, fitted sheet in place and top sheet in my hands, for several moments. Looking from the foot of the bed toward the head, staring at the Budduh she brought from her apartment and insisted we put above the headboard to look over us, it struck me like the proverbial ton of bricks: our bed was now just mine. Despite the wonderful memories of laying together, no more would be made. The morning after my 37th birthday will forever be the last we spend.

Perhaps it is fitting that such thoughts came to me on that day, just shy of what would have been our Cotton Anniversary, as I handled the cotton sheets. After all, I can assure you that I have changed the sheets on the bed many, many times. I certainly don't have the list of traditional wedding anniversary gifts committed to memory, but something innately stuck a chord with me.

The milestones are there. I'm expecting them and "preparing" as best someone can, I hope. But those moments making the bed, or cooking something, or hearing a certain song, or..., will forever I think be the one that spark the most intense feelings. Partly because they're unexpected and partly because there is a rawness to what is evoked.

I'm running the NYC Marathon and need YOUR help!

2010-07-07T10:26:00.005-04:00

Dear Friends:

Last year, with your help, I had the experience of a lifetime riding from Tel Aviv to Eilat. This year, after thinking about it countless times, I’ve decided to run the New York City Marathon and am once again asking for your support.

In addition to training and preparing for the challenge of running 26.2 miles, I have committed to raising $3000 for Hole in the Wall Camps, who’s team I will be running with in what has come to be known as the worlds longest block party.

Founded in 1988 by Paul Newman, every year Hole in the Wall Camps provide thousands of children with life-threatening illnesses a magical, life-changing experience. For one week, at no cost to their families, these kids are given the opportunity to live like kids and enjoy the simple pleasures of summertime. Hole in the Wall Camps also give these youngsters important tools – tools they can take into the world to help meet the challenge of serious illness long after their time at camp is over.

I attended three different sleep away camps and count my time at them as some of the happiest and meaningful of my childhood. The experiences and lessons learned in those summers helped me to become the adult I am today. Knowing the value of my time at camp, it was an easy decision for me to choose Team Hole in the Wall when I searched for a charity with which to run. I'm also sure Karen would have supported the organization's mission and my decision to join their team (even if she would think me crazy for wanting to run so far!)

But in order to run, I must first meet my goal and hope you will support me with a tax-deductible gift. I know these may be difficult financial times for some, but please consider giving even a modest amount as every bit puts me one step closer to getting me on the course. Click here to be directed to my fundraising page and then click “Support Andrew” on the upper right corner.

I also hope you will continue to support me, and all the runners, by coming out on November 7 to cheer us on along the route - if you've never seen the Marathon in person it really is something wonderful to be a part of.

My heartfelt thank you,

Andrew

Kyoto again

2010-06-30T13:45:00.005-04:00

(This is a post I started some time ago while I was still traveling. Its taken me a while to finish it, mainly because I was too busy experiencing all the places on my itinerary, and rather than edit what I've already written I decided to just pick up where I left off....)

So I'm now three countries from my time in Kyoto - amazing to consider that its only been about three weeks that I've been traveling and I've already seen four countries - but there was more about my last days there to tell. Much more, but I'll just put some of my experiences, thoughts, and impressions down here.

Before I left the states I booked a night at a Yoshimizu ryokan, a traditional Japanese style inn, located just outside the Gion district in Maruyama park near the Yasaka Shrine. The directions from the confirmation email appeared to be a bit confusing, so the day before I was to check in I wandered to the park to find the inn. As it turned out it wasn't very complicated and, contrary to some of the comments on TripAdvisor.com, was not a difficult "climb" to the front door. (I only wish they had a little sign in English to let you know you've found the right place. But even that wasn't such a big deal.) The pleasures of the ryokan are in it's serenity, traditional Japanese soaking tubs, and sleeping on a tatami mat. Yoshimizu met all three perfectly. My room was sparsely decorated and looked out over the yard of the house next door. I felt a sense of calm come over me just by sliding back the paper door and stepping inside. It was as if the world of modern Kyoto could not penetrate the paper panels.

Before getting to the inn, I walked throughout the city during the day, logging some 9 miles according to my best estimate from the map. I visited the Nijō Castle and Kinkaku-ji, also known as the Golden Temple, both places worthy of entire posts themselves, as well as walked along countless sides streets to simply soak up the atmosphere of the city. Needless to say, I was tired and in need of a good washing when I checked-in. But first would need to be dinner. Naturally.

When I consulted my Old Kyoto Guide, which I highly recommend for anyone visiting the city, it mentioned that there was an imabo restaurant located a very short walk from the inn. When I read the description of imabo, and this restaurant in particular, I knew I had to try it. To borrow the author's description, imabo is "a dish that literally comes from the roots of Kyoto cuisine. A bowl of delicious ebi-imo (an unusual variety of shrimp-shaped potatoes imported originally by Buddhist priests from China) and bodara (a kind of preserved fish from the Japan Sea) are served with soup, rice, and the ever-present Kyoto pickles."

So that, and a bit more, was what I read and was ready to try. Off I went in search of the restaurant, which was made easy by the photo accompanying the description in the book. What I wasn't ready for was the way the hostess and three waitresses at the front tried to explain to me that this was an imabo restaurant. Obviously something that they tend not to see westerns trying - or at least not there. But I assured them with a big smile and nod that indeed I knew what was on the menu and that I was ready to get to the root of Kyoto cooking.

My kimono-clad waitress led me down the stone path with small, private dinning rooms on each side shielded from view by paper screens to mine. She pulled back the screen to my dining room, I slipped off my shoes, and hopped up and into the room. I looked at the menu and selected the third combination meal, a bottle of cold sake, and sat back to see what would come to the table. What arrived was a tray with several small dishes, which the waitress dutifully explained to me what each one was in perfect Japanese. It had to be perfect Japanese because I didn't understand a single thing and just meekly nodded each time she pointed to a dish. Even without knowing anything of what was said, I knew how perfect the tray and its dishes looked and was excited to try them all.

There was the potato and dried fish dish, a pot of Japanese rice (which I've come to realize I could make a meal out of and be happy), assorted Kyoto pickles, clear broth soup, and a dish that can be best described as seaweed wrapped around a sesame paste (I think) and marinated in a light rice wine vinegar brine. Each dish was prepared and presented with such precision that it was almost difficult to eat them, but I was certainly glad that I did. The flavors, especially the dried fish and potato, was unlike what I've previously thought of as Japanese food but exquisite. I'm not sure if imabo will ever win over mainstream western palates, but if you ever have the opportunity to visit Kyoto it is well worth the experience.

After dinner I wandered through Maruyama park taking in the changing scenery with the setting sun. The passage of each minute as the sun slipped below the horizon brought new colors and sights to the already beautiful scene. As dusk gave way to night, I headed back to the ryokan. Returning to its serenity, I changed into the kimono and went to bathe. Now bathing in Japan is not about cleaning oneself, that is done before you enter the tub. The reason it is important to clean yourself before getting in the bath is that it is a communal tub, used by many people in turn. Sitting on a low wooden stool next to the soaking tub you thoroughly scrub yourself from head to toe and rise off with a hand-held shower faucet. Because I had walked so much during the day, I actually repeated this step to be sure I was completely cleaned. Once that is done it is time to get in the tub and let the warm water soak away the tensions and pressures of the day. I remained in it for nearly half an hour and reemerged rested, relaxed, and ready for a well deserved long night's sleep.

My remaining time in Kyoto was equally as interesting and memorable. I toured the city more, seeing the Imperial Palace - where I discovered they do have an alarm system to prevent people from jumping across the small moat onto the ledge beside the wall. But the real highlight of my final day/night was dinner with new friends at a neighborhood restaurant owned and exceptionally run by Manzo-san and his son.

This was a multi-course meal but without the formality of the kaiseki meal. Instead, the meal was served and enjoyed with the semi-casual feel of a favored neighborhood restaurant. The dishes included braised short ribs, a sashimi platter, cold soba noodles, a fried custard, and more. Despite seemingly never leaving his position behind the counter, it was clear that each dish served was lovingly overseen by Manzo-san himself. He stood proudly monitoring every movement taking place in his small dinning room insuring every guest was absolutely satisfied with their experience. Even today, some two months since the meal, I am smiling and salivating at the memory of it.

We lingered over our meal and libations so long that when we were done there were no other customers left. Since they were closing up anyway, we convinced Manzo and his staff (which wasn't very difficult) to join us as we partook in that classic Japanese tradition: karaoke. Normally I am loathe to do karaoke since ever place I'd ever seen before was at bars where you basically embarrass yourself before a large crowd of strangers. In Japan - and all the other countries I traveled in - however, karaoke is done in private rooms where you're only embarrassing yourself in front of your friends...a much more appealing activity. Drinks were ordered, songs requested, and we all took turns with the microphone. I crooned to Billy Joel's New York State of Mind and a few other classic rock hits I thought I could muscle through. What I'd originally been reluctant to do, I enjoyed immensely. The night continued for some time with more drinks, songs, and friendly laughter. Considering the final karaoke encore of the night was well past 2 a.m., it was a remarkable feat of willpower to wake up at 8:30 a.m. for my train to Osaka International Airport and my flight, with a connection in Incheon, to Hanoi.

Its been about a month and a half since I left Kyoto but Kyoto hasn't, nor do think it will any time soon, left me. Why I chose only to visit Kyoto when I was making these plans I cannot say. There was something that drew me to the city, an intangible feeling of needing to visit even though I knew very little of it. After being there and speaking with others, I discovered that I am not alone in having this feeling. There truly is something special about Kyoto. Had I returned to American after my time there I think I would have been content, but it was just the beginning of a longer, deeper journey.

Update and new posts

2010-06-29T15:45:00.002-04:00

My Asia trip came to an end about a month ago but I am still very much thinking about it and everything I experienced. I have a couple unfinished posts I am working on completing - as well as several un-started that I've been crafting in my mind - and will post them as soon as I'm happy with them. For now, however, I wanted to let you all know that the remainder of my journey was fantastic and I hope I'm able to convey some of the experiences through my words.

Please stay tuned for further updates.

Andrew

Impressions of Laos from a slow boat up the Mekong

2010-04-30T10:12:00.003-04:00

We - my Intrepid Travel tour group, which consists of four other travelers and one trip leader - left Luang Prabang for the Thailand boarder. For the next two days we'll be traveling by long boat along the Mekong River, which sure beats another six hours in a minivan along the precarious, but magnificent, mountain roads of Laos. It also gives me plenty of time to catch up on where I've been and what I've eaten. There's much to tell so this is a bit of a long post (which I'll be putting online when I next have internet connection) so let me dive right in....

We left the harried and chaotic streets of Hanoi behind by minibus. Of course leaving Hanoi doesn't mean leaving the crazy driving entirely. Our trip down the main road to Vinh was something of an adventure in and of itself, as it would along along the roads to the Laos boarder. What classifies as a "highway" in Vietnam is simply a strip of asphalt, lined at some points but disregarded entirely whether there or not. Cars, buses, trucks, motorbikes, bicycles, pedestrians, and livestock are constantly jostling for position. Its an anarchical system (if that oxymoron can stand) that seems to work...for the most part. We did see one instance where, for whatever reason, a truck appeared to loose its battle for control of the road and toppled over into the adjacent rice paddy. To the best we could see there was no injuries, thank fully.

After Vinh our course turned westward and followed the Ho Chi Minh Trail up into the mountains. The road was windy and carved into the mountains. As our minibus struggled up the incline, which at times seemed to be over a 10% grade, I couldn't help but think about the thousands of North Vietnamese soldiers and civilians - men and women - who with bicycles loaded down with hundreds of pounds of supplies labored along this route at night, which was an unpaved path at the time, under the near constant bombing from US airplanes. How could such resolve, determination, and resolve have been expected to be broken by military means? (A lesson, it would seem, has been forgotten today.)

We reached the top of the mountains and the boarder crossing to Laos. It, like most things in Vietnam, bore the hallmarks of the heavily bureaucratic society that has embraced a state controlled economy. (The most egregious example of which has to be the toll plaza that have two booths per lane. The first of which is where you pay your money and receive a ticket, only to drive forward a few dozens yards and give the ticket to the next official who lets you pass.) While the rest of my group - two Aussies, a Kiwi, and a Canadian - all walked easily past the final Vietnamese checkpoint with the boarder guards giving what seemed only a cursory glance through their passports, I stood for what seemed like several minutes as the guard, festooned in full uniform with over sized epaulets, scrutinized each and every page of my passport, repeatedly. Not only did he seem to be reviewing all the entry and exit stamps, but kept turning to the front page to look at the picture and then back at me. Now I know the photo is almost ten years old, but it was a bit unnerving to still be on the Vietnam side of the board with this happening while the rest of my group was across and boarding our new minibus. Finally another guard, who appeared more senior, approached, gave my passport a once over glance, and waved me through. Our Lao guide later explained to me that the first guard was most likely a rookie and overzealous, which made sense but didn't help as I was standing there waiting to see what was wrong.

We were now in Laos. Laos, the mere mention of this country will forever evoke strong and powerful memories for me. I've of course heard of the country before, from studying the Vietnam War as well as just my natural curiosity of the world. After watching the episode of No Reservations when Anthony Bourdain traveled through here, however, I knew it was a place I had to see for myself. Especially now while it is still relatively untraveled and undeveloped.

There is an immediate and dramatic change as soon as we crossed the boarder. Whereas Vietnam felt like an over-active beehive with crowds of people in constant movement, Laos is markedly less populous and the people, while just as enterprising, move at a less frenetic pace. Traffic too was different; rules of the road are mostly adhered to and gone was the bravado and reckless of the Vietnamese drivers, who can be known to pass as passing vehicle while rounding a uphill blind curve. But most notable was the change in the villages we passed.

Granted that my experience in Vietnam consisted mostly of being in Hanoi and along the roads, but whereas the Vietnamese seem to be throwing up modern buildings as quickly as possible in all places at once, Lao architecture retains and continues to reflect the culture and heritage (with the exception of in the larger towns and cities.) All along the roads are the simple stilt houses in which the people have lived for generations. So while Vietnam seems hellbent on continuing its full tilt building boom, feed by a stripping of natural resources, particularly the excavating of whole mountains for the minerals, much of the Lao countryside looks as it must have - with the exception of power lines and the more than occasional satellite dish - for hundreds of years.

Our first stop in Laos was at the capital city Vientiane . It sits on a bend in the Mekong river across from Thailand. As you might expect, with a new country comes new food opportunities for me, which began with our first dinner. Even though the restaurant had more of a foreigner presence than others I've been to thus far, they had fried crickets with lemon grass and chillies as an appetizer. Of course I ordered them. They were crunchy and flavorful with just a hint of spice. To be honest, if you didn't look at them or feel them in your hand has you ate them, you'd never suspect what they were. I suppose it just reaffirms my suspicion that nearly anything fried properly is good to eat.

Our schedule called for two nights in Vientiane , which was plenty of time to tour the city and take in most of the sights. I of course made my usual journey to see the local market, which was full of everything from fresh meats and vegetables to clothing, hardware, electronics, and anything in between. We also saw several stupors and Buddhist temples, as well as climbed to the top of Victory Gate for a panoramic view of the entire city and surrounding countryside. As the capital city, we also saw the presidential residence, the new People's Assembly building, and all the modernity one would expect. By renting bicycles, we were able to cover most of the city quickly, including locating a small bar perched high on the bank of the Mekong with a fantastic view of the river and Thailand. The cold Beer Lao was particularly tasty there, perhaps because of the riding it took to reach the bar.

One of the most moving and thought provoking things I saw in Vientiane was our visit to C.O.P.E., which stands for Cooperative Orthotic and Prosthetic Enterprise, a non-profit organization devoted to providing free prosthetics and rehabilitation for people who have been injured by the millions of unexploded munitions that litter the jungles and fields of Laos. As I mentioned earlier, during the Vietnam War the North Vietnamese used the Ho Chi Minh Trail, which runs through Laos, as the primary route to move supplies from North Vietnam to South Vietnam and Cambodia. As a result, US bombers flew 580,994 sorties over Laos and dropped over 200 million tonnes of bombs on Laos, more than was dropped in all of World War Two, in an effort to stem the flow along it. It is estimated that for about a decade a planeload of bombs fell on Laos every 8 minutes. A portion of these bombs did not detonate on contact with the ground, the explosive components remaining dormant for years until disturbed, with deadly and devastating effect.

During its campaign in Southeast Asia and Laos, the US used a significant number cluster bombs. These bombs, once dropped from the aircraft, break apart and release multiple - as many as several dozen - smaller submunitions, or "bomblets," which either explode on contact with the ground or embed themselves to form anti-personnel or anti-tank mines. In tests conducted on these cluster bombs, as much as 30% of the bomblets did not detonate on contact. It is estimated that during the US bombing campaign as many as 260 million of these bomblets were dropped. Thus, based on the estimate of 30% unexploded, there may be as many as 78 million unexploded bomblets throughout Laos. These continue to kill today. Farmers plowing their fields or clearing new land have been known to accidentally detonate bomblets, but often times children, searching for valuable scrap metal in the jungle, mistakenly pick up these pieces of liver ordinance.

Once such story happened in a small village in 2008. Nine children, boys and girls aged 1 to about 12, were playing by the river when one found a small ball of metal. The others gathered around to look at it. When one of the older ones recognized what it was, the one holding the ball dropped it immediately. It detonated. Parents in the village heard the noise and rushed to the river to find five of the children dead and four others injured.

This was from one bomblet not much bigger than a baseball. Decades after the war has ended, there are potentially millions of these still out there waiting for an unsuspecting person to find. In addition to aiding those who have been injured, C.O.P.E. assists partners with a Swiss NGO working to build community awareness of the dangers as well as to clear areas of unexploded ordnance. As I read the material and looked at the various displays I couldn't help but feel guilt because it was my country that littered this country with these deadly devices. In a bit of morbid irony, there was a picture of a fisherman who lost both his legs and one arm to a bomblet - not to mention his family's livelihood - to a cluster bomb wearing an t-shirt with America written on it and emblazoned with a bald eagle. It was a difficult reality to face head on like that, but necessary for us to remember the long lasting consequences of whatever we do. (Again, a lesson I fear has been forgotten today.)

There was another interesting moment during our time in Vientiane that is worth mentioning. Our guide, who spent ten years as a Buddhist monk, was explaining to us that there is a Buddha for each day of the week and that the Buddha corresponding to the day of the week of one's birth has significance for personality traits, similar to signs of the Zodiac. As he explained this, he mentioned that his birthday is November 16. Now I realize that it is a 1 in 365 (or 366) chance of that and it isn't as if I need a sign put in front of me to remember Karen and what is underlying this trip, but there it was. (I should also point out that, while she wasn't Buddhist, Karen did put a Buddha over our bed when she moved into my apartment and it remains there.)

We boarded a public bus in Vientiane for the four hour trip to Vang Vieng. The description that I'd heard was that it is a small town on the Song river that is famous for its tubing and caves in the surrounding mountains. What I didn't realize is that by "tubing" they meant Spring Break-like drinking along the river to earsplitting techno music and that the town itself is a Mecca for backpacking twenty-somethings, mostly Brits, who perpetuate the worst stereotype of western travelers. In fact foreigners vastly outnumber locals in the town center and at nearly any time of the day or night, until midnight, you can find a restaurant showing Friends, or Family Guy, or the Simpsons, or any one of a number of old American sitcoms, at decibels that make one long to spend time on the LAX approach pattern.

