Seraphic Secret

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2004-11-28T16:56:00.000-08:00

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From Dusk to Dust Cover

2004-11-17T15:43:00.000-08:00

When the organizers of the Los Angeles Children's Bookfest found out, three days before the festival, that The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden was available, they were so anxious to have the book present that they graciously shuffled schedules and made room for me to attend and sign my book. As I spoke with the organizers over the phone, it suddenly occurred to me that the address of the Bookfest was eerily familiar: 6150 Mount Sinai Drive, Simi Valley.
"Excuse me," I say, "but isn't that the Mt. Sinai cemetery?"
"Yes, it is. But no one can see the cemetery. The fair takes place down below, in tents. Does it bother you?"
"No, no," I mutter, barely able to contain myself, "it's fine."
And so, Karen and I drive to the Jewish Children's Bookfest where The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden will make its very first public appearance.
We drive past the Bookfest tents and follow the winding road into the cemetery. We get out of the car and approach Ariel's grave. We say Tehillim. We cry. We look down at the bookfair, one hundred yards from Ariel's resting place.
I sign and sell about thirty copies of my book. Karen laughs and says: "I've never sold anything before in my life. Now look at me. I'm like this insane Willy Loman." We decide that some long dormant "hawking gene" has abruptly risen to life. Anyone who gets within ten feet of our table is fair game. I find myself talking up a meek seven-year-old girl before I get hold of myself and gently tell her to get her mommy.
After the fair, Karen and I climb once again to Ariel's grave. The sun sets and long shadows fall across the valley. It is no accident that the The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden has made its debut here. As Karen said a few days ago, Ariel is looking out for us, watching over the creation of this book -- a book written for him in his last days. Ariel's physical presence is gone, but his essence, his intelligence, wit and kindness are as tangible as ever. Absence has become presence, and this day brings him closer to our wounded hearts. And for this we are eternally grateful.

Karen adds: The day at the fair turned out to be a day with Ariel. We have always gone to the cemetery in the early morning when the sun is just coming up over the eastward hills. I have seen the terrain of the Simi Valley with specific shadows, the land accepting the sun's light on landmarked peaks. Having spent an entire day at the site, I returned in the late afternoon. It struck me: I have spent every moment of the day with Ariel when he was alive, but since he died, time with Ariel has been relegated to a certain slice of the day. The light is different now, the hills are darkening. I feel neglectful, I should be here all day with my son, every day, every moment. But I have to leave. I tell Robert it reminds me of the times in the hospital when I literally put Ariel to bed, making sure he had all his night time needs in place, and almost stealthily snuck out of the room when he finally fell asleep so I could grab some hours of rest. I feel guilty, but I leave the cemetery.

The Sadness of Seraphic Press

2004-11-09T14:14:00.000-08:00

This morning a package arrives by UPS. Without looking at the return address I open it. In the box are ten copies of The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden. I was not expecting this shipment until later in the week. Phoenix Color, the printing company used by Seraphic Press has been incredibly cooperative. When I asked them if they could move up the printing date so I could have the books in the stores before Chanukah, they graciously obliged me. Copies can be ordered online by the weekend of Nov. 13 at Amazon.com or Barnes & Noble.com or purchased at your local bookstore. If they don't have it on their shelves, they can order it. The ISBN # is: 0-9754382-1-2. Karen and I insisted on producing a handsome and durable volume. The pages are Smythe sewn, not glued, and so the book lies flat when read. We used gold foil on the actual cover, as did all fine books in the olden days. The paper we printed on is non acidic and has a lovely antique sheen. Every chapter has a lovely illustration. When I was a child I loved books that were illustrated. Before I looked at the pictures, I visualized images in my mind, and delighted in comparing what I imagined with what was drawn by the artist. I can still vividly remember several illustrations from books I treasured as a child.
The question is: why am I so sad?
We have worked so hard to publish this book. We have poured our hearts and souls into Seraphic Press. I should feel like celebrating.
The questions is: Why do I feel hollow?
Karen steps into my office. She sees the look on my face and she understands. Her comprehension reaches out and caresses me like a soft hand. "It's because Ariel isn't here to enjoy it with us, right?"
I nod and add: "It's also because The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden would not exist if Ariel had not become ill. Seraphic Press would not exist if he had not died. This is the quandary. How can I be happy?"
"I believe that Ariel had a hand in creating this book," Karen says. "Look how beautiful it has turned out. Ariel was helping us. He's been looking out for us and this company. After all, we're first time publishers, we had no idea what we were doing when we started out. Stop being so hard on yourself, Robert. This book is a wonderful memorial for our son."
Tears leak from Karen's eyes. We stay like this for a long moment, holding each other, holding the book.
Karen adds: Last night, which I imagine as the book's birthday, I felt Ariel's presence more intensely than ever. I felt like I had entered a new stage, which was both piercing with its sadness, but wonderful, because I felt close to Ariel. I could imagine looking directly into his eyes, sharing a feeling, a smile. It was if the intimacy we had was finally returning. I don't know why this happened. Was it a spiritual manifestation? I don't know, but I do know that I welcomed those tears. They were sweet, copious and liberating.

Chai Lifeline Retreat Part II

2004-11-01T21:58:00.000-08:00

Karen and I did not arrive at the decision to attend the Healing Hearts program at Camp Simcha easily. It is a year and four months since Ariel ZT"L was niftar, and we have arrived at a place where daily life has become, more or less manageable. I know how to get through the day without curling up into a ball and hiding in a dark closet. The triggers that are sure to set me emotionally reeling are well known and I know how to avoid them. Would going to Camp Simcha help, or make things worse? But in the end, the argument was settled as Karen and I asked one simple question: If we don't go, won't we always wonder if we should have gone? Won't we wonder if perhaps we missed a once in a life time opportunity? If there is one lesson I learned over the years of Ariel's illness it is that ignorance is no virtue - knowledge is power. In Ariel's case the knowledge we constantly sought was medical. We never made a decision until we had sought "coast to coast" second and third opinions. Thus, we were able to add years to our son's life.
And so, Karen and took a deep breath and accepted Camp Simcha's kind invitation.

Landing in Newark, Karen and I were picked up by a trim, middle aged Hassid, Mr. W, who wore a stylish bowler tipped rakishly on his head. He also wore a smile and had a delightful twinkle in his eye that immediately set us both at ease. Going up with us to Camp Simcha was another out-of-towner, a man of fierce intelligence and commanding presence. He lost his 17 year-old daughter about a year ago. She was a saintly young woman who was loved by friends and teachers with the kind of genuine affection that is immediately recognized as existing on a high madrega. Karen and I learned that this man's daughter had a very special connection with our Ariel. When she learned that Ariel loved Disney movies, she raised funds and brought a portable DVD player to the hospital, so that he could watch "Shrek", or "Toy Story", or "Fantasia" even in bed. Whenever I am around this young woman's father I find myself tongue-tied. I have said thank you. I have expressed my admiration for his daughter, my grief at her death. But no words seem adequate and so I usually lapse into a uncomfortable silence.
But my silence is not a problem on the drive up to Camp Simcha. You see our good natured river Mr. W and the young woman's father, let's call him Mr. Blue discover that they have a "kesher," a connection. In fact, they have several connections. It is vital to understand the central role that Jewish Geography plays in Jewish life. As soon as two Jews, strangers, get together and after hello and how are you? have been dispensed with, Jewish Geography kicks in. At it's most basic, it starts with a name. Oh, your name is Ploni ben Ploni, are you related to the Plonis in my hometown? If so, then the first kesher is made. It's a way of feeling out social situations; on a deeper level it's about status, acquiring it, and most often, simply retaining it. In any given JG conversation the more "keshers" there are, the better. This kesher conversation up front between Mr.W and Mr. Blue is perhaps the most intricate Karen and I have ever witnessed. In fact, if the great French anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss had been present, he would have rewritten his classic work: Structural Anthropology. There are no degrees of separation.
Once Mr. W and Mr. Blue have dispensed with the relatives, friends and simple acquaintances they have in common--a silent agreement is reached that they are both heavily endowed with yichus. Now it was time to bring out the big guns: Rebbeim. Mr. Blue draws an intricate relationship to a great Rebbe from Boro Park. Mr. W counters with his kesher to the very same Rebbe. Not to be outdone Mr. Blue parries with a kesher on "both sides of his family" to a great Rav in Monsey. Mr. W seems flustered for a moment but then jabs with his own double connection to the very same Rebbe! Mr. Blue is down for a second, but he gets right up, the sign of a masterful JG player, and proceeds to claim a kesher to a Tzaddik in Jerusalem not only through his family, his wife's family, but also through a cousin's marriage to a girl who is his best friend's sister. Game. Set. Match. Karen and I look at one another wide-eyed awe. We have just witnessed one of the great JG plays of all time. It is a humbling experience. Mr. W sighs, admitted defeat by pointing out the beautiful colors of the landscape, declaring, Ma gadlu ma'asecha Hashem. How beautiful are the works of Hashem.
We arrive in Camp Simcha a few hours before Shabbos. Stunned by the beauty of the grounds, I wander around for half an hour taking pictures. The lake is framed by the leaves of autumn. I step into the Camp Simcha garden. Trees are planted for the children. There are poems etched in stone. A tiny chair makes my throat tighten. Karen is back in the room napping. One of the Camp Simcha counselors offers to walk with me. I learn that he is a student at Ner Yisroel. I stop in my tracks and say:
"Did you know my son?"
"Ariel? Yes, of course."
I look at his name tag. It is not familiar. But then there are over seven hundred students at Ner Yisroel and Ariel must have known a few dozen, at least casually. I want to ask him about Ariel. I want him to tell me everything; I want details of all encounters, all conversations. I want a fifty page memo.
"Ariel was... well, everyone knew that Ariel was special, Mr. Avrech. He was just such a special bochur."
I have to get a hold of myself. I must use all my self-control to keep from crushing this earnest young man in my embrace. He searches my eyes. I can tell that he's nervous. He must have been briefed by the fine people who run this program on how to deal with bereaved parents. We are not ordinary people and care must be taken. He's frowning now, worried that perhaps, somehow, he's said the wrong thing.
"Thank you," I say. "Thank you."
He smiles.

Right before Shabbos, before we all go to shul, I sit in the kitchen area outside our room and work on my computer. A young kollel couple, Mr. Green and his wife enter and introduce themselves. They are so very young, what brings them to the retreat? Here there is no need for long overtures I have discovered. When you meet another parent it's not unusual to exchange histories almost immediately. There is a comfort level that is simply not in existence in the real world. As Karen and I listen to Mr. & Mrs. Green tell the story of the death of their eight month old son, I feel myself going light-headed. Is this really happening? Are my ears hearing what I think they are hearing. The words come out of these two young people's mouths in simple measured tones. But the meaning, the awful accident is simply, well, beyond my imagination. Mr. Green reminds me of Ariel. He's not much older, yet his innocent manner, his sweet smile, his eidelket is like a template of Ariel. I want to comfort this young couple. I want to say something useful, the words that came out were something like, "It must be so hard for you, your marriage must be so strong." When they leave the room, Karen and look at one another. We are both wondering if this Shabbos will be painful beyond measure.

Chai Lifeline Retreat Part I

2004-10-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

The compassionate psychologist looks around the circle of men, wishes us a good Shabbos and suggests that we introduce ourselves and then say whatever it is we want to say. He nods to the man on his right to begin. I sit directly to the left of the psychologist, which means that I will be last to speak.
Mr. White says: "Gam zu L'tova." Which means that in the end God has a plan and it is for the best. We cannot know this plan, we cannot understand it, but we must have emunah, faith. He continues, "My son died when I was in Israel. I feel guilty about this. Could I have done something if I was with him? No, of course not. But still I feel guilty."
Mr. White, in his mid-sixties, a Boro Park businessman, rambles for a good five minutes. He quotes one verse after another. He lectures the one Reform Jew in our group, as if we who are observant have this absolute right. It is condescending and I am embarrassed by this utterly inappropriate behavior. Yet I say nothing because this man's son died and we all go a bit crazy as we live out our lives as orphan fathers. To his credit, the young Reform man, next to speak, is exquisitely polite.
"My name is Mr. Black. My son died in my arms when he was four years old. I respect your religious beliefs. But your way of coping is not mine."
Mr. White rudely interrupts with another pasuk, another Talmudic quote, but the psychologist wisely and gently cuts him off.
Mr. Black finishes: "I don't know why I'm here. I was here last year. My wife wanted to come. We'll see."
I feel a lump forming; it's like a walnut in my throat.
Next to speak is Mr. Brown. He's a young man who wears a black hat; he's not in yeshiva anymore, but out in the world, earning a living, supporting a wife and child.
He says: "I lost my daughter after a long illness. She had a big heart. I mean that figuratively and literally. Her heart was too big. The doctors looked at the X-rays and they couldn't believe their eyes. She died from cardiac hypertension. Basically, her heart exploded in her chest..." Thick tears are running down his face. I realize that my eyes are misting over. He continues: "I have this basic conflict. I know she's in Gan Eden, heaven--a perfect place. But I ask myself: if I could, would I take her back if it was possible?"
To myself I say: I would move heaven and earth to get Ariel back. Ariel is in Gan Eden too, but I know that he wanted to live. He battled for life every inch of the way. Never for a moment did we discuss death. The possibility never arose. I trust you, Ariel repeatedly told us. For me there is no conflict. Am I selfish? Do I lack faith? It doesn't matter. I want my son back.
I like Mr. Brown. I admire his ability to come face to face with this basic theological conflict. I also like his tears. He is not afraid to cry in front of other men. This takes courage.
Mr. Gray is a Satmar Chassid. His caftan shines like sealskin. Yiddish is his first language and he has difficulty expressing his feelings in English. The words emerge haltingly. "My tochter, my daughter, I lost her several years ago. When she was in a coma I asked her doctor, a very nice colored woman, if it was possible for her to come out of it. Basically, I was asking fora miracle. The doctor, she told me that anything is possible, that I should have faith and pray. But the Eibeshte needed her more than my wife and me."
The Satmar Chassid's face is gaunt, like a face painted by Goya. He strokes his beard, shrugs his shoulders.
By now, tears are dripping from my eyes.
Next up is Dr. Green. "I lost my sixteen year old daughter two years ago to cancer. I'm here because I have not had a chance to mourn properly. My wife is divorcing me and I've been so involved in the divorce that my daughter... I wanted to talk about our daughter. My wife didn't. I need to talk, to grieve."
Another physician speaks: "My daughter had a rare form of cancer, melanoma in the eye, so rare that it only appears once every ten years. So there is no research into the disease and the treatment is basic and brutal. First they took out here eye -- and then it got worse and worse. She loved Camp Simcha. Right before she died she wanted to come, but the doctors said she was too sick. My wife and I spoke with Camp Simcha. We wanted to know if it would be okay for her to come to camp, and perhaps die here..."
I have to blow my nose. The walnut in my throat is the size of a melon and hot tears are cutting thick channels down my face.
"These wonderful people at Camp Simcha met among themselves and their doctors and decided to grant our request. They even had a helicopter on call, just in case. But she died before she could come."
The physician is weeping. He hunches over and holds his head in his hands as if to keep it from exploding.
A young Monsey kollel student says: "My wife and I lost two children... babies. We still don't know what happened. It wasn't SIDS. We have two more children now, but one of them, we're very, very worried about." He looks down into his lap. His hands are clenched tight. Fingers white as snowflakes.
This man has lost two children; and yet he still walks, still breathes. From where does he draw such strength?
The psychologist looks at me. It is my turn to speak. It is not just Ariel swimming before my eyes, filling my consciousness, now all these other children move into my heart.
It is Shabbos, the holiest time in the Jewish calendar and the pure souls of these children seem to hover over this group of broken men.
"My name is Robert Avrech..." I manage to whisper. "My son, Ariel..." My voice breaks. Tears explode from my eyes. I am sobbing loudly, my chest is heaving. I cannot breath much less speak. I rise, flee to the bathroom where I cry and shudder and heave for I don't know how long.
The moment I heard that the men and women would be in separate groups I felt vulnerable and fragile. Without Karen, I am lost.
It is Shabbos in Camp Simcha. Karen and I have flown three thousand miles to take part in a Shabbos for bereaved parents. I am not normally interested in group therapy, usually I mock support groups, putting them in the same category as crystals and red threads around the wrist. But everything is different now that my son Ariel is dead. Karen and I agreed that if we didn't come we would always wonder if we had made a mistake.
I am in the bathroom in Camp Simcha. I am crying uncontrollably. I have said just eight words and already I have slipped over the edge into a state of bottomless grief. How will I get through this Shabbos?

Karen adds: Yes, the women and men were separated. I guessed (correctly) that this is done for both religious reasons and to facilitate sharing. Previous experience has found that men are extremely hesitant to bare their souls when their wives are present. The professionals have found that men, (even in same sex groups) try to solve, explain, rationalize, and ultimately theologize in the bereavement discussions. The women's discussions are dynamic, spiralling from one topic to another, spinning webs of all types of feelings, associations, with tears, laughter and compassion. So it was Friday night too. When theological explanations were offered they were accepted, but alternate opinions were voiced, and there was not an ounce of condescension or preaching. We accepted our differences and embraced our common bonds. Yes, sisterhood is powerful.

Words and Pictures

2004-10-18T13:03:00.001-07:00

I apologize for not posting for so long. To all of you who have written asking if I'm okay, I thank you for your concern. The interval of silence has nothing to do with my state of mind, it's just that there are a finite numbers of hours in a day. With the Chagim, the holidays, and my involvement in so many projects, I'm operating on hyper-speed. Currently, I'm writing two screenplays for cable TV. Normally, these two projects would keep me occupied 24/7. But Karen and I are also getting The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden ready for its January '05 publication date. We are mailing out review copies to Jewish newspapers, magazines and book clubs. We are also arranging through our distributor, Jonathan David Publishers, for showcasing in the big chain bookstores. However, Borders, Barnes & Noble and all the huge chains are reluctant to take a chance on ordering more than one or two copies from a new independent publisher with a book by an unknown author--no matter how well written it is. And they all agree that The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden is a delightful read. They are interested in the BIG promotions, and narrow their focus to the publishers who will spend a fortune on advertising and publicity. So our strategy is to concentrate our efforts in the Jewish community, our primary market. Still, it would be fantastic if the readers of Seraphic Secret would drop by their local bookstore, independent or chain, and ask for The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden ( ISBN: 0-9754382-1-2). If enough people order the book, they will start to pay attention. If any of my readers is a professional publisher, I would appreciate hearing from you with any advice you might have.
I'm also busy working with other authors on the next several Seraphic Press titles. Here's a quick run-down:

My Shrapnel is the true story of Gila Weiss, a young American immigrant to Israel who survived the Machane Yehuda bombing. Her book is amazing because Gila refuses to be a victim. This is an amazingly heroic and resilient woman who works hard to make the best of the terror that ripped into her life. On the first page of the book she writes: "... the bombing, in fact, was the best thing that ever happened to me." Naturally, Gila is not thankful that it happened, but since it did, she is determined to rebuild her life and make it better than ever.

The Shidduch Diaries is a funny and touching look at the current shidduch dating scene. Our intrepid heroine, Rachel Ginzburg, asks the central question: "Is it against halacha for Jewish men to be normal?" This novel is affectionate and romantic, Frum-Chick-lit, if you will.

Many of you have written to me asking if I will be publishing the entries of my blog as a book. Karen and I have discussed this at length. We agreed that we did not want to publish a bereavement self-help book. We want to do something... different. We want our feelings about Ariel to be conveyed in a unique form. I am a big fan of graphic novels. Seraphic Secret will be our first graphic novel. What is a graphic novel? These are books that use the conventions of comic books to tell their stories. But the art work and stories involve serious, mature themes. Some graphic novels I have read are as powerful, and in certain cases even more powerful than conventional novels. Art Spiegel's Maus won the Pulitzer prize several years ago. In this groundbreaking book, Spiegel tells the story of his father, a Shoah survivor, using highly stylized drawings that depicts Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats. It's a powerful two-volume work. For the art work of my book, I have asked Judith Margolis to collaborate with me. Karen and I met Judith and her writer husband David, when we first moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago. Judith is a brilliant artist who has had shows all over the world. Besides being supremely talented, Judith knew Ariel. Her daughter Hodya used to play with Ariel when they were children. Judith was also one of Ariel's most loyal and frequent visitors. Though she lives in Israel now, whenever Judith came to LA, she would make time to visit Ariel. A few months before Ariel died, Judith gave him a drawing. It's a beautiful rendering of a moment in creation -- the separation of the waters, and Ariel treasured this exquisite work, keeping it on his night table till the end. We realize that telling the Seraphic Secret story as a graphic novel is highly unusual, but Karen and I believe that a synthesis of our words and Judith's artwork is the most powerful and appropriate way of remembering our son. Words alone simply cannot convey all we feel.

