A Great Grandson Speaks of Grandma

Elon got up in front of 75 people and through his tears read these words. I did not edit this, and wanted to share it with you all.

Grandma, I love you very much. I am glad you lived a long happy life. I have lots of very good memories of you. You alway shad funny sayings and were always saying them. You've never heard me read Torah, but when Eliana and I have our B'nai Mitzvah I know you will watching us. I love you very much. You taught me many good lessons in life and I am sure with those lessons you have taught me I will live a successful life. We always played scrabble with you and I made a scrabble memorial that says "Great Grandma was here."I know I have said this many times before, but I love you and you are a very generous and giving person. You are always giving generous amounts of money to us and I love that. You mean the world to me and I am always going to have you in my heart. I will always miss grandma and will always think about you when you died you knew when you were going to see us, but our plane was late so you died before we could see you for the last time. I hope you will have a good time in heaven and cant wait to see you there in 80 years. Goodbye, Grandma.

For Grandma at Her Funeral May 10, 2010

We sat at your dining room table this past Shabbat and for the first time in nearly 41 years you were not in your seat. A palpable emptiness filled my heart and I wept. Being in your house without you makes me ache. My history lives in the remnants of the things that exist between the walls at 9601 Monte Mar Dr. Each room tells a story from my childhood, adolescence, and adulthood - and I am not quite sure how to leave it behind and don't know exactly what to take with me. Nothing I take will replace my calls to you at night when I am sad. I never had to tell you. You just knew. You would end each conversation the same way. "I love you, love you, love you."

What woman will give that kind of love?
What woman will take such pride in me?
What woman will call me her own?
Without a mother was I a daughter?
Without a grandmother am I anyone's grand daughter?

Loss smacks us against our changing roles and asks us to redefine how we see ourselves in the world. So as I moved through the process of the short time when you were not well, I was torn. I believed this chapter of your life was to be completed by my mom and aunt Charlene. Yet, on Thursday, after 15 hours of being together, you continued to make your choice clear to Neil and I. We honored the way you wanted to leave this world, but it was so very painful to watch you die. To hear you breathe like I heard mom breathe was watching death walk into my life and it was a familiar visitor. Your age does not make it easier or more welcome. Your age just gives it a place of sense in the cycle of life and death.

I work each and every day with traumatic loss and grief; with mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers who lose people they love too soon. As someone who lost my own mom when I was 16, my work is not uncomfortable for me. I get to make a difference in the lives of so many by companioning them on their journey of grief. I can put the loss of grandma in a place in my heart and head that makes sense. The deep sadness I feel is not because this is a senseless death. It is not.

Grandma lived a full life. She traveled the world from the land of Australia, to climbing the Great Wall of China, to dragging me (literally) up an Egyptian pyramid. How many people can say their first time in Israel was with their grandma? I prayed at the Wall with Grandma and she passed this deep love of Israel on to me and I passed it on to Elon and Eliana. Grandma took great pride in the fact that when the kids travel to Israel for the first time in the 8th grade, that she would be instrumental in getting them there. While she deeply wanted to be here next year for their Bnai Mitzvah, I wanted her to hear of the moment her great grandchildren stepped foot in the Holy Land. Imagine her tremendous pride - her great grand children in the land of Israel...

Grandma committed herself to over 50 charities, but if any other charity send her a free set of labels, a pen or a calendar, she would pay the postage to send these freebies back with a letter. Don't call me and I wont call you. She knew what she wanted. She did not mince her words. She was a staunch democrat and truly worried about the world - not for herself - but for us. She volunteered at the Wellness Community and some of her most joyful moments were those she gave to sick children at Cedar Sinai hospital, where she took a clown cart around until she was 93. Keeping her mind clear was a priority, so in addition to reading and watching the news, she loved to play bridge. Her Monday bridge game was the highlight of her week, unless her week included time with her family. She took unbridled joy in her grandchildren and great grandchildren. She would often say, "My original investments went sour, but the dividends have been the best." But as much as she loved us she loved her nieces, nephews, great nieces and nephews - she loved you. As much as she would talk about me to you, she talked about you to me. I cannot mention each of you by name, so please do not be hurt - she loved you all, but I do have to mention a few.

Bobbie and Carole - you were "the girls." You loved her and looked out for her and she was so deeply grateful that you loved her as your own mother. You were my proxy - I knew when I could not be there you would be there, not just in my place, but in place of my mom.

Joan and Mel - your marriage was an inspiration to her. When Alan and I married, she said maybe this time it will be like Joan and Mel's. Her heart broke when Tracy died - as much for a young life lost to breast cancer, but even more so that you both know the pain she endured. Knowing you lost your child as she lost her own, was something she was never able to recover from - she would talk to me about this frequently.

