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.

Living in the Difference

When my mom died the Jewish holidays changed. Jewish life was at our center and the holidays encased us in this sense of peace and safety that penetrated my senses each year. My mom engaged in Jewish life fully, and was centered by its nuances.

When she died I have described it with the following metaphor: When you go hiking and you jump from one cliff to the other, there is this moment in time when you are between both cliffs. The earth is far below and there is no guarantee you will make it to the other side. You hover over the vastness.

Losing my mom at 16 is that place between the cliffs.

I was pushed off the ledge. Pushed with the force that took my breath away, made my head spin and my heart stop. And there I hovered. I imagined on the other side would be a life that would save me from pain and loss.

On the other side would be marriage. Then, I thought, I will get my Jewish holidays back. I will create my own traditions in the image of my mothers joy and Jewish life in my home will be like it used to be.

It didn't happen.

Ah, I thought, when I land on the other side and I am caught by the arms of motherhood, then...then I will be able to recreate the holidays for my children, and in their eyes I will see my mothers spirit on the chaggim.

It didn't happen.

Ok, I get it now, I was married to the wrong man. I married the right man. So now...now, with the right husband and the kids I will hand carve the holiday and my mom will somehow usher in the palpable sense of centerdness that she created each year for me.

It didn't happen.

Here we are again at the holidays. I have the people: A loving and committed husband, who is a wonderful father and step-father. I have extraordinary children, and even a very loving dog.

I have spent countless years trying to recreate feelings, not so I could be present in the essence of the chaggim, but so that I could try to not feel the pain of my loss. I have been like the small child, who when told to hide in a game of hide and seek, stays visible to all, but covers her eyes and "hides" in the middle of the room. That is what I have been doing.

And grief finds me each time.

Grabs me.

Shakes me.

Grief reminds me that life IS different. I have to live in the difference, lean into it, and I have been running from it all the while.

When I create the details of the chaggim for my family, if I can stop trying to "make it like it was" maybe I can accept it as it is.

So I bought the chicken, the apples, the honey and I will bake the challah. I will set the table with her china and her silver.

I will live in the difference and maybe in that place of bittersweet acceptance, she will seep in through the open place in my heart that has never been filled...and there she will stay, so I can hold on when I need to and let go when I must.

Shana Tova

We Got Tired Pretending We Were Amish

Here in Cleveland, we do snow. We understand snow drifts, snow piles, snow storms, snow flakes, snow fall, lake effect snow and snow that falls just because. 

However, when the wind blows and knocks out the power...that is harder to do.

Sunday, when we lost power, we lit candles and appreciated the quiet hum of the neighborhood. 

Monday morning, when I tried getting ready for work by candlelight I thought:

 I could be in Galveston, so be grateful. This is an adventure.

But when I tried to get my kids up and dressed in the dark, lets just say they seemed to be missing the spirit of adventure. When I didn't want to open the fridge to let the cool air out, I was getting a little crabby as well. When I could not figure out what to feed myself or the kids, saw the shadow of my frizzy hair in the mirror,  knew my make up was probably too dark, and the kids were cranky, I said, "We are going out to breakfast!" 

So there we sat and I tried to make the best of it. 

"Just think, because the power is out, you get a chocolate chip pancake." They looked at me over their milk cups. Four eye rolls. I wasn't winning them over.

So I said, "Lets pretend we are Amish." At least that sparked a conversation and got their minds off the fact that the Amish don't have computers or tv's.  As for me, I was trying to figure out how to save hundreds of dollars of food we just purchased Sunday afternoon. I guess the Amish don't keep kosher.

I was not sacrificing my kosher meat, no matter how Amish I was pretending to be. 

When the kids came home on Monday we still had no power.  I made what dinner I could and we trekked our freezer full of food over to a friends house, where it was sparred. My husband bought ice and put food from the fridge  into coolers and left them closed as well. On Monday night before we went to sleep we noticed that across the street, they had power. For a moment I thought, at least if I was Amish, we would all take care of each other. What kind of neighborhood do I live in? No one checks in with the other side of the street to see if we were OK. Was there anything we needed? I just don't understand that.

By Tuesday morning, we knew we had lost the rest of the food in the fridge and the kids were not happy. My husband, who lives to take care of me and put a smile on my face, found a generator he could borrow, and off he went to get it. 

He cleaned the old gas out. He put the new gas in. He turned it on, and that sweet hum gave him faith in the hope of electricity. He plugged something into it....nothing. He tried again. Nothing. Now we had a generator and even that did not give us electricity. 

All I could think, was that I had to see clients and by this time my hair needed a zip code all of its own. See, if I was Amish I would wear one of those nifty caps and then frizz is a non issue. 

When I came home from seeing clients, I crossed over adventurous, jumped over the crabby, launched over the cranky and was just pissed. 

"They forgot about us," I whined to my husband.

 "No, they didn't. They are helping other people," he reassured me. "We will get our power on soon," he said trying to get me out of Pissyville. To no avail. I was firmly planted there. 

The kids read by flashlight and informed me they were not eating cold cereal again, Eliana was in tears because this disrupts the routine she counts on, and Elon was forgetting his homework at school.  

My husband and I sat down to eat dinner. I popped popcorn on the stove and found a piece of wet cheese at the bottom of our cooler. 

"OK," I said, "I am done being Amish, I want to go to a hotel." 

He looked at me, again trying to rescue me from the land of Pissyville and said, "This will all be over soon, you'll see." 

With the incredulousness of a teenager I thought, "WHAT-EV-ER!"

Well there was day, there was evening, there was darkness and there was light...at about 3:00 am this morning.

Alan went to work and Eliana was with me in bed at 4:30 am, after a terrible nightmare. Hot cereal was served, hair was defrizzed, and makeup was applied so I didn't look like a call girl.  

Ah, life returns to normal.