High Holy Days

My mom had started her decline suddenly and quickly. In July of 2008, I called her on the way home from a "Relay for Life" event. She was very confused, and I could tell something was wrong, and called her neighbor to check on her. She reported back that she had been taken to the hospital, likely with a minor stroke. I flew up to be with her and made arrangements for her to move into Assisted Living in the Mennonite village she lived in. She never made it. A month later, right before the move was planned, she had a second stroke and was in the hospital. She came out and moved to the convalescent care. I made plans to fly up and see her and finalize the Assisted Living arrangements. But in early September, I got another call: she was not well enough to live on her own. Within two weeks, the call was worse: she had stopped taking water. She would be dying within days. I booked my flight.

It was September 22, 2008.
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As a musician, I have been asked to sing for church/temple services of every kind my whole career. My first job was at Santa Ana First United Methodist Church. Then came First Congregational Church (U.C.C.), where I worked almost fifteen years. During that time, I sang at Jewish High Holy Days Services, Episcopal services, Catholic services and landed at a Presbyterian church, where I have now logged 16 years and counting. I've often joked that, if I end up in front of St. Peter, I'm going to ask him which pay stub he wants to see.

I first sang High Holy Days services at Temple Beth Ohr in 2001. I know that for a fact because one morning I left the house knowing that I had on my schedule: "meeting at Connect4Education in Woodland Hills in the morning, TBO rehearsal at 7pm."

That date was September 11, 2001.

My project in Woodland Hills meant a 2 hour drive if I didn't leave early enough. So I left at 5:45am, give or take, and heard the radio reports of the plane hitting the first tower as I pulled onto the freeway. By the time I got to my destination, it had all happened. Only an Angeleno can recall the most devastating event of his lifetime as "I was on the freeway..."

That night, we gathered at the Temple, not sure if we should rehearse or pray or,... there was no advice in Torah or any other scripture about how to handle that day. I assume we rehearsed, I honestly don't remember. But I do know that my memories of 9/11 are inextricably linked with Temple Beth Ohr.
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When I arrived in Oregon at my mother's bedside, she was largely non-responsive. But she would occasionally nod her head if I asked a yes/no question. I had the presence of mind to know that I wanted to ask her about her final resting place.

I told her that I had been thinking about it, and it seemed to me that the place she lived when she was happiest in her life was when she and my dad lived in Denver. I asked her if she would be happy knowing her final resting place would be in the Rockie Mountains. Without hesitation, she nodded her head yes.

The next spring, Lynda and I flew to Colorado to scatter her ashes in the Rockie Mountains. But of course, that is a different story one that ends in my finding my birth mother just a few months later. That September night in 2008 though, as my mother faded away, I was faced with a horrible dilemma. I had booked my return flight for September 28, assuming my mother would not last that long, and knowing that I was contracted to sing at Temple Beth Ohr on Erev Rosh Hoshanah (the evening service of the evening/morning pair), 8pm on September 29. As the 28th wore on, I made my decision to say my goodbyes to my mother, drive to the Eugene airport and fly home.

When my plane landed late that night, it was September 28, 2008.
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With the exception of a few years, I have sung High Holy Days at TBO every year since 2001. Services have landed on September 29 quite a few of those years. This year it happened again.

But of course there are other high holy days (lower case.) There was the day my father died in 1985, as well as the Christmas Eve six months later when the full weight of his death landed on me. After my mom's death, there was my mentor's passing in 2013, and my aunt (my mother's sister) that same year. After 2013, the danger seemed that every day should be made holy, because you never know who you will lose at any moment. Maybe all days are 'high' and 'holy.'

This year at High Holy Day services at TBO - the closing Yom Kippur service (Yizkor), which focuses on grieving those who have gone before, was particularly powerful. The cantor sang a song that had the entire room weeping, some almost uncontrollably. I listened, and thought of all of those high holy days where the world that I knew before had disappeared: the days when dad, mom, mentor and aunt had left us. I, too, wept.