She talked about all of you with such love, but I want you to know Danny, Carla, Elan, Ben and Jacob - you were deep and great loves of her life. I cannot begin to tell you how much she adored you, honored you, but also how deeply loved she felt by you. You were hers as much as I was. You enriched her life, you gave her joy.

Mark and Brian - you were "the boys" and she loved you so very much. Dorothy she would tell me you were "the sweetest soul, " and that she felt safe knowing that you both lived close by. As I said I cannot include everyone but from the Blooms, to the Flacks, to the Primacks, to the Lifsons, Kahans, Altagens and Sweets - you were all deeply loved by grandma. She was alive by the love she gave. It gave her the essence of who she was. He love for all of us sustained her.

I share all of this because grandma could have chosen a different path in life. Losing my mom when she was only 41 and my aunt when she was 59, losing her marriage after 35 years and outliving all her siblings, she could have lived an angry, bitter, joyless and loveless life. But she didn't.

She consciously chose to love rather than hate.
She consciously chose joy over anger.
She consciously chose to dance with exuberance, rather than sitting off to the side stuck in her own pain.
If any of you want to walk way with a powerful life lesson from grandma - please take those.

We do not have a choice if those we live will die, but we do have a choice over what we do in our lives with the loss. Viktor Frankle, a Holocaust survivor, lost everyone in his life that he loved. He believed that when all our freedom is taken from us the one freedom that always remains is our freedom to choose our reaction to any given situation. Grandma was the embodiment of this belief.

When we left the hospital after grandma died on Friday, it was a beautiful, sunny day. We were at a busy intersection with businesses and no children. A bubble cascaded in front of the car- floating upward...

So grandma, as you make your way to the next world, I ask this:

Watch over us with your strength
Guide us with your courage
And love us with your joy for life.

And when you see mommy tell your I miss her and now and then let me know you are close so I do not feel so alone.

Finding My Clown

A few years ago I had the privilege to learn with a counselor from hospice. He was talking about his 20 year career with hospice. "20 years" and "hospice" do not often go hand in hand. From that lecture there were many things that he said, that stay with me to this day.

"There is no room for martyrs in grief counseling."

"Our job is to listen to their story and not assume we understand how they are grieving."

"Find your clown."

The first two statements can stand alone. The last statement, on the other hand, needs some context for meaning.

He shared, how on one day, he was witness to 6 deaths.

I raised my hand and asked, "Where do you put all of that?"

Now this question, aside from being like some strange psychobabble, was asked not from some deep compassionate place. I think I asked it out of fear. Can I do work, where I may be privy to that kind of intense loss? Can I handle it? Where would I put all of that?

Without skipping a beat in the conversation, and without calling me out on my terror he said, "I am a clown...a card carrying, red nose wearing, big black floppy shoe donning clown."

He decided a long time ago that the only way he would avoid the burn out that comes naturally when surrounded daily by palpable emotional pain, he needed to do something that brought him joy and had nothing to do with death. He learned how to be a clown. He never did his clown gig for hospice. He was a clown for his church and anyone else who wanted a rent-a-clown.

So he looked at me again. This time I could see he knew my question was about me.

"You will need to find your clown, if you are going to do this work."

So here I am, doing the most meaningful work of my life. During the day, I work in some way with families who have suffered tragic loss, and have made the life "gifting" decision to donate the organs of their loved one so others may live. Twice a week in the evenings, and on Saturday afternoons I go to my private practice where I hold the pain of my clients for an hour and together we journey through it. When I am with them I often feel like a miner, with the small headlight trying to illuminate the way.

Meaningful work, in this case, is profoundly intense work and I have come to the place where I need to "find my clown." Perhaps some would find this mandate easy, I, however, am stuck.

I have learned over the years that it "easier" to be present for pain. The loss in my life has allowed this to come naturally, which is why I am drawn to the work I do. Being present for joy has always been a conscious effort and decision. That is the heart scar from loss as a teenager whose healing was uneven and not tended to.

Don't get me wrong. I have achieved things I never thought I could. I have wonderful children, a loving husband, a second career I thoroughly enjoy and worked hard to earn. I have good friends (albeit spread all over the country) and I have the capacity to appreciate my blessings.

But hear this. When we do not take care of the pain and ache of our children they will carry it with them. They will feel it over their joy. They will find a strange comfort in it, because it is what they know.

I am committed to "finding my clown."
I wish it did not seem like a daunting task.
I wish it was obvious.

It may have to do with music, or art, or water, or wise women...

I guess I have to, once again, follow the whisper of my soul and see where she leads.

A Prayer for A New Journey

Dear God,

Today I am being given the gift of a new job. In a climate where we have to worry about whether our current employment is safe, I am grateful that life presented me this opportunity and that I had the strength to respond.