In the midst of this post-adolescence alcohol induced free-for-all, a sort of Apocalypse Now meets Revenge of the Nerds meets the Hangover, there were things worthy of fond memories. One was the food, of course, because if one were to wade past the signs advertising pizza, burgers, English breakfasts, and other European/western cuisine classics, there was some good eating to be food. First was the beef laap, severed of course with the bamboo basket of sticky rice. Laap, which I learned to cook later at a cooking class in Luang Prabang, is a dish of minced meat or tofu mixed with finely chopped lemongrass, kafir lime leaf, banana flower, chillies, dried spices, and lime juice. It is usually served at room temperature and eaten by taking a small amount of sticky rice in your right - always the right - hand, compressing it into a ball, then flattening it slighting and using it and your fingers to scoop the meat spices into your mouth. As a first introduction to laap this one was great. Full of spices and just enough heat from the chillies to making it noticeable but not overpowering.

Another great meal was of grilled whole fish, again served with sticky rice. The fish - I'm not sure what it was but would like to think it came from the Song river but more likely was from the Mekong - was caked in salt and then grilled slowly over charcoal in a Bar-B-Que made from half of a fifty-five gallon drum and heavy gauge chicken wire, a ubiquitous technique to be sure. Gutted and scaled but still with the bones, the flesh of the fish was a perfect opaque, moist and very flavorful. The charcoal imparted a nice smokey flavor and there were just enough charred bits to really taste the Bar-B-Que.

The third memorable meal was part of a full day trek I did with one other person on the tour and a guide. After spending a day cycling around seeing several caves - one requiring us to squirm through passages no wider than our hips - and tubing down the river, sans the spring break-esque revelry, we decided to seek a more rustic setting. We booked a full day trekking to a site called Secret Eden. Our guide, Khum, was personable, very knowledgeable about the region, and taught himself English better than many people with formal schooling. After a twenty minute drive out of town and short stop to see Elephant Cave, so named for the stalactite at the entrance shaped like the pachyderm, we set off. Or should I say up because after a brief walk through a rice paddy, the trail climbed straight up the mountain. It had rained the night before so the trail was made even more difficult because of the mud. Kuhm, wearing flip-flops, blazed the trail for us and patiently waited periodically for us to catch up with him. In a matter of a few minutes, we were well above the valley floor and enjoying spectacular views.

The views got better and better as we climbed higher. And while it was somewhat cooler under the canopy, I sweated profusely. I also drank constantly, draining almost two liters in the one hour it took us to reach the top of the ridge. When we got there, Khum gave us each a bit of a branch and instructed us to add ours to the pile (a stupor of leaves and flowers) at the side of the trail. He explained that doing so was to insure our safety and well being as we continued our journey down the other side of the mountain. There was another stupor on the other side of the trail and few yards from the one to which we added that was for travelers coming in the other direction.

Blessing secured, we began our descent down into the valley. As difficult as the trek up was, down was just as tricky. But the views were more amazing since there is no habitation on this side of the mountain because no roads can access it. The only signs of life are the fields cleared by the Hmong people who use the area for farming and gathering, and the small shed-like shelter they build in which to rest during the heat of the day. Once we reached the valley floor the path continued until we reached the opening of a large cavern into which a river flowed. Khum explained that the river entered here and then continued through the mountain, emerging on the other side and feeding into the Song. It was majestic. Easily 80 feet high at the opening and twice than in width. The river cascaded down over the rocks and disappearing into the darkness. After consulting his watch Khum said we'd be eating here and invited us to relax as he prepared the meal. And prepare he did.

Out of his pack he produced a bundle of charcoal and several bags of ingredients. On a rock perched ten feet above the rushing water, he arranged smaller rocks into a circle and built a small fire. Once lit, Khum pulled his knife from its sheath and literally leaped between the rocks back into the jungle, emerging moments later with three enormous banana leaves and several sticks of bamboo. Using the banana leaves as his prep station, chef Khum deftly prepared kabobs of chicken, vegetables, and pineapple. With the coals hot, the bamboo sticks were laid parallel on the smaller rocks and the skewers suspended between them above the heat. It was camp cooking at its finest. When done, he produced cartons of fried rice and presented the kabobs, rice and baguette to each of us. Sitting on the rocks at the mouth of the cave, the rush of the water and chirping of the insects providing music, and the smell of the still smoldering fire, eating those kabobs with our hands will forever be ingrained in my memory.

Lunch completed we continued walking through the Secret Eden, encountering several Hmong villagers working in the area, as we were now walking on the main path. We crossed a wide open field and were soon climbing again. The path now drier and more well-worn but every bit as steep as the one before. After about of quarter hour of climbing the quiet, until then broken only by the sound the insects in the trees around us, our footfalls, and breathing, was shattered by the sound of a tree falling across the valley from us. It was a slow, loud crack at first, followed by the distinct sound of wood splintering and branches slicing through the air as the fall picked up speed. Out of the corner of my eye and through the trees in front of me I caught a glimpse of the huge tree falling. The boom of it hitting the ground rattled all around us and then it was silent once more. It was a remarkable moment.

We crested the mountain and began down the other side, stopping briefly in Cave Number Six, so named because it was the sixth cave used by the Lao to hide in during the war. The entrance was unassuming but the inside opened to a cathedral. So high was the ceiling that our lights could barely illuminate it. Khum led us through the cave, no crawling this time, explaining the hundreds of people lived in it during the war. The beds had been removed and most other evidence of its inhabitants, but the walls bore the soot of countless fires used to light the area.

From there it was a short, but steep, climb down to the bottom and a walk through the Hmong village to our waiting tuk-tuk back to Vang Vieng. It was a remarkable day marked by the solitude and raw beauty of the area we walked, which was why the return to a town overrun by backpackers was quite the culture shock. I began to wonder what it must be like to be out in the Secret Eden at night. The absolute darkness and silence. Perhaps another trip.

After three night I think we all saw and did what we wanted in Vang Vieng. I overheard a couple guys saying that they'd been there twelve days already and that this was the second trip in six months. I honestly can't imagine surviving as, let alone enjoying, that amount of time, especially since they were of the partying-on-the-river contingent. I suppose I'm showing my age with such thinking. Besides, I guess there are those people who prefer to be halfway around the world in the middle of the jungle to drink, party, and get laid. And judging by the looks of some in the town, Vang Vieng might be the only place for them to do that.

Our next stop was Luang Prabang. Only about 65 or 70 miles from Vang Vieng as the crow flies, but we'd be following the path of a snake up and over the mountains. Now I've been on some winding roads. And I've been on some roads that had steep drop-offs. And I've been on some roads that have had both. But I've never been on a road like the one between Vang Vieng and Luang Prabang.

It is just wide enough in many places for two vehicles to pass and with a drop off on the side, or at times both, of several hundred feet straight down. Guard rails are non-existent; the only "safety" features being signs redundantly identifying sharp curves and the occasional cement post standing about 3 feet high. I doubt highly that these would have any effect on a car, let alone our minivan, were it to collide into one. Perhaps these are only for marking the location where a vehicle has parted ways with the road so the occupants can be recovered -- note I didn't say rescued. The mountains all around were jagged limestone monoliths with lush greenery covering portions of each peak. In other places the rock face was either too steep or too recently bared to permit vegetation to grow.

What made this precarious road all the more remarkable was that all along it was dotted with villages. Little more than a line of houses set mere feet from the road edge - where there was one - and incredibly clinging to the cliff's edge. As our minibus drove through them, glimpses of rural life were made. A young girl finding endless amusement from the two sticks she played with, a group of boys bathing at the water cistern, and women and men engaged in all manner of chores for their family and village. I thought it would have been nice to have stopped and watched these activities more closely, but then it occurred to me that there would be something intrusive in doing so and that what I gained in the momentary glances was enough to create a lasting impact. Besides, we still had several hours on the road to go.

Luang Prabang. Until 1560 this was the capital of Laos before it was moved to the more centrally located city of Vientiane . It remains, however, a spiritual capital of the country with many wats (Buddhist temples) and shrines, including one housing the footprint of Buddha. The city sits on the intersection of two rivers, the Mekong and the Khan. Crossing the Khan is easily done by the several bridges - two permanent and others seasonal - whereas the vast Mekong is only traversed by ferry.

Walking the streets of the city, I felt the same sense of calm and spiritual energy that I noticed in Kyoto. The pace, at least in the old part of the city, was more relaxed than anywhere else in Laos. Sitting on the corner eating my bowl of kaopiak sen, Lao pork noodle soup, I was nearly alone with just my thoughts and slurping of the noodles.

For dinner one evening, we crossed the Khan river by one of the rickety seasonal bamboo bridges to a place called Dyen Sabat. Nestled among the tall bamboo shoots above the river, the restaurant is a patchwork of wood platforms protruding from the hillside creating an idyllic, almost movie set, environment. Removing our shoes, we reclined on the large cushions around our squat table at the far edge. Below us the ground dropped away, leaving us suspended in the air surrounded by the bamboo. The food was no less impressive.

I ordered platter number two, a set mixture of Lao dishes, most of which I hadn't tried before. Buffalo skin with Lao chili paste was the center piece. The magenta colored paste, which I later learned is relatively simple to make, was at once spicy, tart, and sweet. I was instructed that the best way to eat the mixture was to pick it up with the Mekong weed coated with sesame seeds. The combination of flavors was indeed quite tasty, although the pieces of buffalo skin provided more texture than flavor and were quite chewy. An eggplant dip flavored with kafir lime was tangy and a nice accompaniment to the chili. Rounding out the platter were Luang Prabang sausage, a spicy pork sausage, and dried pork strips with sesame. Both of which were fantastic in their own rights. After such a meal it was a nice thing to have the walk back down the hill, over the bridge, and through the night market.

The following day I took an all day cooking class where we learned to make several classic Lao retrospect it shouldn't have been) is the ease and simplicity of the dishes. The Lao are adept at coaxing layers of flavor from few ingredients. Principle among them are lemon grass, kafir lime leaves, ginger, galangal root, and the ever present chillies - in either powder or fresh form. From these basics we cooked chicken laap, fried rice noodles with chicken, pork with vermicelli noodles and choko, Luang Parang salad, and a coconut curry with chicken. The instructors also demonstrated how to prepare sticky rice and Lao chili paste. I have a feeling that a rice steamer and mortar and pestle may soon join my already overstocked kitchen supply cabinet.

I was very excited for my final day in Luang Prabang. One of the things I'd heard so much about before coming to Laos was the morning procession of the monks to receive alms. It takes place at some level throughout the country - since alms is the only way by which monks can eat - but in Luang Prabang there are so many temples and monks that I've heard the streets are a veritable sea of saffron and gold robes in the early hours of the day. Of course where there's a sight to be seen there are tourists to ruin it.

The faithful lined the street, facing toward the road. Respectfully sitting with their offerings awaiting the line of monks. Walking single file, I presume in order of seniority based on the oldest looking being in the lead with the youngest bringing up the rear, the slowed before each individual who raised their offering - sticky rice, banana, etc. - to their head, touching their forehead before placing it in the monk's waiting basket or bowl. This repeats itself over and over again as each new line of monks make their way along the route. It was quite a sight.

However, the solemnity of the moment was spoiled by the onlookers who, despite the signs throughout town and the comments in every guidebook about how properly to view the event in a manner not to spoil or interrupt the solemn occasion, seemed unable or unwilling to respect it. It was shocking and depressing to see the dozens of people intruding on the procession by getting in close to snap a picture and insuring they got the shot by using their flash. Two things they are explicitly request not to do. As I sat watching the spectacle of the tourists, I wondered if it occurs to them at all that they are, by their actions, disrespecting and interfering in someone religious observance. I wanted to ask how they would feel were flash-happy tourists to come into their church snapping pictures as they knelt to receive communion? Or had a stranger thrust a video camera into their view while they said their morning prayers? There is a way to observe the receiving of alms without disturbing it and it is sad to see so many people unable to understand the distinction.

We left Luang Prabang early in the morning to be sure we made it to Pakbeng in the daylight, which we managed to do by only a few minutes. Pakbeng is a small way station of a town roughly halfway to the Thailand boarder crossing. It seems to exist mainly as an overnight stop for boats traveling to and from Luang Prabang and the board, with several guest houses and cafes but not much else. It has a Frontier Town feeling to it and in fact has only been connected to the Laos electric grid for about three months.

For my last dinner in Laos I tried the (water) buffalo laap, which had a good flavor and wasn't at all chewy as the skin had been. After dinner I accompanied the tour leader and our Lao guide to another small cafe whose clientele was entirely Lao for grilled spicy goat and blood sausages. The goat was indeed spicy, dusted with black pepper and chillies, with a fantastic smoky flavor. I was nearly meated-out but managed to try a small bit of the blood sausage, which has never been my favorite of flavors and this one, while quite good, did not go far in altering my preexisting feeling.

Now, as our boat slowly approaches the end of its journey and we prepare to cross into Thailand, I can look back on my days in Laos and say without equivocation that this was a country worth coming to see. My only regret is that I didn't have more time to spend here and specifically that I wasn't able to see the Plain of Jars in the center of the country. But there's always the next trip......

Note: I've taken LOADS of pictures but the internet connection I'm getting on my travels has not been good enough for me to include them here. I will be uploading them when I can to Facebook and Picasa and will post a subsequent message with links when they're online.

Hanoi

2010-04-17T20:34:00.005-04:00

While I still have much to tell about my last days in Kyoto - food, sights and karaoke - I wanted to put a few thoughts down about Hanoi, the city I arrived in late Friday evening.

In many ways, Kyoto was a city of marked with a sense of spirituality. Even in the midst of the clamor of the downtown and the noise of ubiquitous pachinko parlors, there a calmness and underlying sense of serenity. By contrast, Hanoi is a pulsating mass of humanity, operating in a sort of organized chaos of sight, sound, and smell.

The ride in from the airport was at night so I couldn't see anything of the surrounding area - sure I'll get that in the coming days. One thing I noted was the distinct lack of electricity, since with the exception of the street lights down the middle of the road, there was very little illumination on either side. Yesterday I met up with some people - a mix of other folks from CouchSurfing.org and people they'd met at their hostels. We set off to the see the city with no real agenda, just a sense of wanting to experience a bit of Hanoi.

First stop, it turned out, was to the food market just a few meters from my hotel. No surprise there, I know. Here, on the street between two buildings, all manner of produce was being sold, meat butchered in the open air, and seafood and fish kept live up until the time of purchase. There were also many vendors selling prepared foods and the mix of smells coming from their pots, combined with the raw ingredients around, was indescribable. Another unique thing about the market was the number of people riding their motorbikes right through between the stalls, stopping to by this and that, and then continuing on (or, more precisely , weaving through) the flow of pedestrian shoppers.

Motorbikes are in fact the most common sight in Hanoi. They form a kind of river through the city streets, ebbing ever so slightly to enable pedestrians to cross the streets, which is something of an art form in and of itself. Traffic laws are virtually nonexistent, or at least go totally unenforced, leaving the streets a sort of Darwinian free for all. As best as I can gather, there are four tools for operating motorbikes and cars here. In order of importance they are: the horn, the gas peddle, the flashing headlights, and the break.

The horn is clearly the most critical of the four and is used by drivers nearly constantly. At first the continual honking is noticeable but it soon recedes into a kind of background white noise - that is until the horn comes from behind to alert you individually. The gas peddle is pretty self evident, although given the massive amount of other vehicles on the road, it can only be effectively used in the evenings. The flashing of high beams on the headlights is still a bit of an enigma. It isn't clear if the action informs the other drive not to cross in front of the approaching traffic or that it is okay. Put another way, I'm not sure if it says "please go first" or "don't get in my way." Somehow it seems to work out though. Lastly the break, which I imagine is used as little as possible to reduce wear on parts difficult to acquire in Vietnam.

From the market we headed through the Old Quarter, around Hoan Kiem Lake, and to the Hoa Lo Prison (the "Hanoi Hilton"). I'm still processing that visit and will write something more about it later.

After a visit to the temple of literature, we stopped for lunch at a small pho stand for bowls of the hearty dish. These common restaurants are usually owned and run by a whole family, with the dishes prepared and served right on the street or just off on low tables. The noodles were tender, the goose (at least that is what the proprietor said it was but I think it might have been duck) was well cooked and fresh. Accompanying the dish was sliced bamboo shoots, sprouts, and green onions. There were also the usually sauces and accompaniments - mint leaves, spicy red chillies, garlic in vinegar, fish sauce, etc. - but also a sort of hard bread that could be broken up and put in the bowl to absorb the broth. Over all it was a great bowl of pho.

Our final stop was at Ho Chi Min's mausoleum. We couldn't visit the inside because the last tour runs at 11 a.m., but just walking around the enormous plaza in which the building sits was impressive.

I ended my evening by meeting back up with some of the people from the day's tour - as well as two other new people - for dinner in the Old Quarter (to be described later) and drinks in a street cafe at boi hoi corner, named for the several establishments offering the style of Vietnamese beer.

Today I meet up with the tour group with whom I'll be traveling to Laos and Thailand. I've been seeing and experiencing so much and can't wait for what is coming up next -- which this morning starts with a pho breakfast.....

Womb of the Buddha, and baby octopus, and vending machine sake...oh my!

2010-04-13T20:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was quite a day. No way to begin other than with at the beginning....firstly, the rain stopped and the mountains past the river exposed themselves ever so slightly, but with picturesque fog still shrouding them.

I began the day by meeting up with someone with whom I connected via Couch Surfing, a really great site for people traveling to meet others and even find inexpensive/free places to stay, at the Kyoto rail station. After an initial navigation problem on my part - there are at least three different "information" centers within the station for the railroad, the building, and for Kyoto - we set off for Kiyomizu Temple in eastern Kyoto.

"Temple" doesn't really accurately describe it since typically I think of a temple being a single (or in Beth Elohim's case, two) buildings. Kiyomizu is better described as a temple complex, spread over many acres and consisting of dozens of buildings, shrines, and other structures. And even though the weather was overcast it was still a beautiful sight to take in, with lush green vegetation punctuated by the almost ubiquitous pink cherry blossoms. We spent quite some time wandering throughout the site with the thousands of other tourists - both foreigner and Japanese, some of who were traditionally dressed for the occasion.

But the highlight of the visit has to have been the journey into the womb of the Buddha. It was toward the entrance of the temple - in fact before you actually paid the admission fee to enter the temple grounds - and was little more than a set of steps leading down into darkness overseen by a pair of elderly Japanese women who handed over a bag to carry our shoes, took our ¥100 donation, and instructed us to walk slowly with our left hand on the handrail. We descended into absolute darkness, the likes of which I've never before experienced. Completely enveloping; as if light never existed in this place. The stairs ended and the banister became a rope with over-sized Buddha beads that guided our way. Eyes opened or close it was indistinguishable, there was nothing but black all around and nothing but the rustling sounds of our footsteps. It is the thing that at first can be a but scary, but as I gave myself over to the experience, I found my mind clearing and focusing only on my breath. Turning a corner suddenly there was the womb glowing in the darkness. A round, marble-looking stone engraved with a Buddhist (I presume) symbol, the belief is that if you make a wish and touch it at the same time your wish will be granted. There was a light shining down on it from above, but what was remarkable about it was that not a single bit of light illuminated anything around it. Even standing right in front of the shaft of light my hands only revealed themselves from the darkness as I placed them upon the stone and disappearing just as completely when removed. It was as if the womb kept even a single bit of light energy from escaping; there was no ambient light surrounding it at all. Continuing on the path ascended back to the surface, returning us to the same elderly women. I've no idea how long the actual path was or the time it took us to walk it, but it was an experience that transcended space and time. I've only scratched the surface about what it is like and encourage anyone who might come to Kyoto to be sure to seek it out.

We continued to wander the path through Kiyomizu, visiting the dozens of individual shrines. From there we ambled along the twisting streets of the Gion district, eventually finding our way to the Yasaka Shrine, which sits in the Gion district just at the beginning of Maruyama Park. Much smaller and with fewer buildings than Kiyomizu, Yasaka Shrine was notable for it brilliant orange arches and buildings (again, I think Christo and Jeanne-Claude almost certainly visited Kyoto before conceiving The Gates).