Shelter

2004-10-03T09:52:00.000-07:00

Every Succos, Ariel and I went together to the Young Israel of Century City to pick up our arba minim, the four species. For Ariel, I always ordered, Mehudar, the most expensive, for myself
the moderately priced lulav and esrog sufficed. This year, I drove to shul, and stood in line. Ahead of me was a father and his son. The boy, maybe eight years old, was excited that his father was buying him his very own lulav and esrog. "Daddy, Daddy, can I shake the lulav?" cried the little boy. Smiling inwardly at the child's enthusiasm, I tried not to feel the emptiness of being without Ariel. I wanted to concentrate on the happiness that others were experiencing. Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are over and now is the season of happiness. Rabbi Muskin even reminded us that it's a mitzvah to be happy. To fulfill a mitzvah you must do something: sing, dance, sit in the Succah and talk with your guests; there must be an effort. Faith and feeling are simply not enough. Judaism is a religion of behavior. And so, all through Succos I tried my best to act happy. But in all honesty, I failed. Decorating the Succah is usually a family affair filled with laughter and good natured jokes.
We all worked hard at decorating the Succah.
Karen's eye for hanging the fruit this year was better than ever. I put up the logo for Seraphic Press, a drawing of The Hebrew Kid that is based on a photo of Ariel. But always in the back of my mind was the awful fact of Ariel's absence.
The Succah is a symbol of our faith in HaShem, our way of demonstrating that even in this flimsy structure God protects and watches over us.
But God did not protect Ariel.
And so, sitting and eating in the Succah did not provide me with the comfortable metaphor that has existed for years past. I know I'm supposed to put all that aside. I know that I am obligated to see beyond death, but I miss Ariel too much.
A few days ago, I told Ariel's Rebbe, Rabbi Gruman, that when Ariel died, a holiness that had permeated our lives simply vanished. Rabbi Gruman responded: "Maybe there's even more holiness in your life now." I considered this, wanting it to be true. Perhaps I'm just a weak vessel unable to see, hear, feel, sense this holiness that Rabbi Gruman is so certain of.
Several years ago, when Ariel was recovering from cancer and chemotherapy, he dragged his sleeping bag into the Succah.
"Ariel, you can't sleep in there," I said.
"Why not?"
"You're still sick. You're too weak."
"Dad, I'll feel even worse if I can't perform this mitzvah."
Of course, I relented. But all through the night I woke up every hour on the hour, trudged downstairs, and peeked into the Succah to make sure that Ariel was okay. For a few hours, Ariel learned. Then he nodded off to sleep, his Talmud still open on his chest. I remember standing in the doorway, watching him and wondering: How can he endure so much suffering and yet subject himself to even more discomfort by sleeping in the Succah? The answer, of course, is that sleeping in the Succah was a comfort for Ariel. His belief was total. In spite of the cancer, in spite of all the pain and a life lived so frequently under the shadow of illness, the walls of the Succah stood between Ariel and despair. For Ariel, observance of mitzvahs was the only rational response to an unjust world. For me, Ariel's devotion to performing the mitzvahs was the only true heroism I have ever witnessed. And I know that if ever I articulated this thought to Ariel, he would have rejected this as romantic nonsense. Which I would have interpreted as even more heroic.
I want to be comforted by the thin walls of the Succah. I want to feel and take joy in the sheltering shadows of the Succah and s'chach. But in this season where the death of our son resonates more powerfully than anything else, the words of Koheles (Ecclesiastes) echo with an awesome power: A generation goes and a generation comes, but the earth endures forever... Sometimes a righteous man perishes for all his righteousness... Sometimes there are righteous men who are treated as if they had done according to the deeds of the wicked...Once more I saw under the sun that the race is not won by the swift.
For the first time in my life, the reading of Koheles is the central experience of my holiday. In years past, I would silently endure this long and perplexing text. But this time, I listened to every word and understood King Solomon's rage at the indifference of the world. I too rage at indifference. Ariel was here and now inexplicably he is gone.
I sit in our Succah and remember September 2002, Ariel's last Succos, when Ariel's friends came to visit, bringing pizza and soda. They sang and told stories until Ariel was too tired to continue. He was cold and and had to bundle up in his down jacket. His body was bloated from the medication he was taking. I helped him inside with his oxygen cannister.
"I'm lucky," he said.
"How's that?"
"To have such good friends."
"Yes, Ariel, you're very lucky," I managed to agree.
I know that I have to stanch this helpless anger. To mourn excessively is a sin and Ariel would not approve. I sit in the Succah, I remember his face, his smile. A breeze blows and the walls shiver.
Karen comments: Succos was very hard, each holiday that goes by only increases my longing for Ariel. As time passes the realization that I will not see Ariel ever again become more palpable, the ache sharpens. We were blessed this year by invitations from dear friends. Their warmth, bountiful food and stimulating conversation made us feel privileged. I actually asked Robert, "What did we do to merit such sterling friends?" They welcomed us to share the joy of the holiday, and I don't think we let them down. But the emptiness felt even more bottomless once we returned home. The convivial joy, sharing of ideas and good food was a welcome respite, but also increased the contrast of what our lives used to be like--and the irrefutable truth that our relief was only a temporary distraction. The loss deepens. But I do conjure up some comfort. I like to think that Ariel embellished our "noi succah" the beautification of the succah. For indeed, the hanging fruit, the leaf garlands, the light fixture, even the table cloth seemed sharper and more glistening this year. Ariel's spirit was hovering there, I tell myself. I glanced at his picture on the wall of the succah and his smile reassured me that this was so. This was my joy, my Simchat Chag.

Links to the Past

2004-09-23T14:56:00.000-07:00

On Erev Rosh Hashanah, Ariel's rebbe from Yeshiva Gedolah of Los Angeles, Rabbi Dovid Gruman, visited with me. Rabbi Gruman was Ariel's 10th grade rebbe, but their relationship transcended that of student and teacher. Not a week went by when Rabbi Gruman did not visit Ariel here at home or in the hospital. I vividly remember that at the very hour Ariel was being prepped for surgery a few years ago, Rabbi Gruman's infant son was undergoing an extremely complex and dangerous surgery on his tiny heart. Right before Ariel was wheeled into the operating room he assured Rabbi Gruman that his son was going to be fine. Ariel had davened for him and he was sure that HaShem would listen to his prayers. The recovery room nurse told me that when Ariel's surgery was over and he regained consciousness, he groggily asked how it went. You're okay," the nurse told him. "No, no, not me," he muttered, "How is Rabbi Gruman's son?" The baby was fine, Thank G-d, and continues to thrive. Ariel's concern for others was deep and genuine. Ariel had no pretences; there was not a dishonest bone in his body. This absolute goodness is why people loved and respected Ariel. I was not the first person to call Ariel a Tzaddik Gamur, an Authentic Saint. No, I left that to others. Karen and I knew that it was true, but Ariel's deep sense of modesty prevented us from ever saying it out loud.
Rabbi Gruman and I talked about Ariel. We talked about Rabbi Gruman's children, the recent birth of his grandchild, his daughter's engagement. Then as Rabbi Gruman was leaving, he turned to me and hesitantly said: "Is it okay for me to go into Ariel's room?"
Ariel's room is, for the most part, the same as it was when he was alive. Karen organized his tapes and notebooks, I dust his books; his childhood toys. Sometimes I put my face into his clothing, his old Shabbos suits and take a deep breath. I can still detect his scent. It makes my head spin. I borrow his ties. Once, I tried on his black hat. He was so handsome, especially when he dressed so carefully for Shabbos and Yom Tovim.
A few years ago, Ariel struggled to put on a pair of cuff links. "Dad, can you lend me a hand?" I love helping my children with anything. It makes me feel, well, like a father from the early days of television, Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver, My Three Sons. I'm just the Jewish version. Ariel could not figure out how to get the cuff link through the holes. Never terribly coordinated, Ariel was positively defeated by this maneuver. "Take off your shirt," I said. Ariel did it. "Now, sit down on the bed, and put the cuff links through the holes." Ariel did it with ease. He smiled hugely and said, "Dad, that's brilliant." We laughed. Ariel could decipher the most difficult passage of Talmud, but he was often confounded by the most ordinary of tasks.
Rabbi Gruman touched the spines of a few books and nodded to himself, perhaps thinking, Yes, yes, this is the space, these are the objects that I will fix in my mind forever and ever.
Rabbi Gruman bid me a Gut Yuntif. I stood outside my home and watched him drive away. Back in the house, I returned to Ariel's room, sat down on his bed and got ready for this second Rosh Hashanah without my son. I took off my shirt and put on my cufflinks, just the way I taught Ariel -- just the way my father taught me.

Self-Help

2004-09-14T13:33:00.000-07:00

After Ariel died, several books were given to me by well meaning friends. These books, about Judaism and bereavement, are I was assured, deeply comforting and helpful. Over the past few months I have read some of these books, and put many down after just a few chapters. I'm sorry to say that I do not find them useful or comforting. In truth, I find them depressing in their reliance on New Age cliches.
Their main arguments seem to be that Judaism is "profoundly knowledgeable about human psychology." The learned men who write these books portray our sages as pipe smoking psychiatrists who just happened to put on tefillin. My wife Karen, the finest psychologist I know, has always held that the best psychologists are men and women who are able to genuinely empathize with their clients; psychologists who form deep bonds with their patients and are willing to discard any and all rigid schools of thought. In other words, the ability to listen and to care is paramount in successful therapy. Theories inevitably shudder and fracture under the weight of reality.
The authors of these Jewish self-help volumes proudly boast that our rituals of death and mourning are psychologically astute. This seems shallow praise to heap on a religion that brought monotheism to the earth. I care nothing for sophisticated psychology in this life of loss that I will never exit. The consolation I seek should and must transcend popular psychology. So I ask these learned and well intentioned writers: what happens if Judaism were not psychologically astute? Would that make it any less true? The answer is obvious. We are bound to Torah with love and duty and the chain of mesorah. In fact, the highest praise I could imagine for Judaism is not that we recognize its psychological integrity, but that we are able to see beyond it. Where a psychologist will see grief as the unresolved fear of abandonment, a Torah Jew will view grief as a necessary part of life, something to be confronted head-on, and struggled with, first among family and community and then inevitably alone. The Rav's Lonely Man of Faith is the paradigm that I turn to and find most heroic, and at the same time, realistic. I prefer Rebbeim who are Rebbeim, not Rebbeim who have turned into smooth talking pop psychologists.
As for the books, they sit on my shelves, comfortable beside the Whole Earth Catalog, The Big Book of Hula Hoops, and books about alternative medicine and holistic healing. I am alone with Karen, we are in a place only grieving parents inhabit; we are beyond self-help manuals, beyond ordinary words.
But your words have been extraordinary.
To all who read this blog, I thank you for your patience, and generosity. I am well aware that these pages are often difficult to reaqd, but for some reason you keep coming back. And your presence provides a measure of comfort. I feel that I have actually met you, even though I only know you in cyberspace. For this, Karen and I thank you. We wish you a Shana Tova Umituka.

Digging Through Garbage

2004-09-08T09:56:00.000-07:00

Right before Shabbos, we receive a brochure from Ariel's Yeshiva. The pictures of the young men in the Beis Midrash are hypnotic: the boys in their dark pants and crisp white shirts, and their posture so familiar. I lean in and squint. Is that Ariel in the background? No, no, of course not. I turn pages, read each article. How come, I irrationally wonder, there's nothing about Ariel in the brochure? There should be a headline that reads: Ariel Avrech Is Sorely Missed. Is he already forgotten? I am hurt and angry. Ariel spent four years in the yeshiva and it's as if he was never there. He loved his yeshiva with the kind of love that Shlomo describes in Shir HaShirim. How can they go on without him as if nothing has happened?
Am I crazy?
What am I doing?
Do I expect everyone to grieve the way I do? Do I really expect his yeshiva, his Rebbeim, and his friends, to dwell on Ariel's absence with the same intensity that I do? Hadn't they supported, revered, prayed for him, and reached out to us, calling, flooding us with letters and tributes?
I exist in a world somewhere between supremely rational thought and utter looniness. When people ask me how I'm doing, I resent it. When people neglect to ask how I'm doing, I resent it. Some days I think it would be better for me to stay in my house, avoid all human interaction. It's too draining. A friend called and asked how I was.
"Some days I'm okay, some days I'm not so okay." I respond. "If your read my blog, you'll get a better idea of what's going on in my life."
"I don't want to read your blog," my friend responds testily. "I'm your friend, your blog is for strangers."
"Okay, sorry."
That's the end of that conversation. Gosh, I feel like I've committed a sin, suggesting that my friend actually read Seraphic Secret. One of the reasons I write Seraphic Secret is because it's simply too draining to explain how I feel. And besides,I don't know how I feel or what I feel until I write it down. This journal is not just for strangers. It's for me and Karen, foremost, and then everybody else.
Several times this past week friends have been offended by my suggestion that they read this page. But the truth is, the strangers who read and write to me probably know me better than the friends who refuse to be readers. My friend Surie Lazar intimately knows the convulsions of my heart. My Hasidic friend W, dutifully reminds me to maintain strict standards of tznius in my writing; I'm afraid I disappoint all too often. Yes, a whole new circle of friends, many grieving parents, have stepped into our lives and filled the awful vacuum that Ariel's death has created.
The other day, Karen cleaned up and organized Ariel's room. There are hundreds of Torah tapes in Ariel's library. There are boxes of micro-cassettes: Ariel taped his gemara shiurim so he could review them. There are dozens of tapes made by his friends of classes that Ariel was too sick to attend. Karen and I have decided to donate some of the tapes to a library in Lakewood dedicated to the memory of his friend Shia Twersky z"l who died tragically in a car accident. We know that Ariel would like to share his Torah with others. After organizing his drawers and dropping off the tapes, Karen broke down and cried. Between sobs she explained, "I just realized why I could do it; it was a maternal act, and that was the basis of our relationship, it was a way that I could do the caretaking that I would do normally. I felt that by letting his belongings accumulate dust and just pile up on his desk, I was neglecting my son."
Karen has a gift for organization. I have a gift for flight. While Karen was busy in Ariel's room I was locked away in my office making believe that I was not aware of what Karen was doing.
"Do you really want his room to stay exactly the same as the day he died, wouldn't that be disrespectful?" she asked me.
"No," I lied.
When I dumped the garbage from my office into the big garbage can at the curb, I noticed several micro tapes in the can. Karen has thrown away some of the tapes from Ariel's room. I reach in and grab them. I stuff them into my pockets, look around to make sure that no neighbors are watching,then scurry back to my office and hide the tapes in the bottom drawer of my desk. All the time, a little voice in my head is saying: Robert, this is really not normal.Karen has disappeared some of Ariel's tapes, but she has not told me because she knows how hurt I would be. But a few minutes later, I feel like a fool. I take the tapes and gently put them back in the garbage. Karen must have thrown them away for a reason. I have learned to trust my wife's instincts. If she believes that there's no reason to keep these tapes, well, I'll trust her. My wife is rarely wrong about the important things in our life.
And besides, I do not want to dig through garbage cans for the rest of my life.

Tales of Prayers, Repairs and i-Pods

2004-08-29T14:01:00.000-07:00

We devote an enormous amount of time to simple maintenance. The house we live in always has something that needs fixing. If it's not the plumbing,it's the electricity. The shower door in the master bathroom needs rubber seals.I have ordered various sizes from an outfit in San Diego, each time with reassurance that this was finally the right size. Well, it never was and we finally hired The Shower Door Doctor to solve the problem. Dr. Jose sports two silver earrings and a gory Christian tattoo on his forearm. I paid Jose way too much money to slam thin strips of plastic on our shower door. But I did it because Karen and I cannot bear to live in the midst of broken things. We both come from homes where a broken air conditioner was not really broken. It was just... resting. We both come from homes where changing a burnt out light bulb was cause for a solemn family council. We both come from homes where the complexities of the Talmud pale when compared to a flat tire--a disaster beyond imagination. And so, when something goes wrong in our house, Karen and I spring into action the way Superman does when Lois Lane is threatened. There's no time to waste, for if we let these problems go, if we let them slide, they will multiply and we will drown in chaos.
The other day, the i-Pod that was a birthday gift for Karen, froze. Karen and I exchanged looks of pure terror for there is nothing as frighteningas a machine that seems to have a mind of its own. We are children of the 50's and as such we are reasonably literate about computers and bits and bytes, but technology is not second nature to us. Karen and I still vividly remember college and pounding away on manual typewriters to get our papers done. I wrote my first screenplays on legal pads and then spent weeks hunting and pecking on an ancient manual that I inherited from my mother. Karen wrote her dissertation on a more advanced machine: an electric typewriter.
Karen has a series of lectures on psychology that she listens to when she exercises. I downloaded the lectures to my Powerbook and from there to her i-Pod. Karen was relieved that we finally found a way for her to listen to the lectures in a way that enhanced her exercise time. And now the i-Pod was frozen.
After work, Karen came home with that determined expression on her face that I have come to recognize. It's the look that Olympic athletes have when they dig deep to achieve their goals; it's a look that I admire for when Karen makes up her mind to do something, it gets done.
Karen told me that she was going to The Grove, to the Apple Store, to have the i-Pod fixed. I was tired after a full day of working on a script for an animated film about the Baal Shem Tov for Rabbi Berel Wein's Destiny Foundation. This script has exhausted me; it has sucked the energy out ofmy brain in a way that no script has ever done before. How do you write about the Baal Shem Tov? How did he talk to his wife? How did he talk to his brother-in-law,Reb Gershon, who at first had contempt for the great founder of Chasidus? A thousand problems on each page. I was only able to crack the story when I imagined Ariel as the Baal Shem Tov. Once I saw my son Ariel in the role, everything fell into place. But as I said, I was exhausted and all I wanted to surf the blogs I like to read every day, and unwind. I told Karen that I was too tired to go with her. Karen was disappointed, I could tell by the way her shoulders sagged for a fraction of a moment. As she dressed to go, I realized that I was making a mistake. Here I had the chance to spend more time with my wife, even if it is just running an errand, Karen and I have a way of making the ordinary a bit extraordinary. And so, I told her that I was coming with her. You don't have to, she said. But I could tell, she was happy, relieved.
At the Apple store in the The Grove, you sign in at the Genius Bar. We had to wait for over an hour. Karen sat down and worked on a few of her psych reports. I attended the lecture given by a perky Apple girl about the i-Photo program. And then it was our turn. The Genius pressed two buttons on the i-Pod and zzzip! It was fixed. A simple reset problem. Karen and I laughed.
"That's all it takes?" we said.
"Yup."
Karen and I were seized with the same thought at that moment: why couldn't Ariel be fixed in the same way? Wouldn't it have been just and good if some gentle geek could have reset Ariel and poof, the brain tumor would have just disappeared?
How is it that we can fix our i-Pod, but not our child?
We drove home and talked about Ariel. Karen is only now beginning to feel his absence. She maintained faith in his ability to cheat the angel of death until the very last moments of his life. I was prepared for his death months before it happened. Something in me did not permit a belief in further miracles. Somehow, I sensed that Ariel had used up his allotment of miracle. At a certain point, the statistics outweigh even the most stubborn and righteous beings.
Back home, I wondered if Ariel's soul is hovering in his room, in our house. And if I know for certain that it is, that his soul is here, why don't I feel it on a deeper physical level? Is it because I lack faith in Hashem, or is it because a soul without a body does not have the authority that the soul with a body commands?
In our house, where Torah is the primary authority, the rational and the irrational bump into each other on a daily basis. But ultimately, the religious, the irrational, is the only comfort that endures.
That night, I was unable able to sleep. I padded downstairs and crept into Ariel's room. I clamped the i-Pod to my ears and listened to the MiamiBoys Choir, some of Ariel's favorite music. I stretched out on his bed andsoon I crossed over into a heavy twilight. I recalled a Chasidic tale I heard as a child.
Once upon a time, The Baal Shem Tov and his disciples met at shul to say the morning prayers. Just as the Baal Shem Tov was about to enter the shul, he hesitated. He refused to cross the threshhold.
"What's wrong, Rebbe?" asked his disciples.
"It's too crowded," answered the Baal Shem Tov.
"But Rebbe," said his perplexed followers, "the shul is empty."
"No," exclaimed the Baal Shem Tov. "The shul is crowded with stale prayers."
Perhaps that's my problem. My life is crowded with a lifetime of stale prayers. Maybe it's my stale prayers that need to be repaired. But I cannot fix them because Ariel is no longer here. I was the father, but Ariel was the teacher.
Karen Comments. Robert, you neglected to mention that just two days before, I went with you to the Apple Store to fix your i-Pod,and we spent two hours there. I also felt somewhat entitled (childishly)that I should get some company fixing the i-Pod, since after all, it was a present from you. But I also felt frustration that even when it seems so complex, when the computer genius was showing us how he cleaned up all yourprograms, and gave the computer a clean bill of health, we couldn't do the same for Ariel. We could not find the replacement part, the lung he needed,and we were helpless. The flip side, however, is somewhat reassuring. We are not machines, there is something beyond circuitry and electronics. We have an eternal neshama. Even when we are alive you know you feel your soul apart from your body, it is that internal voice that makes you, you. I know that scientists are working on artificial intelligence prototypes, but I don't think they will ever succeed. I know that despite current brain research,no matter how specific brain functions are located, they will never find the locus of the human soul.