People begin new paths each day. Some people have their journeys thrust upon them, while others (like this one) are by choice. Either way, we are pulled from our comfort zone and are asked (or told) it is time to look at life anew. What we do with this opportunity is up to us.

On this day, I feel my mom with me, and for the first time ever her picture is coming with me to work. I feel she belongs at this job with me, and I am not certain why, but I am following the whisper of my soul, which, I have come to believe, is You, guiding me through my darkest periods.

May I have the awareness to access the abilities I have to make a difference in the lives of others. May I use my love of collaboration and incessant need to learn to inspire those around me to be the best they can be.

Most importantly give me the ability to be present each day for this job so that I can learn all I need to, hear what is offered and then use it to excel. May I make my children and Alan proud of me, and may my moms hand rest on my shoulder, reminding me that I have come so far without her physical presence but her love has remained.

Thank you God, for my gifts and even for my heart ache, because from it all I have learned.

The Yearly Ritual

This morning I engaged in my yearly ritual of the mammogram. It is always the same. I am taken back by a well meaning woman who looks at my age and the questions come:

"Is this routine?"

"You are turning 40 this year and you have been having these for years, why?"

"Wow, your mom was diagnosed at 35."

"Did she survive?"

And thus the ritual begins. Mammographers mean well, but I prefer the older ones to the younger ones. I like the ones who are more my mothers age. Go figure. Today I had someone who was probably 25 years old. She was nice enough, but today I felt the need to have a gentle hand, a soft touch and reassurance that while my mom was dying at 40, I am going to live. 

No mammogrpaher in their right mind would stick my breasts in a vice and predict my future...but it would be nice.

On my way to the appointment I stopped for a cup of coffee. As I was pouring milk into my cup, I looked to my left and heard two women laughing. Both wore scarves on their heads and their eyebrows were fond memories. Their pink shirts, no doubt, hid scares that would make most of us weep. Did I mention, they were laughing? I could hear my mom (and Wendi) say, "Stop staring, Elissa," so I diverted my gaze and went on my way.

I don't remember my moms laugh.

I don't remember her voice. 

I don't remember her touch. 

I remember her cancer. 

I remember her scars.

I remember her death at 41.

So as I near 40 and deeply long for the guidance of women and mothers, wise ones who guide those who seek, I try to keep my heart open to the not so quiet lessons that my life brings and hope that wherever my mom is she is gently guiding me to where I need to be.

To All The Kids (Now Adults) At 102nd Street School in Watts

This morning I am listening to Barak Obamas acceptance speech and I am thinking about, Veronica, Ronald Clark, the young children at 102^nd Street School and my mom.

My mom raised me by herself in a middle class neighborhood in Los Angeles called Beverlywood. There were only a handful of African Americans in my elementary school, and in my 4^th grade class there was just Veronica. 

One day she got sick in school. She threw up. I came home and said, “All black people throw up in school.” Shortly there after, when the first self standing magnet school in Los Angeles was created to respond to mandatory integration with voluntary integration, my mom put me on the bus. (It should be known, that at the time I felt like I as being sent to Siberia)

There was no way on this earth that her daughter would grow up with a narrow mind. My mother would not stand for that. This was a school that integrated kids from all over Los Angeles; we were bused us from all of our neighborhoods to the corner of Pico and Arlington. It was the state of California's effort to respond to mandatory busing with voluntary busing. And so I went. My eyes were open. My heart grew tolerant. My life changed.

In my mom's effort to raise me well she went back to school when I was 6 years old and became a child psychologist for the Los Angeles Unified School District. She opted to do her work in what was called at the time, South Central Los Angeles, or historically, Watts. She worked at  102^nd Street School. A school where they had "shoe day." This was a day when she and the social worker went to Payless to buy shoes for those children who came to school barefoot. This was a school with children who, when they saw images of scales on the IQ test and were asked what they were for, they said, "for weighing drugs." This answer was not found in the back of the WISC-R manual. These were kids who lived in the projects, 8 families in two rooms. These were families with children who my mom would bring home now and then. They were “her kids.”

Ronald Clark was one of "her" kids. He was this thin, beautifully dark skinned child with a wild Afro. He lived in a home that I will never know, with alcoholism and drug abuse. I remember asking him what he wanted to do when he grew up and he always said the same thing, “I want to get out of Watts.” We had this sense he would.  You see, he was the most brilliant artist, in particular he designed clothing. His pictures were as professional as any I had seen on TV. He was a true talent. My mom used to tell me that these young boys had no one to look up too. Many had strong mothers, but more had absent fathers and they turned to gangs to belong to a group of boys and men who would take care of them.

My mom took me to her school once. On the way there she said “Elissa, we do not visit poverty, unless you plan on staying. This is not something to gawk at, this is something to fix.”

When we got to the school we had an experience that has forever remained planted in my heart.

