Facebook

A couple of weeks ago, I got a Facebook friend request from a long lost high school buddy.  Lisa and I met my freshman year in high school and remained friends, albeit from a distance, until I was 28.  Lisa married at 18 and a year later, she had a daughter.  Then she moved her family to Mississippi.  When I was 16, I drove down to see her, and babysat so that she and her husband, Gary, could have a night out.  I was Sally's first visitor babysitter.  It was quite an honor.  A couple of years later, Lisa had twins; Meredith and Miranda.  When I was 18, I moved to Florida.  On my way down, I took a detour through Mississippi to visit again and to meet the twins.  This was the last time I saw Lisa.  We talked periodically after that visit and tried to keep up with each other.  At 28, I had my son, Max.  I remember talking to Lisa after his birth and comparing notes on how to deal with babies, etc.  Then we lost touch – until a couple of weeks ago.

When I saw the friend request from Lisa, I had a flood of memories wash over me.  Practicing shot put and discus on the track team. The birthday party she threw for all of us late April/early May babies during my freshman year of high school.  Driving to Mississippi by myself at 17, after lying to my parents by telling them that I was driving down with another friend.  Stealing a keg from a frat house at Wash U.

She sent a message with her phone number and a brief summary of what she is up to these days. 

So I called.  We spent 4 hours on the phone.  We talked about everything.  We told each other about the trials and tribulations of raising kids.  We talked about where we had lived and what we had done over the past 20 years.  We shared memories and the demise of past dreams.  We talked about our health, which made us both laugh because we never would have had that conversation during our earlier years.  Talking to Lisa changed my perspective on some of the things going on in my life.  She has remained kind.  Even though life has thrown her some curve balls, she has not lost her humanity.  My conversation with her reminded me that I used to be a nicer person. 

She was actually interested in my life.  And I found that I was actually interested in hers.  Three days later, I called her again and we spent another 4 hours on the phone.  Four hours seems to be our magic number for two reasons.  The first is, that's how long the battery lasts in her phone.  The second is, that's about the limit of her energy.  She has not been well.  She is suffering from a congenital spinal problem which has drastically impacted her life.  She cannot work.  She cannot lift things.  She is very incapacitated.  She is mostly at home, with her dog, Loki, who is her constant companion. It makes me feel bad that I didn't know about this until now.  It makes me feel like I've been a pretty lousy friend. 

I wonder how things might have been different if we had stayed in touch over these past two decades.  Would I have had an easier time raising my kids with Lisa in my life?  After all, she had done a great job with her girls.  Would she have been my champion and sounding board?  Would I have been those things to her?  Had we stayed in touch, I suspect that she would have kept me nicer, simply by example.  I imagine conversations we might have had.  I imagine us helping each other with quality advice and, barring that, a sympathetic ear.  I imagine meeting up now and again, and our kids knowing each other in their youth.  I am sorry that we have all missed out on these things.

But I cannot dwell on the “what if's”.  Doing so keeps me in the past and in the land of regret – neither place I want to be.  So I am grateful that Lisa sent me a friend request.  I am grateful to have her back in my life, and I am grateful that we will have the opportunity to pick up where we left off. 

And, as painful as it is for me to admit, I am grateful to Facebook.

Spiraling

As we walked up to the museum, we noticed armed snipers on the roof. It was a little disturbing, seeing that we had spent the morning at the Smithsonian and didn't see anything like that there. We entered the museum and were ushered through metal detectors as our purses were passed through an X-ray machine. Even our tour of the White House didn't include metal detectors and X-ray machines. But this was a place where Jews gathered, which always seems to demand extra vigilance.

We were then separated into groups and given identification cards. We were instructed to read the first page of our identification card, but to not turn the page until we reached the bottom of the 4^th floor of the museum. We were all a little confused, but we complied. I read my identification card.

Name: Zigmond Adler

           Date of Birth: July 18, 1936

           Place of Birth: Liege, Belgium

           Zigmond's parents were Czechoslovakian Jews who

           had emigrated to Belgium. His mother, Rivka, was a

           shirtmaker. She had come to Belgium as a young woman

           to find a steady job, following her older brother, Jermie,

           who had moved his family to Liege several years earlier. In

           Liege, Rivka met and married Otto Adler, a businessman.

          The couple looked forward to starting a family.

We were then herded through a dimly lit area where we lined up to get into elevators that would take us to the top of the building. The elevator car was very dim and was built to the dimensions of a railroad car. There were many of us led into the car. We had to shuffle and squeeze together to make room for what seemed the endless crowd of people who were to ride with us. When everyone was squeezed in, the doors shut. The closing of the doors was loud: The crowd was silent. Then the elevator rose up.

