A Thanksgiving Tale

My Uncle John was the funniest man I ever knew.

He was funnier than any of his three children or any professional comedian on stage.

Webster might have placed his picture next to the word funny in their dictionary.

Uncle John was that humorous.

And what I loved most about his  gray-zone wit was the way he could make my father convulsively roll-over in laughter. Through labored breath and tears my father would say John—you gotta stop. I can’t take it anymore.

Uncle John could make my father die laughing.

And these two men are brought to mind particularly this time of year. My Uncle John died a day or two within Thanksgiving which was also a day or two within my father’s birthday.

Several weeks after my Uncle’s death my father would also pass away.

But something interesting happened just after Thanksgiving the year Uncle John died. My father, who was robbed of his short term memory due to a brain tumor and never knew of his brother-in-laws’s death, told my mother one morning: John came to see me last night. He was standing at the edge of the bed talking to me. My father was with him too.

Be certain of this: no person in the flesh was ever in my father’s room.

My father however, swore to the verity of his tale.

And on this Thanksgiving I think of these two men—the best of friends—who sat next to each other at the table every year as the antipasto, lasagna and turkey was served.

I am blessed to have had them in my life. I am blessed to recall their silliness and mutual love. I am blessed to think that my Uncle held my father’s right hand as my grandfather held his left while walking together into the light.

I am blessed to think that in my father’s heaven my Uncle John continues to make him laugh.

And on Thanksgiving—the day we account how we are blessed---I give thanks.

 

Bullying

I could not have been more excited when I opened the envelope on the last day of fourth grade. Not only had I received my official promotion slip, but I had also received my teacher assignment for the coming fall—Mrs. Feinberg---the most beloved teacher in the entire school.

But it was not meant to be.

My parents had decided for a variety of reasons to pluck me from my happy academic and social world of Emerson Public School and ram me into Christ the King Catholic school where the only student I knew was Michelle—the unpredictable unkempt overweight ambiguously sexually oriented neighbor with whom I had nothing in common.

I was completely miserable.

There was nothing Christian at all about Christ the King School. I had stepped into an escapeless labyrinth of mean girl and mean teacher hell.

Inside and outside of the classroom shoulders were cold and invitations remained either unwritten or ignored. I was the bullseye of whispers and giggles.

And I listened the other day on the news of a woman who challenged whether bullying required adult intervention. The woman suggested that dealing with classmates who issue wounds fortified a child’s soul—that enduring meanness aided problem solving skills for them in the future. She claimed that coddling was more destructive than allowing callouses to form.

I am 53 years old and I can confidently say that the woman is a total ass.

Because the reason a scar is a scar is its refusal to correctly heal. While scars can be camouflaged with make-up or covered up with fashion, they never go away. They have little elasticity to bear future strain with normalcy. Residual pain results in the questioning of all ties.

Scars scar.

And In seventh grade my family moved to Dobbs Ferry. Sacred Heart School was safe—it was welcoming—I found respite. There were hands to hold. My voice found harmony. I began a friendship with Elissa—a soon-to be lifelong friend and eventual godmother to my daughter.

In rapid time, my soul was rehabilitated.  

But the scar still remains—it resides deep in the flesh. And even now, anytime I am excluded—whether it is intended or not, it plays like the Zapruder film: pop pop pop. And while I learned the necessary “problem solving skills” to combat the isolation a long time ago, I only wish that I never had to learn those skills in the first place.      

 

 

 

Vegas Baby

I realize that I am an anomaly.

Very few share my spin.

Because I walk among the statistically improbable who do not care a whole lot for Disneyworld.

The rides are okay-- it is the philosophy that I cannot not embrace. I cannot accept the fantasy as real.

Which is why I hesitated for so long about visiting Las Vegas. I expected Vegas to be an adult Disneyworld where people believed the Strip’s Eiffel tower was akin to a trip to Paris or that Caesar resided in his palace.

But nothing could be farther from the truth. The wonderment of Vegas is how everyone savors its lie—that while everything is fake and over the top, no one expects anyone to believe that it is anything to the contrary.

Deceit is the guilty pleasure.

And I was full-on in this Vegas mindset as I sat through the sales pitch at the timeshare. So when the presenter asked me What do you do for a living? I could not help myself. I had to summon the grandiose. So I nonchalantly said I am a freelance writer. Which prompted him to say Wow—and what is your yearly income? To which I said probably not enough to impact the purchase of a timeshare.

My husband smiled despite bewilderment and said nothing.

But later on over a glass of wine he asked By the way--what ever made you tell that sales guy this afternoon that you were a freelance writer?

 I responded I write-- and it’s free—and we are in Vegas.

My duplicity had him howling.

Because it is more fun to knowingly claim that you are something you are not. It’s more seductive to accept the unreal as unreal. There is “magic” in deception. And it is what makes Las Vegas Sin City—the anti-Disney---and in my mind, the happiest place on Earth.

Do You Work?

She said in what I perceived (either rightly or wrongly) as having a condescending edge: Oh—so you are still not working--right?

It wasn’t anything I had not heard before from a dozen or so different people over the past 27 years.

I reacted neither with defensiveness nor with apology to the pseudo-inquiry.

My even-toned light-hearted response was Actually I work every single day of my life. I hit the ground running first thing in the morning and I do not stop until I collapse on the couch around 8 o’clock at night. I work hard all of the time—I just don’t get paid for it.

And then I touched her on the forearm, leaned in and said You understand exactly what I mean—right?

But I am not all that sure that she did.

And while I walked away feeling rather self-satisfied, I quickly realized that had I thought of it, there were a few more things I might have liked to have added. I realized that I might have also said In my world, an off-premises job would be a luxury. In my world, it would be a luxury to run to a space where I have no emotional ties to the people I work for and with. It would be a luxury to be surrounded by tasks of no personal consequence where I might be validated monetarily for my efforts and in writing at yearly reviews.

Just once, I would like to own the I can’t because I have to work excuse for well-assessed expenditure.

Because the stinging truth is: My time is no less valuable or important than any other working person—office structure has no relevance in the equation.

And while I have come a long way in accepting the perks and pitfalls of my stay-at-home personal assistant profession—a career of no regrets--sometimes I wish I had a paystub as an indicator of my worth. Because it would make life so much easier if I could justify my title by a salary easily referenced on Glassdoor, and a resume posted on Linked-In.