Month: March 2024

Silverware and Memories

I don’t know why but I think of Mom’s silverware as I stare out the window over my sink. My stomach clenches. I feel an ache; a sense of loss.

A week or so ago Mark and I brought some things, jewelry and said silverware (which upon closer inspection was silver-plated) to a place where they bought and sold gold and silver. No one in the family wanted these items – we had offered it far and wide with no takers. So, we decided we would see what we could get for them. All told the silverware came to $6.51. The woman who took it explained that they would melt it down and extract what was valuable, which wasn’t much, or we could take it back and try to sell it ourselves.

We could have cleaned it up, it was badly tarnished, and sold it on eBay or in a garage sale and perhaps gotten more, but that was more effort and time than either of us were willing to give. We decided to take the money. I think it was the right decision.

I realize I am not actually sad about the silverware; I understand why we did what we did and that if I kept it, I would not be happier. It is the loss of my mother, who valued that set, who took it as she moved from place to place, that I grieve. My mother liked pretty things. She set a lovely table. She used her ‘fine’ china – I’m not sure how fine it was – and silver when she entertained. When she served tea, she chose from one of many beautiful pots and cups she collected over the years. It gave her pleasure. I don’t tend to do that. I try to present food nicely when we have guests, but I don’t put the same effort into it, and I don’t enjoy it the way Mom did.

The silverware represents something else aside from Mom’s aesthetic sense. It was a reminder of family gatherings from long ago. Mom would have me set the Thanksgiving table – the table for the adults, we always had a kids table, too – with that silverware. I also helped when she and Dad hosted dinner parties, which they did often. They had a book club with friends that usually included Mom making dinner. I was her sous chef and assistant, vacuuming and raking our red shag living room carpet, straightening up and setting the table. My bedroom was just off the dining room. I would fall asleep still hearing their voices and laughter.

Despite the warm memories, I would not want to return to childhood. I was lonely and terribly sensitive. The societal upheaval of the late ‘60s and ‘70s weighed on me. I would not want to relive growing up with all of the insecurity it entailed, but I can get sentimental about certain things from that place and time. I thought my family was perfect. Though I didn’t appreciate that my brother Mark teased me mercilessly and my brother Steven had a scary temper, as did my dad, but it all felt comfortable and right. I knew they loved me and would protect me. I thought our extended family, my aunts and uncles and my mother’s aunts, uncles and cousins, were the best. They were part of my everyday life – coming in and out of my grandmother’s upstairs apartment regularly. I didn’t know there were tensions and complications in those relationships – not then, that awareness didn’t come until I was fully an adult. As a child my family life felt like a cocoon that shielded me from the pain of the outside world.

It has been many years since I emerged from that cocoon. The first peeling back of my comfortable nest was when Nana died, and I was 11. In some ways Mom carried on Nana’s traditions, but things changed. I left home at 16 to go to college and though I came back for some summers and a year of graduate school, I never lived with my parents again.  

Mom died one month ago. Her death is perhaps the final goodbye to that world.  Mom and my relationship evolved and in her final years. I was more her caretaker than she was mine, but she was still present. She was still Mom. I still wanted her blessing.

I am now part the oldest generation of the family. I am one of the elders. How strange! It’s also unnerving. I know I have matured, but I am still the same person inside. My spirit doesn’t feel old. Sometimes my body argues otherwise, but mostly it functions as it did, and I am grateful for that. But I can’t deny reality. I have one remaining uncle who I am so thankful to have, but that is all that is left of the older generation.

I suppose it is inevitable that seeing certain things, a favorite mug of Mom’s, a lovely piece of pottery that now resides in my cabinet, will remind me of her. Or a memory might be jogged when I set my table with my silverware for the seder, and I will grieve the loss again. Not just of my mother, but Dad, Nana and my aunts and uncles. Though the pang I feel in my heart is painful, it is a good thing, too. It tells me I have had rich relationships and there has been a lot of love given and received.