The Name

2004-08-24T09:03:00.000-07:00

Even now a year after Ariel's death, I wake up every morning with a sense of disbelief. Is this my life? Did it really happen? My stomach clenches like a fist, and I have the urge to pull the covers over my head and just stay in bed--forever. I move through my morning rituals like a sleepwalker. Daven. Eat breakfast while reading the newspaper; wonder why I'm reading the newspaper when the stories seem written by a committee of fools, men and women who have not the least understanding of the evil that now crouches at the door of civilization.
Being a screenwriter is not steady work, but it gives me the freedom I cherish. I walk into my office, fifteen paces from my house, sit down at my desk and wrestle with whatever script I'm working on at the moment. But the words that use to flow like water come harder now. I measure each word with the precision of a finicky chef. I write and rewrite and rewrite some more. I am no longer able to lose myself in the plots and make believe lives that I am creating. My reality has become so powerful, so overwhelmingly real that each foray into imagination seems like a flight from my true memories. And I don't want that to happen. I want Ariel's memory to remain more real than anything else. For anything else feels like a betrayal.
I sit before my computer, study the dialogue I'm writing and sometimes just say his name. Ariel. I say it again. Ariel. I chant it over and over again like a medieval Kabbalist repeating the sefirot. Ariel. Ariel. Ariel. Karen steps into the office to say hello. She takes one look at my face and she knows.
"Are you okay, Robert?"
I shrug.
"I was just thinking about him too," she says.
We look at each other.
"I have to get back to work," she says. "Will you be okay?"
I nod.
She turns to go. I reach out and hold her. I have been in love with this woman since I was ten years old. We have gone through so much together. If anything happened to her I would stop breathing.

Transformed

2004-08-17T14:20:00.000-07:00

Karen and I enjoy the coziness of our home. We keep odd hours, idiosyncratic schedules that invariably finds one of us wandering around the house at three, or four in the morning. So, it's not easy for us to have guests, especially sleep-over guests on Shabbos. But when Yachad, an important Jewish organization which organizes tours and social groups including both disabled and abled youth, called and asked if two counselors and two campers could stay with us for Shabbos, we had to overcome our habitual impulse towards privacy. Clearly, this was a special situation, and our answer was clear.

When Ariel was sick, people took the time to visit him day after day, month after month. Karen and I recognized that visiting the sick, helping those who need it, is a mitzvah of paramount importance. And so, when our guests finally did show up, imagine our delight when we fell into easy conversation with each of them. David has a huge smile and a wicked sense of humor. Kobe knows movies backwards and forwards. Counselor Aaron, an audiologist when not volunteering his time to Yachad, smiled happily when he learned that I wrote and produced A Stranger Among Us. It was, he said, one of his favorite films. Jason, Director of Community Affairs for Yachad, is active in national politics and opened my eyes to a whole range of halachic questions that have arisen because of the new activism of Orthodox Jews in American politics.

Kobe and David shyly asked if it would be okay if I took their picture with the Emmy I won a few years ago for The Devil's Arithmetic. They grinned and chuckled as I took the picture and instructed them to thank the academy. Right before Shabbos, David asked who owned the Transformers. "They belong to our son, Ariel, " we answered. David told us that he absolutely loves Transformers. We did not tell David that Ariel died. That our son is no longer here to reminisce about his childhood toys. But for one brief moment I was tempted to give David one of them. Would Ariel have wanted me to? I just couldn't decide. Ariel never threw away any of his toys. And the truth is, I need them. I cannot imagine the space in Ariel's room without them. Right before Shabbos, David and Kobe presented themselves in their Shabbos clothing. Without thinking, I shot forward and fussed over the boys: I meticulously buttoned David's collar, straightened Kobe's waistband. I complimented them on how handsome they looked and I remembered how I used to take such pleasure in helping Ariel knot his beautiful silk ties.

After the Yachad group left for their Shabbos program, Karen and I felt hollowed out. Ariel's absence was more pronounced than ever before. We actually sat up on Friday night, and waited for the boys to return. At the end of the weekend, after our guests went home, we experienced the emptiness of the house in a new and raw way. I am father to two wonderful girls and I relish each and every moment with them, but I miss, oh how I miss, being father to a son. I am still Ariel's father. I will always be Ariel's father. But the small, intimate male rituals are gone, and life without them is a pale shadow of what it once was.

Karen Comments: I had the same thought, I contemplated whether we should offer one of Ariel's transformers to David. I did not raise the idea because I sensed that I would be putting Robert in an awkward dilemma. But there was another reason. I feel attached to Ariel's favorite belongings. Ariel was a generous person, but these objects were precious to him, he loved to talk about the process of acquiring his favorite, humongous Transformers. I kept quiet because of my own need as a conservor, a guardian of the few material objects that Ariel loved. Sometimes love causes me to be selfish. Guilt ensues.

Cardiac Event

2004-08-12T13:52:00.000-07:00

Karen and I have learned to keep busy. Work, projects, errands, anything to keep the mind busy, to keep our thoughts racing along so we don't have time to obsess over Ariel's absence. I write my scripts in the morning. The afternoon is devoted to Seraphic Press, our new publishing company, established as a memorial to Ariel and his desire for fine literature appropriate for observant Jewish teens. Memories of Ariel are inevitable whenever I'm in a medical setting. A few months ago, I was in for a routine cardiac evaluation. A dozen wires were hooked up to my body. I thought about Ariel. In the last weeks of his life there were so many wires and tubes running in and out of his poor body that just turning over in bed was a major move that required the assistance of two nurses. I would help Ariel shift positions and marvel at his patience. I'm sorry this is such a pain, I said to him as we tried to maneuver through the chaos of wires. Ariel merely smiled his adorable half smile and said, No problem, it's a challenge. As the cardiac nurse ran tests on me, the tears started sliding down my face. I tried to hold them back, but once you start crying for a dead child, well, it's almost impossible to stop. The nurse looked at me and asked if I was in pain. No, I sobbed. She bolted out of the examination room, certain I was having a cardiac episode. The doctor entered. My doctor is also my friend and goes to synagogue with me. He and his wife visited Ariel a few times a week. They are close friends. The most decent and fine people I have ever known. And so as I lay there crying, he tried to comfort me, but soon he too was weeping. Ariel was a tzaddik, he sobbed, he was a tzaddik. The machines beeped. My heart pumped. The odor of disinfectant, that sickly hospital smell, made me vaguely nauseated. My friend, my doctor, gently removed the connections and sent me home. Why was I crying? I asked Karen when I got home. Was I crying over all that Ariel endured? Yes, but I was also crying because we did not save him. He suffered so much and our job as parents is to protect our children. We tried. We did everything humanly possible to save our son. We got second opinions, third opinions; Karen is probably the world's leading expert on germinoma tumors. The rational part of my brain understands all this. I know that ultimately we can only do so much. But don't you think that after a child suffers so much, endures so much agony that his life will be spared? I keep seeing Ariel's face. Looking at us, I knew that he trusted us. When a decision had to be made, a difficult medical decision--and there were dozens and dozens, Ariel would look at the doctor with his effortless smile and say, I trust my parents. They know what's best for me. I hear his voice a hundred times a day. And I worry that somewhere along the way we made the wrong decision. Karen says that we did all we could. She reminds me that just the other night I assured her that Ariel wouldn't have lived as long as he did, eight years post tumor, if we hadn't done our research, investigated all the options and consulted with multiple specialists. We always opted for the cutting edge treatment, the one that would give him a better chance, even when it meant more cycles of chemo, more radiation. She says she still feels defeated, but does not doubt our efforts. I think she is able to say this because, whenever she felt that Ariel was vulnerable, that the nurses not up to speed, she chose to sleep at the hospital, keeping her vigil. She tells me that Ariel appreciated us, he did trust us, and with good reason. It's just that G-d had a different plan.

Seraphic AA

2004-08-09T09:03:00.000-07:00

Karen writes in her Shabbos note: I feel like I've been in a protective bubble all year. More recently, perhaps because I'm less distracted by work, or perhaps I've been protected because I needed to be gradually eased into the pain. But I am actually beginning to miss Ariel. Before, I felt his presence as an abstraction, now I miss every physical part of him, his voice, his look, his steps. Will the shudder that overtakes my body diminish when I make contact with the pain? Will the physical manifestation of grief fade as the barrier dissolves? I don't know. I just feel that Ariel's death is finally being incorporated into my reality, a bridge is being formed between my old life and my new life. I guess that's what's called "working through" or "integration." Again, the real feeling approaches. Our Shabbos table is very quiet. Karen and I are alone. Our girls are both away. Karen and I chat. Karen shows me the latest kashrus guide from Trader Joes. We analyze the various kashrus logos. I'm fixated on the graphic element; what works and what doesn't? Karen wonders which hechsher our community accepts. The politics of kosher certification is Byzantine. Sometimes, downright ugly. We clear off the table. In the living room, Karen and I sit in our chairs and read. I'm in the middle of eight or nine different books. I read a chapter in one book, put it down, move on to the next. ADD, anyone? Actually, I prefer to think of myself as a restless intellect. My high school rebbeim had another word for it: undisciplined. My reading on Shabbos night is never productive. My body is set to go to sleep as quickly as possible. So I sit in the chair and read the same sentences over and over again. My head droops like a flower after the sun goes down. Shabbos is hard. It is Shabbos without my son, Ariel. The quiet penetrates. I feel Ariel's absence as a physical ache that never lets up. The reality of his non-being becomes more real with each passing day. I keep asking: Where has all his learning gone? All that Torah, all that knowledge? I know, I know, he's in yeshiva shel ma'alah; he's learning with the gedolim. But I'm sorry. That does not make me feel much better. I want him here. I want his flesh, warm against me as I hug him. I want him, not the idea of him, not the memory of him, not his spirit. No words of consolation can fill the void. No abstract angelic images convince. Perhaps I'm not religious enough. One of my best friends in the community is an alcoholic. He's observant, with wife and children, but if he did not go to AA, he would sink into a life of alcoholic debauchery. A few weeks ago I told him that if I could I think I'd like to become an alcoholic, just to drown myself and forget everything. What's stopping you? he said with a smile. I'm allergic to alcohol, I explained sheepishly. I get migraines just smelling liquor. My friend laughed and told me that a real alcoholic drinks no matter what. Maybe a drug addict, I suggested. Anything to get away from this awful reality. My friend, let's call him, Gabriel, took me with him to an AA meeting. It was an astonishing cross section of men: no women at this meeting; this was a AA shteibl. There were business executives, blue collar workers, one genuine rock star, a famous actor. I sat and listened as one after the other they described all the awful things they did because of their addictions. The tales were harrowing. Lies to spouses. Adulteries. Theft. One man, a Russian Jew with the delivery of Henny Youngman, spoke of taking his infant child to a crack house. Buying drugs instead of formula. These men all rely on the support of their fellow AA members. It is touching to see the genuine care and love extended to the most fallen of the group. Several men introduce themselves to me. They assume that I'm another alcoholic. I feel like saying: I'm actually the father of a dead child. But can I stay anyway? IN AA they keep referring to a Higher Power. Higher Power? It's like something from a science fiction movie: Higher Power Battles Godzilla. What the heck is that? Soon, I realized that they were talking about HaShem. I thought to myself, why don't they say, God? That is His name. And after the meeting is over, the men rise, join hands and intone a prayer. Some have tears in their eyes. Others smile with the release of a burden too heavy to bear. Gabriel explained that calling HaShem the Higher Power is AA's way of including everybody, even atheists. Okay, I get it. And I realized that these men have are just another break-a-way minyan. The shul they were going to failed them. The medical establishment, the psychologists, clergy, all failed to understand them. And so, they built their shul. But certain truths follow; and it becomes increasingly clear to me that no matter where you go, no matter what the society, it always comes back to HaShem. Man eventually has to come to grips with his finitude. The world, it is too large. The world, it is too dangerous. The world, it is too overwhelming for us to cope with no other reference outside of ourselves. So, my plans for addiction (never serious, merely the ravings of a bereaved father who has never even tasted beer) are dashed, and I'm back where I started. The AA people speak of a Higher Power. Karen and I believe in HaShem and so we must extend that belief into the final realm. The place where Ariel's spirit now resides. I must go on without him. I can't. I will go on. I don't want to. I write one word after another. Take one breath and then another. I see him. I can touch him. But he is not what he was. And somehow I have to live with that.

Breathing More Efficiently

2004-08-04T08:15:00.000-07:00

It is the middle of the night. I don't know why, but suddenly I'm awake. Something has pulled me out of a deep slumber. I hear someone crying. Am I dreaming? No, no, it's in my right ear. Sobbing. "Karen?" "Yes?" "What are you remembering about Ariel?" "I can't remember what his running shoes looked like," she sniffles. "The blue ones?" I ask. "No, they are black," she says. Ariel went to pulmonary therapy a few times a week in the last months of his life, when he was still strong enough. The idea was that he had to be in the best shape possible to endure the lung transplant. "He has to learn how to breathe in a more efficient way," his nurse explained to me. Karen bought him running shoes. For several sessions he was on the treadmill and the rowing machine in his yeshivish black shoes. Susan Clark, his loving pulmonary therapist insisted that Ariel had to have proper shoes. Karen went out and bought the right shoes for him. I can still see Ariel's face when he finished his exercises: flushed with a healthy pink and a thin sheen of sweat he would smile hugely and say, "I did forty-five minutes today, Dad." Ariel loved going to the pulmonary therapy sessions. It did not take too long for the nurses, deeply religious Christians, to cleave to Ariel. Susan Clark, the director of the unit took me aside and said,"That boy of yours, Ariel, he's special." It is not going too far to say that Ariel loved Susan. He spoke of her with a profound tenderness and respect. It was hard, so hard for Susan to hold herself back from hugging Ariel. He explained the halachas to her, and she was perfectly appropriate, but she told me, "I really want to hug Ariel. It's just killing me that I can't even shake his hand." The other patients peppered Ariel with questions about Torah and belief. Ariel, in his patient and gentle manner, educated these people in a way that was entirely new to them. Here was a whole new universe that Ariel had entered and reshaped through sheer force of goodness. Karen holds me and sobs."I can't believe that it's taken me this long to feel his absence," she says. "I 've gone for so long not letting myself face the truth. How could I have done that?" We stay locked together for the rest of the night. In the morning, I go down and daven, then enter Ariel's room, open his closet and take out his sneakers. They are black. I got it wrong. How could I have forgotten what color they are? What else have I forgotten? What else will I forget? The shoes still hold the imprint of his foot. It is a poignant indentation. More personal than any other article of clothing. I press a shoe to my chest, and I hold my breath. I hold it for as long as I can. My head swims, my heart races, my face aches. Is this what he was feeling? Is this what the fibrosis did to him? I explode and gasp for breathe. I hold Ariel's running shoe to my chest. I gasp for breath and just sit there trying to remember everything.

Friends Regained

2004-07-30T14:56:00.000-07:00

About forty years ago, Karen went to a little Jewish summer camp near Rhinebeck New York, called Camp Eton. Her father was the camp Rabbi. A group of friends from Karen's bunk called themselves The Three Musketeers. For several summers this little group of girls were the best of friends. At night, they would sit in their bunks and talk until sunrise. As little girls do, they talked of their dreams and their hopes and they solemnly vowed to be the best and most loyal friends forever. Camp Eton folded. And as it invariably happens, Karen and her little group of Jewish Musketeers lost contact with one another as they went their separate ways. Over the years, Karen often spoke of her idyllic summers and the wonderful girlfriends she made. "I wonder what happened to them?" she has mused out loud on more than one occasion. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a Seraphic Secret reader. The author wondered if my wife was the former Karen Singer and if she once attended Camp Eton. Yes, I wrote back, that is my wife. I showed Karen the e-mail and when she saw the name of the person who wrote it, Joyce Motechin, Karen gasped, for this woman was one of the Musketeers back in Camp Eton. And why, we wondered, was Joyce (nee Siegel) reading Seraphic Secret? Our worst fears were confirmed when Karen learned that Joyce's daughter Deena died five years ago. In Joyce's descriptions of her beloved daughter Deena, we feel that we are hearing a description of Ariel. For Deena was a pious, spiritual young woman with a talent for imparting Torah; humbly and steadfastly she inspired and uplifted friends and students. She literally danced into everyone's hearts. She loved life, yet suffered horribly. Deena suffered without feeling the need to complain; she did not rage at Hashem, did not surrender to despair or hopelessness. In our cultural life, the word courage has been used so often that its true meaning has been lost and devalued. But for Deena, the word eloquently fits.
Ariel never married and this carries its own distinct sorrow. But Deena was married, for just a few short months, and though we can say: Oh, she knew the joys of marriage, there is an unbearable poignancy in losing one's life in the first blush of married life. As Joyce so eloquently writes: I've been reading your journal at Seraphic Secret and am in awe of the many incidents you tell regarding Ariel z"l and the way he faced his horrendous ordeal. Yes, I do see parallels in our children. This is where emunah, the belief and faith that we were steeped in throughout our lives, kicks in. I truly believe that Ariel and Deena are doing HaShem's work--who knows maybe even together.
Karen reads and rereads Joyce's e-mails, and we too marvel at the similarities Joyce brings to our attention.
"I can still remember Joyce's birthday," says Karen, "we were that close." It is eerie that Joyce and Karen have found each other after so many years. It is strange, and of course unbearably sad that these two childhood friends have reestablished contact, not to remember summers past, of camp and color war, and the icy chill of the lake, but to speak of beloved children who have entered the world of timelessness, the world of remembrance. What they have now binds them tighter than the warp of a carpet. Karen and Joyce were the best of childhood friends. Now, when Karen writes to Joyce, her feelings come in a flood; it seems to be the continuation of one long conversation; a narrative that was never interrupted; a loving dialogue that has been flourishing for over forty years. Karen and Joyce speak of children who are no longer flesh but spirit; these two beautiful women are once again Musketeers, best friends sitting up in their bunks, talking until the rising of the sun. The loyalty and love they vowed to each other so long ago has been honored.