We rode to the top of the museum. The top of the spiral. Through the first level of the spiral we view the artifacts of the beginning of the Nazi's rise to power. Jews still have some semblance of their normal lives, but as we continue down the slope of the spiral to the third level, the lives of the Jews are changing for the worse. I turn the page of my identification card.

           1933-1939: Zigmond was born to the Adlers in 1936, but

           his mother died one year later. His father remarried, but the

           marriage didn't last. Zigmond's father then married a third

           time, and soon Zigmond had a new half-sister and a stable

           family life. As a boy, Zigmond oftern visited his Uncle Jermie's

           family, who lived just a few blocks away

We witness atrocities presented to us in black and white photos in clean, well presented frames. We see images of pure suffering. “Are any of these people our relatives?” my Jewish friend and I wonder. We mutter a prayer even though, if asked, we would both claim to be atheists. We read about the Jewish underground and about families trying to get out before it gets worse. We know these stories. We were raised with these stories. We continue to spiral down. We follow the instructions printed in our identification cards. I turn the page.

           1940-1944: Zigmond was 3 when the Germans occupied Belgium.

           Two years later, the Germans deported his father for forced labor.

           After that, Zigmond's step-mother felt Liege, giving Zigmond to

           Uncle Jermie and Aunt Chaje. When the Nazis began to round up

           Jews in Liege, some of Uncle Jermie's Catholic friends helped them

           get false papers that hid their Jewish identity and rented them a house

           in a nearby village. Two years later, early one Sunday morning, the

           Gestapo came to the house. They suspected Jews were living there.

We come to a round room. It is very tall, reaching to the top of the building. It is brick. It is a chimney. The walls of the chimney are filled with photographs of people who didn't survive. Again, “Are any of these people our people?” The reality – they are all our people. Past the gates, the piles of suitcases, marked with family names. We know some of these names. We have relatives with these names. Past the piles of shoes. Past the hair. I cannot take anymore. I flee. I can flee. Through the brightly lit hall with television screens which hold the images of survivors who tell their stories. Through the gift shop.

Freedom.

I sit on the ground, leaning against a large concrete pillar that supports this spiral. I wait for my friends. People come out. They blink in the sunlight. They laugh. They make dinner plans. They head to the Smithsonian to see Archie's chair. I am awed.

           Zigmond, his aunt and two cousins were sent to the Mechelen

           internment camp, and then to Auschwitz, where 7 year old Zigmond

           was gassed on May 21, 1944

George

     George was a rotund man of average height, was in his 60's and wore glasses. He also wore a pharmacists smock. He owned a small pharmacy named Cytron's, that was near my grade school. But to all of us kids in the neighborhood, he was far more than just a pharmacist.

     When I was a kid, I spent my after-school hours – back at school. All of us neighborhood kids would go home, ditch our stuff, and head back to the playground to play kickball or highlights, but not before going to Cytron's to get an afternoon snack. Ours was a small city neighborhood that looked like it had been frozen in the 1940's. Cytron's was no exception. The pharmacy was dimly lit and had old, creaky wood floors. George stood in his raised room to the left of the cash register, filling prescriptions and keeping an eye on all the kids who came in to buy candy. He always looked up when a kid came to the counter to pay, and always said hello and called us by name.

      After getting our daily candy fix, we would usually go back to the playground to start our games. Most days we did go back to the playground, but some days, when it was too hot or rainy, we would hang out a Cytron's. If we were lucky, George would find something for us to do. Sometimes we would take the trash out, or sweep the floor. Other times we would sort out the returned soda bottles and stack them up in the back room. To reward our efforts, George would pay us! At 10 years old, getting paid was probably the coolest thing ever! He would give us a dollar, which we would immediately spend on more candy.

      On nice days we would go to the playground or the seminary and play games. Our usual M.O. was to organize our teams, start our game, and play until the seminary bells told us it was 5:30, at which point we would all head home for dinner. But this was not the way all our days went. Occasionally, someone would get hurt. Skinned knees and getting the wind knocked out of us were pretty common occurrences. Our homes were anywhere from 2 to 8 blocks away, but Cytron's was a ½ block from school, and across the street from the seminary. So we would go to George. When one of us would walk in with an injury, George would take us into his inner sanctum, the raised room. He would tell us to sit on the stool in the corner of his room, would look at our injury, ask us what happened, clean our wounds, bandage us, and send us on our way, feeling healed and complete. When we would get home that night and our mothers, noticing the bandaged knee, asked what happened, we would reply with “It's okay, George fixed it.” Sometimes one of us would come to George with a more serious injury. One kid got a concussion, another broke an arm, and I cut the cornea of my left eye. When these sorts of injuries occurred, George still followed the same routine of taking us into the inner sanctum and assessing our wounds, but instead of bandaging us up and sending us on our way, he would call our parents.