But enough about the temples....bring on the food reports. We tried a whole bunch of things, all more tasty than the one before. First were small, pearl shaped rice balls skewered and grilled over a hibachi then coated with a sweet, soy-based sauce. For a starter or small bite to tide one over while walking around a multi-acre Buddhist temple nothing could be beat. Next we found ourselves in what could best be described at the front room of a family's house at the top of Maruyama Park - yes, they had a menu out front so it wasn't like we just barged into thee lives unwelcome. With only pictures of odd-looking foods, we ordered two items. One we were able to discern from our hostess was going to be sweet, the other was a mystery but involved rice. First, however, we sipped a black tea that had a distinctive and appealing cigar aroma, almost as if it had been steeped with tobacco leaves. The dishes, when they arrived, did not disappoint. The one on the right was a type of gelatin rice (think Jello in consistency), covering red beans and topped with a sweetened seaweed puree. It might sound unappetizing, but I assure it was quite pleasant and refreshing. The other was a pair of rice cakes wrapped with nori. One turned out to have a sort of sweet jelly-like fruit filling whereas the other had small cooked shrimp like fish that I'd seen throughout the Nishiki market. Sitting in the small, open air balcony overlooking this family's manicured garden it felt like we were living a hundred years ago.

More walking led us back to the Nishiki market and a fest of octopus. First was the baby octopus stuffed with a quail egg and served lollipop-style. Really, I couldn't make this sort of thing up. I mean, honestly, how cool do they look? And the taste? Amazing.
While octopus can sometimes be chewy and difficult to eat, this was succulent and tender with a hint of sweetness (again from a soy-based sauce I think it was cooked in.) The quail egg, which was stuffed in the head of the octopus, added a richness that made the experience that much more tasty. It might have seemed a bit like an Andrew Zimmerman moment, I can assure you the taste was WELL worth taking the plunge and ordering them. I can see baby-octopus pop shops opening up throughout America....okay, maybe not. We completed out Octopus eating with an order of takoyaki, a kind of fried octopus fritter served with sliced green onions and the syrupy soy sauce I've been seeing used over and over again, to delicious affect! As with anything fried, I envisioned hordes of post-bar hopping Japanese flocking to this little stand to indulge on plates upon plates of these in the light-night/early-morning hours. And I can assure you that if they were given a name without reference to octopus, the stands would be just as popular in college towns across the States.

Finally it was time for a drink and what better than a nice, cold glass of sake dispensed from a vending machine?

It should be noted that we broke one, unwritten rule about Japanese culture with the sake: we walked and drank at the same time. We later heard from a Swiss guy with whom we had sushi later in the evening, that it is considered impolite to walk and eat or drink. Indeed, as I thought back on the day and my time here so far I can recall seeing not a single Japanese person doing this. So live and learn for the next time, but the sake was very tasty and a great way to end a great tour.

Kyoto Day One

2010-04-11T06:14:00.010-04:00

A little preface, today it is raining so while I'm waiting for it to let up I figured I'd take the opportunity to write about yesterday. Just didn't want anyone to think I'm spending all my time in Kyoto blogging :-)

Having endured some 25 hours of travel and transit time to make it to Kansai Airport, one of the hardest hurdles to overcome was making sure I was buying the right ticket and getting on the correct train to take me to Kyoto. Yet despite the Japanese Railroad's computer not wanting to accept my credit card and a lost in translation moment with the travelers assistance representative at the airport (whom I will readily acknowledge spoke way better English than I do Japanese so any miscommunication was entirely no my part) I made it onto the train, to Kyoto station, and the fifteen minute walk navigating the streets to the hostel.

Hosteling. What a notion. Haven't done this since Israel circa 1993 and much has changed - or maybe the hostlers in Israel are a different breed than what is here. More families than I was used to seeing and I certainly don't feel "old" when looking at my fellow travelers. All in all a congenial bunch, but sleeping in a dorm room will take some getting used to -- hooray for earplugs!

One of the first things I do whenever I get to a new place - after locating where I'll be staying and depositing my bags - is to take a walk around the area and get a lay of the land. Yesterday was no different, especially since I was feeling no effects of jet lag despite having been in transit for about 30 hours. Almost right away after leaving the hostel I passed a nondescript restaurant that I thought was a kushikatsu or yakitori type place and took note of it. Something that I realized off the bat is that unless they put pictures or plastic replicas of the food served within, it is often difficult to discern a restaurant from someones house.

From there I wandered over the Kamo River and came to my first, of what I'm sure will be many, shrines, the Hokoku Shrine. It was quite lovely, made even more so by the cherry blossoms that filled the air with a color a gentle sweet fragrance. The architecture was impressive as was the enormous bell just outside the main gates, housed, I might add, in its own temple-like structure. There was also a line of red-saffron colored gates leading to a smaller shrine that made me wonder if Christo and Jeanne-Claude visited Kyoto.

I left the Hokoku and walked the small, winding alley-like streets that predominate much of this city. Then, I started noticing women walking around in kimonos. First one or two older women, but then more and of various ages. Initially it was almost comical; a stereotype brought to life. Then it struck me, these were not women dressed up for a special occasion or on their way to a Japanese-themed restaurant, but people going about their day in their normal manner. The colors and patterns were beautiful: shades of pink, purple, seafoam green, and all other colors of the rainbow. In their graceful, almost ethereal movements as they made their way down the narrow streets, I couldn't help but see why early visitors (as well as modern ones) would be entranced by them. There truly is something otherworldly about them.

My walk took me back across the Kamo River and back toward my hostel along the takase canal. Again, there were cherry blossoms in full view along the entire length of the canal, heightening the picturesque old style houses that line the banks.

Which brought me back past the little restaurant that I passed on my way out earlier. Although no one at the hostel had been there before I decided to throw caution to the wind and check it out for myself. I soon realized why no one from the hostel had been, it is very much a local establishment. In the traditional way, the door slides open and I walked in through curtains hanging just inside, separating the entry from the restaurant itself. A small, L-shaped bar with about 10 seats looked over into the kitchen - although I would soon find out that nothing was in fact cooked there, just prepped. There was not another customer as I believe they had just unlocked the door for the evening. On the low counter at which I sat was a small plate, pair of chopsticks, metal tongs and, most importantly, a small gas powered hibachi. Now it was clear, this wasn't a yakatori restaurant but a BBQ joint.

There was no English menu, indeed I don't think I saw a single printed word in anything other than Japanese, but the waiters were extremely helpful in explaining the offerings. They repeatedly apologized for their broken English, but tried to explain that they had nothing to apologize and that it was I that was sorry for not knowing any Japanese. So, together we pointed, gestured, and smiled are way through the menu and I ordered sake, a plate of mixed kimchis, and a first plate of marinated meat - I think it was from the end portion of the short rib, but can't be 100% certain. What I do know is that the marbling was outrageous and the marinade sweet with a hint of soy and vinegar. The smoke rose off my personal hibachi and in no time I was taking the glistening pieces of cooked beef off, dipping them in the small bowl of hot BBQ sauce (there was also a sweet, vinegar one),and enjoying the unparalleled flavor of food that is eaten within seconds of coming from off the grill.

Washing it down with the sake and fortifying the meat with pieces of the kimchi and mouthfuls of rice, I was through my first plate immediately. By now more customers had arrived, but most had gone a narrow, steep flight of steps to the small dinning room above. At the other end of the bar from me, however, was an older couple that ordered a slew of dishes, each one being presented from across the bar from the men at the other side of counter. Wanting more and not wishing to interrupt the flow of the workers unnecessarily by peppering them with questions about the various menu items, I merely asked that they prepare for me the same dish as the couple received. A new plate of beef was soon before me. Sliced into slightly smaller pieces than the first - I think it might have been from further up on the short rib or perhaps the flanken - but with the same beautiful marbling and marinade. This time I savored the meat. Cooking a couple pieces at a time, allowing the rest to remain in the marinade until their time, I savored it as each buttery morsel melted in my mouth with a mixture of sweet and spicy flavors.

I could have stayed eating my way through plate after plate, but the food, sake, and travel began to catch up with me and I was soon craving my first night's sleep in almost a day and a half. So, with earplugs in place, I crawled into my bunk and drifted off to sleep, beyond content with my trip thus far and even more excited now for the days to come.

Another thought about food (and not the last)

2010-04-10T19:34:00.002-04:00

I think the first meal of a trip often sets the tone for what is to come. I'm not talking about the in-flight meal, if there is one, although the bibimbap on KE86 last night was quite tasty. No, what I'm talking about is the first thing you eat when you've arrived at where you're going. Case in point, when we got to St Maarten in February 2008 there was some confusion with our airport transfer (caused by American Airline bumping us from our original flight for a later one) and while we were waiting for the driver to arrive we ducked into the little restaurant overlooking the arrival and ticketing halls, which at Princess Juliana International Airport is one and the same. While not a culinary standout, the restaurant was EXACTLY what we wanted, some hearty Caribbean cuisine featuring conch, shrimp and a healthy dose of island spices mixed with tropical drinks. It would be the staples of what we would be eating for the next week, with some additions, and we loved it.

So here I am in Incheon Airport at 8 a.m. looking for something to eat and what do I get? Just what I wanted, a bowl of noodle soup with kimchi. A most unlikely of breakfast foods for most westerners, but it is what they eat here so it is what I eat. And I didn't have to go far. Only to the concourse between gates 10 and 11. Because there, in the midst of the duty free shops and currency changers is a small shop serving up udon that would be the envy of most places I've been to in New York (or any other place so far).

Sated with the spicy broth and rich noodles, along with a bottle of Coca Cola - is there a better combination? - I'm about to board my final flight of the day for Osaka then onward by Japan Rail to Kyoto. If my simple airport bowl of noodles is any indication, this is going to be a great and tasty journey.

Notes from on board KE86

2010-04-10T15:21:00.000-04:00

According to the in-flight map, we are some where over Siberia with about 3 1/2 hours left to go. Really kind of an amazing thing to consider. Only a few hours ago I was finishing Shabbat dinner in Park Slope and now I'm 38,000 feet abve the ground and almost halfway around the world hurtling forward at almost 600 miles per hour - all information given to me at my finger tips from the back of the seat in front of me.

The flight has been nothing but enjoyable. Unlike domestic flights I've been on where every inch seems to be taken up by a seat and every seat filled, Korea Air has spacious accommodations even in their economy class and I haven't noticed a single row completely filled, except for those with a family. And while meals on US flights have been relegated to snacks, if not entirely phased out or provided for purchase only, we were given the choice between a chicken entree or a traditionally bowl of bibimbop. Which do you think I chose? The funny thing was that when I asked for the bibimbop the flight attendant asked if I had it before. I guess the common choice for non-Koreans is to go with the western style chicken. Not me. And while not served in a hot clay bowl (I suppose there would be some weight and safety issues about that), it was fresh, with all the items one would expect to see. The individual package of rice - well cooked, I'd add - accompanied it along with a lightly pickled kimchi and small tube of Korean chili paste. I think that later I will have to stock up some extra tubes of it because it travels easily and provides a nice, spicy kick to any food.

Another interesting aspect of the flight is that because we basically flew over the Arctic, if not the North Pole itself (it is a bit difficult to precisely track our route so high north on the Mecater Projection, we experienced a sun rise and sunset already. I'm guessing if we left in the day time we would have been flying in daylight the whole time. (Also on the topic of navigation, while the direct line of flight would have taken us over North Korea, for reasons that should be obvious - especially in recent days - the plane went wide to the west while we were over eastern China to avoid the north completely and approach Incheon from the south. An extra few minutes in the plane but certainly worth it.)

A final observation is that the movie selection, again shown on the individual screens at out seats, don't merely show recent films but many that are still in the theater now. I'm not sure if Avitar would be worth seeing on a 5x5 LCD screen, but the Blind Side was perfectly fit, no pun intended, for my post-dinner entertainment.
Well only a few more hours. I'm still excited for the trip but also experiencing that twinge of apprehension that comes when you go outside your comfort zone. But I've been there before on other trips and at other times in my life. I've no doubt that this is going to be a great experience.

That's all for now from KE86 (and uploaded from Incheon Airport). Next stop Kyoto.

Countdown to takeoff

2010-03-27T01:16:00.004-04:00

This time two weeks from now I'll be siting on a Korean Air flight headed to Osaka, Japan via Incheon, South Korea. Perhaps it is the excitement of the trip that is keeping me up at the moment despite my body being quite tired.

My first stop is actually Kyoto, but the nearest international airport is in Osaka. It is actually built on a man-made island in the harbor and having watched a show on the National Geographic Channel several years ago, as well as my somewhat embarrassing fascination with most things aviation related, I am as excited to see it as I am for all the other places I'm planning to visit. But why Kyoto and why pass up seeing Tokyo. The simple answer is that while I'm sure there are interesting and exciting sites to see in Tokyo, the city has never been an attraction for me. Perhaps it is because I live in a large, bustling city so when I travel I like to stray away from similar places. But importantly than why I don't want to see Tokyo is that I've wanted to see Kyoto for a very long time.

Many people might only know of Kyoto as the city where eponymous protocols were adopted as part of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1997. (They entered into force in 2005 and, to this day, the US has refused to become a signatory.) For me, however, I've known of Kyoto as being the former imperial capital of Japan. I've read of the imperial palace, many awe inspiring temples, tranquil bamboo forests, and twisting streets lined with traditional house. As I've been planning my visit, I've also been discovering a rich culinary world awaits me there and can't wait to sample my way through it.

After several days in Kyoto I will spend an evening and most of a day seeing a bit of Osaka before flying to Hanoi, Vietnam - again via Incheon airport. I will have two days in Hanoi before meeting up with a group from Intrepid Travel. This is the same tour company that Karen traveled to Turkey and Morocco with in 2008 and she enjoyed both those trips immensely. The itinerary for my trip, Indochina Adventure, takes me from Hanoi to Vinh, a city about 200 miles to the south. From Vinh we will head west into Laos, visiting the cities of Vientiane, Vang Vieng, and Luang Prabang before boarding a boat for a two day trip down the Mekong River into Thailand. In Thailand we will spend some time in Chiang Mai before hiking into the rural villages of the northern hilltribes for three days. While my organized tour will conclude in Bangkok, I plan to stay in Thailand for about a week longer and then spend some time enjoying the southern islands and taking in some diving.

For the final stop on my trip, I will be returning to Korea for the first time (not including my two layovers) in about 37 years. My family was living there in 1971 when I was born and I spent the first year and a half or so of my life in Seoul. This chubby little kid, unable to properly use the telephone is me at my dol (돌) or first anniversary of birth:

The odd thing is that while I've always felt a connection to Korea - beyond my love of its cuisine, especially kimchi - it is a country I actually know little about beyond the obvious things. I am finding myself reading through the many tour books trying to decide what to see, but worried that I will overlook something that shouldn't be missed. I suppose that is the problem with just visiting places: you never have enough time to see it all.

So that's the thumbnail sketch of my itinerary. According to Great Circle Mapper (one of my favorite websites, which I'll readily admit is also rather nerdy) I will travel nearly 19,000 air miles and fly over the north pole, a first for me. This isn't the longest itinerary I've had (that would be a trip I took as part of an internship in college when I logged nearly 29,000) but I will certainly eat my fair share of in-flight meals. Depending on internet availability, I will try to post updates from the road -- and not just the flights and airports.

As the days tick by leading to my departure my excitement continues to grow. I absolutely love to travel and experience new places, meet new people, and (you guessed it) eat new things. It has been a long time since I've traveled like this and this is a trip I've been wanting to make for a while. It is also, as I mentioned in my last post, one that Karen and I spent many hours talking about doing with James. This is a trip I need to take...this is a trip I'm eager to take...this is a trip I can't wait to take...for so many reasons.

The truth in clichés

2010-03-22T12:58:00.001-04:00

"Time heals all wounds." It was a comment made to me many times by friends and family (and strangers) in the days and months following Karen's death. It is not surprising or unexpected for even the most eloquent and well-meaning of people to fall back on such a cliché when confronted with such an unnatural and devastating event. Indeed I'm sure that were I the one struggling to give comfort at a time of unimaginable heartbreak, I too would invariably utter such a sentiment. I think it is a natural crutch on which the mind relies when trying to understand the incomprehensible.

There were times I wanted to shout back my objections when people said this to me. What happened wasn't something that upset me, or put me in a bad mood, or bummed me out. This was utter devastation. How could time heal this wound I thought. How could ANYTHING heal it? But I held back my words. I knew, even then while I was in the closets thing to hell that I have experienced in my lifetime, that no good could come by lashing out at those people who were only trying to express their sympathies in one of the ways that came natural in an unnatural situation.

Now, some sixteen months later, I am in awe at the restorative power that time actually does possess. While not a day - or, at times, an hour - goes by that I don't miss Karen and reflect on what happened, I am able to experience life in a way that was inconceivable in those dark days. Where before I was unable to be in our apartment, I now find myself to enjoy it as the home it was for us and for me now. Streets I couldn't walk on for fear of the bitter memories they evoked, now remind me of the happy times we shared. True there are still a couple places I have not been able to enter and certain songs that I turn off upon hearing the first few chords, but these are far fewer in number than they were. Similarly, instead of avoiding newborns and pregnant women, as was what I did for so long, I now find myself sharing in the joy my many friends are experiencing recently. This does, however, come with a melancholy twinge that I keep to myself and that I'm sure will remain with me forever.

All these changes are palpable and fall in the realm of things I never imagined could happen. So now when I consider the cliché so often said to me (and others suffering similar experiences) I understand its validity but also its incompleteness. Back then, when people uttered those words, what I heard them saying to me was that time will put things back as they were or that the pain will fade as all memories of her slipped further behind me. The first idea being, of course, utterly impossible and the second being scary because I feared the prospect of loosing the happy memories along with the painful ones. Hence, I rankled at such expressions of support and comfort. What I didn't comprehend until recently is that the true, complete comment should be: "Time heals all wounds, but the scars remain forever." The addition of the added portion is important to me because it changes the implication - offensive at times - that time will make you forget as a means of allowing one to go on with their lives to something that embraces what was while allowing for the progression to another phase of life.

And going on to another phase of life, while NEVER forgetting what once was, is what I am doing now. This progression is marked by several changes and decisions I made recently, all of which were made after much contemplation and introspection. The first, as I mentioned in an earlier posting, is that I've left the practice of law. I am still in the process of finding what my new career will be, but the decision has been a positive one already and I have been in investigating a variety of options.

The other big decision is that I am preparing for a trip to Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia. This is a journey that in may ways has been thirty-six years in the making for me and, perhaps more importantly, one that Karen and I intended to undertake with James. I depart on April 10 and will give more details in a future post as well as providing updates periodically (dependant on Internet availability, of course) from the road.

So today I feel as if I have journeyed to hell and back. And while I bear the scars of the experience, I also retain the joyful memories of the life snatched from me, which will guide me as I press forward. I was asked recently whether I would trade the time I had with Karen in order to have avoided the heartache and misery I suffered from her death. I needed no time to think about the answer because just as there is truth in the cliché about time, equally true for me (if not more so) is that it is far better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. With Karen this was absolute and I count myself beyond lucky to have had the time with her I did and to have known the person she was.

Orchids

2010-02-01T15:06:00.001-05:00

I'm not much a flower person. It isn't that I don't like flowers, that is not the case at all. Rather, I enjoy them as something to brighten and bring beauty to the world but not something I spend too much time thinking about and even less time learning about. One of the exceptions to this is orchids. Maybe it is because of their exotic look or tropical nature, but whatever the reason I've always been intrigued and drawn to them. They were also integral in my time with Karen and continue to be so now.

I bought Karen an orchid at the end of the evening on what became our first date. We were walking up Carroll Street and passed Key Food, which has a flower merchant in front of it. So, just before hailing a cab to send her back to her apartment in Brooklyn Heights, I bought a purple and while orchid for her to remember the evening. Some months later, when the pregnancy was confirmed by her doctor, I stopped at a flower shop on Seventh Avenue and bought her another orchid. This one was potted and a bit more exotic looking than the first one. We even talked about using orchids in the wedding, but opted to not because they were excessively expensive.