Old School

We were on our annual pilgrimage to the Mets’ Spring Training in Port St. Lucie, Florida. Gary is a lifelong Met fan and we have been fortunate over the last five years, Covid notwithstanding, to join friends and watch some preseason games while getting a break from the harsh Albany winter.

We began our trip with a 6 a.m. flight. When I book a 6 a.m. flight I have good reasons for doing so. I think it is far less likely to be delayed and we will get to our destination early, leaving us a good part of the day to get settled and enjoy ourselves. The reality of the 6 a.m. flight though is painful, and I wonder if it is worth it. We are lucky that Albany Airport is small and only 15 minutes from our house. But even with that, we had to be up and at ‘em by 4 a.m. A lot of sleep is sacrificed.

As we approached the airport there was a sign saying that the only parking available was in the economy lot. I was grateful for the warning – saved us driving around in a fruitless effort to find a spot in the lots that are closer. They even had a guy at the gate telling us to go to row V – that’s where there were openings. Again, I was impressed. This was well organized. Not only that, but the shuttle bus was waiting for us at the end of the row so once we parked, we hopped on and got to the terminal very efficiently. Score three for Albany Airport.

Travel these days can be quite stressful. I don’t know if it is that everything is understaffed, but it isn’t uncommon to stand in long lines for everything from checking bags to security to getting coffee. Years ago, we signed up for TSApre. In some airports it doesn’t offer much of an advantage, but it sure does in Albany. Though it was still only about 4:45 am, the line wrapped around itself many times. The TSApre line was short. As we passed hundreds of people, Gary whispered to me, “It’s great that no one signs up for this. I hope it stays that way!” I probably shouldn’t write this as it might jeopardize the advantage we enjoy.

Everything was going entirely too smoothly. Gary found the place with the shortest line to get us coffee. On the other hand, it was Burger King so it wasn’t great, but it still had caffeine. We boarded the plane without incident. The flight was smooth. We both watched “The Holdovers,” a very enjoyable movie that had humor and emotion.

I knew something had to go wrong. I’ve never traveled to Florida without enduring trials and tribulations. I’ve lost my phone, gotten my laptop crushed, suffered food poisoning, had my usual floaters (a routine condition in my vision) escalate to the point that we had to go to the emergency room – all on prior visits The list can go on. What would it be this time?

When we landed, as is our custom, I went to text our kids that we had arrived safely. My phone, though, would not connect to a network. Instead of bars, it displayed SOS. That was an inauspicious sign. I had never seen that before. Gary’s phone had the same problem. I figured once we got into the terminal it would connect. Nope. Still no service.

We retrieve our luggage, which took a while. Every so often I rebooted my phone to see if we had service. Still no. Gary connected his phone to the wifi network in the airport and learned that AT&T, our provider, was experiencing nationwide problems and in some areas service was down.

We got to the rental car agency. Still no service. We needed to provide proof of car insurance in order to decline their exorbitant extra fees; I had never been asked that before. We had no phone to contact our agent. The clerk behind the counter, a nice guy, gave us the office landline to use. After being on hold a fair amount of time, we got through that and produced the needed proof.

We still didn’t have phone service and now it was time to head to our hotel. It had been a long time since we drove anywhere without a GPS app. I asked the clerk for a map. He said they didn’t have them anymore. Not surprising.

Okay, we knew the general direction we needed to travel – north. We would have to figure things out old school.

We pulled out of the lot and saw a highway and headed toward it. It was the wrong highway, but it helped orient us. We turned right and headed north. We came to a red light. We needed to find our way to I-95. I rolled down my window and yelled out to a guy who was putting something in the back of his pick-up truck. “Excuse me, sir!” I got his attention. “Which way to I-95?” He pointed – we needed to make a left at the light. “Thank you!” He was a young guy, that may have been the first time he had ever been asked directions. Happily he didn’t lead us astray.

I knew our hotel wasn’t far off of the interstate. We drove north and fortunately spotted it. We figured out how to get to it from the exit – we still had common sense.