Burning Granite

2004-07-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

We wait all week for Shabbos. For the observant Jew, the Sabbath is a taste of heaven. When Ariel was alive, we would walk together to shul. There we would pray and say, "Good Shabbos, Good Shabbos" to all the others in the Young Israel of Century City. Then, at the Shabbos table, we would eat and sing and talk. Lila and Chloe would make Ariel laugh with their hysterical tales of life in their yeshiva high schools. Stories of wacky teachers, and dress codes that seemed to change from week to week. When Ariel laughed, he held his stomach because he was laughing so hard. Shabbos is different now. Karen and I look forward to Shabbos, but it's tinged with uneasiness. I walk to shul alone. Fathers and sons sit together, the way Ariel and I used to. I try not to watch them because each loving interaction is like a blow to the heart. In a shul filled with dozens of people, I am more alone than ever before. Often, I walk home with my friend Benny. His son Moshe is one of Ariel's best friends. Benny recognizes the commotion in my heart. I think he knows that when he walks home with me, he's walking in Ariel's place. Last Shabbos, I explained to Benny and Moshe that Ariel and I once counted the steps from our front door to shul. "There were exactly 613," I said. Benny and Moshe grinned, and Benny asked: Full steps, baby steps, any adjustments? "Weeell," I admitted, "Ariel and I did hop and skip a bit to make it fit, but not too much." We all laughed. We are observant, but try not to induldge in too much mysticism. There are six hundred and thirteen positive and negative commandments in the Torah. And so, if Ariel and I take 613 steps to shul it must mean...what? It means that Ariel and I had fun. And now, I only want to share that lightness of being with others. It's a way of sharing our remarkable relationship. But here's what I want to know: Will I be telling of the 613 steps in twenty years? Will people whisper that Robert Avrech is a sad eccentric, repeating the same anecdotes day after day to anyone who will listen? Now that I think about it, there's a pretty good possibility. But for now, Benny and Moshe chuckle and fondly remember Ariel. When Ariel was first admitted to the hospital for the fibrosis that was devouring his lungs, Benny and his wife Audrey were the first of our friends to visit. I said to them: "I just don't want him to keep suffering." They said very little. These are people who know the value of silence. I was fixated on Ariel's suffering. There is nothing more painful for a parent than to be helpless in the face of a child's pain. I used to make deals with God: Give me the pain, anything, just don't let Ariel suffer anymore. But of course, these deals with God are no deals at all. They are merely exercises in a futile and childish theology. A kind of magical thinking that we are supposed to leave behind as we grow up. This Shabbos, after an unusually quiet meal, I brought my dishes into the kitchen. There, I found Karen putting away the silverware and weeping. I did not have to ask, What's wrong, what are you thinking about? Our days are filled with sudden bursts of tears. But as I held Karen in my arms, she murmured something that she never before said. "I can bear not seeing him," she said, "what I can't bear is what happened to him." Yes, yes, I thought, the memory of how many years he spent in pain is what rips us apart. There are children who die suddenly: car accident, heart attack, aneurysm, murder by terror. The shock parents suffer is unimaginable. There is no preparation. There is no warning. Abruptly, the perfection of their lives (they did not know that their lives were perfect, did they?) is exploded; it is like the death of a star, leaving behind only a black hole. Some would argue that in the calculus of grief, Karen and I are lucky; we should have been prepared. After all, Ariel had his first brain tumor when he was fourteen years old. There were years of illness, recovery, illness. Hospital procedures, and the icy language of medicine had become second nature to us. The Angel of Death took up residence in our home. Every morning, I nodded to the dark angel and told him: We will defy you. Ariel is different. Ariel is special. This is one battle you will lose. When I think of Ariel now, I try and remember him when he was healthy. I try and imagine him as the smiling and glowing yeshiva student who looked forward to a full life. But something in me keeps my memory fixed on how gaunt he was because of the massive doses of chemotherapy. I can still see his skin turned yellow from jaundice. I can still hear the rasping oxygen machine, heaving in and out of his lungs. Ariel never complained. But I wish he had. I wish he would have said, "Daddy, I'm in so much pain, help me." But he didn't. And because he was so strong, I also had to be. It is the parents' job to support the child. But I think that it was Ariel who supported me. Maybe Ariel sensed that I wasn't very strong. Maybe he knew that if he fell apart, I would dissolve into an ocean of atoms. Once in a while, I would say to Ariel, "I'm sorry that things are so hard for you." Ariel would casually shrug, as if we were talking about a pimple or a hang nail. "It's okay, Dad. It's not so bad," he replied. But it was bad. It was awful. It was cruel. And now, standing in our kitchen, Karen and I hold on to one another; we miss him, but more than anything, we want to go back in time and take away his pain. But there is no remedy, and we are left with a family that is no longer the same family. We are left with lives that have forever mutated into an endless series of wishes that can never be fulfilled. And finally, and perhaps saddest of all, we are left with a Shabbos that is no longer a real Shabbos. Right after Shabbos, Karen turned to me and said: "It's time to go to Ariel's kever." I nodded in agreement. I was just about to say the same thing.
On Sunday, Karen and I drive to the cemetery. We recite Psalms at Ariel's grave. Karen kneels and touches the granite headstone. Shocked, she yanks her hand away: "It's so hot." she sobs. For some reason this makes me cry too. I think to myself, Ariel needs shade. He's not a strong boy, the sun is too strong. Karen says: "I want to see him. I want to dig away and see him--no matter what." I shake my head and tell her, "No, no you don't." But Karen is his mother and mothers will always want to embrace their children. Right before we tear ourselves away, I say: "I can't believe our lives have come to this. It's as if everything leads up to this place, this point in time." We drive back to Los Angeles and work on The Book of Ariel. Karen once asked me what we would do when we finished the book. There was real anxiety in her voice, a genuine fear that once finished, we would be left adrift. I tell Karen: It's just Volume One.
As I go to sleep, my fingers throb. Right before we left Ariel, I placed my hand on his headstone, the burning granite, and kept it there for as long as I could bear it. The pain is good; it reminds me that I am still alive.

Do Not Ask Why

2004-07-20T09:07:00.000-07:00

When Ariel was in the Intensive Care Unit, in the last few weeks of his life, his Rebbe from Ner Yisroel flew in from Baltimore to be by his side. The relationship between a Rebbe and his pupil is special. In some ways Rebbe (teacher) and talmid( student) forge bonds of love and friendship that rival the intensity between father and son. If a father and rebbe are drowning, proposes the Talmud, who does the son save if he can save only one? Some opinions hold that the son saves the Rebbe because the Rebbe imparts Torah. But what happens if the father is also a scholar and teaches Torah to his son? Well, some opinions hold that the son saves the father.
I have always been proud of the love that Ariel and his Rebbeim have felt for one another. When Ariel was in Yeshiva Gedolah High School, he always spent the holiday of Shavuos with Rabbi Gross, the Rosh Yeshiva, and his family. Rebbitzen Gross would smile hugely when I delivered Ariel to their front door. "I'm sorry to steal Ariel," she said with a twinkle in her eye, "but you know we just love him so much." And these were not just words. In the hospital, Mrs. Gross would send Ariel meal after meal. She sat by his bedside and recited Tehillim, Psalms. At Ariel's unveiling, Mrs. Gross was there, once again reciting Tehillim. I tried to talk to her, but she could not talk. She was too overcome with emotion.
Ariel was also beloved by Rabbi Dovid Gruman. Every Friday, no matter how crowded his schedule, Rabbi Gruman, Ariel's 10th grade Rebbe, would come to the house and visit with Ariel. Ariel told me, "I love my Rebbe, Dad. I'm so lucky." I agreed, Ariel was lucky to be loved by such fine people. But in the back of my mind, always, was one simple word: why?
Why is Ariel sick?
Why is Ariel suffering?
And now, why did Ariel die.
And so, Ariel's Rebbe from Baltimore sat by Ariel's side. He held Ariel's hand. Real conversation, the give and take which is the human lifeblood, was impossible because Ariel was trapped in that hideous oxygen mask. We could talk to Ariel, but in response, all he could do, was make gestures with his head or hands. However, Ariel was weak as a kitten and even simple gestures were beyond his physical abilities. Rabbi Eisemann held Ariel's hand and spoke to him. He gave d'var Torah's, commentaries on Torah and Talmud. I sat in a chair and listened. But at a certain point I had to leave the room. I needed a break. An ICU should be quiet and soothing. But modern ICU's are a travesty, an assault in every physical sense. The rise and fall of TV laugh tracks comes in like a never ending tide. The beep of machines drills into the brain. The squeak of rubber soled shoes makes their way into your dreams. There is a condition called, ICU psychosis. It afflicts patients. I think I was suffering from it for several weeks. In any case, I left Ariel with Rabbi Eisemann. I think I went into the lobby and had a cup of coffee. Coming back to Ariel's room, just as I was about to enter, I heard Ariel talking. He must have removed the mask for a moment, just to speak. His voice was weak, hesitant.
"Rebbe, why is this happening to me?"
I hung back. I continued to listen.
There was a long pause, finally, Rabbi Eisemann answered:
"Ariel, my son, this is the ultimate question. I can only answer like this: We Jews, we do not ask why, rather we ask, how. In other words, there is no way we can know why HaShem does what he does. If we did, we would be HaShem. So, what do we do? We ask, how should we respond? How do we act under such circumstances? What actions do we take when we are afflicted with illness? And the answer is to act as a Torah Jew; to be dignified, to continue to trust and believe in HaShem. To increase our Torah learning, to multiply our davening..."
I walked away. I was sobbing so hard that I knew that they would hear me and realize that I was eavesdropping.
Years and years ago, when I was a confused and unhappy high school student, I told one of my Rebbeim that I wasn't sure if I believed in God anymore. Typical teenage problems were overwhelming me. I was caught in a vortex of sadness and rebellion, typical adolescent drama that spilled over into my Judaism. My Rebbe, a kindly if unsophisticated, (I thought) Holocaust survivor, smiled. He seemed amused by my crisis of faith.
"What should I do?" I demanded.
"Put on your tefillin in the morning," he said. "Continue to daven three times a day. Continue to observe the Shabbos. Make an added effort to observe the mitzvahs."
"But Rebbe," I protested with typical teenage fervor, "that's sooooo hypocritical. I just told you, I'm not sure I even believe in HaShem anymore."
"Don't you worry about that," he said. "You just keep the mitzvahs and belief will come."
At the time, I thought my Rebbe was, well, loony. Now, it's clear that he was a wise and extremely sophisticated man. He understood that what goes on in the heart and mind is almost impossible to make sense of. Doubts, fears and theological uncertainties are notoriously difficult to reconcile. But what we do, our behavior, we can master. My Rebbe was so right.
Ariel never spoke to me of his conversation with Rabbi Eisemann. But that night, Ariel davened with even more fervor--which is hard to imagine since Ariel already prayed like a tzaddik. Never did Ariel express a single note of despair over his condition. Right up to the end he maintained an optimistic belief that he would recover.
One of the last things he said to me was:
"I'm lucky, Daddy."
"Why is that Ariel?"
"I have met so many wonderful people because of my illness. I have seen the best, the most generous impulses that people have to offer."
The day after Ariel died, Rabbi Eisemann wrote a letter to me and Karen. He told us of his conversation with Ariel.
"I think that in a way Ariel accepted my answer and perhaps it gave him some measure of comfort in his suffering. I will tell you what, in different circumstances, I might have told him. It is my experience that occasionally individuals show up whose destiny is different from that of most other people. It is clear from everything that happens to them that HaShem has something special in mind for them. They are the embodiment of the lesson which Chazal, the Sages, draw from the pasuk in Shir HaShirim, "Dodi yorad ligano lilkat shoshanim." Ocassionally, HaShem will go down into His garden of roses to pick one which is particularly beautiful. Perhaps Ariel needed to come here for his short life in order to teach us some profound lessons about decency, honesty, kindness and caring. Perhaps we needed an example of how to act in the face of suffering. Certainly all who were ever touched by Ariel will never forget the experience."
After Rabbi Eisemann left, Ariel said to me: "I'm blessed to have Rebbe visit me."
Yes, I agreed. Blessed.
But what I didn't say was: Why should Rabbi Eisemann have to visit you?
You see, Ariel found comfort in not asking why but how. But I do not. I still ask why. And I am still met with a solid wall of indifferent silence.

Karen reads Robert's blog and adds: I do not ask why, for then I would question everything. Why was Ariel chosen to become a Talmid Chochem? Why was he endowed with voracious curiosity and far-reaching intelligence? Why could he remember the name of every person he met, every medication he ever received? Why was I blessed with a son who honored me and thanked me for every meal (good or bad) that I ever prepared?
But, here are the questions that I do ask: How do I keep Ariel close? What is Ariel thinking? How is he feeling? Does he miss us?
And finally, the ultimate question: When will I experience his presence once again?

Seraphic Secret in the Press

2004-07-15T15:23:00.000-07:00

Several weeks ago, Jason Maoz, Editor-in-Chief of The Jewish Press wrote me an e-mail. He told me that reading Seraphic Secret, my diary of grief and loss and love, has had a profound impact on him. Jason asked my permission to publish excerpts from this blog as a front page story in The Jewish Press, the newspaper with the largest circulation in the Jewish community. Naturally, I hesitated. Wouldn't it look like I was becoming an opportunistic grief monger? Would it not be better to keep a low profile and confine myself to my own blog? Luckily, I'm smart enough to talk to Karen before making any decision. Karen looked at me as if I were smart as, say, a doorknob, and said: "Of course you should do it. We want people to know about Ariel, don't we?" Jason did a sensitive and seamless job editing my blogs, and I wish to express my deepest appreciation for his hard work.

My very good friend, Jackie D was fascinated with Ariel's thoughts on Halacha, Jewish law, and the right to bear arms. I explained that Ariel had thought long and hard about the issue, all within the framework of Torah. Ariel passed away before he could write the essay he wanted to, but I have managed to gather some of Ariel's ideas based on his notes, and on our many lively conversations about the Second Amendment. Jackie D was so taken with the essay, that she sent it to the superb political website Samizdata. This fine blog receives tens of thousands of visitors a week. The good folks at Samizdata also liked what Ariel had to say and they have printed the essay, "Jewish Law and the Right to Bear Arms" in today's issue. I'd like to add that any mistakes are mine and mine alone. Ariel would have produced a far more thorough and coherent essay. I hope he will forgive my feeble attempt. But, as I wrote to Jackie D, Ariel would have been thrilled and proud to be in the company of such distinguished thinkers. Thank you Jackie D, thank you Samizdata.

Karen has just walked into the room and she says, "Robert, I'm really worried." When Karen has that tight look on her face, I pay attention. That taut expression combined with cautionary words sends a beam of fear from stomach to spine.
"What--what's wrong?" I stammer.
"Your blog, Robert. People are going to read Seraphic Secret in the Press and they are going to be disappointed. There is no secret here, and nothing Seraphic. It's just, well, links."
"Karen, didn't you read Camellia?
Karen looks at me, baffled.
I explain: "Camellia is today's Seraphic Secret posting. It comes directly after this posting."
Karen ponders this for a moment, then says. "You have to fix it, Robert. Let people know that there's more after this entry. Or they will just read this and turn off their computers and not read further down."
So: this is to let everyone know that if you just hit your Page Down button, or use the wheel on your mouse, and gently move the Page Down function, you will find Camellia today's Seraphic Secret. It also, I believe, has the best title of any post I've ever done. Which, by the way, is something I'd like to talk about.
Titles: I spend an sinful amount of time trying to find the proper title for each posting. It's not easy. Titles are an art form. They should, ideally, add another layer of poetry to the blog. It has to be organic; true to the spirit of the blog, yet at the same time it should be evocative; evocative without being precious, or even worse, obscure. I am not good with titles. My Hollywood scripts give me stomach aches when it comes to naming them. I walk around for months with "Untitled" under my arm. I find naming my blog entries a bit easier. But still, I can spend as much time working on the title as I do on the blog itself. Is this normal? For a writer, there is no normal. It's just comes down to varying levels of looniness.
I'm rambling; that means I'm tired. It also means that I am not exactly sure how to end this long digression. Endings are hard. Almost as hard as titles. And so, to end this, let me just, well, stop.
Wait, listen to Karen; Page Down, read Camellia. And oh yes, let me know if you like the title as much as I do.

Camellia

2004-07-15T11:03:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, with Ariel, Karen and I went to Seattle to consult with a specialist about the fibrosis that had crept like a thief into Ariel's lungs. Because of his condition, Ariel was not allowed to fly. We traveled by train. It was not easy. We had to schlep oxygen cylinders in addition to our regular baggage. By rail, the trip is over twenty-four hours long. There were far too many marginal people on this trip. Ariel, always with his nose in one book or another, was able to tune out the general weirdness. But I do not have this gift. There was a large and loud woman who, with frightening regularity, announced her trips to the washroom. There was a broken down cowboy who told his tale of bad women and good liquor to anyone foolish enough to listen. There was the speed freak who said to me: "Oh man I really really really think that beanie you're wearing is just awesome and like I think my dad was Jewish but I can't be sure cause he split when I was like seven years old and I once had this Jewish girlfriend man she was screwed up but hothothot and like you folks don't believe in Jesus do you which means dude like wow you are gonna burn in hell forever!" Imagine listening to this for more than five minutes. Now imagine twenty-four hours of it.
See what I mean?
After the consultation, we went back to our hotel room so Ariel could nap. Karen and I took a walk. In a tiny park I broke down and wept. "Our son is dying," I said. Karen held me and soothed me and spoke optimistically of all that could and would happen to save Ariel's life. I have always counted on Karen's good sense, her ability to analyze the battlefield of life with startling clarity. I told myself to believe Karen. I told myself that to surrender to despair would be a greivous sin. And worse, Ariel would pick it up. Ariel's antenna for my moods was so finely tuned that he knew what I felt even before I did. And so, I dried my tears and went back to the room. That evening, we went out to dinner and we had a wonderful time. Ariel tried a new dish in a funky kosher Seattle restaurant, Panini. We took pictures. We smiled. We laughed. We even joked about the train trip that still faced us, back to Los Angeles. But that night, before going to bed, I sat by the window, looked out at the swollen moon, white as a Camellia, and I have to confess that I knew that Ariel would die. I knew it in my gut.
Now, Karen and I are back in Seattle. We are here because the graphics team who are working for Seraphic Press all live in Seattle and we are here to finalize details of our first book, The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden.
The cover of the book is paramount. Contrary to what you have been told, most people do judge a book by its cover. There are several designs and we have to decide which one best reflects the content of the book and which one will sell best. I hope one design will fulfiull both requirements. What font should we use for the text? Goudy, Baskerville, Minion, Janson? Which paper is most appropriate for this novel? Should we use italics to indicate prayers that are said in Hebrew?
There are dozens upon dozens of details that must be addressed. Putting together a book is much like making a movie. God, as they say, is in the details. And my design team are an extraordinary group of people.
Obadinah Heavner, our chief illustrator, radiates calm and goodness. The beauty of her illustrations absolutely overwhelmed me the first time I saw them several months ago. And now, as Karen and I step into her stuidio, I have to catch my breath for the first thing I see is Ariel. In lovely shades of blue and teal is a sketch of The Hebrew Kid, the main character in my novel. Several weeks ago, Obadinah and I discussed what this young boy should look like. I completely forgot that I sent her pictures of Ariel. Seeing him now, on the mock cover of the book, well, I am simply not prepared. I stand in the light drenched studio and gaze at the drawing of Ariel. Obadinah has captured his intelligence, his profound curiosity about the world and the cosmos, but what's most surprising and wonderful is how she's managed to capture his sly sense of humor. I tell myself that it is not appropriate for a publisher to weep the first time he meets his design team. I must be a professional. And so I make believe that I am wiping perspiration from my forehead as I take out my handkerchief and dab at my face. But I am fooling no one. These people are artists; they are acutely attuned to the emotional temperature of their surroundings. That is the curse of the artist. The normal filters are not in place. An artist feels things on a different level; it is a deeper more textured experience; it can be a blessing, it can be a curse. The trick is learning to live without these filters and not be overwhelmed.
Robert Lanphear is the book designer. An eleventh generation American, Robert's ancestors were French Heugonots who fled the shores of the most vile country on earth, France, for the wild freedoms of the New World, America. From the beginning, Robert has thrown himself into the work of Seraphic Press with startling generosity and the kind of obsessive perfectionism that book design, great book design, demands. His greatest fear, he told me in our very first conversation, was that "the parts would not fit together as a unified whole." Robert's job is to make sure that The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden comes together as an organic unit. The text should reflect the content; the binding should feel the way a book that takes place in 1870 should feel. The spaces between the words should help the reader experience the story as the writer intends. It is a daunting task, and most of us take for granted the books that we read. We are not aware of all the work it takes to produce a fine book. In a sense, that is the best design; the design that is invisible.
Iskra is a calligrapher. Words and individual letters are her canvas. The title, The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden, is long. It takes up a good deal of real estate on the cover. Therefore, I am acutely aware that the letters must have a life of their own. As a Jewish sofer, scribe, works on the holy letters of the Torah, Iskra devotes herself to the artistry of making words come alive with the precise gestures of a pen through her wrist. She has worked for movie studios and Fortune 500 companies, and of course, the big New York publishers.
My design team are all accomplished artists, well known in their individual fields, much sought after. How is it that they have agreed to work for this impoverished, start-up publishing company. I have spoken with all of them privately and the answer is always the same: they love the book, they admire the idea of a press devoted to fine fiction for observant Jews, but most of all, they have learned about Ariel and they are doing it to honor his memory. These talented people have been touched by Ariel's too short life, and in their own ways, they are helping us perpetuate his memory. Being with these fine and generous people is a humbling experience. Their work is so sophisticated, so on-target, that Karen and I are only making choices among great and beautiful ideas. Not one single notion is wrong. Though they are not Jewish, they are all deeply religious in their own ways, and they have the ability to comprehend the lives of the observant characters in the novel and translate this understanding into fully realized art. A friend, not too long ago, suggested that I should probably only hire observant Jews to design the book. Only an observant Jew would, as he put it, "get it." I beg to differ with my friend. Great art and great artists have the ability to transcend ordinary cultural and religious boundaries. I am grateful that Obadinah, Robert and Iskra, creative and beneficient people, have agreed to work with Seraphic Press.
Karen and I return to our hotel room. It is the same hotel we stayed in two years ago with Ariel. It has been a long and wonderful day. Obadinah took us for a walk after we finished work. In a clearing in the forest we told her about Ariel. Not for one moment did we feel as if we were talking to a stranger. Her empathy reached across space and caressed our wounded hearts.
At last, Karen and I are able to cry. We are alone in our room. We have accomplished one more step in our mission to keep Ariel's memory alive.
Ask any parent. All they want for the lives of their children is a perfect story. Three acts that end in happiness. But that is not possible. Somewhere in act one something goes wrong. Act two brings tragedy. And for some children, there is no third act.
Perhaps all this is nothing but sound and fury, a pathetic diversion, a way of denying the solidity of Ariel's death.
I am so deep in denial that I am even denying denial.
But it is all I have. And for now, it will just have to do.
Karen goes to sleep.
I sit by the window and look out at the night and there it is, once again, the moon is white as a Camellia.