Black children from 6 years old to 6^th grade were running up to my mom yelling her name, “Ms. Schiffer, Ms. Schiffer!” And it was such a stark contrast. My blond haired, blue eyed 5”11 mother and these small African American children, literally running after her. Why were they running? They wanted to meet her daughter. They heard she was coming and that she was close to their age. 

I was standing right there. 

Could they not see me?

So they asked, “Ms. Schiffer, where is she?!” My mom stood in amazement.

So I said, “Its me, I am her daughter.” 

 They stared in complete silence. 

They came up to me and touched my long brown hair and looked into my green eyes. They looked back at my mom and looked at me with complete bewilderment. Later I learned why, as one by one they came to her office.

My mother was kind and loving to these children. She took care of them. She was like a good mother; their mother, and remember they were small children.

When they saw me, another small child, close to their age, they saw the opposite of who they were. 

I was a "white girl." 

If I was a white girl then that must make Ms. Schiffer...White.  

How could that be, they wondered? 

White people were not kind, they thought. 

White people were not loving, they pondered. How could this be? 

She stood in stark contrast to all they knew to be true about white people in a world when there was no one they could look up to who was African American. She had a crisis on her hands. I never knew how she dealt with it, but years later when I heard from numerous children, who were going to college, I figured she didn’t do to badly.

Children, who became young adults, would look her name up to find her. They would thank her for her help, her guidance, and often...the shoes. 

Ronald Clark called years after she died and wanted to tell her he "got out." He was going to the Fashion Institute. He was going to make it and he wanted to thank her. I had to tell him she had died, a few years earlier. "Well then," he said, "I want to thank you for letting me be one of 'her kids.' She changed my life."

So when I was watching Barack Obama I hoped Ronald Clark was watching and Veronica and all the small children (now adults) at 102^nd Street School who looked up to my mom as someone they thought was black till they met me.

You have someone now. He is president and history was made yesterday. 

But it was also made 30 years ago, when my mom taught small children to not see color and when she reminded Ronald Clark he could get out of Watts. Lets pay attention to all ways, big and small, that we make history, and together maybe we really can change the world.

Kids Don't Divorce Their Grandparents

Growing up in Los Angeles, a wonderful Saturday morning ritual would take place: My grandmothers, Rae and Mary, would walk to the beauty shop together. This was a fabulous place. Older Jewish women, sitting in rows, with curlers in their hair while others would get their hair teased in an effort to hold to an era that was running from them despite their efforts to hold on. Manicured nails in orange hues would dry in the hair sprayed air. For a little girl it was heaven on earth; every one "oohed" and "aahed" when I would visit and they would go into their purses and some treasure would come out behind the Freedent gum. "She's a shaina maideleh" (beautiful girl) they would say....

When they were well coiffed, they walked to my grandma Marys house and then drove to my house.  "The ladies" (that included me!) would go to Century City; a beautiful outdoor mall in Los Angeles. We would have lunch at Bob's Big Boy and I would get to tell them about my week. We window shopped and my mom and I would walk hand in hand.  Those Saturday mornings are memories I can touch in their vividness. 

My grandmothers loved each other very much, however they were very different women; one from Brooklyn the other from Minneapolis. 

One never learned to drive a car ("Who needs a car, sweetie, God gave me a good pair of feet"), and the other defined independence by the mere fact she had a license to drive. 

One carried her cash in her bra ("No one is ever gonna find it there, sweetheart") and one carried a purse so tightly I was convinced the blood would stop rushing to her clenched fingers.

One never owned a house of her own ("What?! I am from the Bronx, who needs a home?!"), the other a proud homeowner.

They loved each other. They loved me even more.  So when my parents divorced, my grandma Rae (my dads mom) said she did not divorce my grandmother, my mom or me, and nothing would change. The Saturday morning ritual continued, until my grandma Rae could walk no more due to lung cancer. (She never smoked a day in her life by the way).

My grandma Rae died 2 years before my mom. My grandma Mary will be 93 in December.  I don't have parents who would be grandparents to Elon and Eliana.  

My grandma Rae reminded me then as she reminds me now: that the  importance of grandparents in the lives of children has nothing to do with adult choices that lead to divorce. 

So when I asked the kids this morning, what they were doing that was special this weekend with their dad and grandparents, each said the same thing. "It is just special that we get to spend time with grandma and papa." 

That is how it should be. 

The fact that Brian and I are not right for each other has nothing to do with how right their grandparents are for them.  More importantly,  Alan and I create the safe space for them to love their grandparents  because we honor the children and that relationship. We take pride in rising to the occasion when so many people can't even fathom that.

My grandma Rae is kept alive in my ability to appreciate the love my children have for their grandparents. Her essence is in their spirits when they look forward to "just being with them." And the fact is, I would rather keep grandma Rae's memory alive that way, because I wont be caught dead reaching into my bra for a five dollar bill.