But if orchids factored significantly during our time together, they have become even more so since she's been gone...

Almost a year ago, I went to Florida to visit with Karen's family. It was the first time I was seeing them since they were back in New York for the funeral and only my second time with them in Florida. While I was there, Diane, Karen's mother, told me about the orchid plant in their front yard that had recently, and somewhat out of season, bloomed with several new flowers. She took me outside and showed me the tree on which the plant clung. They were a gorgeous shade of purple, close to the color of Karen's bouquet. I took this picture of them.

As remarkable and inspirational as that was, recently another blossoming has occurred that I wanted to talk about.

While it is not a Jewish tradition to send flowers to mourners (it has to do with Judaism's disfavor of beautifying or adorning death), I nevertheless received many lovely arrangements - to be clear, I appreciated them all very much notwithstanding the tradition. One friend of my family's sent a lovely potted orchid, which stayed in my mother's apartment. The flowers lasted for months, well into the summer. As the blossoms shriveled, they fell off one-by-one over time. The last one, remarkably, dropped from the plant almost one year after the funeral.

My mother kept the plant in her apartment even after all the flowers were gone and it was merely a stem with two leaves at its base. And there it sat, all but unremarkable, in her apartment for the past few months. I suppose she didn't get rid of it for the very same reason that I keep certain things exactly as they were before Karen died. But unlike the inanimate objects around my apartment, the orchid refused to remain as is. Recently, my mother noticed a few new buds on the ends of the bare stem. These have now opened to reveal several radiant blossoms.

Now, as I said, I'm not much of a flower person and it could very well be that this regeneration is perfect normal and natural. However, whatever the case may be, seeing these deep purple flowers (again, similar to the color of her wedding bouquet) appear once more on the otherwise bare stem is a fantastic reminder of not only her but of the resiliency of nature and the human spirit.

Another memorial

2010-01-29T13:12:00.002-05:00

Last year, the director of the Alumni Office at Packer Collegiate Institute, Karen's and my alma mater, contacted me about putting a plaque up in the chapel. Packer, which was founded as an all women's school in 1845 and went coed in the early 1970s, uses the chapel for assemblies and other large gatherings. It is a fabulous, Gothic (I think, since I'm not so versed in architectural styles) space with wonderful Tiffany stained glass windows and I was touched by the school's desire to put a remembrance of Karen in it.

It was installed some time ago but until yesterday I had not been back to the school since our 19th reunion weekend, when we got engaged, and had not seen it. Initially, I thought it was merely going to be her name included on a larger plaque of other alumni who had passed away. As it turns out, however, it is a plaque unto itself mounted on one of the southern facing walls next to the stained glass windows. I was quite moved to see it.

(Unfortunately not the best picture, but all I had was my iPhone and it was a bit dark - as usual - in the chapel.)

A trip across the country and (in some ways) back across time

2010-01-21T19:50:00.001-05:00

I recently returned from a trip that took me from Brooklyn to south Florida and onward to southern California. The trip was intended to be a break from the cold northeast and a chance to visit with some family and old friends. Unfortunately the former plan fell through since unseasonably cold and wet weather seemed to follow me to both locations. As for the latter, the trip was a success beyond my most optimistic of expectations.

Before Karen died, I'd only met her parents a few times but got along with them very well because in so many ways they remind me of my own parents. In fact I joked, after meeting her mom for the first time, that when our mothers finally meet they would either instantly bond as friends or the combination of their presences and personalities could very well threaten the very fabric of the world we know it -- similar to the near catastrophe caused by bringing together the Key Master and the Gate Keeper in Ghostbusters. Thankfully, proton packs weren't necessary and they became, and remain, close friends. But because we'd only met a couple times, much of our getting to know each other was done in parallel with our mourning. This is, of course, far from the ideal manner to develop bonds and there were a few times where our shared grief was so overpowering as to overshadow the foundations of family we share. These moments, perhaps difficult and uncomfortable at the time, were passing and we nevertheless grew closer and I felt myself becoming more a part of Karen's family, which was an wonderful feeling.

I've been down to visit Karen's parents and brother's family in Florida a few times in the past year and of course saw them when they were in New York during the summer. These were good visits, but the time we spent together on my past trip was different. Perhaps it is because we've had over a year to work through our grief and encounter so many difficult dates. But whatever the reason, the trip was more enjoyable and more helpful for my feelings about what has happened and where I am than any we've had before.

As I explained in my last post, I have been thinking about shaving for the first time since Karen died but I was feeling that there was something missing or needing to happen before I finally did. Well to give a sense of what effect the time I spent with Karen's family - my family - had on me, after my visit I decided the time had come for me to shave. I found a barber and for the first time in over fourteen months saw the skin of my cheeks revealed. I don't want to put too much emphasis on it or ascribe greater importance to the moment, but suddenly I found myself looking at a face I hadn't seen since November 16, 2008. It was the face Karen that feel in love with, said "I do" to in Prospect Park, kissed countless times, and last looked at on that most horrible of days in my life. It was this face...

The eyes are more weary and maybe without some of the youthful innocence that has hardened because of the things they've seen and felt, but the simple altering of my facial hair has made a palpable change in my overall demeanor and I feel as if I've taken a big step on my journey. It is a step I don't think I would have been able to take but for the time I just spent in Florida. It is also a step I feel confident will allow me to take yet others that I have been timidly considering.

415 days

2010-01-05T16:45:00.001-05:00

One of the remarkable things about my relationship with Karen is that I can quantify to the day, if not to within an hour, the amount of time we had together. This is, as with so many other aspects of our relationship, both remarkable and painful.

After more than eighteen years since we graduated from Packer, we met again - and, in many ways, for the first time - on September 27, 2008. It was 415 days later, on November 16, 2008, that our time together came to a sudden and tragic conclusion. It was only 415 days, or one year, one month, and nineteen days, that we had with each other. (Because I remember the approximate time that we met, 8:30 PM, and that she collapsed, 3:30 PM, it is possible to estimate that we were together for 9979 hours.) This is a stunningly brief time to have been together, especially when one considers how much we did in that time. It would not be hyperbole to say that we lived a lifetime in those 415 days.

The reason I am mentioning this now is that today represents a strange milestone: today, January 5, 2010, marks 415 days since Karen died. What this means is that I have now been without Karen for longer than the time we had together and every day hence will tilt the scale of time further. How can this be? Could our time together truly have been so short that, in what feels like a blink of the eyes, I am now beyond the time we were a couple? It is difficult to contemplate and wrap my head around this.

Time is indeed an odd thing. On the one hand the past 415 days seem to have flown by in the blink of an eye. When I think about that tragic and horrible moment, as I invariably do so many times a day, I feel like it just happened. That the details and my feelings are as clear as the computer screen I'm looking at now. Other times, however, the time Karen and I shared together feels like a lifetime and a millions years ago. Almost imperceptible and existing as an ethereal memory which I struggle to recapture. How can it be that these seemingly conflicting realities exist contemporaneously with each other? I suppose that is just one more facet of the new world, and life, in which I exist.

The marking of this day has greater significance than others that have come recently. Unlike anniversaries or birthdays, which will repeat for years onward, this is a singular moment that I will face. This marks a boundary that I will never cross again, and of course from which I can never cross back. This does not diminish the importance of things like the first anniversary of her death or her uncelebrated birthdays, but today represents something else entirely than those dates.

In some ways, as this milestone is passed, I feel the icy grip of my grief relax slightly. Since her death, I have not shaved - the tradition in Judaism is that mourners do not shave for a specified amount, typically thirty days but it can be as long as one year depending on your beliefs - but now find myself a step closer to doing so in a way I could not even consider only a few weeks ago. Similarly, while I left so much of our apartment the way it was on the morning of November 16, 2008, I am beginning to feel the moment for me to change that may be approaching. I know it will be a difficult and long process, but whereas I couldn't even contemplate any of it before now I can.

While these are subtle shifts and I still have a long, long way to go with so many things in my life, they are things that I could not have even imagined only a few short months ago. I don't know when I will actually undertake these changes, but that I can even contemplate making them is, for me, an enormous step in my grieving process.

So now as I prepare to count day number 416, and onward, I feel myself starting to look forward a little more each day. Of course I will never, and can never, stop looking back at what was as well.

Tears

2010-01-04T00:37:00.002-05:00

I just watched the end of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King and was struck by one of the final lines in the movie. As Frodo announced to his friends that he was leaving Middle Earth, Gandolf says: "I will not say: 'do not weep', for not all tears are an evil." This led me to thinking about the power and effect of tears.

I have shed so many tears of sorrow over the past months, but while many of those tears have come from the pain of my loss, many of those same tears have sustained my memories of Karen. Yet while tears may nourish the tree of memory, what happens when the tears no longer come or come less frequently? What happens to the memories? They don't go away. They don't wither. They remain. Perhaps not as vibrant as they once were, but remain they do. Forever. Like the rising of the sun or the movement of the tide, an ever-present part of life.

So it is as time passes by. That while things that were once as clear in my mind may still remain, they are no longer exist with such lucidity. Memories, like her smell, the sound of her voice, and the feeling of her skin are forever in my mind and heart, yet just a little less vivid than they were the day before. How I wish I could freeze in time every memory like it once was, but I know that is as impossible as it is to bring her back to me.

Hence, I cling to the pieces of her I have left. Those that are tangible for all to see and those that exist only where my mind's eye can view them. It is not enough, but it is all I have. She was a life force and a source of life. She brought me indescribable joy, happiness, and pleasure. And while no longer physically here, and drifting gently in the recesses of my life, she remains a part of me as she does for all those who knew her and so many who are only now discovering her in death.

How I wish everything were otherwise; that our expectations and dreams were fulfilled as planned. But that was not to be. Instead my life has become something else: a tribute to her and a passion to live not just for me but for her memory, regardless of its intensity.

To simply say I miss her would be to imply she, and everything she was, is gone. That is not the case. For even as turbidity invades my memories of her, they remain all the same and forever will. Just as she does.

Second birthday without celebration

2009-12-23T21:25:00.001-05:00

Time marches inexorably on. Today would have been Karen's 38th birthday, but rather than celebrating with her - and James - I spent the day, as I have for so many others, alone and with sadness. This is a difficult time of the year for anyone who has suffered a loss like mine, but with her birthday falling during a season of joy and happiness centered on families only serves to compound the pain and sense of loss.

So today I did the thing that I thought would comfort me most, I drove out to New Jersey to visit her grave. What I forgot to take into account, however, was that our region recently received the first significant (and then some) snow fall of the winter. Normally this wouldn't have made a difference but, as anyone who has been to the cemetery or read my postings about it knows, Karen and James do not have a headstone. Rather, their grave is marked with a bronze plaque in the ground. This has made my prior visits a bit more calming by not standing among the rows and rows of granite stones, but this trip it made it impossible to locate the grave. Even with a map and directions provided by the cemetery staff, I spent about an hour plodding around Section 14 and digging repeatedly into calf-deep snow. All with no success. Instead, I sat for some time on a small stone bench.

Instead of the comfort I thought would come from visiting the cemetery, I felt sadness and a sense of failure for not being able to locate the plaque and grave. I could appreciate it wasn't necessarily a rational feeling - failure, that is - because even with a precise knowledge of the cemetery section, with so much snow it would still be exceedingly difficult to find it. But it was no less rational for me to think like this than it is for me to feel (as I do sometimes) that I in some way failed in my duties and responsibilities as a husband for not protecting her, even though there was nothing I could have done. So there I sat. In the cold. Alone.

When I got back in my car to leave, the radio station was in the middle of a block of Beatles music. Two songs came on back to back (I think, for I was in a bit of a trance), from which I found some of the sought after comfort. They were "In My Life," from Rubber Soul, followed by "The End," which closes Abbey Road. Both have lyrics that resonated very strongly in me and which were only accentuated by where I was and what I had just gone through searching for Karen's grave. Every lyric of "In My Life" struck a chord with me (pardon the pun), but most significant was:

But of all these friends and lovers
there is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life I love you more

And having the moment punctuated with "The End's" haunting and iconic words, And in the end / The love you take / Is equal to the love you make, nearly brought me to tears but with a slight smile on my face. Though these songs were written decades ago, I heard the words anew. We certainly gave and received equal amounts of love, but for far far to short of time.

So as this second birthday without celebration draws to a conclusion, and I look ahead to tackle tomorrow and the tomorrows to come, I smile knowing Karen is looking over me and that we truly had something special.

Happy Birthday Karen. In my life, I love you more.

Worldwide Candle Lighting 2009

2009-12-11T13:41:00.000-05:00

A friend of mine recently emailed me to let me know that December 13 will be the 13th annual Worldwide Candle Lighting in memory of children who have died at any age and of any cause. The event is coordinated by The Compassionate Friends, an organization formed to help provide comfort and support to bereaved parents, siblings, grandparents, and other family members through the grieving process following the death of a child.

According to the press release, candles will be lit at 7 pm local time on Sunday, December 13, so that over the 24-hour period there will be a wave of light moving across the time zones. According to the organizer's site, no service is scheduled for Brooklyn (or anywhere in New York City) but I will be lighting two candles on my own - one in James' memory and another for all children who remain in their parents' hearts - and wanted to invite anyone else to join in the event from wherever you are.

What is there to be thankful for?

2009-11-26T14:30:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-16T09:15:00.005-05:00

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

2009-11-15T01:03:00.001-05:00

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

2009-11-05T09:05:00.000-05:00

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.

Is there such a thing as coincidence anymore?

2009-10-29T19:04:00.001-04:00

I think not. And here's two reasons why...

A couple weeks ago I went up to Boston to visit relatives and some friends from law school. While I was there I made plans to meet two other friends who live in Philadelphia but were in town for a medical conference - they're both doctors. The three of us met at a small restaurant in the south end and were seated near the open kitchen. Just after we ordered I glanced up at someone being led through the dinning room to their table - for those of you who follow my Facebook updates this might sound familiar - and immediately recognized it was a friend of mine from high-school who I haven't seen in probably a dozen years. The truly crazy thing was that she doesn't live in Boston either and was only in town for a couple days as well. She was there with her boyfriend and his sister, and the waitress sat them right next to us. We spent the rest of the evening chatting and catching up on old times. It was amazing.

Even more amazing was that her boyfriend said that he owned a wine store in northern Virginia and invited me to visit after I mentioned what my current plans are and that I would be in the area for a wedding in a few weeks. That wedding was this past weekend and the three of us meet for dinner on Monday night. Not only was it a great chance to catch up even more with her and get to know him better, but a potential business opportunity came out of the dinner that I am seriously considering.

I would have emailed her to let say I was going to be in DC anyway, but since we ran into each other in Boston it made getting together a certainty. Had we not reconnected in that random way, who knows if we would have met for dinner and who knows whether the business opportunity would have presented itself as it did. Most likely not. Things just seemed to fall into place in an odd, but positive, way.

The second thing happened last night when I went to a Learning Annex seminar about opening a restaurant. There were about a dozen people in attendance and just before the lecture began a man sitting in front of me mentioned to the presenter that he already owned a place in Park Slope. I told him I live in Park Slope and asked what the name of his restaurant was. His reply was "Cafe Bogota." I felt the blood rush from my head at this. When he asked if I knew it I said yes, stammered something about how the food was very good, but that my experience there was bad and I would talk to him about it later. Not only was the class starting so I couldn't explain it to him further, but I didn't want to cast a pall over him for the next couple hours.

At the conclusion of the class I approached him and spoke with him further. I began to explain that I was at Cafe Bogota in mid-November of last year with Karen and that she collapsed there. Before I could say anything further, he knew immediately who I was and what had happened. His partner, who joined the conversation at this time, explained that he was working there that day and recounted some of his memories. They told me how stunned and saddened the entire staff had been by what happened, and that the waiter who served us (who returned to Brazil) kept saying over and over in a shocked voice that Karen had just asked him for a pen.

The three of us spoke for a little while longer. I said that for some time I have wanted to go to the restaurant and speak with people who were there that day but have not been able to walk past Cafe Bogota let alone go inside. The understood completely, offered me their business cards and asked that I get in touch with them so we could meet to speak further. As the emotions began to overwhelm me, I shook both their hands and promised that we would get together. I left, getting to the street as the reality of what just happened hit me and the memories of November 16 flooded back.

As I did in the months that followed her death, I walked through the city trying once again to make sense of things. How could it be that in a city of over nine million people and thousands of restaurants the owners of Cafe Bogota were two of about a dozen individuals who showed up for the lecture. I believe we were supposed to meet, but that we were supposed to meet away from where Karen died so that I didn't have to reenter that place.

Just like I was supposed to be in that restaurant in Boston for many reasons, so too was I supposed be in that lecture; not to learn about how to open a restaurant (although I did get some good pieces of advices) but to meet those two gentlemen.

I don't know how my plans will eventually work out, but things have been happening to me in very odd ways during these past eleven and a half months. I wonder what is next....

Next steps

2009-10-20T23:40:00.002-04:00

As of October 2, I am no longer working as a lawyer. This was a decision that I've been contemplating for a long time and even discussed it with Karen quite a bit. In that pre-November 16 life I decided that leaving the job wasn't a prudent idea because with the arrival of James. Karen would not be working for some time and it would therefore have been incumbent on me to support all three of us. Nevertheless, Karen supported my idea of leaving the law to pursue other options at some point down the line.

After being away from work for several months following her death, I went back to work in March. It was the right decision for me at that for many reasons and I'm glad I did it. I really enjoyed many aspects of the job and made very good friends at the office. In addition, the support I received from my firm was remarkable and so important. But even as I was doing my best get my mind back into the work I realized after a few months that I was having difficulties putting my heart into it. Soon it became apparent to me that it was time for a change lest I continue doing what I was doing and allow the quality of my work deteriorate. Therefore I thought long and hard and decided that it would be best for me to leave the job.

So what now? That has been the number one question people have - understandably - had when I've told them of my decision.

Well, first off, I do not have another job waiting for me. This flies in the face of the conventional wisdom and also presents the obvious issue of how will I be paying rent and living expenses in the near future. I have some savings which will get me by for a few months, but I am already doing a little belt tightening in anticipation of not having a pay check coming in the near future.

What I am doing is pursuing an idea I've long had: to open a wine bar with a small menu of tapas-esque items some place in or near Park Slope. It is a long way to go before I will uncork my first bottle, but I have started taking courses at the French Culinary Institute on wine and plan to take a course in restaurant management when it is next offered in January of 2010. I have also started to speak with the many people I know who are in the industry and will be seeking any opportunities to gain knowledge and experience that will assist me.

I know how challenging this is, but have tremendous support from my friends and family, as well as the confidence to embark on this. In addition, because this is something Karen and I spoke about on several occasions, I know she is supporting me. All this said, it will take much more than just positive thinking to get to where I want to be. However, having been taught in the most dramatic and painful fashion that life truly is unpredictable and short, I have to seize this moment and do what it is my heart is telling me.

The third worst day of my life

2009-09-14T09:22:00.002-04:00

Yesterday I returned to Beth Israel Memorial Park for the first time since November 19, 2008, for the unveiling of Karen's grave marker.(For those of you not familiar with what an unveiling is, this is a Jewish tradition when a short ceremony is held between ten and twelve months after burial when the marker is first displayed; literally the marker is uncovered following a few short prayers and words of remembrance.) It was an event and a date that I knew I would be facing, but one that has created in me more anxiety and object fear than all those others that had passed already over the previous nine and a half months - such as our anniversary, Karen's birthday, James' due date, etc.

