Life is Your Story

If you sit down on the grass in the sun with the wind quietly purposefully listening for spirits of souls you have loved you will hear them if you let your mind at ease and stop thinking they will come to you and speak with a whisper you will feel them in the tall grass with your fingertips their voices will tell you they miss you as much as you miss them they'll surround you before they leave you they won't tell you where they are going just that you can't follow you'll stand up and walk away and just when you think they will never return the wind will blow the sun will shine and somewhere in the distance you will hear a hum

The Jewish New Year is quickly approaching. There will be honey and Challah and prayers and rejoicing. There will be families and loved ones and grandparents with grandchildren and aging parents with their own children. There will be laughter and jokes while enjoying dinner and lunch and walking home together arm in arm, hand in hand with the people most important to you. But there will also be fresh cuts that will turn into raw scars and never fully heal. There will be lasting images of the end of a life well lived packed with pain and suffering that served as a great injustice and indignity to the person that they were - a person who cared for you with every molecule of their soul and left this world too soon and too brutally. And you won't forget because you can't forget. Just when you think you may be having an okay moment, your stomach turns and you feel as if you are going to be sick except you are sick already - sick, exhausted, beaten and torn and there is...

I’ve been writing a lot about suffering lately. I realize that there are more cheerful things to write about but few as powerful. The truth is I would rather suffer myself than watch someone I love suffer. After what I have seen in the last 48 hours I would also say that being beside that bed in ER and in ICU is like watching a horror movie in which the images are so disturbing that you have to turn the TV off or change the channel; the obvious difference being that in real life you cannot go backward or forward when time freezes you right there in that awful moment. And anyone who has been through the maze that is our medical system can tell you that there are days when you think they will stabilize and although they will never be back to themselves or on their way home; they are still somewhat okay or as best as can be expected. The light in their eyes is present and their personalities, sarcasm, jokes and all are in full swing. They just don’t feel so well and it becomes this...

Our parent’s age and they either go suddenly or slowly – either way is awful. And as much as we prepare ourselves for the obvious inevitability; we are never ready to say goodbye. I would say the worst thing by far is witnessing their demise. When they first become ill, injured or otherwise incapacitated, they are still themselves but as it drags on and drags everyone along with it, the family is left exhausted, spent and staring at a petrified, confused stranger in a hospital bed who use to be their parent. There are medical professionals who are very kind and do all they can.   It’s important to realize that every patient who is admitted to their floor is followed by a long parade of characters consisting of family members all with their own personalities and idiosyncrasies, opinions and demands. They are upset, tired and fed up and that can make for a very unpleasant atmosphere for all. It is hard to remain neutral when you find your loved one curled up, shiveri...

Nothing is as beautiful as you No field of wild flowers No wild running river No rainbow No summers kiss You are beautiful as a person You are everything as a friend You are my past, my present, my future You are my beginning, my middle, my end I carry you with me wherever I go, wherever I am I know you support my every decision as much as my every mistake I see you when you are not there or here or anywhere I strive to emulate you in gesture, kindness and compassion You are beautiful You are irreplaceable You are my Mom I love you