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The JackB

"When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'." Groucho Marx

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Life and Death

What Happens When Your Parents Die?

January 18, 2014 by Jack Steiner 10 Comments

My siblings and brother-in-laws know that when my father dies his tools will be passed along to me. There are some other items that are important to him and to me that will be passed down.

With some luck, good medical care and effort on his part that won’t happen for a long time but it might be sooner than we would like. Might be sooner than we think and that is why my father sat down with me to talk about what happens when he dies and what happens when mom dies.

It is not the easiest conversation to have. Are we ever ready to say goodbye to our parents? I am fortunate to not know the answer yet, but I have many friends who have already experienced the loss of one or both parents.

What Happens To My Children If I Die?

I have thought about that quite a bit and even got paid to blog about it but this conversation with my dad was harder than I would have expected it to be.

Maybe it is because his health isn’t what it could be and I have seen some big changes in him. Maybe it is because I know that he is just a man and not superman.

I learned that firsthand when he had a major heart attack and almost died. That was a big part of the early days of my blogging career. He obviously survived and here we are, almost ten years later.

But there are some scars/memories from those days. You don’t forget what it is like to see your father unconscious and breathing because a machine is making sure he does so.

You see things like that and wonder what would happen if the power went out.

I remember talking to him and telling him about the grandchildren. I remember holding his hand and then looking at it next to mine.

When I was a boy his hands were gigantic and then I blinked and learned our hands were the same size.

Beeps and whistles came from the machines and some sort of whirring noise accompanied his breathing but squeezing his hand did nothing, there was no squeeze in return.

An Important Conversation

It is an important conversation, this one he and I had. Mom and he purchased their plots many years ago. I know where they will be buried, but there are no caskets yet.

They are talking about buying them soon because they don’t want my siblings and I to have to pay for any part of a funeral. It is appreciated, their thinking and planning here.

But it feels a bit weird to think about it and to realize again that my generation has moved up a notch on the generation ladder. We don’t sit at the kids table any more, we are too big for that.

I look at him and I see two different men. There is my father now and the man I used to greet at the door when I was a little boy. One has a full head of hair, glasses and is younger than I am and the other is the guy he is now.

Bald and a bit more wrinkled but the same bright blue eyes. The same eyes that give off that icy glare when he is angry.

Lately the folks have been really making me crazy because some of what they do and say is stuff that I watched my grandparents do. I remember when my parents would sometimes complain about that and how one or both would say, “they are old.”

Well, my parents act like old people now. Not every time and not with everything, but they have their moments.

Role Modeling For The Future

It is not as uncommon as it once was for my contemporaries to have buried mom or dad. More than a just a few of my friends have lost a parent.

I have been to the funerals. I have sent the cards and done what I could to support them in their mourning.

What I do now will be seen by my children. They’ll see how I treat my parents and it will stick with them. It is a teaching moment that is important to me and not just because I want them to treat me well when I am old.

It is so very surreal to me. In a few moments I’ll go upstairs, grab dinner and then watch The Wolf Of Wall Street. I’ll look around the room at a big screen TV, satellite receiver and cordless phones and then think about our old Black and White television, rotary phones and the time before answering machines.

We are not at that place yet where we expect the end to come imminently. It would be a shock if it happened today, tomorrow or the immediate future, but we are closer to the end than the beginning so preparing for the future makes sense.

Feels very strange.

Filed Under: Life and Death

Where Are You…

December 11, 2013 by Jack Steiner 6 Comments

Inside 4151

It cost $100 bucks and change to transfer some old videos to DVD. A hundred bucks and change to see my grandparents smile and laugh again and for just a moment feel like they aren’t really gone but are just on vacation.

A hundred bucks and change to temporarily forget about the empty places at the table and to pretend time has stood still and my generation is not second in command.

Life has taken some funny turns since you all made your way to wherever it is we go after our time here is done and now we are getting ready for the third big family event without you all.

