A Week of Anniversaries: Bitter and Sweet

This past week has been full of anniversaries.  

Last Saturday, May 30, marked five years since my mom died.  In 2010, it was the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend.  We had stayed with her late into the evening on Saturday, and one of the last things we read aloud and sang to her in hospice was havdalah.  It was fitting, therefore, that she chose the wee hours of Sunday morning to separate herself from this world and move on to Olam Ha‑Ba.  Exactly three years later, I (finally) graduated from Baruch College's School of Public Affairs with an MPA, an event that ultimately, I was insistent my dad and I attend.

The Minutes and the Hours and the Days Pass By…

Dear The Mums,

Today strikes me as a real “circle of life” day. 

Ian and "His Monica"

I got up early and was out the door by 8 a.m. to head to the West Village for Ian’s graduation from P.S. 41.  It’s hard to believe that the little boy with the baby face who started kindergarten there six years ago is moving on to middle school.  I know I’m biased (as you would be, too), but he’s tall and good-looking, a great baseball player and teammate, as well as a wonderful mimic, but still a sweet, kind and polite kid.  He loves Legos, drawing, riding his scooter, Sponge Bob, and hanging out with his friends (and "his Monica").  I think that’s how you turn out when everyone loves you.

The morning’s festivities were more like a wonderful assembly than a graduation, and I thought it was nice that the kids didn’t wear those cheesy polyester gowns with the matching mortarboards because you could really see their personalities in the clothes they wore (or that their mothers made them wear!).  Ian wore a “nice shirt”—a plaid button down, with khaki shorts and sneakers, an outfit that was similar to what many of his friends were wearing.  Some kids wore suits and ties, others jeans, but I especially loved the sweet dresses—adorned with flowers and lace—that many of the girls wore.

Jack T. and Ian

You would have loved the whole thing, sheping nachas and bursting your buttons from beginning to end.  As the kids processed in by class, America the Beautiful played in the background.  We weren’t really listening though, just looking for Ian and waving wildly when we saw him.  Once they were all seated on the stage facing us, we rose for the Pledge of Allegiance and then listened as the kids sang the P.S. 41 Song.  Then came a few speakers:  the principal, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, the head honchos of the PTA, and the assistant principal, who presented an award to a student whose unknown theater arts talents were uncovered at P.S. 41. Then the kids sang Imagine by John Lennon and, with all those formalities out of the way, the teachers from each class presented the certificates of promotion to each student as his or her name was called.  When Ian's name was called, I leaned over to Monica and said, "Bubbe would be so proud."  Once the last graduate—Salenne Wolfe—had picked up her certificate, there was lots of whooping it up and a few tears, mostly from Monica and Amy.  The ceremony ended with the entire class singing Shy, from Once Upon a Mattress, which was the  fifth-grade production, and serves as a rite of passage for the kids as much as, if not more than, this morning’s graduation.  After the graduates recessed to the cafeteria, we all followed for hugs and photos.

Henry P. and Ian

Meanwhile, Daddy also got up early because sadly, he and Aunt Bea went to Ray’s funeral this morning.  He’d been in hospice for a few weeks with failing kidneys, and died yesterday at 83.  You know that had I been able, I would have gone with Daddy, but I believe that had the two processions intersected, the funeral would have yielded to the graduates, and I thought it best to be with Amy, Ian and Monica (and John, Carla, Nolan (Ian's little brother), and Carla's mother) on this milestone day.  However, I will do my best to make a shiva call later this week.

And so it goes, The Mums.  Ian’s moving on to middle school and Ray’s joining you wherever you are.  Although I’m not sure you’ll see him in the yeshiva where I'm sure you're spending lots of time, I do hope you’ll connect with Ray and be able to enjoy some of his gastronomic delights. 

As Rabbis Ken Chasen and Josh Zweiback, the singing duo known as Mah Tovu, tell us in the chorus of their song “Round and Round:”

Every morning the sun comes up
And every evening the sun goes down
It’s a beautiful thing the way it all works together
And the world goes round and round
The minutes and the hours and the days pass by
Months turn to years, but I don’t know why
God makes it all happen right before our eyes
And the world goes round and round 

Indeed it does…and I miss you more with each spin of the earth on its axis and with each of its trips around the sun.

xoxo,
~ Boo!

To March or Not to March?

Dear The Mums,

In today’s mail I received a four-page, single-spaced letter from Baruch College that provides all the details for the 48th commencement exercises, which are scheduled for Thursday, May 30.  Even though that's the date of your third yahrzeit, it’s not the date that’s an issue for me.  It’s the location:  Citi Field, home of the New York Mets.  You likely knew it in its previous incarnation, Shea Stadium—and as a loyal daughter of the House that RuthBuilt, I’m equally sure that you’d never willingly set foot in it.  

Even if I do everything required—order and pay for a cap and gown, secure guest tickets, pick up the academic regalia at the appointed time, schlep to Citi Field, arrange for Daddy to schlep to Citi Field (Amy will be out-of-town that day), and march in the processional (no, unlike the last time I graduated, Meryl Streep is not leading this one)—I’m not at all sure I will then want to sit (or subject Daddy to sitting) in a folding chair in the sun for three hours amidst more than 2,000 graduates and 10,000 guests.  Just the thought of trying to find him afterwards makes me anxious.

On the other hand, I worked hard for this degree, it took me a long time to finish it, and there’s a certain unbridled joy that likely will come from participating in all that pomp and circumstance (even if Baruch is the school I loved to hate).  Will I be sorry if I’m not there to enjoy it?  Will I regret squandering the opportunity to move my tassel from the right to the left when the degree is officially conferred?  Will I lament not having photos of the occasion?  Perhaps…

Regardless of what I decide to do, I know that you--as you are everyday--will be there with me...even if we find ourselves at Citi Field.

xoxo,

~ Boo!

Que Sera, Sera

This week's RemembeRED writing prompt from The Red Dress Club:

It's that time of year...graduation.

For this week's prompt we are asking you to remember a graduation.  It doesn't have to be yours and it doesn't have to be high school.

With a solid blast of Baroque trumpets as background, four-hundred and ninety eight of us followed Meryl Streep as though she was the Pied Piper.  Guided by the mortarboard perched atop her long auburn waves, we trekked like a flock of bats behind her:  up the hill from the field house, past the ‘Pard statue, across the campus’ one road and into our assigned seats in the grid of white chairs splayed out in front of the library like tombstones in a World War II cemetery.

When it was her turn to speak, she approached the podium, but before she uttered a word, her voice rang out in clear, sweet song:

When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother, what will I be
Will I be pretty, will I be rich
Here's what she said to me.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

The actress’ a cappella rendition of Doris Day’s classic was an apt lesson for all of us that day.  Perched on the brink of the rest of our lives, we certainly did not know then (nor do we ever really know) what awaits us around the next bend.  Twenty-six years later, that lesson still rings true for me.  More important, I know--as I believe I knew then--that no matter how bumpy the path, my family and friends, my quality education, and my gut will always help to steer me in the right direction.  After all, they haven’t failed me yet.

Que Sera, Sera,
Whatever will be, will be
The future's not ours, to see
Que Sera, Sera
What will be, will be.

Remembe(RED) is the memoir meme of The Red Dress Club.  Thanks for reading...and feel free to offer thoughts, ideas and/or constructive criticism.  I appreciate hearing what you have to say.