Words of Fire

2004-07-08T21:18:00.000-07:00

It happens now when I least expect it. Before, it was a chord of music, the page of a book, a prayer chanted in shul that would bring Ariel before my eyes. No, not an hallucination. But something more tangible. His presence would suddenly fill my body, and I would be frozen. My heart would thump in my head and everything solid would fade away, as if an engineer had gradually turned down the volume on reality. But now it happens at moments when I am simply not prepared. These are moments when I am defenseless, totally vulnerable.
This afternoon, Karen and I meet with a financial advisor. He is a lovely, soft spoken man, an Israeli who proudly tells us that his daughter-in-law is a Rabbi, and the mother of a new-born baby. Mazal Tov, we say to him. As he leans over his yellow pad and scrawls out the figures that represent our net worth, our taxable income, the expenses we pay out for the yeshiva education our children are receiving, as he drones on about retirement, as he projects the eventual marriages of our daughters Lila and Chloe, as he spins financial tales of the future -- I freeze. Everything stops. His voice disappears and all I can hear is the blood churning in my body. My heart slaps away, goes boom, boom, boom. And abruptly my eyes are filled with the image of Ariel. My son, who has no future, fills my vision. I cannot plan anything beyond Ariel's next Yahrtzeit, and the Yahrtzeit after that one. And suddenly, I am between my heart beats. I am saying to myself: this is not right. It is not the way it should be. Karen and I should be talking about Ariel as chassan. He should be telling me, with a sly smile, that I have to buy his bride a fine and elegant shaitel, wig, for that is the way things are done, and he knows that I am, in all probability, entirely ignorant of these finer points. Ariel loved to catch me in my numerous gaps of the proper etiquette within the yeshivish world. For I was brought up in the vanilla universe of modern orthodoxy, which, as some like to point out, is not quite modern and perhaps not really orthodox. But that's subject matter for someone else. Perhaps my friend Levi would like to enter into this mine field of Jewish debate.
I hear Karen's voice: Robert, are you all right? I snap out of my reverie, look at Karen and nod my head. She knows exactly what has happened, and her concern for me, her love, is deeply set in her Elizabeth Taylor--of National Velvet--eyes; and it is comforting. I am, in spite of everything, a lucky man to be loved by this beautiful and level-headed woman. I give her a little nod, letting her know that I really am fine, I'm not about to fall apart.
A few hours later, I receive a phone call from an old friend who is going through a terrible time in his life. He has read Seraphic Secret for the first time and he asks me:
"Why are you doing this?"
"What do you mean?"
"It's so...so...intimate, Robert. It's just not like you." I can hear it in my friend's voice; he dissapproves of this blog; he is intensely uncomfortable.
"Well, I'm not me, anymore."
"It's so, so, so horribly revealing; and painful."
"Yup."
"Do you find that it's healing for you?"
I turn this over in my mind. I wince at the new-age terminology. I have to admit: I hate it. Yet, I know that he is a good and fine man who is going through the gates of hell at this very moment. And he means well. Healing? Well, I am not drinking Kabbalah water from some loony Hollywood cult populated by brain dead actors. I am not "sharing" with a group of pony-tailed hipsters. I am not knee deep in the "Grief" book shelves at Barnes & Noble. That is not who I am. Not who I ever was. I pour words into a computer, I dump the contents of my heart into cybersphere. Or, as my friend Jackie patiently explains to me: I am having a non-hierarchical conversation. In plain English: I am speaking to anyone and everyone. You can be a plumber or a poet, a Rabbi or an engineer, Jew or Christian, and my words go out to you with no intermediary, no social filter. As Martin Buber would say, it is Ich un Du, the I and Thou relationship. But judging by the mail I receive, the unexpected long distance phone calls, I am crying out to and with, other grief-stricken parents. I am in dialogue with exceptionally fine and authentic people who also experience Ariel's loss though they never met him. They sense that the world has been irrevocably damaged. They too are sorely confused by the heavenly calculas of life and death.
But the question remains: What am I doing?I think I know. I think I understand. I think it is this simple: writing this blog, this website, this diary of love and grief, I am...
I am trying to bring Ariel back to life.
HaShem created the universe with words; Hebrew letters written in black fire on sheets of white fire. Judiasm believes in the power of words. It is what I have left. My only weapon. My only shield. Words. One after the other. Floating out to you and you and you...

Rochelly's Kitchen

2004-07-04T14:54:00.000-07:00

From the death of my son Ariel, these pages are born. I write amost exclusively about Ariel, of who he was, of how much we miss him. But there are other children who have made their way into my consciousness. As I once wrote, parents of children who have died belong to an exclusive club; a dreadful club that no one wants to join. Nevertheless, here we are.
A few days after my very first posting, Surie Lazar, of Brooklyn, New York, wrote me a detailed and moving letter about her seventeen year-old daughter, Rochelly, niftar eleven years ago. Over the weeks, Surie and I continued our correspondence, trading stories, sharing memories. And so, I was delighted when the phone rang this past Thursday afternoon and on the other end was Surie. "I am here in Los Angeles," she informed me, "I'd love to come over and visit." "That's wonderful," I replied. "Let me tell you how to get here." Surie called out to her husband: "Joe, come here and get the directions." Dimly, I heard Joe respond: "I don't want to visit, I want to go into the jacuzzi!"
Twenty minutes later, Surie and Joe cruised into a parking spot in front of our house, cruised into our lives. They are a handsome couple who have just celebrated their thirty-third anniversary. They have a married daughter who lives around the corner from them in Brooklyn, and twin sons. One son is soon to be married. Mazel Tov.
We sat and talked about our families, our lives. Surie explained, tears puckering in her beautiful blue eyes, that more than anything in the world, she wants to make sure that her beloved Rochelly is never forgotten. She admits that she feels the need to talk about Rochelly. "It's my way of keeping her memory alive," she said dabbing at her eyes. Joe said, "I'm different. I keep it all in. I don't feel the need to talk and talk." And then, naturally, Joe talked and talked about Rochelly. He recalled when the twins were having their bar mitzvah, two years after Rochelly died. It was Parshas Yitro and Joe was searching for a d'var Torah to deliver. He wanted to talk about Aseret Ha-dibrot, the Ten Commandments. In the middle of the night, Joe got up and opened one of his Torah files. He found a d'var Torah on the revelation at Sinai. "I read it and it was so beautiful, so vivid, you felt as if you were standing at Sinai. But I had not written it. It was far too beautiful. All of a sudden, I remembered that Rochelly's class was given an assignment to do a major Torah project. She was assigned Parshas Yitro. In effect, she wrote my speech for me. I read her speech at the bar mitzvah on Friday night. There wasn't a dry eye in the audience. Everyone was mesmerized." Joe could say no more.
Surie went on to explain that for the past eleven years they have operated a foundation called Rochelly's Kitchen. Twice a week, Surie cooks gallons of chicken soup. Volunteers deliver it to patients in Brooklyn hospitals. All the cooking is done by Surie in her kitchen. I have it on good authority that Surie's chicken soup is like a little taste of heaven. Why am I not surprised when Surie tells me that she does all this, in addition to working at a full-time job outside the home?
We sit and talk companionably for about two hours. We compare notes on the truly dumb things people say to you when you are sitting shiva. Things like: Well, at least you have other children, and He/she is in a better place, and Ha-Shem is testing you. We confess that we are angry when people do not mention our child who has died. At the same time, we are angry when they do mention them. We agree that no one else knows how we feel, and thank God, that is exactly how it should be.
As Joe and Surie leave, Joe grabs my hand. I apologize for taking him from the jacuzzi. Joe smiles and chuckles. It is the self-effacing laugh of a man who knows himself well. "Don't you worry," he confides, "I can go to the jacuzzi anytime, but coming here, well..." His voice fades. No more needs to be said.
It is ironic. Karen and I have lived intensely private lives. We do not thrive in social situations.
In life, Ariel gently led us, by example, into a more observant existence; in death he leads us into relationships that never would have been possible before.
There is a Kabbalistic notion that out of every evil action, some measure of good can emerge. I never really believed this. It was too abstract; it left room for too much bad behavior. And though I am not a mystic, I do recognize the possibilities in this notion. Now, I detect a subtle shift in our lives, a willingness to open up to people in a way that I never considered.
Perhaps, I am becoming a kinder, more generous person.
And perhaps, as Karen and I sat with Surie and Joe and traded sweet memories of our children, perhaps, in heaven, these two pure souls observed us in all their perfect radiance.

Is/Was

2004-06-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

The phone rings. Karen and I pick it up at the same time. Normally, we let the phone ring until Chloe or Lila gets it. We do this because: a) most phone calls are for the girlses, and b)Karen and I hate the phone, we hate talking on it, we hate spending time on it, and when we are on the phone, we are desperately searching for an exit strategy, the lull in conversation in which to insert: "I have to get off now." It's a complete mystery to Karen that when people call, it is clear that they would like nothing better than to linger and talk and talk and talk. Karen, ever practical, ever aware that most talk is a waste of time, just wants to get the necessary information and hang up. So, we pick up the phone at the exact same moment. The voice on the other end identifies herself as from the Yeshiva of Flatbush Alumni Association. She is calling to confirm our information for the upcoming guide. We verify the spelling of our name. Avrech has been mangled in so many ways that I keep a list of all the alternate spellings. Birthdays are correct, our address and professions are also right. I am holding my breath, and then it comes:
"How many children do you have?"
Karen and I hesitate. We exchange glances. Though we are in separate rooms, I can actually feel Karen's eyes boring into mine.
"Three," we reply in unison.
"What are their names?"
"Ariel, Lila, Chloe."
"And their ages?"
"Twenty-two, nineteen, sixteen."
Karen and I are both thinking the same thing: Should we mention that our twenty-two year old is dead? Do we give her the date he passed away? No. We remain silent as she efficiently clicks away at her keyboard.
It often happens that people ask us how many children we have. Always we always reply, three. Sometimes, depending on the circumstances, we will add, "But we lost one." But this time we want Ariel's name to go into the alumni guide. It is one way of keeping Ariel alive. Preserving the present tense affords us a thin sheet of comfort.
It is an intensely human way of keeping our child alive. It is also a traditional Jewish strategy.
During the last year of Ariel's life, when he and I learned together, we once fell into a discussion about a point that Rashi, the greatest of all biblical commentators, was making. Ariel said: "Rashi says, and Rashi means, and Rashi and the Malbim are not in agreement." I pointed out to Ariel that we discuss Rashi as if he were still alive, as if he and the other medieval commentators are not separated from us by centuries, much less by death. Isn't it wonderful how the mesorah, the transmission of Torah knowledge from generation to generation, ignores incovenient facts like death? The holy commentators are always discussed in the present tense, as if they are here in Pico Robertson, or maybe far away, in the holy city of Monsey, NY.
Ariel frowned. "Well, of course," he said, "it goes without saying. Rashi is alive, the Ralbag is alive, they are all alive. Only their bodies are gone."
And so it is for us. In central ways, Ariel is still alive. I open his Torah notebooks, study his commentary, and my breath is knocked from my body. Ariel's notebooks, dating from his first year in high school, to his last year at Ner Yisroel, are a spiritual diary. These are no ordinary teenage musings, for Ariel was never a typical American teenager. Always, he was a little man, innocent in the ways of the world, but wise in his Torah learning. By the way, the source of our name is the Torah. Parshat Mikeitz, Genesis: 41, 41-43.
Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, See I have placed you in charge of all the land of Egypt. And Pharaoh removed his ring from his hand and put it on Joseph's hand. He then had him dressed in garments of fine linen and he placed a gold chain upon his neck. He also had him ride in his second royal chariot and they proclaimed before him: Avrech. Thus, he appointed him over all the land of Egypt.
Rashi comments: Avrech: Av b'chachma v'rach b'shanim. A father in wisdom, but tender in years.
This terse commentary is engraved on Ariel's headstone. Naturally, it is written in the present tense. And for as long as Karen and I are alive we will speak of Ariel using this comforting grammatical form. It seems a small matter, but for grieving parents it embraces a universe of implications.
We are the parents of a child who has died. Partially, we express and endure our loss through a grammatical structure. The choice of present tense has an integrity that lavishes love, respect and dignity, on the soul of our beloved child.
Ariel is.
Ariel was.
Ariel will be.
Until the day Karen and I die.

True Emotion

2004-06-29T09:00:00.000-07:00

Here is what Karen did not say at Ariel's unveiling:

A year has passed. This has been a year of reflection and yearning, but most signifigantly, of dissolving defenses. The protective layers are wearing away. The very impulse that propelled me to speak at Ariel's funeral is now countered by an opposing force. For when I eulogize, I tend to objectify and distance Ariel, and I do not want to lose the immediacy and intimacy that are finally returning. Yes, the dissolution of my armor increases the pain. But at least I feel the restoration of the integrity of my relationship to Ariel as a mother, rather than a eulogist.
The realization of the horror of Ariel's death has taken a visceral form. I know that I have touched the target synapse, the final feeling, when my body literally convulses with shock. When I shudder, I know I have reached the true emotion. I do not want to cushion that connection because as painful as it is, at least I know it is real. I do not want to relate to Ariel by talking about his values, his incredible knowledge and humility. I want to remain in my central role as his mother. I do not want to express a mother's love through memorials and tributes. Now that I have finally connected with what feels "true" I will not speak, for the tremors of pain are wordless. The primal sighs of keening defy language. The loss is ineffable.

Shadow Anniversary

2004-06-27T07:57:00.000-07:00

June nineteenth was our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary. Ariel's Yahrzeit was the next day. To wake up in the morning, gaze across the bed and say, "Happy anniversary," is not our first impulse. In fact, more than anything, Karen and I wanted to quietly acknowledge our years together, and then quickly move on. You cannot be happy when your child is dead.
Quick digression: several wonderful parents who read these pages and write touching letters to me, have said that in their house, there is a single word that is never used: dead. They do not ever say that their child has died. They say, My child is gone, my child is with Hashem, my child is away. They tell me to use this tactic. They insist that it is not a word game. They suggest that death does not exist.
I wish I could get with their program. These parents seem to have achieved some measure of peace that, I am quite certain, will never be part of my life.
If I say that death is not real, then I must also say that birth is not real, and, well, you see the problem.
So: It is our anniversary, and by all measures we are a happy couple. I have loved Karen since the fourth grade. Essentially I have loved a child, a girl, a teenager, and finally loved a woman -- loved one person for most of my life. (A friend suggested that I am the world's most patient and successful stalker.)
We cannot exchange gifts. To do this would be to make Ariel's death a side show, an unfortunate occurence in an otherwise happy life. In fact, Ariel's death has ruptured our world. From the moment we wake in the morning and hope that it is all a dream, that maybe he's downstairs, safely in his bed, in his room, safe, safe, alive and breathing. From that twilight moment until the night, when we desperately try to sleep without crying sheer floods, every moment of our lives is in variance with what has come before. A veil of distortion has been drawn over every action we engage in. The most simple task is invested with Ariel's presence, with his absence. It takes a great deal of energy to remember how happy we used to be. Even when Ariel was sick, tortured by cancer and cruel theapies, we felt chosen for a unique kind of joy. Ariel may be sick, we told ourselves, but, he will recover. He will lead the life he desires. He will continue to study Torah. And we were grateful. We are Jews who have studied Torah. Thus, we do not take happiness for granted, for Torah teaches you, right from the beginning, that life is unfair; there is much cruelty in this world, and man has to work hard to achieve goodness.
But we are prisoners of ritual, Karen and I. Our lives are defined by one religious observance after another. And so, we improvise an appropriate way of marking these years together. Karen gives me a wonderful new book about grammar. It is something of a joke in this house that I, a professional writer, have only a passing notion of where a comma belongs. My passion for the semicolon is unnatural; my ignorance of the mysterious hyphen is sad - my misplaced apostrophe's are a scandal. Tucked inside the pages of the book is a note. In truth, the book is merely a prop to convey the real gift: Karen's words.
Karen writes a letter to me before every Shabbos. After I recite the kiddush, the blessing over the wine, I reach under the challah tray for The Note. As the girls wash their hands, I read Karen's note. It is the highlight of my week. Each letter is a gem, a clear and ardent precis of whatever we have been through that week. I have several thick volumes of these notes; they examine the emotional architecture of our lives. And so this note, this anniversary jotting, is about Ariel; it is about us; it is about our core.
To Karen I give a shadow box. In it are Ariel's glasses and two pictures. In the first photo, Ariel looks at us and smiles. It is a glorious and open smile. It is how we like best to remember him. The other picture was taken on the day we delivered Ariel to Ner Israel Rabbinic College, in Baltimore. To leave him there was one of the hardest things we have ever done. You can see the tension in Karen's body as she hugs Ariel, saying goodbye. She does not want to let go. She wants to hold on to him... forever. But she cannot.
But here in the shadow box, Karen's wish is finally achieved. Here, mother and son embrace for all time. In the shadow box, Karen does not have to let go. They are melded together for eternity.
Our anniversary is not a happy one, but it is ours, and it is what we have left, and it has a light that does not seem to be unnaturally luminous.