And though we talked about this day and prepared for it I find myself wishing you were here. I remember your words and your requests and I know what to say but I can’t ever say it as you did or tell the stories the same way and sometimes it bothers me that my children will never have that experience.

But this is the normal course of things and there is no surprise or shame because the outcome was not unexpected, even if not desired. You told me you would fight the clock and I said I would help. We did for as long as we could but I would have liked just a little more time.

Would have liked for you to see the people your great grandchildren are turning into but we won’t be able to share that this time around.

So I have given you these words and shared again those below so that if there is magic in the night that allows you to peel back the veil you can gain a glimpse of life as it is now and as it was.

And if nothing else you will know that even if your names are not said aloud you have not been forgotten.

It is Friday night of the weekend of my sister’s wedding and my parents are hosting Shabbos dinner for friends and family from out of town. Dessert has been served and the kids are running around with their cousins while the grownups drink coffee and talk. I am standing outside on the terrace staring at streaks of orange and red and thinking about my grandfather. It is only a week since he died and his absence is palpable.

The painted sky is simply beautiful and I can’t help but think about how this is one of those moments where all of my grandparents would have told me to try and burn all I see and feel into memory. It makes complete sense to me to do so. In so many ways memory is the most valuable possession that we own. Sometimes it is the most painful but I try to focus on the positive and think of it as being the most precious, most beautiful and most valuable.

Midway through my musings I have this bizarre thought that 25 miles north of me my grandfather lies in a box that is buried beneath a mound of dirt. He was claustrophobic and for a long time very unhappy about the idea of being placed inside the casket. Long ago I promised him that if he knocked on the casket I would stop everything and pull him out. I remember telling him that there were better ways to get attention than to be buried alive and he told me to stop being a smartass, but the smile on his face made it clear that he appreciated it.

The day of the funeral I made a point of bending over to whisper, “grandpa, this is it. Knock three times on the ceiling and I’ll get you out of there.”  If you haven’t noticed I have a dark sense of humor but he appreciated it and that is all that matters. He didn’t knock and so we carried him over to his body’s final destination and I watched as he was lowered into it. I suppose that it is important to clarify that I wasn’t the person who verified that he was inside- but  I have to believe that no errors were made.

However I can verify that the rabbi and I made sure that the entire casket was covered in dirt.  My sunglasses hid the look in my eyes as my shovel rained dirt down upon him. It is not the first time that I have helped to bury a loved one and it probably won’t be the last. Some people don’t like it but I take it seriously. It is one of the last courtesies that we can extend to those who wander off into whatever lies beyond the pale.

Saturday night there was another family function and I found myself standing in front of the home I grew up in with my kids, cousins, nieces and nephews. We tossed around a football and I watched boys who used to be babies turn into almost pre-teens before my eyes and thought about how much has happened. Close your eyes and life has a way of getting away from you.

It reminded me of people long gone and some just removed from my life who spoke about potential and living up to it. That is something that I sometimes find troubling…potential. Or maybe it is more appropriate to say that I find unfulfilled potential to be troubling. It sometimes eats away at me and I get lost in the land of what could have been and perhaps what could be. It is a line of thought that I try not to get caught up in as it is not real productive to dig at the wounds of what I wish could have been. I don’t have many regrets, but those that I do are…painful.

That is not the sort of possession that I am real fond of, but I suppose they help to make me who I am. From a different perspective we could say that they help to make me who I am going to be. Yep, I said going to be because who I am today is not who I am going to be tomorrow. That is not supposed to be some sort of goofy philosophical comment but acknowledgement that what is happening today is having a significant impact upon me now.

I wonder what sort of possessions this experience will leave me with.

Filed Under: Life and Death, People

Should We Believe In Miracles?

December 1, 2013 by Jack Steiner Leave a Comment

I don’t know Superman Sam but I know that in August he had a bone marrow transplant and that he has a disease called acute myeloid leukemia.