That date was October 9, 2019.
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When I returned on my flight back from Oregon, I checked with the care facility. There was no change in her status. I left my house and drove to La Mirada, sat down for the pre-service rehearsal and did my job. At 7:50, ten minutes before the service was to begin, my cel phone rang. I stepped out, and took the call; it was Oregon. My mother had passed. I shed the tears I needed to, and swallowed the rest. I stepped back inside, and was able to get through the service until the end.

Rosh Hoshanah is the Jewish New Year. That service ends with "Shana Tovah", which basically translates to "Happy New Year." I cried as we sang it, for the first time letting my guard down. I was not there at my mother's bedside when she died. I couldn't be: it was High Holy Days.

It was September 29, 2008.

Colorado

When I was nine or ten years old, my mom began a serious relationship with a man - Jim - that she thought would lead to her second marriage. We all went on many camping trips together, mom and I and Jim and his daughter, Julie. My memories of those trips make up some of my most vivid childhood memories: camping in Cuyamaca, water-skiing on Trinity Lake, fishing at June Lake, tenting at Pismo Beach. I learned to fish, pitch a tent, light a fire, cook a camp meal and how to snipe hunt on those trips.

I began to consider the very real possibility that Julie might one day soon be my stepsister. For a variety of reasons, that never happened. My mother's relationship ended with Jim one summer day in 1976 in a surprising and very sudden way. I didn't see it coming. I don't think Jim did, either. What happened next though was one of the best memories I have of my mother, despite a relationship that had way too many bad memories to recount.
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My wife's daughter and two grandchildren are on their way to Colorado, a giant road trip through CA, NV, AZ, UT and CO. They're in Utah tonight, and will be with friends in Colorado tomorrow. It will be a great trip for them, with memories that will last a long time.

Their trip is what brought back the memories of my mother and Jim.
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One mid-summer night in 1976, my mom told me we were going to Jim's, and we got in the car and headed to their house in north Fullerton. I trundled along as a dutiful son, and when we got to Jim & Julie's, I had no clue that anything was different.

"I'm breaking up with you, and I'm leaving tomorrow with Stan and we're going back to Colorado."

Those were the words she said to Jim. My words were - and 43 years later I'm pretty sure about this - "We're What?!" I don't recall what Jim or Julie said. I'm sure they were as shocked as I was.

In retrospect, and knowing my mother through adult eyes now, I think she wanted to deliver something that was designed for the greatest possible drama. She wanted to get back at Jim for... God knows what. My mother was theatrical to the core and seemingly incapable of distinguishing between perceived slight and actual harm; everything was an attack.

What she had planned in advance was a two-week summer vacation for us, a road trip to Colorado. She seemed to want to scope out the possibility that we might move back there, to the place where she had been happiest in her life, the place where she and my dad had adopted me. But she didn't tell me that, let alone Jim. Instead her words just sat there in the room. We left awkwardly, and she told me about the vacation the next morning.
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I kept a notebook of that trip. I wish I still had it. I was (and still am, to a point) a nerd when it comes to maps, geography and statistics. But in it, I keep a log of:

• Every city/town we drove through
• It's population
• It's altitude
• The passes we drove over
• The longest stretches we drove

...and a bunch of other things that have been lost to the desert of my memory. Here's what I do remember, though, as clear as a bell:

• Our first stop was Las Vegas. In Caesar's Palace, she sat down at the slots in a hallway. I begged and she gave me 10 nickels. I found a quiet machine, put the nickels in, and won $10. I was 12. Luckily, I was tall and no one batted an eye.
• The next day, on the road leaving Vegas, she pulled over and told me that I needed to know how to drive on this trip in case something happened to her. I drove three miles on a desert stretch, my first driving experience.
• This was the only time I've ever seen the Grand Canyon. On the trip, we also saw the Royal Gorge bridge, Rocky Mountain National Park, Mesa Verde and Four Corners.
• This is embarrassing, but for years the address that showed up for various mail-marketing/TV ads was in Pueblo, CO for some reason. I was sleeping as we drove through Pueblo. When I woke up and saw I'd missed it, I cried and was angry at my mother, who was undoubtedly completely unaware why I'd care about Pueblo. To this day I haven't seen Pueblo. I think I'm OK with that now.
• She wanted to see the place my dad had worked in Denver (12yo yawn) and the house I was adopted into (wish I knew where it was now.)