A Grave Problem

2004-06-24T23:53:00.000-07:00

Besides Ariel's unveiling this past weekend, we also hosted the first Ariel Avrech Yahrtzeit Lecture. With money that has been donated by generous friends and relatives, we brought Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky from Jerusalem to Los Angeles. After the speech, there was a brunch. Ariel always enjoyed a hearty meal. The caterer who did the brunch also catered Ariel's bar mitzvah. Karen and I did not have a moment to sit and eat. We went round the room, thanking all those who attended. I was deeply moved that two readers of these pages, Evy and John Nelson, attended the lecture and introduced themselves to me. Evy wrote the very first letter to this blog.
Relatives and friends flew in from all points. Karen and I thought that this Shabbos would make a deep impression on everybody. Unfortunately, when there is a death in the family, especially a death as tragic as Ariel's, other issues invariably come into play. I have discovered that no matter what we do for our child, it's never quite enought, never quite right in the eyes of others.
We decided to bury Ariel in Simi Valley so we could be close to him; so we could have a place to visit. Others in the family insisted that Israel was the right place for Ariel's kever. Karen and I agonized. We know that there is a certain z'chus in being buried in Eretz Yisroel, but Ariel never asked for it and we have no idea if this is what he would have wanted. I suspect that Ariel would want us to be able to visit his grave as often as possible. But I will not play that game, that awful strategy of assigning a particular desire to the dead, simply as a means of fulfilling what you want. This is a horrible tactic and when I stumble into it -- "Ariel would have wanted..." I catch myself, and quickly short-circuit that awful conductor of selfishness.
Karen and I have visited Ariel's grave often, and I am grateful that it is near. Each time I visit, I know that I have made the right decision. I even consulted with several Rebbeim, and each one told me that our decision was correct, and they added, we should not feel bullied by others who claim the religious high ground.
And yet, this past weekend, after the deeply moving unveiling, after the passionate lecture, after the brunch that brought us close to so many who loved Ariel, and yet after all that, there they were, scolding me once again for denying Ariel burial in Eretz Yisroel. My first reaction was shock. Was this still an issue almost a year later? I thought they understood... And then I realized that this will always be an issue for them. I am naive. I thought that the weekend would show how desperately I need to be near Ariel. Even if it is only a place. Even if he is not really there. Even if hallowed ground is more idea than form. It is still where I can go with Karen and feel his presence. I need this ground. I need it as much as oxygen.
Alive, I clung to him.
Dead, I cannot let go.
I thought they would see that moving Ariel to Israel would be a sure way of crushing my spirit. But I was foolish. I miscalculated their desire for the grave they want Ariel to have.
Ariel never had the opportunity to visit Israel. The one time we actually planned a trip, got him a passport, rented an apartment, bought plane tickets... he developed a second tumor.
Should I send Ariel to Israel now?
Does his soul require the holy soil of Israel?
Or is it my soul that needs it?
Who will be judged for this decision?
Me?
The others?
Karen tells me to ignore them; that they are simply bent on exerting control. They also, she adds, lack empathy.
There are things in this world that are just too big for me.
I know that Karen is right. But more important than who is selfish and who is not, is this: I must be able to get in the car and drive to Ariel's grave. For without this drive, I am too small for this world.

Silence

2004-06-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

The unveiling for my son Ariel took place on Friday, June eighteen. Karen and I drove with the girls to the cemetery in Simi Valley. In the back seat, the girls shared the i-Pod earphones and sang along with Avril Lavigne. Karen and I looked at one another and smiled. If it were not for the girls Karen and I would be plunged into a permanent gloom.
There were about forty-five to fifty people attending. I was amazed that so many were able to show up when you consider that it was a morning work day. But Ariel was loved by his community and people continue to do everything they can to show their feelings for Ariel.
Rabbi Muskin spoke of his loving relationship with Ariel. My father, Rabbi Avrech, spoke movingly of all the meanings of Ariel's name. Karen's father, Rabbi Singer spoke of the wrenching pain that we all feel. I have to confess that I have not paid enough attention to the pain that my parents and Karen's parents are experiencing. I realize that the serenity of their old age has been shattered by the death of this favorite grandson. But I have been too caught up in my own grief to feel their pain. Grief is a selfish thing. It refers only to itself and excludes all others. That is why it is a sin to grieve excessively. A rav I know worries that I might visit Ariel's grave too often. Do not make it a shrine, he warns me. That is why the mountain where Moshe Rabbeinu is buried remains a mystery. Yes, the older generation has lost its future. Ariel was the one who would carry on the traditions of the family. He was the chosen; everyone knew it.
Finally, I spoke:

What is the proper response to the death of a child? This has been the question that haunts us. Aside from the rituals that halacha dictates we yearn for more. As parents we want to do as much for our child who is gone as we did when Ariel was alive. Karen and I have instituted an annual lecture in Ariel's memory. We will be publishing The Book of Ariel in several months. I learn with study partners in Ariel's memory and Karen goes to Tehillim. And yet, no matter what we do, it does not seem to be enough. Perhaps it's the fear that if we don't carry out as many memorials as possible his memory will fade. And so we conceive commemorative gestures, anything that will keep his beloved spirit alive.
But perhaps the most fitting response is the most difficult of all.
Perhaps the most fitting response is silence.
Why silence? How can this be an appropriate expression of love?
In the story of the Akedah, Avraham's sacrifice of Isaac, Isaac says to Avraham: Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering?
Avraham replies: God will see the lamb for Himself for the offering, my son.
The Torah gently narrates: The two of them walked on together.
In other words, father and son walked on in silence; perhaps the most poignant silence in all history.
Why the silence? Don't father and son want to discuss what is about to happen? Don't they want to articulate some final thoughts, perhaps a last goodbye?
In truth, there are times when words are superfluous; there are times when words become a prison, locking people into specific utterances that are far too concrete, miserably restricted in meaning and emotional depth.
The reason words are superfluous in the Akedah is because father and son love one another.
This is love that is so profound, a love that is so pure that to verbalize it would only corrupt the integrity of the feeling.
In the most subtle manner, the Torah is illustrating that under the most profound circumstances words can only convey a poverty of expression.
It is necessary to recognize that the Torah's first use of the verb to love occurs in the story of the Akedah, in God's command that Avraham offer: Your son, your only son, whom you love. When the Torah uses a word for the first time it does so with the purpose of defining that word in all its purity. Thus, the essence of true love is captured in the relationship between Avraham and Isaac. The Torah demonstrates that the ultimate expression of love transcends spoken language; in fact love finds its greatest fulfillment in silence.
We are not on this lofty spiritual level. We lack the ability, maybe even the courage to rely on silence to convey our love for Ariel. But in the absence of that faculty, the least we can do is take note of it and hope that sometime in the future this endless love we feel for Ariel will find its proper expression.

After I spoke, we recited Tehillim. I said the Kaddish. People lined up to place small stones on the headstone. Karen and I waited for everyone to leave and then we lingered at the grave. We touched the granite. We wept and embraced. On the way back to the car Karen and I halted in our tracks and went back to Ariel's grave because we felt that we did not say a proper goodbye. Again we touched the granite, again we lingered and wept. Again, for the hundreth time we said, this can't be real. How did this happen? Is this really our life? We exist within the embrace of cruel questions: Why, how, what if? Endless permuations of what could have been, what should have been. But in the end we are left with this awful reality and I wonder: how much longer can I go on without surrendering to nothingness?

A Stubborn Grief

2004-06-17T09:55:00.000-07:00

The first time Karen and I visited Ariel's grave was right after shloshim. I was so filled with dread that I asked Karen's best friend, Audrey, to drive us to the cemetery. Little was said during the forty-five minute drive. Most vividly, I remember exchanging a long glance with Karen and in that split second we were both thinking the same thing: this cannot be happening.
Ariel is buried in Simi Valley. The views are lovely and pastoral, with blurry, distant mountains burned ochre. There is always a brisk wind whipping down the passes. We chanted the prayers, and we sobbed; we were all struck with a sense of unreality. Was Ariel really here? Was his body under our feet? I kneeled and touched the ground, his eternal blanket. Karen said, "Maybe he's cold, maybe he needs a sweater." I said nothing. Karen is his mother and she wants to shield her child from all harm. The wind picked up and Audrey, a loyal friend, moved to Karen's side, she seemed to float in a motion that was part wind, part liquid, and in an instant they were joined together at the foot of Ariel's grave. They stood like this for a long moment, staring out at the mountains, weeping and sobbing and shivering.
I remembered Rav's warning from the Talmud: He who mourns for his dead too stubbornly weeps for some other dead.
I recognize Rav's peerless wisdom. The temptation to bury yourself in the garb of endless grief is powerful. But with all due respect to Rav, I have lost others that I have loved: my mother who nurtured me, my mother's mother who heroically loved me, Jamie, my college friend who was gunned down by an evil junkie, two close friends from Israel who were killed in the Yom Kippur War. I grieved for them too. It was a grief that rose and fell. But the death of a son, the death of a child, this is a grief that cannot be confused with others. Which is what Rav was afraid of. Don't mix griefs. Like milk and meat, it is to be avoided. For Judaism loves order. Halacha is attached to the exacting particulars of our lives. But Ariel's death is singular. It maintains a steady pitch. The needle is always in the red zone. Nothing in life has prepared me for this hammer-blow. No one has written a manual explaining how to keep breathing after the heart has been unhinged from its cavity.
A friend from the film business calls to tell me that she can't come to the unveiling, but that she will be with me in spirit.
A friend from shul calls to tell me that he cannot come to the unveiling, but that he will give charity in Ariel's memory.
My friend from the film business asks how I'm doing on the eve of the unveiling. "It's hard." I reply. This has become my standard response. Not terribly poetic, but honest and utilitarian and true, like a piece of Shaker furniture.
When my friend from shul asks me the same question and I give the same answer he shoots back, "It's supposed to be hard."
My Hollywood friend suggests that the unveiling will provide "some closure." She is well meaning, but deeply schooled in the superficial language that infects the business that I have chosen as my profession. Film people want reality to ape the paradigm of the movies they manufacture. They yearn for clean cut resolutions. Happy endings. There is no pain that cannot be rewritten. There is no hurt than cannot be overcome by a third act rescue, preferably at the hands of a love that neatly balances the loss. Hollywood people, though ruthless in the extreme, are, in fact, incurable romantics. They want me to join support groups, attend grief counseling sessions run by aging hippies with ponytails. They want to believe that anything, everything, no matter how terrible, can be washed away in the shallow waters of New Age therapies. They want to believe in something -- just as long as it does not involve God.
My friend from shul will give charity and daven. He knows that it is hard, that it will always be be hard, and he understands this is the way it is supposed to be.
He recognizes the ultimate truth that all parents of children who have died live with: all we can do is endure.
Tomorrow is Ariel's unveiling.
I'm trying to hold back time.
But it will come.
Tomorrow will come.

City of Angels

2004-06-16T09:54:00.000-07:00

No one ever warned me that a central part of mourning is the mundane task of making endless arrangements. Ariel's unveiling takes place this coming Friday, and we have family and friends flying into Los Angeles. They must all have places to sleep, and they must all be fed. We are Jews and so cucumber sandwiches and Martinis will not suffice. The Jewish people require heaps and heaps of politically incorrect food in this land of sculpted bodies. And so, Karen has been on the phone with a caterer arranging for Shabbos meals, and asking friends from shul to lend a bedroom for our out-of-town visitors. On Sunday, we will also be presenting the first Ariel Avrech Yahrtzeit Lecture. For this, Karen and I and the girls composed tributes to Ariel. Lila designed a beautiful cover using photos of Ariel and then created a lovely collage in Photoshop. A close friend, also a grieving mother and an accomplished graphic artist, polished Lila's work. Years ago, this same woman did the graphics for Ariel's Bar Mitzvah. Karen and I went to Kinkos to have the program printed and that's when our arrangements, so finely tuned, started to go awry. Our order was lost. Finally, when it was located, the print used was too small, the font all but invisible. Once again, the order was lost.
"We don't lose orders," barked a huge Kinko's employee, "we just displace 'em."
"You mean misplace?"
"Whatever, man."
We have paid countless visits to Kinkos in the past three days. They all end in the same way for me: a huge migraine. Finally, late last night, I appealed to a young woman with a startling Kinkos name-tag, ie: Jewish.
"Look, my son died. My wife and I are having a memorial in his memory. I need to get this right. Can you help me?"
I know that this is unfair, appealing so nakedly, using Ariel's death as an emotional hammer. Call me crass, call me vulgar, but I saw no other way.
The young woman, Ilana, looked at the program and asked how Ariel died.
"Cancer," I said for the sake of simplicity.
"My best friend died of a brain tumor a year ago," she said, voice cracking. "Let me handle it." And she did.

Last night, I was invited to present the Ariel Avrech Scholarship at Yeshiva Gedolah, his high school. His friends, Ari Miller, Avi Stewart and Avrami Gross founded and raised the funds for the scholarship.
Ari told me that, "I approached every guy from our class for a donation and every single one of them agreed. Not one turned us down. As soon as they heard that it was for Ariel, they chipped in. Even two boys who were asked to leave the Yeshiva in our sophomore year wrote checks. We have enough money for the next four years."
"I didn't know that boys were asked to leave," I said. "Ariel never told me."
"No," said Ari, "Ariel wouldn't talk about something like that."
I sat in the graduation and gazed at the wonderful boys and their proud, beaming families. I remembered Ariel's graduation. At the time, he was healthy. He had recovered from two bouts of cancer, massive doses of chemotherapy and radiation. And though he spent a majority of his high school career in the hospital, Ariel was still the valedictorian. It was not awarded out of pity. Ariel worked hard, never made excuses, never said that he couldn't keep up. Ariel endured, and he did his schoolwork with a sense of purpose that I have never witnessed in anyone.
As I made the presentation, I had to choke back a sob.
I said, "You who have attended Yeshiva Gedolah are lucky people. You have made friendships that will flourish for the rest of your lives. This memorial is proof of it. I want you all to look around and realize that this momemt is sacred and should never be forgotten."
My speech was halting. It is hard to speak your heart when it is broken. As Ari and I walked back to our cars, I struggled to express my appreciation for all that he and the other boys had done.
Ari said, "Mr. Avrech, we all miss Ariel too, you know."
And I realized at that moment that I was not the only one grappling with a proper way to remember Ariel. I was not the only one who missed him so ferociously that it is a permanent ache in the pit of your gut. There on the street, in Los Angeles, this City of Angels, among street traffic of hasidim and hipsters, I hugged Ari the way I used to hug Ariel. I went home and told Karen about the ceremony. And when we went to bed and her tears hit my chest as they do most every night, for one brief moment I was able to break away from my fury, let go of the dread. I was able to lean on my wife. I was able to be comforted by the kindness of Ariel's friends. For the first time in a long time, I was able to break away from the pain of burying the one I love and -- accept the love of those who are still alive. The living and the dead: my duty is to both of them.

The Last Kaddish

2004-06-14T09:20:00.000-07:00

The Kaddish has been called an echo of the Book of Job. Job said: "Though He slay me, yet will I trust in him." The Kaddish is an expression of faith on the part of the mourner that although he is grief-stricken, he still believes in God, still trusts in the meaning of life. It is the ultimate anti-existentialist statement. Karen and I will mourn forever. We are riven as day follows night. Our son will always be dead, and a central portion of our lives died with him.

This Shabbos I recite the last Kaddish of the eleven months for Ariel.

I stand in shul, eyes closed, swaying back and forth, chanting the words with (I hope) perfect diction and true feeling. I want the b'racha to go on forever. I want to stretch the words like a giant rubber band and make them reach from earth to heaven. There are at least another dozen mourners in shul, all with much louder voices than mine, but I hear only one sound. Is this my voice? I see Ariel as he used to be: sitting in shul beside me. Is this my voice? I study the delicate architecture of his face. I melt as Ariel's lips move, savoring each syllable, whispering the sacred Hebrew text. Is this me? I study his long tapering fingers as they turn the pages of the siddur. I lean over and bury my lips in the plush groove of his neck. It is my voice. I am close to the end. It is my son. I take three steps back and three steps forward. I finish the Kaddish. I open my eyes and I see a dozen men in shul gazing at me. Some have tears in their eyes. Several nod, tacitly acknowledging the finality of the moment. I open my eyes and I see light. I open my eyes and I am swimming through layers of memory. I open my eyes and I see splendor. I open my eyes and I see my son, my son, Ariel.

The Only Club I Have Ever Joined

2004-06-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

Seven years ago, a young child in our community died. Karen and I did not know the parents well, but we paid a shiva call to their home. As we sat in the house, I talked with the parents at length. At the time, Ariel was in the midst of his first round of chemotherapy and the parents were incredibly generous in their concern for Ariel. I remember looking at the grief-stricken mother and father, thinking to myself: Thank God that's not me. I knew in my gut that if my child ever died I would never be able to handle it. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would simply curl up and died. I also knew that Ariel would never die. That could not, would not happen. Not to him. Not to us.
But it has happened.
And that father who I paid a shiva call to is now one of my closest friends. We daven in shul together. We learn together as a Chavrusah in memory of our dead sons. When we learn we often digress and talk about our sons. It is a sad truth that he and I belong to a small club, an exclusive club. The only club I have ever joined. We speak the same language. Often, we don't even need to speak; silence has an alphabet all its own. It's a mysterious communication that contains volumes. This man and I are so different that our friendship is almost like a pairing from a Neil Simon play, Felix and Oscar. I write Hollywood movies, he's in math, a subject that has given me grief my whole life. He always wears a suit and tie. I wear the same LL Bean khakis and pink shirt every day (not the same ones, I'm clean, obsessively so, no, I have a dozen of each.) When we learn Torah, my friend is precise and organized. My so-called mind flies off in so many directions at once that I can see the impatience in his eyes. But our sons have died and so we have more in common than I have with most members of my own family.
There's also something else. Guilt. Big shock, right? I have always hated myself for thinking: Thank God it didn't happen to me, when Karen and I attended his son's funeral.
But now I see that thought in the eyes of my friends when they approach. I used to think that they were merely uncomfortable in my presence. Afterall, I'm not exactly a fun man to be with. (Was I ever?) Now I know why they are uncomfortable, so utterly embarrassed that they gaze down at the ground, averting their eyes from mine. It is because they are saying to themselves: Thank God that it didn't happen to me. And so when I see this expression wash over the faces of my friends in shul, I understand. And there is no anger in me, no resentment at all. I say to myself: Please don't let it happen to them.

Ariel in Love

2004-06-10T09:42:00.000-07:00

She first came to our house for a Shabbos meal, a lovely young girl and her mother. They are not particularly observant, but the daughter is interested in learning as much as she can about Judaism. Brought up in a proudly Jewish household and affiliated with the Reform movement, the daughter, incredibly bright, ferociously independent in her conservative political opinions, and hungry for spiritual knowledge, feels the tug of ritual, hears the voice of the shtetl that her grandparents fled; she yearns for the warm embrace of tradition, hungers for an authentic religious experience. Ariel is typically quiet and shy. The only women he has had anything to do with are his lively and funny sisters, Lila and Chloe, and of course Karen, the mother he cherishes. He is not ignorant of what women are, of their inner voices and cycles, for his grounding in Talmud has made him conversant with the most intimate details of femalehood. But he is, by nature shy, and flirting is as far off his radar as, well, the furthest galaxy. Charmingly, the girl gradually draws Ariel out. She has read him well. She poses provocative questions and Ariel is never more in his element than when expounding on Torah. He dazzles with his thoughtful, precise answers, with his utter sincerity. I can see it in the girl's eyes: she has never met anyone like my son. The boys she knows are crude and think nothing of drawing explicit graffiti on her notebook. They are not bad kids, just typical products of a secular culture that has taught its children that men and women are no different and so the normal etiquette between the sexes has all but disappeared. And naturally, it is the women who suffer the consequences. In contrast to their crudeness Ariel seems like an awkward, but adorable prince, a young man who knows who he is and cares nothing for the currents of popular culture. She wants Ariel to teach her Torah. But Ariel tells her that it wouldn't be proper. That she should have a female teacher. She pouts, sullen. What could be improper? Maybe Ariel just doesn't like her. But Karen takes her aside and explains the concepts of tznius, modesty, of the protective gates the observant construct on order to avoid placing themselves in compromising situations. "You mean, Ariel won't ever just sit and talk to me, alone?" She asks in dismay. "Not unless you're going out on a shidduch date," my wife explains. The girl is baffled. She lives in a world where boys and girls interact "normally." This separation seems so... medieval. She shrugs and goes her way. Perhaps this is just too weird. But she signs up for classes at a Jewish outreach program. As she does everything else in her life, she immerses herself in study, flings herself into the sea of Torah and oh my, but aren't the currents powerful. There are more Shabbos meals at our home. Her pants give way to long skirts. Her t-shirts surrender to long sleeved blouses. Her sentences are peppered with phrases like: "Baruch Ha-shem," and "Epes," and "Yeshivish." She speaks like a native.
Ariel comes to speak to us one night. He stutters as he tells us that he's ready. "Ready for what?" Karen and I ask. Ariel smiles: "Shidduch date, I'm ready."
Ariel and the girl, a genuine Baal Teshuva now, go to Starbucks. They sit in hotel lobbies. They talk for hours and hours. And before I know it, Karen and I are purchasing a sheitl for Ariel's bride and we are dancing at his chuppah. I dance with Ariel. Karen dances with the girl and her mother. Ariel is hoisted on a chair at the same time as his kallah and they wave to one another over the mechitzah. We all go round and round in the circle, dizzy with joy, cries of "Mazal Tov, Mazal Tov" echoing everywhere.
All this passed through my head the other day when I sat in Farmer's Market with my friend Cathy and her daughter Cecile. More than anything, Ariel wanted to marry and have many, many children. And though he is gone, I can't help but play out fantasies of his marriage in my head. Cecile is a unique young girl: she's smart and funny and curious and her love for Judaism is powerful and aunthentic. Cathy, an amazing woman has raised an amazing girl. Ariel and I used to read Cathy's social and political articles together. We admired her uncompromising chutzpah. And so, as we sit and chat in this unique market that has not changed since the 30's, I build the elaborate fantasy in my head. I give Ariel this gift of love, this remarkable romance with a radiant young girl and for a few seconds Ariel lives the life he yearned for.
Cecile smiles, she crosses my vision like a moon and I have to hold myself back from saying: Thank you, thank you for making Ariel so happy.