Most of what I know about him comes from what I have read on his blog or what his mother has posted on Facebook. Sam and I have never met, for that matter I haven’t ever met his mom but I have made sure to keep tabs on him.

I can’t imagine what it is like to be so young and to have had to face the challenges he has and I certainly don’t understand what it must be like for his parents.

One line in this post reached out from the screen and wrapped its fingers around my throat.

Believe us when we say that we have left no stone unturned. We have tried them all. We fight now for comfort and time.

A Time Of Miracles

I read those words and my heart aches for Sam and his family. I read those words and think about how hard I am working on trying to find the right words to share with my son at his Bar Mitzvah.

In less than a month my family is going to come together for a giant celebration and so when I think of time I think of it in very different terms than Sam and company.

Part of me feels guilty about that. Part of me feels guilty because I have found the transition from Texas to California to be really hard. Some of it has been great but some of it has been more than a little trying and I have felt like running away.

And then I think about Sam’s family and I want to slap myself because they are doing all they can to buy time and here I am irritated about trivial stuff in comparison.

We are smack dab in the middle of Chanukah and the chaos of the holiday season. It is a time of miracles or so I keep hearing and reading and I ask myself if I believe them.

I ask myself should I believe in them and should I teach my children to as well.

36 Rabbis Shave for the Brave

It is close to midnight here in Los Angeles. I have checked on my sleeping children several times. Wandered over to the side of their beds, stood there watching their chests rise and fall just as I did when they were babies.

Standing over them, I stop, look and listen to make sure that all is well. I got a double dose of the protective gene and maybe that is part of why I feel even worse for Sam’s parents.

Because it is much easier to protect them against the obvious things. It is simplistic but I can fight the monster in the closet and the bad guy with the gun.

But some invisible terminal illness, now that is really scary.

And then I remind myself it is really not about me.

So I keep reading and I come across the link for the 36 Rabbis Shave for the Brave and I stop to read about these rabbis who are trying to fight childhood cancer.

I can’t do as much as I want to help Sam and his family but I can help the rabbis raise money and awareness.

Should We Believe In Miracles?

Miracles make me face the contradictions of my inner beliefs. They force the heart and head to do battle on yet another front.

When I talk to my children about life I always counsel them to be prepared to work hard and to be smart about it. Work smarter, not harder is a big part of our conversations but so is understanding that sometimes there are no shortcuts.

We make our own luck.

And yet there is a big part of me that believes in the things we can’t see, touch and feel. Some have accused me of turning off my brain to believe and to accept and that is ok.

When my son asks me what to believe I ask him what he thinks. It is not because I don’t have an answer but because it is a personal question and our answers often change over time.

Medicine isn’t all science and sometimes the unexpected comes about. It is not my place to tell anyone else whether they should believe or not.

For now I am going to keep rooting for Superman Sam and will continue to send my best wishes to the family and hope they realize there are many out here in cyberspace who support them.

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Filed Under: Children, Life and Death

When Does Middle Age Start?

November 25, 2013 by Jack Steiner 8 Comments

Workers

Someone told me that age is a state of mind and I told them I wasn’t worried about it because I would always be out of state.  She was about 41 and I was 24 and I thought I was cool because I was with an older woman.

I can’t say I remember all of that conversation but I am pretty certain it happened because I was teasing her about her age. Who knew that I would blink my eyes and discover that I am older now than she was then.

Took me a little while to realize that people weren’t kidding when they said that time moves faster as you age because I am not exaggerating when I say it feels like I blinked or sneezed.

The Sign Of The Apocalypse

Every year my fraternity holds a big tackle football game in which the alumni play the actives and every year I play in it. I have missed it once or twice because I wasn’t in town or had some sort of family obligation but I always play.

This year I didn’t.

It might not sound like a big deal to you but I love contact sports. Love the challenge of taking on the other guy, pitting my strength and will against his. I play offensive and defensive line, occasionally run the ball.