      I went back to visit my old neighborhood many years ago. The area has been re-gentrified – and Cytron's is gone. In its place is an antique store. The grade school is still a ½ block away, with its expansive black-topped playground, and the seminary is still there with its bell tower tolling the dinner hour. But the kids are at home. They don't gather at the playground anymore; they eat their snacks at home and they've never had the chance to earn a dollar from George. They cannot leave home without their cell phones and their helicopters know their every move.

      When I was a kid, I took George for granted. It never occurred to me how lucky I was to have this man, who voluntarily watched over us, as a staple of my childhood. Now, through older eyes, I realize what a significant role this man played in the life of our neighborhood. George was a constant of my childhood. He was the go-to guy. There is a theory floating around out there these days that it takes a village to raise a child: George was our village.

Dad

My mother was not a very nice woman. As she got older, she got meaner. Toward the end of her life, she was bed-bound (her choice), and my father did his best to take care of her. She was abusive to him.

She had been in the hospital for a few days, and was scheduled to be released the following day. That night, my dad called me in St. Louis, where I was living at the time.

He called to say goodbye.

I flew to Maine the next day.

I became my mother's guardian.

Next week, my father is leaving for Florida.

Post-Divorce

     I am one of the 50% of people who have failed at marriage. This is not surprising, given the odds. With such a high rate of marriage failure in this country, I don't think anyone should be surprised if they end up in a divorce court. Let's face it, with 50/50 odds, marriage is a serious crap shoot. But what happens after that final decree is issued?

      I find this question to be far more interesting than why marriages fail. Why did my marriage fail? Who cares! The fact is that it did. So there I was, 31 years old, two kids aged 2 and 3 ½. I think it only fair to mention that I initiated the divorce. Because I was the one who wanted out, I felt it was unfair to demand anything from my former husband other that child support and health insurance for the kids. I was interested in keeping things as simple as possible. I had no desire to punish my former husband, or to drag things out for years to come. I just wanted out.

      So we finally got our decree and began to build new lives. We had the standard visitation agreement; Wednesday nights and every other weekend, alternate holidays, depending on the year. I chose not to follow this. Don (my former husband) wanted to see the kids more than that. So I let him. If he wanted to take the kids camping on a weekend that wasn't his, I let him. If he wanted to take the kids on vacation over Christmas, I let him. This approach paid huge dividends. By year 5 post marriage, we were able to travel together. We took family vacations, even though we were not a traditional family. In fact, traveling together was something we did exceptionally well. We couldn't live together, but a trip to Hawaii? No problem!

      A few years after our divorce, Don moved out of state with his job. He was worried about how that would affect his time with the kids. I told him not to worry; we'll just make a different plan. So that's what we did. He had the kids at Christmas and over the summer, as well as an occasional spring break. Sometimes he would come down to Florida for a few days and visit the kids there. He stayed at the house, our son sharing his room with him. We did not need to go back to court to figure this out. Neither of us felt the need to have some outside person document our decisions.

      As time went by, I decided to move back to St. Louis, which is my hometown. The thought of a long-distance move with two kids, a dog, 3 cats, 2 ferrets and a turtle filled me with dread. I called Don and told him about my plans. He was glad to hear this because this would put him closer to the kids, and there was a direct flight between St. Louis and Memphis, where he was living. He asked when I was planning to do this and offered to come down and help. Fantastic! I needed all the help I could get! He flew to Florida, helped us pack and load the truck and then drove us to our new home. Because the truck carrying our things was going to take a week to arrive, we decided to stop at Universal Studios on the way up and spend a couple of days at the park. Then we drove to Memphis, where we spent a couple of days at Don's house. Finally, we got word that the truck was due in St. Louis the next day, so we loaded up and drove the last leg of our trip to our new house. 

      This has been the theme of our post marriage life. We have now been divorced almost 3 times longer than we were married. We have managed to raise our kids with a minimal amount of drama. We have never felt the need to go back to court. We have never felt the need to put our kids in the middle. We have never felt the need to make each other pay and suffer for our marriage. I have never understood why some people feel the need to make their divorce the cornerstone of their lives by perpetuating the drama by taking each other to court, or refusing to let one or the other see the kids, etc. The way I figure it, they must have liked the person at some point. Why spend time and energy on something so pointless? I get exhausted just thinking about it.