My mom somehow arranged a tour of the chapel and grounds at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. (A few years later she somehow managed to get us onto the USS Enterprise in Oakland/Alameda Naval Station, too.) She had her strengths.

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When we got home, my mom seemed happier for awhile, and I had a lifetime of memories to carry along with me. As I think about S, G and A heading into Colorado, I hope they have that kind of trip: one that heals and that gives G and A a trove of lifetime memories that they will always be able to draw back on.

When my mom passed in 2009, Lynda and I took her ashes to the place where I knew she had been happiest: Rocky Mountain National Park. Even though I've lived all but the first 6 months of my life in Southern California, a piece of me remains in Colorado. That piece didn't come from my birth certificate or where mom is resting. It came from that trip, the only tie I had during her lifetime to the place I was born. Thanks, Mom.

And to S, G & A - make memories: beautiful, lasting transformative memories.

When does 2 + 2 = something other than 4?

"Does 2 + 2 = 4?"

This was the question I got asked one night after playing a solo gig at a coffeehouse in Yorba Linda, many years ago. I played my set to a crowd of 15 people or so, 6 or 7 of whom were sitting at one table talking while I played. They were polite, clapped when I finished, liked some songs more than others. When it came time to pack up, one guy from that table offered to help me load the gear into my Explorer.

As we did, he told me about his group. They were a bible study group from a local church. He began to veer into familiar but uncomfortable territory for me, and I knew where we were headed. He began to ask me about my faith, and I demurred, knowing that no answer about my searching would suffice. I held him off for awhile. About the time the last bit of gear was stowed in my car, he said something about how it all just made logical sense, his religious story. I explained that my faith was more complicated than that. That's when he said it.

"Does 2 + 2 = 4?"

I was, perhaps for the first time in my life, perfectly clear about what was wrong with his theology. I said, "Are you trying to reduce the complexity of the universe, the human condition, and everything the entire human race believes down to a first grade math equation?!"

He immediately backtracked. I said good night and got in my Explorer as quick as I could and drove away.
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"But it's OK that we just go on killing babies."

"...they send their rapists, their murderers..."

"Abortion will be punishable by prison.: - The State of Georgia, 2019.

The first of those statements was by a guy I went to high school with, back before I realized that Facebook showed the worst part of the people we know, people we called "friends." (He's not that anymore.) The second, of course, was by the guy who won the vote of enough Americans in 2016 to be sitting in the oval office. And the third is my paraphrase of a law just passed in the U.S.A. in 2019. Ever since Roe vs. Wade - my entire life after toddlerhood, basically - people against abortion have crafted arguments to try to defeat it.

Some people like to see things in black and white, shun shades of gray. The problem with that is you tend to find yourself painted into an indefensible position in a corner, hemmed in by your own unwillingness to acknowledge clearly obvious facts. If you use the bible to cry against homosexuality, you are forced to come up with a rationalization for eating shellfish or wearing certain fabrics. If you take the hard line against abortion, you are forced to rationalize the forced birth of women who were raped, which is why Todd Akin was never a U.S. Senator (thank God.)

Or, if you are Georgia (or Alabama - it's coming), you enact a law that "recognizes" the life of a 7-week old fetus and rationalizes penalties for abortion that open up the most ridiculous possible outcomes.

Can a woman who is 7 weeks pregnant get child support? Can the fetus sue? Can a mother use the carpool lane? What to do with women who have ectopic pregnancies, or who miscarry? Full weight of the law and prison? Who decides?

This is how stupid we have become.

Abortion is a complicated issue. No one WANTS abortion, save for the lunatic fringe on the left. The vast majority of humans would rather fetuses be carried to full term. But the THINKING humans also understand that there is a vast difference between a baby and a zygote, or even a fetus at 7 weeks. People who are not infected by anti-abortion fundamentalism can live with a gray area, with the mother's right to choose on one side of the gray and a viable child on the other side of the gray. This is not hard.

But that's not where we are in 2019. The lunatics are in control, and they are arguing from the right. They are screaming "2 + 2  equals 4!!!"

To which, I scream back: "How dare you try to condense the entirety of the human experience to a first grade math equation."

These people have to be stopped.