I am the guy in the trenches because I love the battle but this year I didn’t play because I was concerned about how long it would take to recover and ‘cuz I was concerned about potentially getting hurt so close to my son’s Bar Mitzvah.

It is unheard for for me to be like this and I am a little embarrassed by it.

I had to leave early because I couldn’t stand on the sidelines and watched. The actives are little guys who talk smack and who think a guy like me is old.

Hell, I am older but not old.

Yet here I am feeling pretty damn good the day after because I decided I didn’t want to take the punishment.

When Does Middle Age Start?

A couple of younger guys asked me if I feel badly about being middle aged. I grabbed one of him and shook him, not because I was angry but to make a point.

I am not even close to being dead. If you take a look at me now you aren’t going to think of me as being an athlete, at least not the way you once would have. But if you take a serious look you’ll see that even though I fill out my shirt I am more muscle than anything else.

But the truth is that his question probably tapped into my own insecurity and vanity. It made me ask the question about when middle age starts and should I care.

I used to say that I wouldn’t be middle aged until I was half as old as my oldest grandparent was when they died.

Grandpa was almost 98, I am 44 so I am not quite there yet.

But does it matter? Should I care about middle age?

My Answer

My answer is that I age really is just a number and that as long as I can do what I want to do it shouldn’t matter. That means that as long as I am healthy enough to live the kind of life I want to lead it shouldn’t be a big deal how old I am.

Ego gets involved sometimes, not even going to try to lie about that.

Got a 23 year-old kid who plays ball with me that sometimes makes me crazy. He is faster than I am and it burns me up because he is a half step faster.

It is enough now to make a difference but not so long ago he couldn’t have beaten me. If I am warmed up and running a flat out sprint I can keep up with him, but that is not how the games go most days and fact is we aren’t talking about what I could do in 1990 because it is 2013.

So I do my best to put the ego aside and focus on the important things.

Physical, mental and emotional health are what I focus on. Some days are harder than others.

There are those mystery aches and pains and the feeling sometimes that I should have accomplished more than I have. Most days I feel pretty good in all categories and that puts me ahead of quite a few people.

I suppose my goal is to respond to the question of when does middle age start with “does it matter?”

If I can say that then life is pretty good.

Filed Under: Life and Death

Fifty Isn’t Old

October 17, 2013 by Jack Steiner 10 Comments

I have got your back. -)

Fifty isn’t old but when you are a hair short of 25 it sounds ancient. Been thinking a bit about how turbulent my forties have been and wondering when life might resemble whatever it is I thought it might look like when I was younger.

Been looking at the men in my family and thinking about their situations and the realization that 50 isn’t old hit me like a ton of bricks. That is because I was thinking about my dad’s little brother and wondering what he might have to say about some things. Thinking about how similar he was to my dad and grandpa and yet how very different.

Dad, grandpa and I share more than just DNA in common. We all got married, became fathers and worked as the sole breadwinner, but my uncle has a different story.

He was gay and lived during a time when gay marriage was nothing but a dream.  I remember when he told me he was HIV+ and I remember his funeral with crystal clarity.

I was him, he was me and grandpa and dad but he wasn’t us. We didn’t give a damn about his choices because he was family and we loved him.

Can’t remember a time when writing about him didn’t make me wish he was still here.

Fifty Isn’t Old

That is me in the photo above, 43 and participating in Movember but I wonder if my uncle would recognize me. I wonder if he still saw me as being some little kid or if he really saw me as being a kid of 25.

Maybe he did, I am not sure but what I am certain of is that even though I knew then he was quite young it is now that I recognize just how young he was when he died.

Fifty is still a few years off but I have more than a few friends who crossed that line long ago and god knows a million cousins that have too. All the big ones I used to look up to are standing on the other side.

So here I am thinking about visiting him while I was in college and being surprised to find him listening to Guns N’Roses. It seems so silly and juvenile of me now, why should I have been surprised that he was listening to cool music.

