This Time It’s Personal

I Dream Of Jeanie

In The Shadow of a Tiny Giant

November 14, 2014

Today I’m handing the keys over to a good friend, mentor, occasional ghost-co-writer here at Paying Attention, and the one who gave me the inspiration to start writing my mind, and eventually creating the blog you have grown to love or tolerate, or whatever it is you do with this stuff. He taught me everything I know about so many things, particularly disdain for those who would wantonly wield power. He provides much of the fodder for what you’ve been reading here lo these many years. Many of you already know Steve, whose brother once dubbed him The Dark Prince of Sarcasm, so you won’t be surprised that his tone and mine are quite similar.

I. Mangrey

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I’d like to thank my good friend I. Mangrey for giving me some extra bandwidth here at Paying Attention so I can vent a little bit. This turned out to be a bit long-winded, perhaps a tad over-zealous, so I hope you will forgive me my trespasses and excesses this time around. This time it’s personal.

I was a child of faith, but I am an adult of doubt. As near as I can tell I believed in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as a child. I’m not sure when things started to change, but I think it’s when my family moved to the suburbs. As it turned out, I - just shy of my 11^th birthday - moved with them, and around that time my interest in religion faded rather quickly. I wouldn’t call myself an atheist, but I’m certainly more a man of science than faith. I don’t know how Job did it. When my faith - such as it is - gets tested, it fails. Just about every time. If it was around a 4.0 when I was young, it’s probably on academic probation at this point, and if it misses one more day of classes, or launches one more spitball at the teacher, I’m sure it’ll be expelled. It is with this in mind that I relate a personal story.

Early on the morning of November 3, 2004 I stood out on my front porch and looked up at the sky. “Come down here right now you coward. Just you and me. I’ve had it. How could you allow that nitwit back in the White House? First you had him appointed president. Was that a proud moment for you? You’re supposed to know all and see all, and this is what you come up with? We managed to live through that…just barely. Now this? Another term? Let’s have it out. Right here. Right now.” Nothing happened. He never showed. As I suspected. I kind of got over it, but that day was a serious black mark on what I saw as an already pretty sketchy record. Whatever faith I might have had all but vanished.

Early on the morning of October 24, 2014 I stood outside the Fox Chase Cancer Center and looked up at the sky again. “Hey, remember me? Ten years ago, right around this time of year? We spoke briefly. Not surprisingly I did all the talking; you were a no-show…as usual. Well, Fuck You. I’ve had it. You’re gonna make me do this? You can’t do this yourself? This is just bullshit.” You see I was, at that moment, needing to decide if I should let my mother die from a bacterial infection rather than the mind-numbingly, heart-crushingly horrible cancer that was already killing her albeit much more slowly. Pretty good deal huh?

My brothers, father and I had to make that call. I guess God had better things to do with his time. The past months had been devastating for all of us. Mom was in incredible pain, fighting for her life, but being physically decimated by the chemo and mentally short-circuited by the narcotics prescribed to beat back the pain. For 83 years my mom was healthy, clear-headed and in control. The cancer took all of that away in short order. It was obvious that she was still in there, but increasingly unable to penetrate the synthetic-heroin fog that was at least partially keeping her pain at bay.

Jeanie, as many knew her, was simply adored by everyone she met. I had no concept of the powerful effect Mom had on so many people until one after another spoke of their feelings for her during and after her funeral. She had me at Mommy. But I never really saw her in her own world. Everyone felt as if she was their best friend, because she treated everyone as if they were the only person that mattered. No one could ask for a more caring, loving mother, wife, sister, aunt, great aunt, grandmother or friend.

My Mom was my biggest fan. In everything, even this caustic, sarcastic ranting blog I helped start, and she always treated I. Mangrey like her own son. She read every post and regularly sent them to several of her friends - apparently this blog is quite appealing to less-young Jewish women. Mom consistently kvelled after reading each post, though she almost always called afterward to say she had found a typo, or two. For someone who learned English as a second language she sure threw her grammatical weight around every chance she got. It could be a little annoying because she was only right about 99% of the time.

English was her second language because my mom was born in Belgium where she, her parents and younger sister, and two cousins survived the Nazi onslaught and occupation by pretending not to be Jewish. Catholic nuns helped the Adler family hide their identities, and the little girl who later became my mom lived the life of a good Catholic girl (going to church and Catholic school) until she escaped post-war Belgium. The first chance at escape came by way of the Queen Mary, which deposited her at Ellis Island on March 22, 1950, barely 19 years old. Mom was joined by her parents and sister a year later in Philadelphia. She married my dad less than four years later.

Jean at 19

Jeanie loved this country for giving her the opportunity to live the life she was meant to live – the life of a Jew. My mom was not a caustic, sarcastic rascal like me. She never had a bad word to say about anyone…with the possible exception of Dick Cheney, but that was probably from listening to me too much. My mom was just nice. Really nice. To everyone. All the time. She was there when anyone needed her; even in her last months, she continued to lend an ear or shoulder, not even bothering to share her own dire circumstances with friends who were suffering their own hardships. Several years ago Jeanie started a program at the Synagogue to make sandwiches for the homeless. She sang in the choir. She read from the Torah. And after all that good work, God decided to give her pancreatic cancer. Now that’s what I call mysterious, maybe random is a better word. I know God usually gets credit for homeruns, touchdowns, Grammys, good parking spaces and winning wars, but I think it’s a bit unfair to just take credit for the good stuff. I say own it all, or just walk away.

December 13, 1953

For many years it was hard for Mom to understand my constant criticism and apparent cynicism aimed at the country that gave her and all of us so much. Mom finally came to understand that my frustration came from wanting more from the country we both loved, which I saw as simply and dramatically not living up to its potential. I’m not sure why I came off as so cynical. Maybe I was affected - at eight years old - by the Kennedy assassination. Maybe it was from watching the Smothers Brothers every week. Maybe it was the thought of being drafted and going to Vietnam. Maybe it was from watching the Watergate Hearings every day. Maybe it was from paying attention to too many American presidents. And I was so-beginning-to-get-over the genocide of Native Americans, and the whole slavery thing. Although I recently learned that esteemed general, George Patton was a virulent anti-Semite and an apparent Nazi-lover. I may have to rethink a few things. I am not a schnook. 

Nothing could interfere with my mom’s love for her family. And, Lord knows, we tested her resolve more than once. Mom was very strong-willed and would not even allow God to turn her hair gray as is customary for people her age. I am not, nor will I ever be half the woman my mom was and I will consider myself lucky if I ever have half the grace, courage or charm she possessed. My mom was a great big smile; I am a grimace…on a good day, a smirk.

 

My mom, at age 79

In the end, there was little we could do but be there. And finally, we had to make one of the hardest decisions anyone should have to make. Not just to let go, but to hasten the end. It seemed like the only thing to do at the time, yet it made us sick to our stomachs, hearts and brains. The hospice nurses said she went peacefully. It didn’t look that way to me, as I watched her fade into the next plane of existence. For the rest of us, life went on…after a fashion. Then, just one week after Mom’s passing, I went and voted. I was not even cynical. I thought things might turn out okay, maybe because I was too numb to think straight. Then I had to wake up the next morning to Republican’ts Gone Wild, and their take-over of the Senate and House, the added insult and subject of the most recent post by I and me. Where is your God now, Moses?

Now that God’s own proofreader has shuffled off her mortal coil, any typos in this post, and this blog from now on, are the responsibility of the author(s) and no one elf. And frankly, at this moment, I couldn’t care leff.

Steve Gallop

Grieving Son and Chief Sarcasm Officer, Paying Attention