Happy 100th, Young Judaea!

Yes, it's the 100th birthday of Young Judaea, the Zionist youth movement that helped make me the person I am today. This article by Gil Troy says it all so eloquently.

Gil and I were age peers in the movement, and so our experiences were similar. I too fondly remember the debates about matters large and small, the inspiring peer leaders who were often only a few years older than I, the summers at Camp Tel Yehudah, regional conventions, and intense city club meetings.

Young Judaea changed my life for the better. It made me strong in my beliefs. I learned to stand up for myself. Judaeans accepted me the way I was. I never had to pretend when I was in Young Judaea. YJ instilled in me a life-long love of Israel.

Because of my YJ experience, I earned two degrees in Jewish Studies and Jewish Communal Service. I worked my professional career in service to the Jewish people. I married a Jew and am involved in Jewish life as an adult.

Not bad for a youth experience that my mother had to drag me to the first time!

Other people's milestones

Because Rik and I battled infertility and had so many failed attempts at adoption, our childlessness has led us to vicariously experience other people's parenting joys and issues. Over the years I have been guest of honor at a child's school, hosted and shared many holiday gatherings, celebrated birthday, bar/bat mitzvahs and graduations, but always at a remove.

Last night we attended the high school graduation of a young friend who I have known since she was a baby. (Rik came along a little later.) H was so grown up. It was a privilege to share in her family's celebration and her accomplishment.

And yet the knife continues to turn in the wound of childlessness. Every such celebration reminds me that we will never have these moments for ourselves, that we will always be on the outside looking in. We're like hungry kids with our noses pressed to the bakery window, able to smell the appetizing aromas but not able to taste the sweets.

And as our friends' children and our niece and nephews grow older, the knife continues to turn. There will be no marriages and grandchildren to rejoice in, no direct celebration of life's continuity for us. Instead we will continue to press our noses to the glass window of children, able to see and smell but not taste on our own.

To those who have let us share in their families' joys and sorrows, we hope you understand how much it means to us to have even this vicarious, secondhand experience of parenting.

Dad's yahrzeit

Yesterday I prepared for Dad's first yahrzeit by baking the onion cookies and lighting the yahrzeit candle that burns for 24 hours.

This morning I got up early to attend morning minyan. A few friends joined the regulars so that we'd have a minimum of 10 Jews in order to say kaddish. And there were two other people with yahrzeits today.

When we got to the point in the service where we recite El Maleh Rachamim (God full of compassion), I decided to chant the prayer myself. It was a somewhat surreal moment. I was holding the very large and heavy sefer Torah, following each word in the prayer book with my finger so that I was sure to pronounce it correctly, and trying not to be so emotionally overwhelmed that it interfered with my ability to chant.

I shared that my dad loved being a Cohen and that he loved to potchkey around in the kitchen. Hence the onion cookies.

After the service ended, we ate onion cookies spread with butter or cream cheese, some coffee or orange juice, and toasted my dad.

The yahrzeit candle is still burning....

May his memory be a blessing

Here are some favorite memories of my dad, as well as some photos from over the years.

My mom has most of the photos from when they were young, but over the years I have snitched a few. This is one of my favorites. Here Dad is age 12 (still in short pants, so we know it was taken before his bar mitzvah).

My dad was very proud of his service to his country during World War II. This was taken in 1945 with his parents.



My parents visited cousins in California in 1985. Ray and Dad used to play cribbage together all the time.


You can see the passion my dad brought to his marriage with my mom in this pic, taken at the surprise 36th anniversary party Susan, David and I threw for them in 1985. Why a 36th anniversary party? Susan and I were too young to plan their 25th, and to tell the truth, we missed their 35th. So throwing a double chai 36th anniversary party seemed like the best choice.



This is of course the father-daughter dance at our wedding in 1995. When my dad suffered his stroke in 1989, he confided to me that he was worried that he wouldn't be able to dance with me at my wedding.

While we were dancing, Dad accused me of leading. I insisted I was NOT leading. I asked, "What dance are you doing?" Dad said, "I'm doing the foxtrot." I shot back, "Dad, they're playing a waltz!"






At their 50th wedding anniversary party, the air conditioning in the hotel had gone south and we were all sweltering in the Cincinnati summer heat. Not Dad!











Rik took this photo of Dad tinkering with the old 8 mm film projector. When Susan and I were kids, a favorite family pastime was to watch home movies. Mom, Susan and I would sit on the steps leading down to the basement. Dad would set up the projector on the ironing board and pull out an old free-standing screen.The movies were shot on 8 mm and Super 8 film. Mom and Dad would reminisce over the oldest films, taken when they were teens and first married, then we would retell the stories of family vacations. Talk about early adopters -- my parents had a "video" camera in the 1940s!

Dad, zichrono l'vrachah, may your memory be a blessing to all who knew you.

Onion cookies and memories

Beginning tonight and lasting until sunset tomorrow is the first yahrzeit for my father. In his memory I will light a candle tonight, go to shul in the morning, recite El Maleh Rachamim (God full of compassion), and share a memory or two with the morning minyan.