The first trip to the cemetery was for the burial. On that day, I was still very much in shock from what had happened and was doing and going wherever those around me directed. Because of this I did not have the ability, or the time, to contemplate what was happening and where I was going. Despite the fog in which I was existing when I went there after the funeral, the intense pain and utter despair that I felt while watching the coffin lower into the earth bore into me. Now I know it is one, of many, emotions and experiences that I know will never leave my mind. But because it was so sudden, I didn't have time before hand to contemplate it and just reacted while the world spun around me.

Yesterday, however, was something looming on the horizon for several months. It was something I knew was coming and had plenty of time to think about it. Time to dread its arrival, and dread it I did. I tried for the past weeks and months to live my life as normal as possible. Normalcy is something that was impossible to achieve knowing what was waiting for me. I knew I was returning to place where the scar on the earth would still be as raw as the scars in my heart and mind. As much as I sought to prepare to go back, there is really nothing that could be done. How does one prepare for what is inherently an unnatural and incorrect event? Even if it was decades later, after a long, shared life, the sight of my wife's and son's names carved indellibly into bronze and permanently affixed to the ground is something I would never be ready for. Obviously given the young ages, with so much life before them both, and so soon after we began our lives together makes such a thing exponentially harder to bear.

So the day finally arrived...

Yesterday, after precious little sleep the night before, I awoke with the immediate reality of what the day was; unlike some days when I can wake and have a few moments before the realization that Karen is gone, there was no such "grace period" on this morning. I had no appetite and craved only coffee to help push me forward. I was awash with emotions and thoughts of all sorts, so much and so disparate that I couldn't possibly begin to describe them.

The weather was perfect. Slightly overcast with the sun poking through periodically. Not too warm but also not chilly. Outside my window cyclists participating in the Transportation Alternatives New York City Century pedaled by calling out "slowing," "stopping," and "clear" as riders are taught to do whenever they participate in large road riding events. Indeed I know the routine well. Yet instead of pulling on bike shorts and a jersey to join them, I was pulling out a dark gray suit and black shirt. I know wearing black is a cliche, and Karen would likely have found the display overly morbid, but I just couldn't contemplate what to wear so black was the easiest thing to reach for at that moment.

I drove with my brother and his family to the cemetery, and being in the driver's seat lent some control to a situation over which I realize I have none. Memories of the ride the last time trickled into my mind as we drew closer. As we arrived through the cemetery's gates I felt my chest tighten and anxiety elevate perceptively. It wasn't until we pulled up at the section and saw everyone else already gathered that the full weight of the moment stuck me. I sat in the car for many minutes before mustering the strength to get out and join with everyone else around the grave.

The details of what happened next, much like those from the day of the funeral, remain shroud in my mind. What I do recall is the rabbi leading us in a touching memorial and several of Karen's friends sharing some of their personal stories. The it was time for me to remove the covering on the plaque. Having designed it, I knew what the plaque was going to look like, but as I knelt to the ground to unfasten the clothe my hands shook as overwhelming reality hit me. Seeing the design on paper only fractionally prepared me for what it would be like seeing it cast in bronze and affixed to the slab of granite. It is a beautiful but heart wrenching monument, and as I put my hand on the cold metal I felt a sense of peace come over me. Gone were the people standing around me, leaving me alone in my thoughts and memories of Karen.

I some ways the unveiling marked a kind of closure - completing part of a cycle started on November 19. Of course it change what happened, but getting through that moment revived in me a sense of strength in the knowing that I can continue to face such seemingly insurmountable events. But it also reopened some of the emotional wounds that had receded, somewhat, in the transpiring months.

Standing before the grave the feeling of absolute loss and overwhelming confusion in my life returned. I was, once more, the distraught husband and father searching desperately for meaning where there is none. As in all the days since her death, it was the strength and support of my family and friends, who literally surrounded me with their love, and nurtured me in that dark moment.

Before we left the grave, in keeping with Jewish tradition, family and friends placed a stone on the plaque. I pulled form my pocket a bag of sand from Israel and spread it over the earth in which they are buried, placed a stone on the plaque and, after spending a few more minutes in my own thoughts after everyone else left, returned to the car and drove away.

When and how often I will return to the cemetery I do not know, but that I went, faced such a powerfully painful event, and came out on the other side gives me renewed strength. Now it is time for me to go on once again, never forgetting Karen and living my life in a way that honors her memory and would make her happy. My journey continues.

* * *

Thanks to Karen's long-time friend, Michael Fishman, for the photograph.

absolute happiness

2009-08-17T00:48:00.001-04:00

Today marks yet another a date that I've been dreading - our one year wedding anniversary. However, rather than dwell on the sadness of not celebrating it with Karen, I've been thinking about how happy we were one year ago today and how it was an occasion that I never, EVER imagined would happen until it did. I know I've told it so many times, but please indulge me repeating our story again and remembering August 17, 2008 as the absolute happiness that it was....

Karen and I first met at Packer, where we both went to middle school and upper (high) school. Our class was small - we graduated with 42 other people - everyone pretty much knew everyone else. Because of the size, the school really didn't have the cliques and social groups that most people associate with high school. However, while we all knew each other and would hang out together in social situations, there were of course people who were closer to each other and people who were mostly acquaintances. Karen and I were more of the latter toward each other and I spent most of my time admiring her from afar in a John Hughesian kind of way.

That's right. I spent much of high school imagining just being out on a date with Karen Rothman and daydreaming about her. I even took a job for in-school community service (we needed to volunteer a certain number of hours in order to graduate) managing the girls varsity basketball team because she played on it. Not only did I get to know her a little better, but managed to put myself next to her in the team picture of our senior yearbook...pretty slick, no?

The picture was about as close as I got to her during high school; never did get that date. I would have to wait eighteen years, three months, and fourteen days from our graduation on June 14, 1989, to get the chance and I didn't waste it. After reconnecting on MySpace.com and exchanging a few emails we met on September 27, 2007. When she walked into the bar that evening she look as good - no, make that better...much better - than she did when we were classmates. We had a couple drinks at The Gate where, while we goofed around throwing darts in the general vicinity of the board, I confessed my high school crush to her. Always direct with her statements, Karen said I should have made a move back then and seized the moment. Well, after a couple more drinks and change of bars, I did. While we were shooting pool in the backroom there was a lull in the game and the conversation turned in a direction that gave me an opening that, based on what she had said earlier, I wasn't about to let pass me by again. So I took her in my arms and kissed her. Right there in the bar, right there against the pool table.

That night was a dream come true. What I couldn't have imagined was that it was the beginning of the dream and not the end of it. All I had wanted in high school was to be on a date with Karen, to kiss her, to feel her in my arms. In my wildest, high school mind I could never have conceived that ten months and 22 days after that kiss I would be standing next to her and under the chuppa at the the Prospect Park Boathouse for our wedding. But there we were and she never looked more beautiful than she did that evening.

She was radiant. Tonight I have been looking back through almost all of the pictures from the day, in each she has a smile stretching from ear to ear and a sparkle in her eye. It was a perfect day. I can still remember with absolute clarity what it was like standing at the end of the aisle watching her walk down arm in arm with her parents. She had to navigate stairs draped with fabric, a floor length dress, and high-heels, but the whole time she was walking she was staring straight at me with those sparkle filled eyes. When I close my eyes now I can see that image perfectly.

As she walked toward me I couldn't help but thinking it was all a dream. How on earth did I get so lucky. How did the "it" girl from high school end up saying yes to me when I asked her to marry me at a club in New York City without even a ring to offer her? Whatever it was, I knew that it was a perfect moment and that her gaze held all the love, support, and beauty that any man could hope to have. We decided to write our own vows but didn't share them until we read them to each other in front of our friends and family. I thought I lost hers and tore my apartment apart looking for the piece of paper. Thankfully, her mother had taken both to put them in a scrapbook. Friday she returned them to me and the words Karen wrote made clear that my happiness was matched by hers. As I read them over and over again the last few days, each time I can hear her voice reading them to me as she did that day. This is what she wrote and said:

Andrew

From the day we re-met you have surrounded me with your love warmth and kindness
With you I feel completely myself
With you I feel understood, heard

Andrew, you share yourself with me without reservation.
You confide in my your joys fears and wonderings

You look and listen at the world
with clear open eyes
the eyes of wisdom

Everyone who has met me today has remarked at how calm & relaxed I appear. How can I be anything else when I know that our marriage is the most natural and organic paths our lives can take.

I am for you and you for me
My love for eternity.
Ani li dodi, v dodi li.

As part of our wedding program we used a lithograph from Andy Warhol with his quote "I wonder if it's possible to have a love affair that lasts forever." When we put it in the program, we gave our own answer for all the world to see - "we KNOW it is." I think about that often, especially because we have the print next to our bed. How could we have ever imagined that forever would be only one year, one month and twenty-one days or that the eternity Karen wrote about would come so soon and so suddenly. Even with that, I look back on August 17, 2008 and remember the happiness and joy we shared, albeit far too briefly.

Happy anniversary Karen - my eternal love, my wife forever.

Fear of Flying

2009-07-07T22:29:00.001-04:00

I have been flying almost since I was born. In fact my first flight was back from Seoul, South Korea when I was just little more than a year old. (I don't want to brag, but I had one of the cutest passport photo ever...) Throughout my life I have flown hundreds of times to places exotic - Palau, The Maldives, Tbilisi, and Yerevan, to name a few - and many more less so - Detroit, Baltimore, New Haven, etc. For all those flights, I was never scared or worried and in fact loved the whole act of flying. I was always excited and thrilled by being so high above the ground, and trusted in the technology conveying me almost entirely.

Recently, however, that has changed.

I think the change began when Karen and I flew to St. Martin in February 2008. I wouldn't say that I was particularly afraid while in the plane, but there was a level of relief unlike I experienced in the past when we returned to terra firma . At the time I passed it off as nothing more a fluke, the excitement of being on vacation with Karen rather than any real nervousness, and said nothing to her. But when the same, but more acute feeling came over me when we flew to Montreal for our honeymoon I told her. At first I was somewhat hesitant to mention it. Not because I thought Karen would think any less of me, but because we had so many travel plans in our minds and I didn't want her to feel like we should cancel them if I was uncomfortable. When I told her how I was suddenly getting nervous flying she gently hugged me and said simply that "it was because now we have something to live for." I will never forget that moment.

In the past months, my fear has grown. At first I found it was odd, since the things in my life that gave rise to my nervousness were no longer with me. Why hadn't my thinking about flying simply returned to my previous feeling, the one guided by my aeronautics understanding and former enjoyment of being in the air. It was until a recent weekend, while talking to a friend about it, that I realized from where my new fear, or at least concern, is derived.

If the events of November 16 has taught me anything, it is that almost anything, even the most remote, far-fetched, and unbelievably unimaginable things can happen. I'm not talking about things of such infinite possibilities, like nuclear missiles metamorphosing into sperm whales and bowls of petunias, but about those things of natural life that you just can't - or don't want to - imagine happening, happening.

For so much of my life I have taken for granted the efficacy and functionality of the "machine" known as the human body. Sure, I've experienced deaths and had even heard those tragic stories of people loosing loved ones prematurely and horrifically. But I'd always convinced myself that, just as I never expect to win the MegaMillions lottery, so too did I never imagine that I would ever have the most negative odds fall against me. The human body, as far as I was concerned, was a complex, mechanical and biological machine, that we expect to function as expected until during its normal time of existence. Despite all my prior experiences and knowledge of illness and bodily frailty, I continued to believe and live that way. That one's body could so suddenly and unexpectedly cease its function shocked me to my core.

That shock and new realization, I see now, transferred to airplanes. I now find myself sitting in my seat with an acute feeling that in a blink of an eye something unforeseen and unimaginable could happen; and there is nothing I or anyone else could do, just as there wasn't anything that could have been done for Karen when the paramedics arrived. The possibility of such a catastrophic system failure, for lack of a better description, is something that I used to only imagine could happen in fiction.

It also isn't only airplanes I envision failing, but other people as well. I find myself looking at individuals - whether on the subway, at a bar, on the street, etc. - with the horribly morbid thought of what could happen to them in an instant. It is a feeling that alternates between that and a feeling of complete injustice that nothing does happen to them but it did to Karen and me.

What it all comes back to is that, despite all my efforts to remember the 14 months we had together and focus as hard as I can on the happiness that was in Karen's eyes while we had that lunch together, the images of what happened replay uncontrollably through my mind more times each day than I can count. It is an unending loop of my fear, helplessness, and loneliness.

I am trying to pause the cycle of imagery. Not to forget it, as if that were even a possibility, but to create a space between the replays in which I can continue the process of constructing a new life from the shards of what once was. And I do find moments of happiness and laughter, but never far away are those memories. Much like now, when I sit in seat 16B of a Boeing 737 I can't seem to shake the fear of the improbable happening despite my rational understanding of the thousands of flights that take off, travel between destinations, and land without incident.

Will I eventually loose my new found fear of flying? I don't know, but it is yet another thing, like everything else from this past seven (almost eight) months, that I will have to learn to incorporate and process into my life as I move forward.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

2009-06-22T15:53:00.001-04:00

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.

* * *

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

2009-06-21T00:05:00.000-04:00

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

2009-06-13T00:14:00.003-04:00

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

2009-06-10T00:59:00.001-04:00

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.

Memories of the day until...

2009-05-26T20:48:00.001-04:00

Shortly after I spoke about Karen and James at the Havdalah service during the Israel ride, one of the other participants approached me to offer his condolences. He also asked me how often I think about Karen. It was, truth be told, an odd question to hear. Rather than say anything about the question, I simply replied: "When I wake up in the morning, Karen is the first thing to cross my mind. Later, when I am laying in bed waiting for sleep to come, she is the last thought that I have. Between those two moments, however, she is in my constant and continued thoughts, as is James." It is not about how often I think about her and him, but how often I don't.

Lately, I (and perhaps others) have noticed that my posts have had a bleakness to them and maybe the impression has been given that the thoughts I have of Karen are in some way sad ones and that in turn it may be these sad thoughts that contribute to my feeling. Quite the contrary. My thoughts tend to be of the wonderful things during our all to brief time together. I don't talk necessarily about specifics because some are private, personal treasures I keep for myself while many others are of such seemingly ordinary and nondescript moments in time that to share them would be trite but for the circumstances as they are now. These moments, which I think about constantly, are things like driving to Long Island, New Jersey, or the Adirondacks with Karen in the passenger seat, shoes off and feet on the dash board; walking to PS 321 in the morning; watching her prepare to break in pool and then the graceful follow-through where she extends the cue upward part ballerina, part hustler; or the calm expression on her face and glowing skin after finishing a Yoga class. These are just a small glimpse of the hundreds, if not thousands, of beautiful memories that fill my mind between my waking thought of her and moment before I drift off to sleep.

In the last couple of days, however, I have been thinking a lot about the day she died. Unlike how I've previously been thinking about that day, these thoughts have been about everything we did before that horrible moment. All the fun and love we shared in those final hours. Of course there was no way to know (at least not cognitively) these would be our last moments together, but even without the events later in the day they are some of the happiest I can recall.

As I written about before, the day started with brunch at my mother's apartment. As we were getting ready to go downstairs (my mother lives in the same apartment building as we did) I noticed Karen was putting on a dress and her high boots and mentioned to her that it was just a casual brunch with my family and that after we were just going to run some errands. Her response was classic Karen. She didn't care how the other mothers and expectant mothers in Park Slope dressed on a Sunday, she was going to dress in style. Her style. With that we were off to brunch.

Brunch was really special. At the time, my brother and his family was living with my mother while their new house was being renovated. Because of this, Karen and I saw them and my mom quite often. But on this particular day my father and step-mother had come from the upper west side for brunch. I don't know what the occasion was, or if there even was one, but when we walked in my entire family was there. Karen and I easily slid into the conversation and commotion that, pleasantly, marks meals and gatherings in my family. It was a traditional New York Jewish brunch with bagels, lox, herring, etc. Karen and I spent at least an hour or two basking and enjoying the time. Eventually, however, we announced we were going to leave to take a walk and run some errands.

I can remember nearly ever step and word of conversation we had. From our apartment we walked down Carroll Street and turned right on Seventh Avenue. At Union Street we made a left so that we could pass by the Park Slope Yoga studio and pick up a schedule of classes. Our thought was to run our errand and be back in time for a class before going out for my birthday dinner with my family.

When we got to Sixth Avenue we turned right. We walked and talked, passing PS 282 where I accompanied Karen last year to watch a coral concert being performed by several of her students. Then we stood at the intersection of Sixth Avenue and St. Marks Place looking at the building on the corner. The second floor of which had at some point been converted into a commercial space that stood vacant. We debated first what kind of business we, if we could, would open in the space and then whether the window were true bay windows or some other architectural style. Our conclusion was that no, the windows weren't bay windows and a funky coffee shop would be a fitting business (this despite a cafe of sorts being on the first floor).

Our destination was Pintchik Hardware store on Bergen Street and Flatbush Avenue where we were going to look at window treatments and paint colors for the renovation of Karen's apartment at 75 Henry Street. It had been our intention to sell it and find a two bedroom apartment in Park Slope, but the market being what it was (and is) decided it would be more prudent to renovate it and live there for a couple years until the market rebounded.

Pintchik was crowded, as you would expect on a weekend. We spent a little time looking at paint but then while I was ordering some samples for my brother, Karen went to the window treatment section. She returned a few minutes later to tell me there wasn't much of a selection and she found only one that she liked. She wouldn't tell me which one it was, but rather asked which one I liked. I wandered through looking at each one, settling on a Roman-esque cotton blind. It was the same one that she picked. That was how we were together. Without even trying, we almost always picked the same things. It wasn't that we selected thinking what the other one would like or want, but rather it just happened organically. The things I liked were the things she liked and vice-a-versa. This would happen at restaurants, stores, and many other times when there were choices to be made; it was quite uncanny.

Done with that errand, we walked down Bergen Street toward Fifth Avenue. Some how fittingly, next door to Babeland (an adult store) is Bump, a materinity clothing boutique. As most people who knew Karen know, she wasn't one to take herself shopping so as we passed the store I suggested we stop in and see if there was anything she liked. She had only moments earlier mentioned how much she preferred wearing dresses now that her belly had gotten so big with James. As first when we went inside she took a cursory turn through the racks, chatting away to me the whole time, and said she found nothing. However, on a second, slower sweep of the store she started finding things, and things, and more things. Next thing I knew, I was sitting in the designated dude-chair while Karen tried on dress after dress, all the while having the saleswoman/owner of the store find different sizes and styles. She was in rare form, truly enjoying shopping and getting a kick out of each new dress she put in the we'll-take-it pile. All in all we bought six dresses that day.

Dresses in hand, we wandered along Fifth Avenue. As I mentioned, we had dinner plans for the evening but we were both feeling a bit hungry so when when we walked by Bogota Bistro we decided to go in for a bite. We'd looked at the menu several times before but always chose to go someplace else, each time saying that next time we would try it. Well this was next time.

We ordered a couple light dishes to share: a pair of empanadas and bowl of tortilla soup. Both were amazing. The empanadas were served with a creamy garlic sauce and spicy pico de gallo, which we both ate with impunity. I had a Colombian beer, Karen water only. Toward the end of the meal I took a picture with my iPhone of the beer and sent it to a friend who moved from Colombia to Queens when he was young. In my message I made a comment about sitting and enjoying such amazing Colombian cuisine and beer without ever leaving Brooklyn.

I was all smiles. Karen was absolutely glowing. We sat making small talk, staring at each other, stealing a kiss or two across the table and holding hands.

The bill came and everything changed.

Regardless of everything tragic and painful that happened from that point forward, all the memories and emotions leading up to that moment continues to fill my heart with absolute joy and unparalleled love.

Some days things just get worse

2009-05-18T22:06:00.005-04:00

This weekend was a tough one for me. The six month mark (I'm loathe to call it an anniversary) took a toll on my on Saturday. Then, on Sunday, when I tried to get some work done, I entered into a new world of panic attack that I never before knew. First I became stressed over the work I had to do and all that went along with it. As a relief, or so I thought, I decided to take a walk in Prospect Park.