Maybe it was just me. Maybe I was the one with the perception issue. It doesn’t really matter. If I found out that he still pictured me as as a little boy I won’t care any more than I would if he saw me as a man.

Time Moves So Very Quickly

I am listening to GNR now and maybe it is coincidence, but their cover of Knockin On Heaven’s Door just came on. I’ll take it as a hello from somewhere else.

What I know is that I would have very much liked for him to meet my family. My daughter thought I was kidding when I told him that grandpa had a younger brother.

Dad just laughed because his grandchildren can do no wrong, but it bothered me a bit. Bothered me because even though we didn’t live in the same city we still saw him frequently and he was at every major family event until he wasn’t.

That is just how it was and still is in my family.

We show up. We go to family parties for all sorts of things.

Not everyone does that. I listen to some of my friends talk about how they hate family events and I feel badly. I don’t always love them and like everyone else I know there are family members on both sides that irritate me.

But family is important.

Can’t rely on everyone but family is always there and it is important to me to make sure my kids see that.

Streets Of Philadelphia

I remember seeing my uncle kiss his boyfriend once and I remember not being sure what to make of it. I was 18 and trying to figure out what it meant to be a man.

My uncle wasn’t the stereotypical gay man and he didn’t push that kiss in my face. It was as natural and normal as the way I kissed my girlfriend back then.

I remember going to see Streets of Philadelphia in the theater. I remember two guys in front of me silently sobbing through the movie and trying to figure out if I would feel any different at my uncle’s funeral. He wasn’t dead yet, but HIV was a death  sentence so I knew it was coming.

Feels kind of silly saying that because it is obvious. It hurt. I loved my uncle and I missed him. We all did.

Nineteen years later I still do.

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Filed Under: Life and Death

Death Doesn’t Steal Our Memories

July 29, 2013 by Jack Steiner 13 Comments

12 segundos de oscuridad

This story may be familiar to some of you because every year I make a point to honor my friend.

“In one of those stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night. And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend…I shall not leave you.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I made them cry, not him or her but them. You can tell me it wasn’t my fault or that it is not my responsibility but I won’t accept it.

That is because I was the one who made the telephone calls. I was the one who called our friends and told them you were dead.

Some of them screamed and some of sniffled in silence but I heard their voices and we shared the pain of your loss.

Today is your birthday or should I say it would have been. I don’t have a clue what you would have done for this one or where you would be living.

Maybe you would be married and maybe you would be a father. It is a relatively easy guess to make and probably not far off of the mark.

Instead of writing to you and wondering if somewhere you can hear, see, feel or read this I would call you and make some crack about how old you are. You’d give me some sort of sarcastic response and I’d tell you about my family.

It wouldn’t be the first time. I have visited your grave and sat next to you. I have told you about your funeral and how very blue the skies were. It was hot that day and not just because we were wearing black suits.

Nor was it because we buried you.

That has always been important to me. We buried you because you were loved by your friends. We buried you because it was among the last kindness we could bestow directly upon you.

Every year I remember the moment when I saw your mother’s face while I was shoveling dirt on your casket. It was horrifying then and as a father it is only made worse.

Yet there is a piece of me that smiles because I know you would have done the same for me and because I know your parents appreciated it. I know that in this moment of utter horror they knew that people who cared about you were doing our best to help.

We would have done more. We wanted to. Had we known earlier we could have helped carry the load. You knew more than us. You knew this was coming sooner but didn’t say.

Perhaps it was your choice, but we would have listened. We would have shared more with you during a time when we could both communicate.

Life is pretty good now. It has its challenges but that is to be expected. I keep tabs with your siblings and your parents. They are good too.

I don’t regret having had to make those calls or having been a part of the merry men of grave digging. Shit happens and we deal with it.

You are gone but not forgotten. You helped change more lives than you know and that is a legacy to be proud of.

Happy Birthday old friend, I’ll see you again.

Filed Under: Life and Death

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