And of course I will bring the onion cookies. A recipe my father persuaded his mother to share, these savory biscuits are a staple every year when we break the fast after Yom Kippur. Today I made a small batch to share. Spread with cream cheese or butter, with a cup of coffee or some orange juice, they are a taste of heaven and the perfect way to remember my dad, who loved to cook and bake his special dishes.

Komen Puget Sound Race for the Cure

Last Sunday was the Seattle area Race for the Cure benefiting the Susan G Komen Foundation. In past years I have raised more than $1000 per Race, but this year things got away from me. Well, that and a hospital stay.... Rik and I were going to show up but he overslept and I didn't have the heart to wake him up that early on a Sunday morning.

This year's Race had more than 14,000 participants who raised more than $2 million or breast-cancer research, patient care, educational outreach, and screening programs. You can read more in this article from the Seattle Times and see photos here.

Sadly typical, there was no coverage of the women with metastatic disease who walked together during the survivors' parade. We're not survivors -- we're living with breast cancer every day.

And then there was this sidewalk art made by my friends from the Young Survival Coalition. Young women get breast cancer too!

Time to remember

Next week marks the first yahrzeit, the anniversary of my father's death last June. Although he died on June 21, 2008 (a week short of his 81st birthday) the Jewish calendar counts 28-day lunar months, so his yahrzeit will always be on 18 Sivan, which this year falls next Tuesday eve and Wednesday, June 9-10.

In our synagogue, we read the names of those who have a yahrzeit in the coming week on the Shabbat before the anniversary. My dad's name will be read today. I asked permission to lead Shabbat services again since my year of mourning has ended. Our rabbi said it was a marvelous idea to remember my dad by taking up my leadership role as a shlicha tzibur again, one who leads the community in prayer. (There is a custom that one doesn't lead Shabbat services while mourning a parent, if others are able to do so. One thing about Beth Shalom, we have plenty of trained volunteers!)

Yesterday I reviewed the musaf service to be sure I was still pronouncing all the Hebrew correctly, to decide which tunes I wanted to use, and to imagine myself standing up in front of the congregation and singing instead of sitting in my usual place. Rik will join me today.

I'm looking forward to rejoining the ranks of Shabbat shlichei tzibur and to remembering my dad in a way that made him proud.

It's like yesterday never happened

I woke up today feeling great after a reasonably good night's sleep. It's like yesterday never happened. No more diarrhea, no more nausea. (I guess eating the bowl of cereal at 10 PM made a difference in morning hunger levels.)

I was kind of tired this afternoon and took a nap in the hammock, but that might also be due to the record-breaking heat we've had the past two days. 91 degrees, last experienced in 1978.

I spent some time in the garden too. I bought two caladium plants at Lowe's. Caladium come from Lake Placid, FL where Rik's parents winter, and we have always wanted to bring some back. Caladium don't transplant in December, when we are usually in Florida. I was so pleased to find variety "Blaze" in the Lowe's garden center. And while we're on the subject, what is the plural of caladium? Caladiums? Caladia?

I moved the poppies from their nice shady spot and put the caladium there. The poppies needed a sunnier locale, so I moved them into one of the raised beds that is currently unoccupied. I also moved a lavender bush that was in the wrong spot in the herb garden and never had a chance to spread properly. I hope all these established plants survive their hottest-day-of-the-year-so-far move!

Small Megace crash

I woke up at 6 this morning so hungry that I felt nauseated. It took all I had to eat a cracker and crawl back into bed. I got up at 7 and staggered around the house, had diarrhea and threw up. The sleeplessness, aches, nausea, vomiting, hunger pangs are among Megace's side effects. But I didn't expect to experience them all on the same day.

I called the oncologist's office and got an appointment for later in the day. Somehow I managed to take a shower, down some anti-nausea meds, and feed the dogs. I certainly didn't have the energy to walk them and left the back door open all morning while I napped on the sofa. Thankfully it has been very hot here and the cool breeze coming in from the back yard was very pleasant.

Went to the onc and waited for a couple of hours while they squeezed me in. Dr G said that it's possible these symptoms are Megace side effects. It's also possible I ate something that disagreed with me. But he decided to halve my current dose and see how I do. I'll go back and see him next week.

If I have similar symptoms tomorrow I am to call the office right away. I hope that taking the tincture of opium again will stop the diarrhea, and that the nausea and vomiting will go away on their own. If not, I have more anti-nausea meds.

I really hope that the severe hunger pangs will be reduced with the smaller dose of Megace. And I will remember that when I get up in the middle of the night, I must eat something, even if it's only a cracker. Evidently going from 7 PM to 7 AM without food is more than my body can take while on Megace.

Post-gardening pains

The garden looks terrific, but I woke up this morning so stiff in the hips I could scarcely get out of bed. Vicodin helped, but I must really be out of shape to be so sore after only three hours on my knees. Today I swore off any more gardening and hope to be able to do some small tasks later this week. The sun keeps on shining, amazing for usually rainy Seattle! And of course the ironing awaits...

I went to Costco with L and watched her pile a cart high with everything under the sun. My own purchases were more modest -- olive oil, maple syrup, coffee, lox, some Copper River sockeye salmon and a new rug for the front door. I also found a teak shower seat marked "last one" and at an extraordinarily reasonable price. Someone must have returned it.

Everyone should have at least one Costco treat per visit!