After a few minutes of sitting on Karen's bench I continued along the path until I got to the baseball fields. There I ran into my brother and nieces who were finishing/starting their games. For a little while my anxieties subsided, but then as I began home a new and intense level of panic began flooding over me. At first I thought I was getting chilled since it was a bit cold as the sun set, but as it increased I realized that the shivering, numbness, and near paranoia that was taking hold of me was something altogether different.

As soon as I got home I took a long, hot shower. Still feeling chilled I put on thermal underwear - top and bottom - and sweatpants and shirt. Capped off with wool socks. Feeling slightly warmer, and a little like a neurotic Michelin Man, I climbed into bed at 8:30 and was asleep almost immediately. It wasn't the most restful night sleep I've had, but I was able to sleep through the night and wake nearly 11 hours later.

I felt better in the morning. Not good, but better. It is all about increments I'm finding. I could write an entire entry about work and my frustrations there, but suffice to say that I made it through yet another day. But what I found in my mailbox when I got home pushed me back to where I was over the weekend.

Junk mail sucks and bills are generally bad enough. Advertisements for baby products and free Similac samples I'd thought were the worst. Nothing, however, compares to getting the proof of Karen's and James' grave marker for final approval. I felt the air literally suck out of my body and but for the kitchen counter to grab hold of I'm not sure my legs could have held me up much longer.

So there I was, standing in the kitchen, the waves of pain from the prior 48 hours, not to mention the prior six months, hitting me square in the face while looking down at the proof. It was difficult to see the plaque on the bench, but this was a magnitude more of despondency. Just as I thought things were difficult with the weekend, work, and my general emotions, this arrives and throws everything down a couple levels.

I think a hot shower, thermals, and sweats might have to happen again tonight and just maybe tomorrow will see an increment back upward for me.

Six Months

2009-05-16T22:46:00.010-04:00

Six months ago today was the worst day of my life.

Six months ago today my wife, my love died in front of me.

Six months ago today I became a father only to be told my son died.

Six months ago today I fell on the floor in tears.

Six months ago today my family, overcome by their own grief, enveloped me with their love and support.

Six months ago today I last kissed Karen, caressed her hair, felt her skin against mine, and wept.

Six months ago today I felt my life ended, my future lost, and the world crashed down around me.

Six months ago today I sat numbly in my rabbi's office vainly trying to make sense of what happened.

Today, six months later, I still cannot make sense of what happened and live day to day with the horrible memories of that day, memories which I press out of my mind however temporarily by remembering the indescribably wonderful fourteen months we had together.

Today, six months later, I am living - getting out of bed each morning and trying to create something new from the shards of the shattered life I once had.

It is hard, but I press on with my journey.

It is what she would have wanted me to do. It is what I need to do to honor her memory.

I miss her so much.

2009 Israel Ride, post script -- the sand storm

2009-05-13T15:19:00.001-04:00

One of the crew members from the ride found these pictures of the dust storm that cut short our final day of riding. They were taken by a pilot flying at about 8000 feet near the city of Be'er Sheva, about 90 miles north of where we were riding. We were told during the pre-ride safety briefing that sand storms can occur 5 to 10 times a year in the Negev, but one like this hadn't been seen in many years. The height of the dust/sand wall was approximately 4000 feet and it was moving at almost 40 miles per hour. The storm originated in the Sinai and covered the entire Negev.

Its pretty obvious when you look at the storm why the decision was made to suspend the ride until the worst of it blew past us. Of course that decision didn't prevent dust and sand from infiltrating nearly every part of my bicycle, which has a date with the technicians at Dixon's for an overhaul and cleaning.

2009 Israel Ride (Part Two)

2009-05-10T16:47:00.000-04:00

Well the ride is over and what a ride it was. Challenging both physically and emotionally, yet rewarding in incalculable ways. I am still - and will I'm sure continue for many days, weeks, and months - processing the trip and what it has meant for me as part of my healing, but here's a little of what the final two days of riding had in store for us....

Day 4 - Shabbat at Mitzpe Ramon

We spent a well deserved day of rest at Mitzpe Ramon, which was ended with havdalah service at the edge of the maktesh. Even though the sky wasn't as clear as one would have hoped, it was an awe inspiring sight to watch the sun set over the expanse of the maktesh and see the desert around us change in color.

Before havdalah began, people were invited to share thoughts of theirs from the three days of riding or anything else that was on their mind. While I had talked about Karen and James with several people on the ride individually, I had been hesitant to bring it up in front of the group because I didn't want to spoil the festive mood that was prevalent on the ride. However, as we sat there reflecting on the past days I felt moved to open my mouth. I choked the words out to the group, telling the story I've told so many times in the past months. It was as tough as it ever was to talk about it, but I'm glad I did. I was immediately embraced by several people and over the remaining days so many more - if not every rider and crew member.

Day 5 - Mitzpe Ramon to Kibbutz Ketura (57 miles)

The day of riding began with a group photo from the top of the maktesh.

After we were done, the ride crew spaced our start to allow for intervals between riders on the downhill. Needless to say that in some cases, me included, those spaces quickly evaporated. How could I have not let myself enjoy the fun of a long downhill with several exciting switchbacks? It was a great way to begin the day!

After a short rest at the bottom to allow all the riders to re-group, we started off across the maktesh. The weather stayed a bit overcast, which helped keep the temperature down somewhat throughout the day.

The riding day had us going through some amazing terrain as we headed deeper into the Negev and the stark bareness of the terrain became increasingly wonderful to see. In addition to the monster downhill to begin the day, we rode along rolling hills -- giving us additional downhills, many coming with warning signs of their steepness.

But the cautions of steep grades were not the only signs we began encountering. Since much of the Negev is used for military training purpose, there was ample warnings against leaving the road and venturing anywhere beyond.

We made sure to keep on the safe side of the signs.

The day ended as it started with a great, long, and fast downhill into the Arva Valley. Across the valley were the hills of Jordan, obscured by the unusually hazy weather.

As great of a downhill as it was, some of us - me included - would be climbing it the following morning to begin the final day of riding. The evening, however, was devoted to rest and relaxation as we were hosted by Kibbutz Ketura, home of the Arva Institute. The hospitality shown by the kibbutz was exceptional. After a quick dip and lounging by the pool with a cold Goldstar beer, we attended a outside dinner of exceptional food, drink, and warm spirits. It almost made me forget about the morning's uphill.

Day 5 - Kibbutz Ketura to Eilat

As I said, the killer 4.8 mile downhill we had to end the day before was to be a 4.8 mile uphill to start the final day of riding. The option was given for us to be bussed to the top of the hill and start riding from there, but I and 9 other "meshugim" riders opted to get up by our own power. I felt it was a challenge, like so many others I've been facing in these months, that I needed to at least try to do and felt confident I would succeed. The route snaked up the cliff side in a series of switch-backs that were so much fun riding down but so much not on the way up.

As hard as the climb was it actually ended up being quite doable and we made it from the kibbutz to the summit in about 40 minutes and were at the first pit stop (where the main group of riders started) in just under an hour. We made great time, but it was the last we'd make in the day.

After we resumed the ride, we were almost immediately hit with a headwind that had to be 30+ miles an hour. Over the next 15 kilometers or so, we struggled to make way averaging little more than 5 - 7 MPH. At one point I got off the bike for a call of nature break, as well as to stop the incessant howl of the wind in my ears, and could barely keep from being blown over by holding onto a sign post. It was some of the worst wind I've ever encountered on my bike or off.

We made it to the next rest stop when the wind added a special twist by kicking up dust and sand. For the next twenty minutes we huddled behind what shelter we could, in this case bushes and shrubs, preparing ourselves to head out onto the road. Just as the lead rider with us announced that we should prepare to get riding again, vans showed up carrying members of the main group who had departed the rest stop about ten minutes before we arrived. They had made it about 10 kilometers down the road when the decision was made to return them to the rest stop because of the increasingly deteriorating and hazardous conditions. Eventually the entire group was reassembled at the rest stop and we were loaded on buses to skip ahead on the route. Along the way, however, we stopped at a point where the boarder with Egypt comes right up to the roadside. The guard tower in the distance is Egyptian and the barbed-wire fence next to me is the actual boarder.

From the overlook we continued by bus to the top of the final downhill into Eilat and it was determined by ride leaders that conditions had improved sufficiently enough for us to ride it. And what a ride it was. The downhill, like so many before, was fast with great switch-backs and curves, but most amazing of all was the view of the Red Sea below us. Needless to say, we were all smiles as we coasted toward the ride's end.

Once at the bottom of the descent the group came together for the final ride down the beach and to our hotel.

I feel like I keep repeating myself, but it was an amazing ride. In the past I've done other multi-day rides, but this one was not only better organized and supported than any I've done in the past, but was so emotionally powerful and through such beautiful terrain as to be incomparable. Not only that, but due to its size - only about 35 riders - it was easy to meet everyone and make new friends. As I said in my first post, I had come on the ride looking forward to the solitude of riding through the desert but now realize that the true reason for my riding was to meet new friends. It has also been a realization for me that despite what has happened and the losses I've suffered, that I am able - and need to for my sake and Karen's - to continue experiencing life and making new memories. This might sound obvious of a statement, but I assure you it is not something I could even comprehend a few short months ago. Now, even as I continue to miss her nearly every waking moment of my days, I understand that I must continue my life however difficult a concept and taks that may be.

Thank you all once again for your support in making it possible for me to have done this.

2009 Israel Ride (Part One)

2009-05-02T09:57:00.018-04:00

Three days of riding down and two to go. Today we're spending Shabbat in Mitzpe Ramon and I finally have a reliable internet connection, as well as the energy, to writ a little something about the ride. I will post something about the pre-ride visit and acitivities soon. But before I get into what has been going on with the ride, I want to thank everyone who supported me and allowed for me to be in the wonderful place, doing this amazing adventure.

Day 1 – Tel Aviv to Ashkelon (48 miles)

Set for the first day of riding

On day one, we set off from Tel Aviv bound for the seaside city of Ashkelon. It was Yom Haatzmaut (Israel Independence Day) so the city was very quite as the shofar was sounded to start the ride. We cycled through the city passing the home of David Ben Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, and Kikar Rabin, the site were Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated on November 4, 1995, after attending a peace rally in support of the Oslo Accords. From there we passed the site where Tel Aviv was founded in 1909, which sits only yards away from the building where Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948.

Our course then took us to the sea side just north of Jaffa for our first rest stop – even though we had biked a relatively short distance. We continued along the coast for a while before heading in-land. The temperature change could be felt, but it was nothing compared to what was to come. We arrived later in the day in Ashkelon, biking past hundreds, if not thousands, of Israelis having bar-b-ques in every park or strip of grass in celebration of Independence Day.

In the evening we were able to rest our weary bodies with the view of the sun setting over the Mediterranean Sea.

Day 2 – Ashkelon to Mashabei Sade (72 miles)

After a great breakfast at the Ashkelon Holiday Inn – yes, I used great breakfast referring to a Holiday Inn – we set off for day two. Unlike day one, there was no stop and go start to get our legs warmed up and we were off on the open road right away. We pulled into a rest stop at a reservoir, which provided a view of Gaza in the near distance. In fact we were about equal distance (or so I was told) from the Israeli town of Sderot, the target of many of the rockets, and the Gaza border. Standing at such a location it was once again overwhelming evident how small of a country and area is at the center of the Israel-Palestinian problems.

Gaza is barely visible in the right

Before going on with the ride itself, I want to make a mention about how great the support and crew of this ride is. I think most of you know that I rode in two AIDS rides while I was living in DC and thought those were well run, but they have nothing compared to what this crew does. Not only do they ride with us, both in cars and on bikes, but every 10 to 15 miles there is a rest stop or pit stop where we can re-fill water bottles, grab a few dates or power bars, and sit in the shade for a few minutes - and if there isn't natural shade, which is becoming more and more rare, they erect something to provide it. There is also sunblock at about every turn, which we've all been lathering on constantly. Without these volunteers there is no way any of us could survive even half a day of riding. Thank you is not nearly sufficient enough.

We left the rest stop and headed toward the northern Negev. The route climbed slightly, but more noticeable was the gradual - and later dramatic - change of climate from the fertile fields of the western Negev, fed by the moisture of the Mediterranean (as well as the treated waste water of the surrounding communities), to the dry desert of the northern Negev. As dry as we were finding the air we were biking through, it was just a harbinger of the next day, and from what we are expecting in the final two days.

In the evening we stayed at Kibbutz Mashabei Sade. There was something nice about putting my head back down on a kibbutz, even one so dramatically different than Beit Nir, where I plan to spend a couple of days after the ride. The meal was just as I would have expected from a kibbutz, a couple of meat dishes and salads, salads, salads. Most importantly was it was tasty and filling.

Day Three - Mashabei Sade - Mitzpe Ramon (45 miles plus 10 off-road)

The alarm went off again at 5:30 a.m. -- not my preferred time wake up normally -- and we were back on the road to the sound of the shofar. This morning, however, there was no large breakfast options to send us on the way but rather a snack with the breakfast down the road at our first rest stop at Sde Boker, 16 miles away. The terrain really began to change and we started hitting the first real uphills.

We rode into Sde Boker to find a breakfast spread set out by our crew worthy of any hotel we've been to yet. Sde Boker is the kibbutz where David Ben Gurion resigned as Prime Minister to live and at which both he and his wife were eventually buried.

Ben Gurion's grave

An interesting thing about his grave is that there are three dates on it: his birthday, the date of his death, and the date he made aliyah. The view from his grave site is truly spectacular, looking out over the vast expanse of the Negev, some of which were were about to mountain bike through to visit the oasis of Ein Akev.

Now I've been on a mountain bike a few times and even road them off-road a bit, but this was the best mountain biking I've ever done. Maybe not nearly the most technical or challenging course/route out there but it was certainly the most difficult I've ever been on before. There were some steep declines, loads of jagged rocks as well as fine gravel and sand (which I found was the most difficult things to ride through), and always the the heat of the desert.

But it was worth it for the amazing oasis formed by the spring at Ein Akev. Based on the reactions of those who did go into the frigid water, I chose to keep out of the pool.

After the mountain biking excursion, we had a nice lunch back near the Ben Gurion grave site before switching back to our road bikes for the 25, or so, more miles to Mitzpe Ramon. 25 miles isn't too far, except when those are spread across three fairly nice climbs - with corresponding downhills I will add. The day ended with the biggest surprise of them all, the steepest, but thankfully shortest, climb to the hotel itself. It came at me out of no where on the final turn, but it marked the end.

We spent Shabbat at Mitzpe Ramon, which sits on the edge of the Maktesh Ramon. While often and incorrectly referred to as a crater or canyon, the Maktesh is a unique geologic occurrence which offers some positively spectacular views. Unfortunately its grandeur simply can not be captured in a photograph, but here is a little taste of what it is like....

And all around the Maktesh, and even in the town, are Ibexes. These ancestors of the modern day domesticated goats are a protected species in Israel and have returned from the brink of extinction in the decades since the passage of laws prohibiting their hunting for any reason.

Tomorrow we ride down and through the Maktesh so I will cut this update off a little short to ensure I get sufficient rest for the day. I know I keep saying it, but this is a wonderful experience and I can't thank everyone who made it possible - from my donors to the staff and crew of the ride itself - for me to do it. And while when I was getting ready to do the ride I kept talking about the need and desire for me to spend some time alone on the bike with my thoughts in the desert, I have now begun to realize that another - perhaps more important reason for the ride - was for me to have the opportunity to meet and make new friends, which has happened many times over.

Shavua tov.

Karens' Bench on Google Maps

2009-04-18T23:43:00.003-04:00

Here's a map marking the exact location of the bench -

View Karen's Bench in a larger map

Prospect Park bench and angels again?

2009-04-17T23:31:00.002-04:00

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.

HAZON Bike Ride

2009-04-14T20:51:00.000-04:00

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.

My Passover plagues

2009-04-13T00:48:00.001-04:00

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.

The things I should be doing

2009-04-07T01:05:00.005-04:00

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.

What's been giong on...

2009-03-30T01:21:00.002-04:00

A short note/post to let everyone what has been going on with me lately.

For those who don't know, I started back at work this month. The firm and everyone in my office have been amazingly supportive throughout and continues to be so. The decision to return was the right one for a variety of reasons. First was that it provides structure to my days, which had become increasingly void of any purpose. I had taken to waking up later and later, followed by an ongoing effort to find things to do during the day. Not to put too find a point on it, but it was becoming a bit depressing - an emotion and feeling I need no increase of in my life. With work, I now have something to get up and get going for in the morning.

Also, being back in the office, amongst my colleagues, is a first step toward recreating a life for myself. As I've said to several people, the person writing this blog and going through this world is not the same as the one who sat down at Cafe Bogota on November 16, 2008 for a quick lunch. That person no longer exists, just as the life he knew doesn't either. Now my journey is to discover and establish a new me. To pick up the shattered pieces of what was and the shards of what was to be, and find a way to create a mosaic of new life incorporating those memories and hopes. To be sure, it is a long path and one without a finite end, but it is necessary for me to be embarking on it and is what Karen would want me to be doing. Returning to work is a small step on that course; incrementally changing my own self-perception and self-identification, which has been centered only on the magnitude of my losses, to something else.

That isn't to say that going back to work has been easy or smooth. On the contrary, it has been a very strange experience fraught with its own grief pitfalls, starting from the first day. I returned to my office and found it nearly exactly as I left it on November 13. Notes scribbled on Post-Its, and documents stacked in various piles on my desk evidenced the almost unspectacular routine that had been the week. I still wait for Karen to call and have to keep from picking up the phone and dialing her number throughout the day; it was a rare day when we didn't talk at least once during our time apart. The dour mood that I feel at home and on the street has followed me to the office.

On a positive side, I am pleased to report that enough money has been raised for the bench in memory of Karen and James, and I have also exceeded the fund raising requirement for the Hazon bike ride.

The plaque for the bench has been ordered and will be installed as soon as the Prospect Park Alliance is able to do so. As I've mentioned to several people by email already, I hope that it will be installed before I leave for Israel but am not certain that will happen. Whether before I leave or after, I plan to have an informal gathering at the bench once the plaque is in place and will post details of that. I will also post a photo and information on the exact location and directions to the bench.

As for the Hazon ride, despite the cold weather I have tried to get out on my bike when I can. On Saturday I was able to get in about 15 miles and felt very good after - i.e., I could have kept going longer. This is a good thing, since after seeing the ride profile, including altitudes and climb/descent grades, I realized that optimism would likely not outweigh some in-saddle time prior to getting to Tel Aviv.

Lastly, I have begun the search for someone to adopt two of Karen's four cats. I am keeping Tony and Grayola, but am trying to find a good home for Chewie and Mocha. They are brothers, about 12 or 13 years old, and were rescued by Karen many years ago. I have been in touch with City Critters, but if anyone knows someone who would be interested in adopting them please let me know.

As always, thank you all for your continued comments and notes of support. I read each and every one, but am not so good at responding or thanking you individually. Please don't let that stop you from writing, it helps more than I can express.

Lost Kiss

2009-03-19T00:58:00.003-04:00

I've never really been "into" poetry and certainly wouldn't consider myself a poet, but this popped into my head and I couldn't stop thinking about it until I wrote it down. Your indulgence if it is sophomoric or banal:

I think about our first kiss
And remember it like yesterday
I struggle to remember our last kiss
Obscured by the routine of a once normal life
Just another of the countless times our lips met
Lost but so much more now

Such a short time between the two
Filled yet infinitely more unrealized
Many streets shared with her
A complicated path journeyed
To arrive here today
Without her

Thank You

2009-03-11T00:21:00.001-04:00

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the bench in memory of Karen and James. Thanks to so many generous donations, the required amount has been reached and the Prospect Park Alliance is preparing to install the plaque. I am hopeful that it will be done before I leave for Israel and will post a note when it is place.