A Blockbuster J'accuse!

2004-06-08T14:15:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was in a Blockbuster, desperate for a film, something, anything to give me some relief from the unrelenting hollow feeling that is called grieving. A Mom and her son were in the same aisle. He was a hyper little ten year old, grabbing videos off the shelves and chattering away: "This one, Mommy? This one? Mommy, what about this one? Mommy, Mommy, Moooooomy!" Mommy was talking on her cell phone. Her son was the furthest thing from her mind. He wanted a video, he wanted Mommy's attention. Mommy just wanted to talk on the phone. The little boy sat on the floor and made a house out of the videos. Mom wandered down another aisle, deep in conversation. I overheard this: "No, no, please don't say that... hon, that's not what I meant..." I looked at the little boy and he gave me a curious look. Somebody had told him not to talk to strangers. But the temptation was too much. "House, I'm building a house," he told me. "It's beautiful," I said. When Ariel was this age he too loved to build. There were cities of Legos in his room, a universe of red and yellow and blue where Ariel ruled his own kingdom of Transformers and Popples. For hours Ariel would sit on the floor and ferociously concentrate on the task at hand. He always had this ability: the patience to apply himself totally and completely to whatever he cared about. In Yiddish it's called, zitz fleish, sitting flesh. I crouched by the video house and again told the little boy that his house was reallly great and he should be proud of himself. That's when Mom showed up and suspiciously spat out: "Excuse me?" I told Mom. "I was just admiring his building." She squinted at me, not saying a word. "Your lucky to have such a wonderful son," I added. "Uh-huh," she replied, giving me a long, dark suspicious look. Abruptly, I became aware that she might, God forbid, think of me as some kind of a pervert. And so I desperately, stupidly stuttering all the while, added. "I have children. Three children. Two girls and a boy. A son. Actually, I had a son... but he died." She was appalled. I don't blame her. What the heck was I doing? Is this what a nervous breakdown looks like? "Really?" she probed. "Really," I said. "He died a few months ago." "I'm sorry, really really sorry. What happened?" "Cancer," I said. And then she said something that to this day sends a chill up my spine. "Nobody deserves that, no parent, no matter what they've done." And she walked away. I wanted to run after her and ask her what she meant. No matter what they've done? Did she see something in my face, some incriminating evidence that led her to this horrible accusation, that allowed her to conclude that Ariel's death was the result of something I had done? Was there a mark on my forhead that labeled me a man of such twisted DNA that for my sins my son was taken? From what dark theology did this creature emerge?
I felt sick and I still do when I see the words spilling from her mouth. It's an image in slow motion: her words break from the confines of their comic book bubbles, tumble from her frosted lips in a jagged bloody font, red and laquered as a Chinese vase. How could she say such a thing to a perfect stranger? To anyone? And of course, being the guilty Jew that I am I pondered the countless averas of my life and imagined the unimaginable.
Later that night, without telling Karen about the incident in Blockbuster, I asked her:
"Do you ever think that we're being punished?"
"No," she said without a second's hesitation. "Never."
"But maybe, just maybe..."
"Ariel was innocent and Hashem does not punish the innocent for the sins of others. It's just wrong," she said.
Is the thought wrong, I said to myself, or simply unbearable?
I cannot and do no accept the dreadful inference made by that awful woman. But what does torture me is the feeling that I am a failure as a parent. I'm a failure because my son is dead. Ariel trusted me; he believed me when I told him that everything would be all right. Never for a moment did he imagine that I would let him down.
But-
-I did let him down.
-I did not save him.
And no matter how irrational the thought, nothing can shake loose the dreadful notion that as a parent I failed my child.

Crouching Jew, Hidden Tears

2004-06-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

Here's my Friday, pre-Shabbos schedule. I get up early and go to shul for minyan where I say Kaddish for Ariel. Most people, including Jews, mistakenly refer to the Kaddish as The Prayer for the Dead. In fact, the Kaddish never mentions death, nor guilt, or memory. Rather it is a declaration of faith in our national purpose, of loyalty to God, of confidence in the ultimate triumph of the ideals for which heaven and earth were created. Adding to it's power, mystery and majesty is that we recite The Kaddish in the original Aramaic, the common everyday language of ancient Judaism. May His great name be exalted and sanctified in the world He created according to His will...
At home, I eat breakfast while reading the newspaper. We live in Los Angeles, but stubbornly subscribe to the excruciatingly Wahabist Liberal New York Times, mostly because Karen likes to do the crossword puzzle. She can even do most of their Friday's brain melter. And may He establish His kingship during your lifetime and during your days and during the lifetime of the entire Family of Israel, swiftly and soon. I take Lila to work at the architectural firm where she is interning, and then ferry Chloe to school. I write five pages of whatever script I'm working on and then take a twenty minute run around the neighborhood. Pico-Robertson is a warm and intimate shtetl surrounded by strip malls. I set the table for Shabbos; white table cloth, individual salt shakers, crisp linen napkins big as a poster when unfolded, good (well, at least not bad) silverware, and a special knife to cut the challah. I do the dishes and clean up the house in honor of the Seraphim who will dwell in our home during the holy Shabbos. But I do not vacuum nor do I do windows. I am afterall heterosexual. May His great name be blessed forever and ever. Blessed, lauded, glorified, extolled, upraised, honored, elevated, and praised be the Name of the Holy One, Blessed be He... I still set Ariel's place at the table. Nobody sits in his chair. He's still a presence as far as we are concerned, and when I give the girls their Shabbos B'rachos I silently whisper Ariel's B'racha. I dash over to the local library to pick up books for our Shabbos reading. The librarians know me well. My best friend there is James, tall, slim, with suffering Renaissance eyes. A very religious Christian, James davens in the AME, Los Angeles' oldest black church. James knew Ariel, always greeted us with a wide and welcoming smile. James remembers my son's delight in checking out books by Avi, Jane Yolen, and Bruce Coville. When Ariel was in serious decline, James prayed for his recovery. Beyond all blessings, songs, praises, and consolations that are uttered on earth. Now respond: Amen.
This Friday at the library, prowling the book shelves, I was slapped by a wave of grief, a surge so mighty that I froze, I simply could not stir. I don't know exactly what brought on this particular convulsion, but it happens so frequently that I'm no longer surprised. Through my tears, I glimpsed a man checking books out at the front desk; he was a bit goofy-looking, wearing ill-fitting shorts, badly furrowed t-shirt and clod-hopper shoes. Unkindly thought to myself: "Oh no, another schizophrenic haunting the library." However, I quickly realized that it was the infamous blogger Luke Ford. I wanted to go over and greet him with: Hello, how are you? Good Shabbos; thank him again for linking me to his website. But my face was bright with tears and mucous was dripping down my nose so I just crouched between the high metal shelves, Fiction: A - D, and waited for the grief to pass. A tiny, doe-eyed Iranian child saw me and pointed, saying: "Mommy, mommy look, why is that man crying?" Mom looked at me in horror, quickly yanked her child away. Obviously she thought I was a mental patient taking refuge in the library. May the prayers and supplications of the entire Family of Israel be accepted by their Father who is in heaven, now respond: Amen. I huddled there and sobbed and thought of all the times Ariel and I had been in the library together. He loved the children's section above all others because so many adult books are, well, too adult and not appropriate for an observant Jew. He loved books and he loved the library and I suppose that here was as good a place as any to dissolve, grieve and remember. May there be abundant peace from heaven, and good life upon ull Israel. Now respond: Amen.
Finally, I managed to collect myself and drive home. Luckily, the Pico- Robertson branch is just two minutes from where I live. I prepared to go to shul. I didn't tell Karen, Lila or Chloe about the emotional onslaught in the library; to what end? After shul, after the Shabbos meal, when we all sat in the living room reading our library books, I gazed at my family -- I affectionately refer to them as The Girlses -- and I said to myself: this is real, this is fact, Ariel is gone, Ariel is gone, and next Shabbos will be exactly the same. He who makes peace in His heights may He in His mercy make peace upon us and upon all Israel. Now respond: Amen.

Ariel Recaptured

2004-06-04T16:16:00.000-07:00

In the last year of Ariel's life he lived at home. Being a screenwriter, I make my own hours and so arranged my schedule around Ariel's needs. My office is in back of the house and so Ariel was able to call me if he needed something. Still, I spent most of my time in the house, close to my son. I learned to cook a very limited menu just for Ariel. I drove him to medical appointments. And when he was able I took him for short walks down our block. When he couldn't walk, I pushed him in the wheelchair. Karen and I had to find solutions for all sorts of problems that crop up when your child is ill and dying.

Ariel was having trouble sleeping. He told us that he was anxious, that his mind simply would not stop whirring away. Karen suggested that he shouldn't try and sleep, trying only makes things worse. "Get up," she advised, "turn on the light and read something." Ariel tried this several times but he compalined that the books he chose to read, usually some commentary on Torah or Talmud, was so engrossing that it would keep him awake all night. "Try reading something really boring," Karen said. But Ariel could not imagine picking up a book with the purpose of inducing boredom. It went against his every impulse. When it became clear that the lack of sleep was taking a toll on his frail body, I handed him a Walkman and a box of tapes. "When you find yourself tossing and turning," I said, "just put on the headphones and listen to the tape." "What is it, Dad?" "A novel on tape. It should help."

The next morning Ariel smiled hugely as I stepped into his room. "Dad, that's an amazing book," he exclaimed. "You liked it?" I cried, incredulous. "I fell asleep before I knew what I was listening to," he said. "What is it?" "It's a book called In Search of Lost Time. It's written by Marcel Proust, and it's seven volumes, over 3,000 pages, and by the way, the first forty pages are all about a child trying to fall asleep and failing." "Dad, have you actually read this book?" he asked in mild horror. "Um, yes." I confessed. "But Dad, you hate the French, you hate everything French!" "I know, I know," I whimpered. "What can I say, it was a challenge to read, and truth is after a while I kinda liked it. Please don't tell anybody, Ariel. Please. Please. I still hate the French -- well, not French Jews. But, please. Let this be our little secret." "B'le Neder," he said with a sly smile.

Ariel was endlessly amused by my affection for this impossible and plotless and meandering French novel. He chuckled in disbelief when I showed him one sentence that, "I kid you not, Ariel, runs on for three pages, 958 words." But Ariel did continue to use Proust as a sleep aid for several weeks. Now that he's gone, now that he's memory, my respect for Proust and his massive tome has only increased. I now understand what Proust was after because it's a central human urge: to recapture the past, to corral the moments that made us who and what we are. If we can accomplish this, we tell ourselves, then we will find some measure of peace. If I can recall with perfect exactitude the moments I most cherish with Ariel then perhaps his death will not be so final. In this manner Ariel will gain another life, a shadow life perhaps, but anything is preferable to a terrible oblivion.

Within a Budding Schoolyard

2004-06-03T14:29:00.000-07:00

I was ten-years old when I fell in love with Karen. It happened in fourth grade. The students buzzed with the news that a new kid had transferred from Ohel Moshe, a yeshiva in Bensonhurst. I was playing punchball in the yard when I saw the new girl standing in the schooolyard. Karen was alone, poised by the gate. She was gazing out past the yard, past all the active, tumbling children, past the girls who were skipping rope. Karen was staring off into space in the most splendid isolation. To me she looked like the princess of a lost tribe. I was smitten. What struck me about Karen aside from her devastating beauty was the fierce intelligence that flashed in her eyes. And oh, how desperately did I want to know what this little girl was thinking about? So, in the Yeshiva of Flatbush schoolyard, I stood frozen at home plate gazing fixedly at Karen Singer, knowing deep in my heart that my life had just changed; that I would never ever be the same person. Oh, I continued to be a gawky and awkward and painfully dopey kid with a paralyzing math disability, (in those days we were just called dumb) but I was different for I carried a secret in my heart, a secret that I shared with no one.

The secret was this: some day I would marry Karen Singer.

Karen and I barely spoke in all the years we were together in elementary school. It did not take long for Karen to be recognized as not only the prettiest girl in Yeshiva, but the brightest.

Years passed. Karen and I went to separate high schools. I would see her at basketball games, sometimes in the local pizza shop. But we never spoke; she had no idea who I was. Certainly, she did not know that I was still in love with her.

During college years, every once in a while I would ask my parents if they'd heard anything about Rabbi Singer's daughter. "Oh, she's in Barnard," they would tell me. "Is she married yet?" "Not yet, but that girl won't be single long." I agreed. Some smart Columbia pre-med student was bound to win her heart.

After college, I was living on the upper west side in New York. One day in shul, the Lincoln Square Synagogue, I looked up from my siddur and my heart stopped for there she was. Karen was sitting in the women's section.

And she was not wearing a hat.
Which meant that she was not married.

The very next day I saw her on the street at a Jewish Street Festival. She was alone, standing in almost the exact same posture as when I first saw her in the school yard. I walked over and introduced myself. Baffled she looked at me; she had no idea who I was. No idea that my heart was beating in my chest like a trapped bird.

Less than a year later, we were married.

Ariel was our first born. Karen's labor was difficult and finally a c-section was performed. I was there when Ariel was born. All births are miraculous, but this more so for that little girl I had loved so deeply, so passionately was now mother to our child. I felt blessed by Hashem and I was appropriately grateful.

Twenty-two years later Karen and I were with Ariel when his soul departed his body. As Ariel died, as our son became pure spirit, Karen and I clung to one another and I stood in the schoolyard and watched the new girl in her majestic isolation, and I gazed across the mechitza and saw Karen davening, sans hat, and then I saw Ariel emerge from her belly bright and glistening like a skinned rabbit and now that little girl I have loved almost every minute of my life is a sad and grieving woman. Every once in a while I look up and catch sight of Karen in that identical posture -- it has become my madeleine. Karen gazes off into space, that sense of fine isolation still clings to her. She remains that spellbinding girl I loved with the perfect love of a child. However, now I know exactly what she's thinking for it is all I think about. Ariel, Ariel, our son is dead. Someone, please please please tell us how it is possible that we have moved from the schoolyard to the graveyard in one short lifetime?

The Whiteness of the Blog

2004-06-02T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ariel attended a rigorously orthodox high school here in Los Angeles. The boys studied a vast amount of Talmud, leaving just enough time for the secular subjects. Ariel thrived in this academic envoronment for he loved Talmud and Torah and took great joy in the complex arguments that make up the Oral Law. I, however, worried that he was missing out on some of the great works of literature. And so Karen and I hired a private tutor for Ariel. Once a week, in the evening, after night-seder Ariel would get together with the tutor for a two hour session -- a deep immersion in the great works of the western canon. I worked out the readng list with the tutor and accompanied Ariel to the first class, reasoning that I would stay with him for the first few minutes then slip away once I felt all was under control. But I discovered that I was enjoying the class immensely and asked Ariel if I could take it with him. He smiled, delighted and said: "Welcome to high school, Dad." Initially, Ariel was puzzled by our first choice: Antigone, but soon the central drama clicked in his mind and he found himself admiring the brave, the loyal, the stubborn doomed heroine. He enjoyed Edgar A Poe, especially the spooky, haunted tales. Stephen Crane was a washout. The great revelation was Jane Austen. The frenzied shidduch making among the English gentry amused Ariel no end and from then on I think Ariel read Pride and Prejudice at least once a year. When Ariel was sick we often watched one of the BBC productions, and I even treated him to a viewing of the old MGM adaptration with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier. Ariel laughed at the insistent, chirpy score and the unbelievable hats, some looking like alien plants, worn by the actresses. We were reading out of order and we next found ourselves in the dark and Catholic world of James Joyce and his incomparable Dubliners. Ariel was moved, deeply moved by The Dead, but as we were about to move on to Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ariel asked if we coul skip more Joyce. Why? "The Catholic imagery, it makes me uncomfortable, Daddy." We moved on. Our next book was, for Ariel, the most baffling and yet the most rewarding: Moby Dick. We read it together, out loud to one another on many evenings. I had never seen Ariel so disturbed, so confused, by well, by anything. On the one hand, he was intrigued by the great white whale and what it meant. Yet a part of him desperately wanted to push the whole thing aside, relegate it to the file that reads: "unnecessary knowledge." But Ariel was, like his mother, a tenacious intellect. No matter how he tried, he could not convince himself that Melville's tale of good and evil was just a huge academic hoax. Deep in his heart Ariel knew that something important was going on; between the pages of Moby Dick vital questions were being debated. In our last discussion of the book Ariel read his final report; he had come up with some compelling notions: "Imagine," he said, "that you are in a large room with Moby Dick. You try to get a look at the beast, but you can't. He's simply too big, too white. No matter how far back you step, you will not be able to see the whale as a whole. You will only see pieces. Some pieces will look beautiful, whereas other views will present as sinister, evil. This is the essence of the whale. No man has the vision, the ability to comprehend the meaning of the whale and its dazzling whiteness. The only point of view that has any chance of making any coherent sense is from on high. From God's perspective. Just as we wrestle with questions of good and evil, we can never understand God's plan. So too are we confounded by Moby Dick. His whiteness suggests benevolence, but the whiteness dazzles; it hurts our eyes with its majesty. And though Moby Dick leaves death and chaos in its wake, we feel deep affection for the great white whale, we love the leviathan for its unique magnificence. We respect its strength. We believe," concluded Ariel, "that the whale can bring justice along with destruction." The tutor gave Ariel an A plus for his essay. Looking back, I don't think Ariel read Moby Dick ever again.

My grief is like the whale. It is so vast, so infused with Hashem's light that I can barely see even one corner of my pain, much less make sense of it. I step back, I try and look at myself, at my limitless mourning but all I see is a tiny smudge, a dot of no great signifigance. No matter how hard I try I cannot view my grief with any clarity. This blog is, perhaps my desperate attempt at making sense of a life that has been plunged into a space that exists beyond the boundaries of language and imagination. I remember. I write. I try and understand the past. I try to recapture my beloved son, but for every word written, a hundred, a thousand, a million are abandoned. And I fear that for every memory unearthed, dozens are lost in the funereal gray folds of my brain. Sometimes I fear that I will not be able to see the most simple elements of who Ariel was, of what our relationship was made of. And last night my fear was realized. Karen sat down and read this blog - for the very first time. She sat in our bedroom and read. I waited, tense and fearing that she would despise what I have written. Karen has always been my harshest and most honest critic. When I give her a completed screenplay, I melt with the terror of a bad review. I was afraid that she would find this blog false and vain and self-absorbed; an insult to Ariel's holy neshama; an exercise in new age narcissism. Karen read and soon she was sobbing. "Oh, Robert" she said, "you need Ariel's love so badly." And it hit me, this simple truth that I had never seen before: Ariel is dead and a central portion of my soul is dying; for each and every day I am withering away for lack of his love.

