Mr. James Donnelly, RIP, 12/17/2010

NB: I AM SENDING THIS AGAIN BECAUSE THERE WAS A GLITCH AND MOST OF YOU DIDN'T GET IT. ALSO, TO THOSE OF YOU WHO FOUND THE TEXT UNREADABLE IN BLOG #1, I'VE CHANGED IT. HOPE THE BLOGS READ WELL IN THE FUTURE. THERE'S A LEARNING CURVE HERE. THNX.

He went gently. His family let him go. He died the way I hope to die – at peace – in a state of grace. I am Jewish and have never wanted to be anything else, yet I cannot recall in all my years of Hebrew school any mention or discussion of this thing known as grace or some such condition resembling it. The mourner’s kaddish, the prayer for the dead, does move me when I chant it in Hebrew, but it does not fill me with the sense that everything is as it should be, that whatever is happening is right to happen, that to fight is no longer the answer. I’ve always found it wonderful that Jews believe you can argue with God and win. But, peaceful this is not. It is contrarian, the opposite of acceptance. A yiddishe kopf (a Jewish brain) is proudly defined as cleverer and smarter than yours. It is not a humble self image. It is a defensive weapon deployed offensively. It’s victory but not peace. I finally learned what grace meant: to be as quiet as you can, to float on the moment, to grasp that you are loved and cared for, to settle and to accept, to go gently. During his lifetime, my father-in-law struggled with his demons like the rest of us. He stopped smoking when he had to. He stopped drinking when he had to. He never took more than an aspirin for his aches and pains. I suspect he had a temper, however, in thirty-two years, I never saw him lose it, never heard him say an unkind word to anyone, certainly, never to Patty, his wife of sixty-seven years, not to his children, his grandchildren, his son-in-law. A wife of sixty-seven years! Can you believe that? Sixty-seven years! When Jamie and I married she told me that this was forever, that there would be no divorce, ever. I didn’t know for sure where she was coming from, but I do now. My in-law’s marriage was not one of tenacity but of consideration and accommodation. They had joy in their world, and they brought it to mine. He was an entertainer to the end, a child actor running from studio to studio in the days of radio, a superb teller of tales told grandly with a bag full that never ran out. At the end, there was peace in his house.

Mr. James Donnelly, RIP, 12/17/2010

He went gently. His family let him go. He died the way I hope to die – at peace – in a state of grace. I am Jewish and have never wanted to be anything else, yet I cannot recall in all my years of Hebrew school any mention or discussion of this thing known as grace or some such condition resembling it. The mourner’s kaddish, the prayer for the dead, does move me when I chant it in Hebrew, but it does not fill me with the sense that everything is as it should be, that whatever is happening is right to happen, that to fight is no longer the answer. I’ve always found it wonderful that Jews believe you can argue with God and win. But, peaceful this is not. It is contrarian, the opposite of acceptance. A yiddishe kopf (a Jewish brain) is proudly defined as cleverer and smarter than yours. It is not a humble self image. It is a defensive weapon deployed offensively. It’s victory but not peace. I finally learned what grace meant: to be as quiet as you can, to float on the moment, to grasp that you are loved and cared for, to settle and to accept, to go gently. During his lifetime, my father-in-law struggled with his demons like the rest of us. He stopped smoking when he had to. He stopped drinking when he had to. He never took more than an aspirin for his aches and pains. I suspect he had a temper, however, in thirty-two years, I never saw him lose it, never heard him say an unkind word to anyone, certainly, never to Patty, his wife of sixty-seven years, not to his children, his grandchildren, his son-in-law. A wife of sixty-seven years! Can you believe that? Sixty-seven years! When Jamie and I married she told me that this was forever, that there would be no divorce, ever. I didn’t know for sure where she was coming from, but I do now. My in-law’s marriage was not one of tenacity but of consideration and accommodation. They had joy in their world, and they brought it to mine. He was an entertainer to the end, a child actor running from studio to studio in the days of radio, a superb teller of tales told grandly with a bag full that never ran out. At the end, there was peace in his house.

December 12, 2010

December 12, 2010

“I know. We change. We grow. We evolve. I know all that. We’ve come to a point where age is not the issue it once was. We’re longer lived, stronger, sturdier than we once were. We accept as bedrock that, “Sixty in the new forty.” I concur. Sixty is the new forty, but, from my point of view, seventy is the new ninety! It may surprise some of you. It certainly does me. Try to wrap your mind around that one, folks. Let’s change the subject for a minute. Oh, of course. What were we talking about? Age. Right. Age without the “old” in front of it. Or was it with the “old” in front of it? Whatever.

OK. I want you to analyze something for me, some recent behavior of mine, all in the past two weeks. Let me give you a little history about both my shaving habits and driving habits first. .I don’t shave every day, but, when I do shave I shave clean, scout my face for scant sign of whisker and whisk it away. As for my driving it’s been fifty-four years without a ticket or an accident unless you count when I was sixteen and the brakes on my father’s truck gave out on the down hill while I was delivering a truck load of tires to customers on Belair Rd. By the time I came to a stop I had taken out two cars, two gasoline pumps, and a wall, but that wasn’t my fault. I’m talking my fault. Never. Not in fifty-four years. So can we read anything into the fact that in the past two weeks I copped three moving violations, including one for backing into a forest ranger’s truck? And can we read anything into the fact that once I was in the shower I discovered I had forgotten to shave my moustache? Never before have I forgotten to shave my moustache. Never. Wait. I’m not finished. The town of Woodstock is about forty-five minutes away. Been there many times. Met people there many times. I made plans to meet someone this week and showed up two hours early on the wrong day.

It could be that as a writer I live in my own head, so just because I’m sitting next to you doesn’t mean I’m not in Persia.

Maybe it is the old absent minded writer gambit, but I’m not sure You tell me. No. Don’t.”