In keeping with this post's title, I also want to thank everyone who contributed in support of my bike ride in Israel. Today I passed the necessary minimum to allow me to ride. Now all I need to do is get myself, and my legs, prepared to pedal my bike from Tel Aviv to Eilat. I am not sure what my Internet connection will be while I'm riding, but will take loads of pictures and if not able to update daily will continue writing in my journal and post my Thinkerings when the ride is done.

The overwhelming support I've received for both these things, as well as the numerous contributions to Foundation Rwanda and gifts of food, etc., during Shiva, is humbling. People's inevitable first question when they see me is "how are you doing." Without the continued support of my family and friends, both emotionally and more tangibly, I don't think I could answer as I have been. Indeed, without it I fear I would be incapable of even formulating an answer. So in addition to my sincere gratitude for the donations you have all made, let me express my extreme and heartfelt thank you for every kind note, email, text message, prayer, or just thought to yourself that you've sent me. I awake in the morning and am able to go back into the world each day because of it.

Thank you.

Our first "I love you"

2009-02-19T18:15:00.001-05:00

Our time in St. Martin was fantastic. It was the best vacation I've ever had not only because the beaches were beautiful, the weather amazing, the food tasty, and my companion perfect, but because of what happened on February 19, 2008.

It was three days into our vacation. The day before we rented a jeep and drove around the island exploring little out of the way places. Not that it was a strenuous day by any stretch of the imagination, but we nonetheless decided to spend the next day lounging on the beach in true island fashion. We found a pair of beach chairs and settled in for a day of soaking up the sun, drinking cocktails, and enjoying each others company - something of which we couldn't get enough.

Up until this point we had expressed our feelings for each other in many ways but neither of us using a certain three word expression. We spoke in euphemisms about how we felt toward each other, dancing around those key words. Perhaps there was the sense that to do so would break some spell under which we had been enjoying up until then or maybe the time just hadn't been right.

Whatever hesitation there was melted away that day under the St. Martin sun. It wasn't as if it was something I planned, or even thought about, but at that moment I opened my mouth and the words “I love you” flowed out with such ease that it seemed they had been waiting for this moment since September 27, or even since June 1989. Even before the words had completely left my lips Karen was saying them right back to me. As she did, her eyes gained a new sparkle and slightly tearful glaze. She looked more beautiful at that moment than I'd ever seen her. We kissed and hugged unlike we had in the months prior; there was a new passion and energy flowing between us. It was one of those transformational moments I thought only existed in works of fiction.

However, we were also a little concerned. We were worried that we might find ourselves overusing the phrase, saying “I love you” to the point it became rote, diminishing its importance and underlying feeling it represents. In fact we spoke about not wanting to just say “I love you” as a matter of course as we had seen happen in other relationships. We even made a tacit agreement not to say it too often, an agreement that lasted slightly longer than the frozen strawberry daiquiri Karen was sipping at the time made it.

It was, on the contrary, as if the floodgates had been opened. We found ourselves positively gushing it to each other. So much so that the following day, while having a drink at a beach side bar on Anguilla, the bartender asked if we were newlyweds, commenting that she'd only seen people gush and fawn over each other the way we were when they're on their honeymoon. Who could have imagined that the utterance of three words could have such a magical affect. Whatever the reason, we spent the rest of the vacation in a world populated by just the two of us, unaware and unconcerned about whatever happened around us.

The days that followed were unlike any I'd ever experienced until then. We never left each others presence. From waking in the morning to lying down to sleep in the night, we spent nearly every minute together. Unable to keep our hands off each other, we similarly couldn't keep from telling each other how we felt, saying over and over again "I love you" just as we had agreed not to do.

Days and months later we kept up the barrage of “I love you.” Despite this, there was nothing diluted from the words even after the dozens, if not hundreds, of times we said it to each other. It was natural. It felt right. It was what we were feeling and not merely words spoken. In short, it was not overused and meant as much to me when she said it on November 16 as it did when she said it on February 19. Today I keep a Post-It in my wallet that Karen left in my office that reads simply: “Never forget how much I love love love you :)” That little 3M plastic flag means more to me than anything else I keep in my wallet and reminds me each and every day of the unconditional love she and I shared.

One year ago

2009-02-17T14:47:00.000-05:00

This was taken exactly one year ago today, February 17, 2008. It was the morning after we arrived in St. Martin for a week vacation. We had been bumped from our flight and arrived at night, several hours later than we expected. When we woke up we had no idea what time it was because there was no clock in our room, our cell phones were out of range, and neither of us wore a watch. It was a great way to start a vacation. So we woke with the sun rise.

After a breakfast of croissant and lattes, we went for a walk on the beach. The sky was amazing and we were nearly the only ones on Orient Beach, which we discovered later was a very popular, and at times busy, stretch of sand. When we noticed one of the many beach-side bars starting to open we decided to have a drink.....how could we have known it was only 8:30 AM!

It was the start of my greatest vacation......

James Alex Fried

2009-02-14T17:29:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, February 13, 2009, was Karen's due date, although she was convinced that James would arrive early just as she and her brother had. It was a date we had been eagerly expecting since we found out she was pregnant and one that I was dreading since November 16. Just this week I looked on a calendar we have in the kitchen and noticed she had written "James Here!!" on the date, and indeed a reminder - as if I would have needed one - rang on my iPhone yesterday morning. Now those whimsical notations of events yet experienced are a sad and haunting reminder of what will never be.

Many people sent me messages of support, which helped me through the day. Because I couldn't contemplate what to do during the day I did has helped in the weeks since Karen's death, I walked. In fact I walked a lot! I went from my apartment in Park Slope all the way out to Coney Island and back. The way out I walked along the tree-lined boulevard of Ocean Parkway. On the Boardwalk at Surf Avenue I sat and took in the view. While the weather was sunny and unseasonably warm, the beach was barren save for a flock of seagulls hunkered down against the persistent on-shore breeze. There wasn't a cloud in the sky and through the clear winter air I could see Breezy Point in the far distance and Rockaway Point closer, an line of cargo ships passing between the two as they entered and left New York Harbor. I walked back through Brighton Beach, feeling with each step that I had left New York completely and transported to Odessa, and along Coney Island Avenue all the way back home.

In all I walked about 16 miles (according to Google Maps) over the course of about 5 hours. The whole time my mind thinking about what the day meant. Nothing was resolved or reconciled, but I made it through the day, which was what I needed to do.

There are many more dates in my future whose arrivals I am anticipating with anguish. However, just as I made it through yesterday and I made it to Coney Island and back one step at a time, I will take each new day the same way and get through them. What other choice do I have?

The things that are left

2009-01-30T11:44:00.002-05:00

I have been spending a lot of time trying to collect everything I can which relates to Karen, from notes she wrote, pictures, or just those random tangible things that remain from she and I sharing this time together. In a way there isn't very much because we had such a short time together, but on the other hand there is so much because of how close we were and how much we shared.

What there is very little of are things that mark James' life. For him, everything was the future. Despite being born and dying on November 16, 2008, I requested that the hospital not issue a birth certificate, and consequently a death certificate, because had this been done he could not have been buried with Karen. The thought of them not being together sickened me, as did the notion of seeing two coffins at the funeral. Thus the decision was, among all that I had to make during those horrific days, an easy one for me to make.

What this decision means now is that I am struggling to preserve the memory of James' short life in any way I can. The hospital took a photograph or two and made footprints, but I have not had the strength to look at either. Even looking at the sonogram pictures is exceedingly painful for me.

The reality of this is becoming more acute as February 13 approaches. That was the due date we were given by our doctor, although Karen was utterly convinced that he would be early. She was so sure of this that she asked her mother to come up to New York in mid-January so there would be little chance she would miss the birth, and Karen absolutely LOVED being pregnant. Many an hour she spent laying on the sofa or bed rubbing her belly. We had even been talking to him so that he would begin to know the sounds of our voices. Me speaking in English about how much I was looking forward to meeting him and apologizing in advance for the Mets, Karen speaking in French convinced that it would instill in him an early understanding of the language she loved.

For as long as I've ever known Karen she possessed a radiance, but in those 6 1/2 or 7 months of pregnancy she positively glowed. She moved through the day with a sparkle in her eyes and infectious smile on her lips. These were never more so than at the instant that I opened the door to our apartment to find her on the sofa. Despite whatever kind of day she might have had, her face lit up every time I opened that door.

Now each time I come to the front door and put my key in the lock I pause momentarily before pushing the door open. I hesitate in part because of the impossible, and perhaps irrational, hope that she will be inside. But more so I wait that brief moment to think about all those times the opening door would reveal her on the sofa laying back rubbing her ever growing belly, surrounded by her students writing, or just relaxing watching TV. Whichever way she was at that moment, her head would invariably turn at the sound of the door and whatever expression she might have had on her face was instantaneously replaced by that radiant smile.

Now the sofa is empty, only my memories of her being there are left and I surround myself with pictures of her smile and sparkling eyes. What they capture, however, is only a fraction of the woman she was and life she led.

Now there is no belly to rub or to talk to about the Mets, and I have no memories of James in life. Instead all I have left are a series of amorphous dream-like visions, sounds, and emotions acquired through my tears during the one and only time I held him. The only images are from the sonograms and hospital, which merely serve as a reminder of a life that should have been filled with happiness, hopes, dream, and love, but was so unfairly ended shortly after his mother’s.

On every block a memory

2009-01-26T04:06:00.002-05:00

Today it occurred to me just how enmeshed my and Karen's life became in such a short amount of time and how much we lived and loved. On the one hand this can be measured simply by what we did in those 14 months: we re-connected, feel in love, got engaged, moved in with each other, started a family, and was married. There are also the vacations we took: Las Vegas a mere month after we met; St. Martin where we said "I love you" to each other for the first time; Florida for me to meet her family; North Carolina, twice, for two weddings; and Canada for our honeymoon. All these things would be a lot of things to happen in two people's lives if they were spread out over several years. But something struck me tonight while I was walking home from the subway on Flatbush avenue.

The route along Seventh Avenue from the subway to our apartment is about seven blocks. As I walked it today I realized that just about every block had a strong memory of Karen for me. I hope you'll indulge me recounting them briefly here:

Park Place to Sterling Place -- About a month into our relationship Karen, who had also just started at PS 321, was invited to a girls-only party at a colleague's house. I remember going there to meet and her telling me, with a great amount of excitement, about how glad she was to be getting to know the other teachers at a social event and how comfortable she felt among them. I just felt wonderful getting to wrap my arms around her.

St. John's Place to Lincoln Place -- Chiles & Chocolate is a fantastic Mexican restaurant, specializing in Oaxcan cuisine. We first ate there on our third date, when we sat in the front by the window. The second time was on Valentine's Day, the only one we celebrated together, the night before we left for St. Martin. Each time the food was amazing: flavorful and spicy, just the way Karen liked it!

Lincoln Place to Berkeley Place -- While we went to Chiles & Chocolate only twice, we went to Santa Fe, either for dinner of just for drinks, numerous times. I have many memories of Santa Fe from over the years, but the strongest and most lasting are of sitting at the bar with Karen, sharing guacamole and an entree, sipping cold Dos Equis. Also on that block is Mister Wonton, our favorite Chinese take-out and one of the places Karen would go to for lunch, often times calling me while she was there to say hello and see how my day was going.

Berkeley Place to Union Street -- On this block is Roma Pizza, not the best in the neighborhood but where we grabbed a couple of slices while we were at a framing store (on Union Street) picking out matting and frames for several pieces of art. There is also the dinner at which we used to eat brunch after yoga and the dry cleaner where she brought two pairs of maternity jeans to be hemmed only a week before she died.

Union Street to President Street -- Seven Nails, upstairs from the street, is the salon Karen took me to for my first manicure and pedicure. It was the day after I gave her the engagement ring - yes, Virginia, I proposed without a ring - and she wanted her nails to be as pretty as the new ring on her finger. She was positively glowing and radiated throughout the room. I should also point out that I gave her the ring while we were having dinner just steps down Union Street from Seventh Avenue.

President Street to Carroll Street -- Park Slope Copier has been a fixture on Seventh Avenue for almost as long as I can remember and it was were we spent quite a bit of time in the days before the wedding finalizing the program cards. As often happens before any type of party, we had several last minute things to address. Some of them with the potential to cause tension between us. But this never happened. Even when we had to correct the layout, paper, and format several times, we worked as one to have the program card done perfectly with nothing but smiles and good nature because, as I've said about other things, we were doing it together.

Carroll Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues -- On the corner of Carroll Street and Fisk Place is a tree whose blossoms and leaves cascades over the sidewalk creating a natural archway. Perhaps a quarter of the times we walked along that block, which was literally dozens of times, Karen would comment about how she had her picture taken under the tree many years ago and how amazing it was to her to be living just around the corner from it. She would also say how beautiful it was. I still walk under that tree and think of her each and every time that I do.

I could go on, noting locations on nearly every block along Seventh Avenue that evoke powerful memories of Karen. However it is not only in Park Slope. As I walk throughout other parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan I am constantly passing places and sights that remind me of times spent with Karen. The sources of memories are all around me, not just in the pictures I keep in our apartment but in nearly every step I take.

The simple act of going to the subway or the store becomes, in a literal sense, a stroll down memory lane for me. The path, however, has changed now that I walk it alone. The Carroll Street tree remains, but the beauty of it has faded slightly. The Park Slope Copier's storefront is unaltered, but now I think of it as where the memorial card was printed. Seven Nails still does manicures and pedicures, but I can't imagine the room is as bright now despite the floor to ceiling windows on two sides. Roma is just another pizza parlor and Mr. Wonton is just another take-out Chinese restaurant. Savory smells waft from Chiles & Chocolate and I can almost smell their homemade hot sauce as I walk by, but the front table merely reflects against the glass of the window.

Of all the spots along Seventh Avenue only Santa Fe, where I worked many years ago and drank and ate for many more years, remains relatively unchanged in the wake of what has happened. I've been back there several times and found the warm embrace of old friends there, as well being able to feel and remember the times spent there with Karen.

Every block contains a memory of her. Now I face all these reminders consistently throughout each and every day - from the moment my eyes open to see the empty spot on the bed next to me where she laid, to the routine act of trying to move about the city, to coming home at the end of the day to an empty apartment. Even were I to want to avoid the reminders of Karen I don't believe it would be possible to do so. Make no mistake, the memories are of happy occasions and activities. Yet it is the knowledge that those times are forever gone and all my plans for the future are lost that is my struggle now.

The loneliness of being alone

2009-01-18T20:25:00.002-05:00

I consider myself lucky. I have an extremely close and loving family, as well as countless wonderful friends who have and continue to lend me support. This has provided a measure of comfort, without which I don’t know how I would be functioning. Yet despite all these people in my life and living among millions of New Yorkers, I exist day-to-day with a powerful sense of loneliness and persistent undirected feeling.

Not long ago, two months a two days to be precise, I felt happier then I ever thought I could. Indeed, there were times when I actually felt guilty because things were going so well in my life. I had a good job, nice apartment, and was healthy. Most importantly there was Karen. Each day with her was, quite literally, better than the previous and it would be impossible for me to put into words the woman she was or to describe what we had together. It was amazing and to become even better, if that were possible, with James. But all that is gone now.

Walking has always been something I enjoyed doing, it is one of the wonderful things about living in New York City. Often after work I would walk through the city, sometimes for up to an hour all the way to the bottom of Manhattan before getting on the subway. I used to move with the joyous, floating steps of a man in love and happy with his lot. I reveled in the sights and sounds of the city, taking in and adding to the surge of energy around me.

Now I walk with the heavy gait caused by grief and sadness. No longer do I delight in being amidst the flow of other pedestrians. Rather I find myself following close to the edges of the buildings, avoiding the crowds and paths of those around me. The liveliness of New York still flows around me, but I do not absorb it. It swirls past me as if I were an eddy on the sidewalk. Try as I might to keep my shoulders straight and chin up, I slump with my eyes fixed to the concrete in front of my feet. When I do look up, my gaze invariably lands on a couple or family happily going about their life. At that moment my grief is replaced with envy and jealousy. Envious because that was what I only recently had and jealous because it was all taken from me. The question infuses my mind - Why do they get to have that when I don’t anymore? There is no answer, but the thought brings back the heartache and sadness. I focus my eyes on the sidewalk again, pull my coat a bit tighter around myself, and angle closer to the building. None of this brings any comfort, and only helps to navigate the new world in which I find myself.

Despite the comfort of my apartment, I am reluctant to come back to it because I know Karen will not be waiting for me and never coming home again. This means that my walks can be long, sometimes several miles in length, providing me with hours of time to contemplate what has happened. What I return to again and again is that even with people all around me – family, friends and strangers a like – I am alone. There is no life for me to "get on with" so now I move from one day to the next with only the memory of the hopes, plans, and dreams I once held. My joie de vivre replaced by loneliness.

Two months

2009-01-16T03:12:00.000-05:00

My god, has it already (only?) been two months since that horrible day? Some days it feels like it was just moments ago and others it seems like a whole different lifetime. I continue to try to make sense of what happened but am left with only more questions. Recently I have begun to experience sudden, unprovoked, and very disquietingly vibrant memories of that day.

At first I had wanted to try and remember all I could in an effort to recall each and every sensation of our last moments together. I tried to remember our exact words, precise actions, and every other specific instances of our final 24 hours together. I recalled my birthday the day before and all we did. How we went to bed, as we always did, in each other's arms after another amazing day spent together. I've often thought of the lazy morning we spent, having coffee, watching some TV, and lounging on the sofa before heading to my mom's for brunch. I've concentrated on the rest of the day, until the moment in the restaurant, to remember as many of the details as possible. In doing so, more details have come to me and each one is a treasure unto itself.

But the new memories, the ones about which I haven't consciously sought to think, deal with the moment in the restaurant and the agonizing hours that followed. I can see the light and life in Karen's eyes, which still brings a smile to my face, but then struggle to reconcile that with how it instantaneously went away. My mind lets loose a torrent of images, it floods me with the sights and sounds of my life crashing to pieces around. They do not come about from any discernible trigger, but rather out of nowhere and caused by nothing. (An experience I've heard described as "ambush grief," as if I needed any more.)

While the end of that day is blur to my thinking mind, my subconscious revives devastating facets of it. The loneliness of the waiting room at the hospital, despite having my entire family with me. The helplessness of not knowing what was happening, only to be replaced by the devastation of finding out. The unimaginable anguish of being brought to see Karen's body for the final time, followed later by unthinkable misery of holding James for the first and only time. The visions are disturbing in their clarity. Disturbing not because I want not to remember, but because when I see and recall them it brings me back to the utter incomprehensibility of what happened. In turn my emotions range from dispar, to anger, to numbness.

At some point during the week of the funeral I spoke with Rabbi Bachman, telling him that dispite my despondenence I sensed I had not yet reached my emotioal nadir. I was petrified at the contemplation of the days, months, and years to come. The resurgence of these memories and the emotions they produce confirm the fear I had, and yet I still feel I have not yet reached the bottom.

As I've said to so many in person and online, I continue to put one foot in front of the other and take it one day at a time...what other choice do I have? But I can not conceive of how to even do this without the continued love and support of my family and friends.

A Rejuvenative New Year

2009-01-07T03:28:00.001-05:00

It has been a bit difficult for me to receive happy new year wishes over the last few days. More so I have rankled slightly every time someone adds something about how glad I must be for 2008 to have ended and that ahead in 2009 lies good things. Let me be clear, I know that each and everyone who says this does so with the absolute best intention and sincerity. The simple act of reaching out to me remains one of the most comforting things and I relish all such contact.