Several of my readers have manged to get hold of my e-mail; they want to write to me privately, avoiding the too public "comments" section of the blog. I understand perfectly. So, anyone who wishes, please write to me at: seraphicpress@aol.com.

Special thanks to Luke Ford.net for linking me to his compelling site. Luke knew Ariel, even learned Pirkei Avot with him. Ariel was fond of Luke. That said, I must, however, add a warning to my readers that some of Luke's material is simply not appropriate for Torah Jews or for my Christian friends.

Women and Shoes and Blessings Part II

2004-06-01T14:31:00.000-07:00

An hour after I posted the last entry, I left my office, walked twelve paces into my house and heard the dangerous sound of someone reciting the numbers to my credit card. I knocked on the door to Chloe's room and entered. There, Offspring Number Three was pacing the floor with portable phone in one hand and credit card in the other. "What're you doing?" I asked, as if I didn't know. "Ordering," she responded, "Size six... yes... in gold..." she said into the receiver. "Ordering what?" I asked. Chloe kicked up her heel, a Jewish Ginger Rogers, displaying sandals that glittered in the late afternoon sun: "Ordering these, Daddy. Aren't they cool?" "Cool beyond words. But you have them already, " I protested lamely. Chloe looked at me as if looking at a slow child, tolerantly but with affection. "These are Lila's, Daddy, can't you tell?" "Uh, no." "So I need my own pair." "Can't you just borrow?" I asked weakly. "Daddy, that's soooooo gross, eeuuuu!" Offspring Number Two, Lila, stepped into the room and began to braid Chloe's hair. I stood there and watched them for a long moment. They reminded me of happy little gorillas grooming each other with ferocious attention to detail. I watched them and I smiled happily. "Daddy, are you laughing at us?" said Lila. "No, no, I'm just glad Chloe ordered the shoes." "You are!?" They looked at me suspiciously. "Yes, absolutely. A woman can't have too many shoes, right?" They exchanged baffled glances. "Right, sure," they assented. I closed the door, went into Ariel's room and sat at his desk. I looked at one of his Torah notebooks, opened it to an intricate discussion of the laws redeeming the victim of a kidnapping. I read Ariel's notes, but soon enough I was lost. The arguments across the centuries by the various sages were far too complicated for me. I touched the notebook. I looked at Ariel's beautiful handwriting. He only used fine fountain pens. I listened to the girls giggling in the other room and soon thick tears were cutting channels down my face. I cried in Ariel's room because I so badly wanted to tell him about the girls. I wanted to celebrate their beauty with him, I wanted to share their moments of glorious frivolity with Ariel. But I couldn't. And I have to get used to it. For if I don't I will become bitter and angry. No, I must sculpt a new housing for my joy.

Women and Shoes and Blessings

2004-05-31T13:22:00.000-07:00

Offspring Number Two, Lila, 19, is home from Stern College for Women. In New York City, Stern is one of the few campuses in the United States where the students do not organize "Take Back the Night" marches. They do not have to because the religious Jewish women in Stern have enough common sense not to: a)drink themselves insensible b)dress like Britney Spears, ie like sluts c) and then go back to a hormone driven boy's dorm room after a night of drinking, dancing and flirting, and expect the boy to be satisfied with a deep conversation about Kierkegaard's notions of sin and redemption.
In any case, on Shabbos several large boxes were delivered to the house. "It's my stuff," said Lila, "Books and some clothing." After Shabbos, I opened the boxes and found four books, and about twenty pair of shoes. Some clothing? Lila is a master of understatement. Living with three women I have learned an essential cosmic truth: women need shoes the way men need, well, sports programs. For women and shoes the relationship is even deeper. Women will buy shoes with absolutely no intention of wearing them. They realize that the last is too narrow, the heel so high that it induces a nose bleed, but the attraction is so powerful that to own the shoe becomes something of an obsession, a fetish. So, Lila brings home the loot from a year with a credit card in New York -- far more dangerous than a child and an Uzi -- and discovers that there is no place to keep them in her room in LA. Her room is not designed for a budding Imelda Marcos. Ever practical, Lila bought a shoe rack yesterday. "Daaaaaaddy, help me put it together. Pleeeeeease." I sat on the floor hammering together a six foot tower, a sculptural monument to display shoes. I hammered (my thumb all too often) and Lila read the instructions to me: "Insert part a into part b being extra careful that part c and part e are not parrallel to part f and g." Talmud is far easier. We were right outside Ariel's room. I looked up into his empty bedroom and I said to myself: If Ariel were here he would look at us and he would smile. No one could make Ariel smile and laugh like his two sisters. He loved the way they wrap me around their well manicured little fingers, once saying to me: "Dad, you should see your face when the girls ask you to do something for them." What do you mean?" I asked. "You're just so happy, so anxious to do anything for them, it shows on your face." "Well Ariel, that's what being a parent is, you want to give to your children. The more you give, the more you love. You'll find out when you're a father." "I can't wait," he said, "I want to have chidren" "How many?" I asked. "Many, many." He responded. Well, Ariel will not have children. He will not know the joy of hammering together a shoe rack for a shoe obsessed daughter. But when I do it, when I do anything for Lila or Chloe I remind myself that I am lucky. My heart may be broken, but I am still blessed with Lila and Chloe, and to forget this would be a sin. To neglect this would also mean giving less to the daughters I adore; and that I will not do. Not to them, not to me. Karen and I are broken vessels, but Hashem works with broken vessels and we must learn from Hashem.
I would like to thank those who have written to me over the past few days. Your generous words have given a beautiful gift to us; the gift of empathy, of shared experience and feelings. When I started this blog I worried that perhaps I was exhibiting an unattractive narcissistic element to my mourning, but now I know that my bottomless grief is all too common. To you who read and write to me: We are strangers in name only. A special thanks to Pup who linked me to his website: vintageknives.com

Burping Maidels

2004-05-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

Ever since the children have been old enough to understand good table manners, I have drilled them on proper etiquette. I have taught them to fold their napkins in half and put them in their laps. I have drilled them in using the correct forks, spoons and knives; I have insisted that they hold their silverware properly. "Remember," I have said over and over again, "bad manners create a terrible impression." The kids, to their credit, have developed wonderful table manners over the years and I'm proud to see them eating in public. Where some of their friends hunch over their food like starving peasants, my children sit upright and wield silverware with a delicate touch. I once overheard Ariel say to one of his friends: "My father is really, really strict about table manners. He's sooooo rigid you wouldn't believe it."

Which brings me to Chloe's burping.

Chloe is offspring number three; she is sixteen, beautiful beyond words, and she has a killer drive and three-point shot. She also burps louder than, well, louder than anyone I have ever heard. At the Shabbos table, when all is mystical light and the holiness of Shabbos spreads her wings over the family, nothing can break the mood like one of Chloe's machine-gun bursts. I used to give her a long, dark look, which would silence her for the rest of the meal. But soon I noticed that Ariel laughed when his baby sister burped. Ariel who was so upright; Ariel who was so formal at the Shabbos table; Ariel who was so proper. Ariel laughed when Chloe burped and the more he laughed the louder did Chloe burp. Karen and I exchanged looks. What was going on here? Ariel laughed and covered his mouth like a Japanese Geisha, embarrassed by his own amusement. But there was no doubt about it, Chloe's fog-horn burps put Ariel into convulsions of laughter. Soon enough, Lila joined in and the girls created a duet of burps. Which made Ariel laugh even harder. I guess there's something incongruous about two lovely, innocent looking eidel-maidel's making our Shabbos table sound like a truck-stop on the 405. The past two days have been difficult. Last Shavuos, Ariel took a turn for the worse. He was so weak, so frail, so starved for air that he was on the oxygen mask all the time. He could barely daven. His best friend Avi, came in from Baltimore to be with him. Avi and I sat by Ariel's bed and talked to him. Avi read letters from all the boys from Yeshiva. He read Megillat Ruth to Ariel. I knew that Ariel was going to die. I knew that he would not live to see another Shavuos. And so, the other night, at the Shavuos table, after I came home from shul, walking past all the fathers with their sons--Robert, that used to be you--I sat down at the table, and we quietly ate. All of us remembering past Shavuot, when this family was whole and complete and truly happy. And then I heard it. Chloe's burp. I looked up at her. Her eyes searched mine. I smiled. I smiled and remembered how Ariel laughed. And Chloe burped again and again and I understood that bad manners are sometimes very good.

The Heart Nailed

2004-05-25T15:20:00.000-07:00

When Ariel died, I discovered that I no longer speak the same language as everyone else. When I speak there is a feeling that no matter what I say, the other person cannot possibly understand what I mean. Every word, every thought is infused with a sense of what is not. "Good morning, how're you doing?" Says the nice young girl (with far too many tattoos) in Starbucks. I answer, "Hi, fine, how are you?" But what I mean is: My son is dead. How is that you are still serving coffee? As a matter of fact, how is it the earth has not fallen off its axis? Consider the thick slabs of bullet-proof glass to protect bank tellers. That's how Karen and I live, encased in such a cube. We can see the world, but we can't touch it. We can hear, but everything is muffled. Forever we will remain separate. The only people who speak our language are other parents with dead children. Karen and I recently met the parents of a girl who was murdered by Arab terrorists in Jerusalem. We sat togther at a Sheva B'rachos. Our eyes met and there was a moment of recognition so deep, so thorough that I literally felt dizzy. We did not make small talk; immediately we spoke of loss, of how much we missed our children. To be the parent of a child who has died is to be dropped into an alien landscape; it is a world so foreign that the English language does not even have a word to describe it. Think about it: when your spouse dies you are a widow; parents die and you become an orphan; if your marriage collapes you graduate to a divorcee. But lose a child and you become... unnameable. It is a territory so horrible that language collapses, imagination fails. Interesting to note that Hebrew, a language with far fewer words than English, gives the gift of such a word: shikulim. Is it any wonder that when Karen and I meet someone who has heard about Ariel they hesitate for a moment, then awkwardly say something like: "I ah, heard about your... loss..." Their voices trail off. So many people are afraid to say his name. "Do you have other children?" others ask hopefully, stupidly, as if one child can be replaced by another like interchangable Legos. There are the "friends" who are too scared or too self-absorbed to say anything. I was with a large powerful talent agency for over twelve years. After Ariel died there was not one phone call from them, not one word of consolation, as if their narcisistic silence somehow erased his very existence, thus freeing these people of any moral responsibility. Ponder the blood relatives who in a frenzy told us that "things are crazy" in their lives and so they can't possibly pay a shiva call. And then there are the generous, fine people who flew clear across the country because they could not stay away; they sat by our side and held us and said: "There are no words." And we were so grateful for those are the right wordas. The only words. Ariel's death made clear who friends are and aren't. Nothing in life clarifies individual values as visiting the sick and then the rituals of death. Finally, and perhaps most moving are strangers who have touched me with their e-mails, nailed my heart with their kindness and understanding: the book editor in Seattle, the young Christian woman in England, the radio executive in Texas, the blogging high school student and her single mother in Silver Lake; all feeling a connection with Ariel and expressing the inexpressible, courageously trying to make themselves speak my languege because instinctively they know that what once was understood is no longer comprehensible. How I love and cherish these people who are old fashioned enough to to be acquainted with the habits of mourning, like knowing embroidery or the waltz. In Ariels death I glimpse the world he might have had in the unexpected goodness that comes my way in honor of his soul. Tonight begins the holiday of Shavuos, so there will be no posts until probably after the weekend. Thank you all for making the first week of my blog so rewarding. May God bless you and keep you, may He shine his countenance upon you and bring you peace.

With Shuddering Fall

2004-05-24T14:23:00.000-07:00

It is the nights that are the most difficult. Our routine is fixed. Karen continues to work until ten or eleven at night. It is her only escape; the only way she can block the pain from colonizing her mind. As a psychologist, she evaluates tests, writes up reports, makes recommendations. She does this with a remarkable attention to detail. Her patients are lucky; she is attentive, compassionate, realistic. She works with children and their parents. She listens to harrowing tales of domestic conflict, helps them cope with all sorts of conflict and anger. Yet it is Karen who endures more pain than any of her patients. But Karen never lets on. She has never even hinted that all she really wants to do is lie down on her son's grave and stay there until her bones mulch with his. And so, Karen works until exhaustion takes over. I read. I learn. I write. Sometimes I'll go into Ariel's room--unchanged since the day he died--lie down on his bed and smell his pillow, the sheets, feel his imprint in the mattress. I gaze at the room: there are the Transformers he loved as a little boy. There are the pictures of his Rebbeim from High School and Rabbinical College. And, oh look at that, there is his huge Snoopy poster. Ariel loved Charlie Brown. He always said that there was a great deal of Torah to learn from Snoopy and his friends. I leaf through his notebooks and marvel at the clarity of his thoughts on particularly difficult tractates in the Talmud. I head upstairs to our bedroom. I sit in the dark and listen to Karen breathing. Invariably, she begins to violently shudder. She cries out in her sleep, makes strangling, yelping noises like a frightened animal. I slip into bed and hold her. "What is it?" I ask. "Ariel, Ariel," she sobs. "Where is he? He must miss us," she says. "We were so close." I have no answer. All I can do is soothe this brilliant and beautiful woman who I fell in love with when we were ten years old, students together in the Yeshiva of Flatbush. Soon, Karen will drift off again, but the terrible moans and shuddering always accompanies sleep. It is a tornado of grief. A woman's body remembering the child that grew inside and is no longer. It is her body reacting to the hatchet-drop of tragedy. Karen's womb is suffering a loss all its own, a phantom limb crying out and insisting on remembrance. The female body is remorseless in its ability ot recall what it has nourished, remembering Ariel's lips the first week of his birth, smooth as boiled candy. It is night and Ariel is dead and he will always be dead. It is night and Karen convulses and all I can do is hold on, for if I let go I will fall off the bed and never stop falling.

Remembrance of a Shabbos Past

2004-05-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

The arrival of Shabbos is a time of awe and delight for observant Jews. The Kabbalists in Safed used to dress in white and singing with joy they would greet the Sabbath Bride in the mountains. Here in Pico Robertson, we too greet the Sabbath albeit with a less romantic gesture. The Sabbath is a time when the ordinary burdens of the work week are left behind and time becomes consecrated. Every man becomes a king in his home and every woman a queen. When Ariel was alive he would spend a great deal of time preparing for Shabbos. He put on his best suit and hat saying: Would you meet with a president or a king dressed as a schlump? It was something of a running joke in the house that Ariel, no matter how early he started, was almost always late. By the time I was ready to go to shul, Ariel was still awkwardly struggling with his cuff links, or wrestling with his tie, trying to get the knot just right. Ariel moved slowly. His weakened lungs made it so, but it was also the pace at which he moved through life. Slow, deliberate, thoughtful. Ariel moved like a man from another century. None of the frenzied 21st century movements for Ariel. He was like a man from a slower time; no doubt he would have been entirely comfortable in medieval Europe, in the Yeshivas of Provence, studying in the house of Rashi. That was his temperment. Ariel and I walked to shul together, three short blocks that are as familiar to me as the architecture of my wife's lovely face. We waved to the other men on their way to the various shuls. We said hello to strangers walking their dogs. Sometimes we talked, but often there was a companionable silence. Ariel was preparing to pray, adjusting his state of mind for a holy dialogue. In shul, Ariel was often asked to daven for the minyan. He had a beautiful voice and his pronunciation of the Hebrew was perfect. Often, Ariel was the last to finish davening. Here too, he took his time. He spoke to God: a true I and Thou relationship. Frequently, I had to wait for him to finish davening. Everyone else was already gone, on their way home, but Ariel was still shuckling, eyes closed, totally unaware that we were the only two left in shul. I sat and watched him daven and said to myself: How did this saintly young man spring from my loins? How did this happen for I am less than good, far from pious, never close to God; just another struggling schlemiel. I watched Ariel daven in the empty shul and I remembered when I was a child in Brooklyn, in shul with my father. I gazed in awe as he davened. I felt that here was a man in touch with something I could not even glimpse. And so, I am watching Ariel, I am watching my father, past and present merging and I say to myself: Let this moment never end Let this moment never end Let this moment never end...

Lila Comes Home

2004-05-21T14:12:00.000-07:00

Last night, Karen and I drove to the Long Beach Airport. Our daughter Lila was arriving from New York where she is attending Stern College for Women, the female branch of Yeshiva University. As we drove along the LA Freeway, Karen and I talked about Lila's plans for the summer. She is interning at an architectural firm. Like me, she's an art major in college. But unlike me, she has the blessings and support of both her parents. When I told my father that I was majoring in Art History, he looked at me, frowned and said: Is that a serious field of study for an Orthodox Jewish boy? There was no answer, for it was a rhetorical question. When Lila shows me her art work, I have to stop myself from smothering her with hugs and kisses. She has so much talent and yet, she's so casual about it. In any case, as we drove to the airport Karen and I were both thinking about all the times we picked up Ariel when he came home from Ner Yisroel, his Rabbinical College in Baltimore. We were always so excited to see him, for he had a special hold on us. From the very beginning Ariel was a magical child. Endowed with an amazing intellect, he was also gentle and so very kind that we often worried that he was not made for this world. How could he fight through the normal, every day struggles that rule our lives? How could he deal with the truly unethical and vile people who are all around us? And as it turned out, he does not have to. He is spirit now and Karen and I are left to struggle and fight our way through the long days and nights. A few nights ago, in bed, in my arms, Karen said to me: We've become such sad people, Robert. And all I could do was nod and silently cry and hold on to Karen. When Leda came off the plane, Karen ran forward and hugged her. There I stood, watching my wife and my daughter, both so so beautiful that I forgot to breathe for a long second. And in that second I experienced a moment of happiness. It was fleeting, but it was real.

Crying on the 405

2004-05-21T07:27:00.000-07:00

Ever since Ariel died, I find myself crying in the most unexpected of places. I remember the last year of Ariel's life. I drove him to pulmonary therapy three times a week. I drove him to his medical appointments twice a week. If he was strong enough, I would drive him to shul or to a Torah class. Sometimes we would listen to Jewish music--The Miami Boys Choir, Shalsheles, Mordechai Ben Dovid--and Ariel would tap his hand against his thigh. I remember at one point thinking that Ariel might not make it and the song I'm listening to will always be associated with that unbearable thought. And now, in the car, I don't have to put the music on. I hear it in my head. I see Ariel out of the corner of my eye. And I drive on the 405 with tears pouring down my face

What to do?

2004-05-20T17:23:00.000-07:00

When Ariel died, I sat shiva. I said Kaddish. I'm still saying Kaddish, just about a month left. Gosh, how I dread not saying the Kaddish for Ariel. It will be a gaping abyss in my davening. I arranged to learn Torah with several Chavrusahs in Ariel's memory. But nothing seems to be enough. Several months before Ariel died, he and I had a long conversation about books. Most of all Ariel loved to learn Torah. But he also liked to read novels. He adored Jane Austen. The mad shidduch making in Pride and Prejudice brought a big smile to his face. Ariel also loved the Harry Potter series. A triumph of good writing, beautiful plotting and traditional values over the cynical, degraded trends of much in children's publishing. On Ariel's bookshelves rest about forty novels written by Avi. The problem, said Ariel, was that there were not enough novels written specifically for observant Jewish kids. Dad, he said, you should start a publishing company. Publish fiction that is of the highest quality, yet is also suitable for kids who hold Torah values. And so, to honor Ariel and his wonderful idea Karen and I have founded Seraphic Press. Already we have four superb novels in various stages of development. We expect to publish our first book, The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden in January 2005. It is the story of an observant Jewish boy in the old West, his determination to celebrate his Bar Mitzvah, his friendship with the notorious gunfighter Doc Holliday, and his touching relationship with Lozen, a legendary Apache warrior girl. The book is a wonderful reimagining of the wild west. To pay tribute to Ariel, The Hebrew Kid's name is... Ariel.

Thinking of Ariel...

2004-05-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Several months ago, my beloved son Ariel Chaim passed away. I am forever changed. I will write about him, about loss and memory for as long as I can.