Though it felt strange not to have access to GPS, or the other smartphone apps, for those hours, we were proud of ourselves! We managed to get where we had to go. We were relieved that service was restored shortly after we arrived at the hotel. The idea of managing without it for more than a few hours was daunting. It was a reminder that, if pressed, we could still function without it, but wouldn’t want to have to.

Note: I wrote this piece mostly in Florida. I wanted it to be light-hearted. I didn’t know when I began it that something else would go wrong while we were in the Sunshine State – something much more serious. My Mom took a turn for the worse on the second day we were there. I don’t blame Florida for this. I decided to keep this piece light. Learning that the end was near for Mom and debating whether to return home immediately or stay for the few days we had planned will be a topic for another essay at another time.

Eulogy for Mom

Note: I have written a great deal about my mom and posted some of her essays on this blog. She was an avid reader, supporter and contributor to this effort. After putting up a long fight for life, she passed away on Tuesday, February 27, 2024 in Freehold, New Jersey. Though we are broken hearted, we are relieved that she is no longer suffering. Here is the eulogy that I offered at her funeral service.

First, I must say thank  you, Mom. I was not the easiest child to parent, more specifically to mother. I was sensitive, self-conscious and insecure. I was not blessed with the innate optimism that Mom had. Mom had her work cut out for her – something I did not fully appreciate until I became a mother myself. I would like to share two stories of her successes.

I had a truly terrible teacher in 6th grade – and in those days in NYC you had one teacher for virtually all the subjects. It made for a long, unhappy day. My best friend and I decided we had had enough and planned to play hooky. And, we did. Her apartment was empty during the day and we had a fine time. Some kids might look for trouble – we baked cupcakes, had a food fight and watched TV. Her older sister came home early and found us. I was afraid my parents would find out so I fessed up to Mom when she got home from work. She didn’t get angry, she didn’t punish me. She told me if I ever got so distressed to the point that I needed a break, to tell her and she would let me stay home. I never did take her up on that – the idea that I could was enough of a comfort. I knew she trusted and supported me.

The other story was again in the midst of a trying time in August of 1975. I had cut short working at a summer camp because I was not comfortable with the drug use and partying that surrounded me there. My parents welcomed me home. Aside from that, my grandmother, my father’s mom, was seriously ill in the hospital. One night I couldn’t sleep, my heart racing, I woke Mom. She comforted me as best she could – reminding me of the positive things in our lives and she suggested that we plan a sweet sixteen for me. Mom always believed in making the best of bad times. I was nervous at the prospect of a party– would friends come? She planned one of the all-time great parties. It was a mystery bus ride – my friends tried to guess where we were going. We went to see The Fantasticks off Broadway in Greenwich Village, we had fried chicken dinners on the bus, and returned home to make our own sundaes. I had a sign in book where my friends and family wrote kind and loving messages – I still have that book – I still read that book. It was a revelation to me – a little like Sally Field when she cried, “you like me, you really like me!” when she won the Oscar. Mom, you did good.

Mom wasn’t perfect and she knew that – she could be very hard on herself. I think I knew her in a slightly different way than my brothers – maybe being her daughter she more readily shared other parts of herself, the less optimistic side. But one of her great messages was that we should always be learning and striving to be better. That we could improve ourselves. She believed that until her dying day. That may have been the greatest gift she gave me – the belief that we can grow and evolve if we are open to it, if we work at it.

I am so grateful to Mom. Many of you know I write a blog and I share stories on it that are sometimes painful and, in some cases, may have been difficult for Mom to read. But she only encouraged me. She read what I wrote. She loved it. She appreciated my honesty. Another gift.

So, Mom, you were a wonderful human being and you raised three good human beings – is there a better legacy? I think not. We will continue to pay it forward. We love you and will miss you terribly, but you have earned your rest. I hope your spirit is reunited with all those you loved so much. Rest in peace and love, Mom.

Mom on her 80th birthday