No doubt, 2008 was a roller coaster ride the likes of which I doubt many people ever see let alone live. Over the past 12 months I became a divorcee, engaged, remarried, and a widower. I also became an expectant father, only to bury my son with in my new wife's arms. On a more pedestrian level, I moved into a new apartment and changed jobs. I am not sure there are any other life events or stress causes that I could have experienced. Given the way the year ended it is easy to see why one would assume I am glad to see the calendar change. However, for me 2008 remains the undisputed BEST ten and half months of my life. Because it ended with the absolute worst month and half does not negate the majority of it. Nor can I let it.

The other part of the new year messages that I've been getting has been a hope that 2009 brings better times, peace, and happiness. Again a good and well meaning sentiment, but one that rings a bit hollow in my ears at times. As much as I appreciate the support intended in it, all I can think about is that the change of the calendar, much like any amount of grieving and progress through it, will never result in my having her or my son back again. It is, therefore, so very difficult at this point to imagine how happiness will come merely with a new year. Perhaps the pain and sadness will begin to subside some and I will even have good moments, but happiness? No. That is not something I can conceivably see on my 2009 horizon. Just as the life I knew is no longer and needs to be made anew, so too do I need to reestablish and rediscover what happiness means.

So what do I hope for in the new year? That it be a rejunetive one or more precisely that it continues the healing process. It is the best I feel I can look forward to. I recognize that I'm at the beginning of a long, long journey that I never imagined I would be embarking. However, just as I reflect back on the invisible hand that helped bring Karen and I together after nearly two decades, so is there forces beyond our comprehension that provide guidance during times of such overwhelming pain. Indeed it might be at just such times that it is most pronounced.

I hope that my comments here will in no way dissuade people from providing the messages of support that have helped me to this point. Despite the difficulties in hearing "happy new year" and other such words of affection, I remain very moved by them all. My only point of this was to let you know how I am feeling in as open and honest a way as possible.

So to you all I wish you a happy new year and a rejuvenative one for me.

* * *

I wanted to finish by passing along a song lyric that has been running through my mind quite a bit over the last few weeks. It sums up much of the feeling I've been having in the wake of Karen's and James' deaths. From Coldplay's "Viva La Vida," which roughly translates to "live the life":

One minute I held the key
Next the walls were closed on me
And I discovered that my castles stand
Upon pillars of salt and pillars of sand

What happened?

2008-12-30T13:26:00.000-05:00

It is the question that I and everyone else have been asking out loud and in our minds over and over again. As I said in my first post, the metaphysical answer to the question will never be known. Now, however, we know what was the medical cause of Karen's death. She had an undiagnosed condition called idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy, which is an enlarging of her heart, that likely caused an arrhythmia and sudden heart failure. Her condition is termed as idiopathic because the medical examiner could not determine the origin of the dilated cardiomyopathy. What is certain is that it was not a result or associated with the pregnancy. In very rare instances pregnancy can bring on peripartum cardiomyopathy, but this was conclusively ruled out.

I'm not a doctor, but in my journey to understand what happened I've spoken to friends of mine that are and did quite a bit of independent reading online about what the condition is, its symptoms, treatments, prognosis, etc. Based on this, in my layman's understanding of cardiomyopathy, I know that it is very difficult to detect unless the doctors are looking specifically for it. It doesn't show up on an EKG and can usually only be spotted by undergoing an echocardiogram, but sometimes requires a cardiac catheterization. Symptoms for cardiomyopathy are vague - fatigue, shortness of breath, flu-like symptoms - and aren't something that would necessarily raise a concern if they presented in someone 6 1/2 months pregnant and was an elementary school teacher. Simply put, there was nothing to suggest she should be checked for the condition and no doctor she saw ever even voiced a concern. She was in all outward aspects, in great health. Karen ate healthfully, exercised regularly, and generally took care of her self. (Of course this is one of the things that makes the suddenness of her death so difficult to comprehend.)

Even if something did suggest to doctors that they check and detected it, there was little that could have been done, especially while she was pregnant. There are two ways to treat cardiomyopathy and neither are curative. The first treatment is to prescribe a combination of drugs, including angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and beta blockers, to reduce the symptoms and prevent additional damage to the heart. These drugs, however, are not prescribed to people when they are pregnant and women who may already be on ACEs and beta blockers are taken off the drugs when they become pregnant. The other treatment is a heart transplant, which naturally presents a whole host of new potential health concerns, not to mention isn't a procedure that would be considered for a patient when they're pregnant.

Moreover, had the cardiomyopathy been detected and a treatment available to her while she was pregnant, the prognosis tends not to be favorable. Despite undergoing the available treatments, she could have experienced the same sudden and untimely death. The difference would have been that Karen would have had to live her life considerably different; eschewing foods and experiences that provided her such great pleasure, and existing with an ever present fear of death by the knowledge of the condition. Without knowing, Karen lived on her terms and extracted everything possible from each day, experience, and adventure.

The medical examiner's report also confirmed what I saw, Karen died instantly and painlessly. Based on conversations I've had with people who know about the condition, it is likely that she felt only a flutter or odd heart beat, which would explain why she looked up at me, and then it was over. There was also nothing that could have been done to save her, even had she been sitting in a hospital when the arrhythmia hit. Her heart was, as one doctor explained it, a ticking time bomb that was going to fail, it was simply a matter of when and where. It could have happened a week earlier when we were at my dad's cabin, where it would have take EMTs up to 45 minutes to arrive, or 24 hours later, when she would have been in front of her 3rd grade class and I at my office. It was, therefore, the best possible way for the most horrible thing to happen.

While knowing the medical reason does precious little to alleviate the pain and grief I continue to suffer, it is of some comfort to know her death was in the fates and not caused by something done or not done. By her not knowing of the condition that she in all likelihood could not have been able to correct, Karen lived her short life to the fullest and didn't suffer at the end. It was, as she said that morning, the way to go.

* * *

In addition to speaking with friends of mine who are doctors, the following websites have provided me with some useful information on cardiomyopathy:

http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec03/ch026/ch026b.html

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dilated-cardiomyopathy/DS01029

Happy birthday my love

2008-12-23T11:22:00.006-05:00

Today is Karen's birthday. She would have been 37. It was one of the many dates I dreaded when looking forward on the calendar - there are still many to come. We only had the chance to celebrate one birthday each, my 37th this year and her 36th last year (I shared by 36th birthday with the KLM in-flight crew on my way to The Hague) . Far far too few, as with everything else about our lives together.

Rather than try and put into words the sadness of this day without her, I thought I would recount her birthday last year....

When December 23, 2007, rolled around Karen and I had been dating only for a couple of months. Everything was still so new and I wanted to do something special for her. There is a restaurant in Park Slope called Al Di La that gets written up consistently as being exceptional Italian food. Karen was a maven for Italian and had been wanting to try it. Indeed she had mentioned it several times as being on the list of places for us to go. I knew that Al Di La doesn't take reservations (nor does it take credit cards, fyi) so did not bother calling. My thought was that we'd wander down there and get on line with everyone else.

Well, imagine my surprise, and unhappiness, when we got to the corner of Carroll and 5th avenue only to discover that Al Di La goes dark for the week around Christmas. Sure, great thing for the staff to be able to spend the holiday season with their families, but at the time all I could think of was "Shit! Now what do I do?"

Here I was, still in the early stages of wooing Karen, the "it" girl from high school who I've somehow managed to get a second (or first) chance with, and we're standing on the corner in front of a closed restaurant on the night of her birthday. What a way to impress Mr. Fried.

Luckily just down the street is Blue Ribbon, another entry on Karen's list of places to go, although not as high up as Al Di La. Blue Ribbon is certainly a good place to eat, but I would not consider it a place for a "special" dinner such as this. However, beggars can't be choosers, and Karen was getting hungry. Off to Blue Ribbon it was, where we had an enjoyable meal.

That was what our relationship was about in a nutshell; living by improvisation and embracing the notion of carpe deim. So when the planned (albeit, not appropriately so) restaurant fell through we just smiled, laughed, and went elsewhere. It wasn't the place that mattered, it was that we were there together. We had the same amount of joy whether we were driving to Tadoussac on our honeymoon or driving to Home Depot on a Saturday. It was that we were sitting next to each other, sharing the moment as one.

Such was how we celebrated her 36th birthday, together and that was all that mattered.

(It is worth noting that we later did go to Al Di La and Karen was underwhelmed by the food. She said it was good, but not worthy of the accolades in her opinion. I have to agree, it has been off the mark on the last times I've been and, while a solid meal, Brooklyn's restaurant scene has many more great places now.)

Angels in the Architecture

2008-12-09T01:42:00.005-05:00

Karen is still with me, around me, accompanying me, watching me. I know it sounds strange, maybe a little too mystical, but I’m convinced of it. I’m not necessarily talking in the Whoppie Goldberg and Patrick Swayze type of presence, but she’s with me. Let me try to explain by just telling you of the things I’ve experienced since she died…

Karen’s funeral was on November 19. The outpouring of love for Karen and support for me, my family, and Karen’s family was evident by the number of people who can to remember her. The best estimate was around 700 people in attendance, a truly amazing image.

After the funeral we went to the cemetery. The burial was a blur of cold, Kaddish, tears, shovels, grass, and more tears. Toward the end, as Jeffery, Karen’s brother, and others completed filling in the grave, I wandered away from the crowd, the first moment in three days that I was awake and without a friend or family member in immediate contact with me. Where Karen is buried there are no headstones, only plaques in the ground, giving the area a feeling of a park rather than a cemetery. If such a place where a loved one is buried far, far too early could ever have a positive feeling, it comes as close as I can imagine.

About 50 yards from her grave (she is buried with her maternal grandparents), I was moved to sit on the ground. In a half lotus I closed my eyes, slowed my breathing and began thinking. My thoughts turned to words and I found myself speaking to her out loud. It was cold, indeed I was only moments earlier shivering, but as I sat there thinking and talking to her I felt a warmness wash over me. I removed my winter cap and nearly took off my jacket – I was actually that warm – until something, someone reminded me that it was still borderline-hypothermic temperatures.

After some time I stood with my palms at heart center, and felt more and more calm. The only sounds around me was the hum of the traffic in the distance and the faint scraping of shovels filling the last of the earth into her grave, there wasn’t a single animal or other sound of nature the entire time we were there or during the whole day up until then. I said that this place was beautiful, that is was serene, that she would be at peace her and asked if she was. At that very moment, from out of no where, an enormous flock of geese flew directly over me, honking as they flew south. As quickly as they appeared, they disappeared over the trees and the area once more returned to silence broken only by the sounds of man in the distance, not another single bird or other sign of nature. I had the answer to my question.

That was one event, but there would be more.

Two days later, Friday, I went for a walk in Prospect Park with my brother and sister-in-law. We wandered for some time talking about all aspects of what had happened. The conversation turned to what my plans might be for the future. I was explaining how I thought it was now time for me to reevaluate and reconsider what I was doing, and how part of that process might need me to be away from my current job for a little while. I was saying how I needed to do this not just for me but for Karen’s memory because it was something we had spoken about on occasion, and was about to say that this decision couldn’t be dependant on money since I was convinced that would find a way to take care of itself. At that moment, I looked down on the ground and directly at my feel was a twenty dollar bill. The only person we had seen anywhere near the area was a bicyclist who was riding on the opposite side of the road. Literally there was no one around.

I bent down and picked up the bill and looked to both my brother and sister-in-law. Before either of us could say anything, I noticed another twenty several feet past the first. As I picked that one up I saw another bill, then another, then another, then another. In all there were six twenties in a line laid out before me on the Prospect Park drive. We all had chills, and not because of the weather. When I got back to my mother’s house I mentioned the money to my mother’s friend who immediately said “120 is a good number in Judaism.” I had not idea why so she explained to me that Moses lived for 120 years and it is widely said as a wish for one’s good luck that someone should “live to the age of 120.” The chills returned.

Finally, that night we all went to Shabbat services. As we walked in the ushers were handing out prayer books from the several stacks at the front door. I took the one handed to me and headed for the pew. I sat and opened the book, many of which have a dedication sticker affixed to the inside cover. On this book I read the sticker, re-read it, and read it once more. The sticker said…

“This book is dedicated in honor of Jonathan Fried and Andrew Fried by their mother Janice Cimberg.’

I froze. There must be 700 or 800 prayer books at Congregation Beth Elohim and, on the first Shabbat after burying my wife, my true love, and my soul mate, I’m handed the one dedicated by my mother to me? In stunned silence I showed it to all my family and friends with me. We all looked at each other with the same look. Karen was with me.

Three examples, there have been more, but these three were the ones I keep coming back to again and again. Sure there are some who will say people going through what I am look for and often find the proverbial Angels in the architecture. If it was just a single event I would likely agree. But these were just too poignant for me to ignore as that. No, these events portend something else to me. They say that Karen is indeed with me, she is following me, and she is watching out for me. And her presence gives me some comfort.

The life I knew and its shattering

2008-12-01T22:56:00.004-05:00

Many of you know most of this story already, but for those of you who may not or may not know everything about my relationship with Karen - how we met, got engaged, lived, etc. - I wanted to put it all out there, as well as what happened that tragic day two and a half weeks ago, so that those who might not have met her or only met her briefly can know. (Sorry in advance for the length....)

Karen and I met in 8th grade back in 1984. It was a private school in Brooklyn that went from pre-K through high school and we were friendly through high school, as most of us were given the size of the school and our class, but we never dated. Although I did have a crush on her and even volunteered to help with the girls varsity basketball team because she was on it, we never dated.

We graduated in 1989 and went off to college; her to Tulane and me to the University of Arizona. We all but lost touch with each other, although our paths crossed momentarily after three years of college when I dropped out and moved to New Orleans for a few months. Neither of us remember seeing each other while I was there (she was in her senior year), but I somehow had her phone number in my address book from that time. That was around 1993 and we had no other contact after until last year.

One day last Spring I decided to search MySpace for people from my high school class. I found five old friends, Karen was one of them, and emailed them all. She and I exchanged a few brief emails, as you might expect from two people who knew each other a bit but had fallen completely out of touch for nearly two decades, but nothing more for several months. Then, in late September, we made plans to meet for a drink after work. The drink turned into an evening of talking, reminiscing, laughing (something I hadn't done much of recently due to my previous marriage ending in divorce), wandering around the neighborhood, enjoying each other's company, and starting to fall in love with each other. The night ended with us kissing goodbye. There was no "wait a few days before calling" and we started seeing each other all the time. She too had a first marriage end in divorce, but there were so many other things that caused our instant connection. My friends and family soon started remarking how the Andrew they "used to know" was back, laughing, smiling, and enjoying life.

In May of this year we went back to our high school for the annual alumni luncheon. It was our 19th reunion, nothing so special, but we both had friends in the class year above and wanted to see them. We had an amazing time and people were wowed by us as a couple. That night, early morning of May 4, we were at a club in the city with some friends when, without a ring or otherwise preparing, I knelt on the floor in front of her and asked her to marry me. She agreed immediately.

That week, we discussed wanting children and decided - because we were both 36 and have friends who are have had/are having difficulties getting pregnant - to start trying. To our surprise and joy, she was pregnant almost immediately. We held the news as long as we could, but almost everyone we knew that she was about three months pregnant when she walked down the aisle at our wedding on August 17.

Our life was going amazingly, like a dream come true. We spent days together and never argued. We kissed constantly and couldn't spend enough time with each other. We laughed, loved, and talked about our future, including our expectant child. With each visit to the doctor we saw out son grow, even watching him yawn at one sonogram appointment, and Karen was absolutely LOVING being pregnant.

On November 15, my 37th birthday, Karen took me to a matinée of Speed the Plow and then dinner at Aquvit in Manhattan. It was a perfect evening. The next morning began as a normal Sunday. We relaxed for a little while, read the newspaper, and then went to my mother's apartment to meet up with the family and say hi. We had a little brunch and then went for a walk in our neighborhood. We had dinner reservations for later that evening with my mother, brother, and sister-in-law, but at around 2 we decided to grab a bite because Karen needed to eat regularly through the day due to the pregnancy. There is a little Columbian restaurant we'd passed many times and always wanted to try. We decided this was the day for it. We shared a few small dishes and it was wonderful. Karen enjoyed eating, whether it was haute cuisine, like the night before, or just really great down home cooking, like Cafe Bogota. At the end of the meal, when the waiter brought the check, he also brought a comment/mailing list card. Karen remarked how much she liked the meal - rating it a 10 - and asked the waiter for a pen to filling out the card. This is when my life went from a dream to an unimaginable nightmare.

Karen had just begun writing when she suddenly stopped, sat bolt-upright, and looked at me with wide open eyes. I thought she was goofing around and asked what was wrong. She said nothing, but kept her eyes fixed straight ahead and slumped forward onto the table. I immediately knew something was wrong and got up and went to her side. I took her head from the table and pulled her to me. Her eyes were still wide open and unresponsive as she slide lower into the chair. I began to scream for help as she fell against me, out of her chair, and onto the floor with me. I continued to yell for help as people came to assist and began dialing 9-1-1. She was not breathing, nor was she struggling or moving at all as she lay on the floor. The first police officers arrived within a matter of minutes, with fire fighters and EMTs immediately following. I was ushered out of the restaurant by the police officers as I heard someone call for a defibrillator. My world was tumbling out of control.

Time stood still and accelerated all at once. I sat on the sidewalk with two of the police officers as the EMTs continued working inside and was asked questions intermittently - was she on any medication, any medical history, etc. - but could not get any information in return. This was obviously frustrating at the time, but in hindsight I understand that the attention was on rendering aide to Karen and not to answering my questions. I was then led to a police car and driven to the hospital. The ensuing minutes/hours are a blur. I was ushered into a quiet room with my entire family, who had been called by a bystander who took my cellphone and asked if there was anyone she could contact for me. Doctors initially came in to say Karen was being worked on still and that James, our son, had been delivered by emergency cesarean section and taken to the NICU. They had no word on either one's condition.

A short time later the doctors returned, accompanied by the hospital chaplain, and told me that Karen could not be revived, never regained consciousness, and was dead. My life shattered as those words were spoke. I fell to the floor in agony. Every muscle and fiber of my body crying out in pain. Even now I can feel my chest constrict from the memory as I type.

My nadir was yet to be reached. After a little more time passed the doctors came once more to tell me that although they were able to get a pulse from James (with the aide of medication), he could not be saved and died as well. The world's collapse around me was complete.

My family, each one feeling their own devastating grief, surrounded and supported me. They had all found such happiness and joy in Karen, as an individual and not just the woman who meant everything to me, and she had become an immediate and adored member of my family.

I was then taken to see Karen one last time and then upstairs to see and hold my son for the first and only time - I never held him while he was alive. As many of you I am sure know, to try and put into words what I was feeling is an impossibility. It is a devastation that literally transcends comprehension.

It is still impossible for me to believe what has happened; the horror of the day plays over again and again in my head. An autopsy revealed no evident cause of death, i.e., it was not a brain aneurysm, blood clot, etc. The medical examiner is continuing its evaluation, but it could be weeks until more is known, if ever. Indeed I am accepting the very real possibility that a medical explanation for what happened might never be known, just as there is no knowing what the metaphysical explanation is. This reality is bearable only because I was with her when it happened and can assuage my pain with what I saw for myself in that horrible moment. I am 100% certain that she died instantly at the moment she looked at me and before slumping to the table. She didn't struggle for breath or show other signs that she was in pain. It was, as she said as recently as that morning when we saw the end of the Godfather where Marlon Brando has a heart attack while playing with his grandson, the way to go -- quickly and doing something you loved. In this case, Karen was with me, across the table from me, having just finished a meal that she rated a 10 and described as "sublime."

It took 19 years for Karen and I to find each other again, we had 14 months together, three months of marriage, and an entire lifetime of plans. Two weeks ago today was the worst day of my life.

My joy - http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E6DB133DF934A2575BC0A96E9C8B63

My pain - http://www.legacy.com/NYTimes/DeathNotices.asp?Page=LifeStory&PersonID=120369709