Cigarettes and Paco Rabanne....

I remember certain things about my dad: how he wore the ugliest boat shoes ever; how soft his silver hair felt; how he liked to eat his eggs mixed with potatoes and his tuna fish soaked with tons of lemon juice. He drank only coffee and water when he wasn’t drinking scotch, he loved watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and every once in awhile, I saw him reading a book, which made him seem more interesting to me for some reason. I remember the rock paper-weight I painted for him was in his top bureau drawer along with all the other things he probably forgot were there, he owned too many pairs of white socks that nobody ever wanted to match up and roll into sock-balls, and he smelled of cigarettes and Paco Rabanne.

However, going fishing with him when I was a little girl probably remains my most significant memory because those were the only times I actually spent time with him at all. We’d wake up at some ridiculous hour, maybe 4:30 am, pack up our bologna sammies, a thermos of water and some chips, and then get our poles together for our day on the water. We’d pull into Freeport’s Nautical Mile while it was still dark outside, unload all of our stuff, and bring it onto the boat we’d spend half the day on. Then we’d go find a stool at the counter in the greasy diner where we always ate our before-fishing breakfast of eggs, toast and home fries. By the time we were done eating, the sun would be up and the morning actually looked like morning.

We’d settle into our spot on the party boat, defrost our spearing and squid and wait to depart. I always felt awkward being alone with my dad because I really didn’t know how to have a conversation with him. But by the time the boat pulled away, that awkwardness dissipated. My dad would talk about the buoys, and how the captain knew where to anchor and just anything about fishing in general. I’d ask him questions and he’d always be happy to provide the answers. By the end of each fishing trip, I had a lot of fluke in my bucket and a new appreciation for the kind of relationship I could have with my dad.

Until I became a teenager, that is, and I eschewed fishing trips with my dad for nonsense time with my friends, trips to the mall with my boyfriend, or simply the allure of my warm bed. I was too cool and too busy for my dad, or so I thought, and as an adult looking back now, I would bet my eyeballs that he probably felt at least a little bit deserted and disappointed.

As kids, we all think our parents will live to be gray, shrunken shadows of their youthful selves so how could I have known I should have ditched my friends in order to hurry up and make memories with my dad because he’d be dead by the time I was nineteen? At almost 40, I don’t have nearly enough memories of him to be at peace with his death. He missed too much:

…my first experience at college, even if it was only Nassau

…walking me down the aisle and dancing with me. To this day, it’s too hard for me to watch anyone dance with their fathers.

…the joy of being a grandpa. After suffering with 4 females his whole life, he missed enjoying 2 grandsons and one princess.

…holding his oldest daughter’s hand through brain cancer and survival, and holding up his wife, as well.

… seeing all three of his girls as women, watching us stumble through life, picking us up when we fell down, cheering us on when we deserved it or simply because we needed it. And boy, do I need it now.

…teaching his grandkids how to bait a hook and how to tell when it was a fish or a crab biting the line.

…seeing his granddaughter at her first dance recital, being dissed by her dance partner but taking control to a roomful of applause.

…seeing his grandson –my son - on stage dancing like nobody’s business, shocking the shit out of everyone, especially me.

…watching me make that monumental walk across the Hofstra stage at almost 40 years old, finally earning my Bachelor’s Degree.

Admittedly, this blurb is pretty random and is basically just a self-serving recognition of my mistakes as a kid and my sadness at those realizations as an adult. It’s frustrating knowing I have to make an effort to remember his voice and how very few times I spent alone with him. I hate knowing I’ve spent half of my life without him and how I forgot what having a father is like. I hate the fact that I will never be able to know what kind of relationship I could have had with him as a grown daughter, instead of only having memories of being a young, selfish teenager.

I know there’s nothing I can do because, even though I hate to say this, but it is what it is. I suppose if anything at all, the tiny consolation of having a few memories will have to carry me through.

At least until they fade…

Like White on Rice

I'm always awake; the noise in my head is so fucking loud. New problems, old problems, solved problems: they're all game for some re-thinking. I'm still trying to figure out why I dated a boy/man who was five years older than me when I was in 9th grade. Five years of my life were completely devoted to him, and the next 25 had been sprinkled with thoughts of regret over why the hell I was so devoted to him.

My mind doesn't shut off. Little things, like how bad I'm going to feel in the morning when I have to leave my dog alone, to the larger things, like how I'm going to pay for school, consume me. These things sit in my head, heating up as the day progresses like kernels of corn sizzling in a pot of hot oil waiting to pop. And when my head hits the pillow at one or two in the morning, the popping is what keeps me awake until three.

There's so much discontent in my life, but even on the days when life is sitting well enough with me to a certain degree that I can actually start a task and carry it through to completion, I still don't feel any peace of mind. I often wonder why it is I can't put anything to rest. No matter how hard I try, nothing's ever dealt with and then forgotten; nothing ever has closure.

One particular relationship in my life barely had time to blossom before it was cut off; the person moved away, leaving a huge question mark what-iffing me to death for a long time, just like many other things before that and after. Friendships that I had thought sat on solid ground always seemed to end without warning or explanation, leaving me, again, faltering and wondering. But of course the biggest lack of closure, and the most significant one, was regarding who killed my father and why.

It's been almost 20 years since he's died and now that I, Thirty-Nine, am approaching Forty, I've come to accept he's not here, and have tried to reconcile his absence from mine and my children's lives. It's a difficult thing to attempt, but I never give up trying. After all, I have no choice. But even so, there will always be that desperate melancholy that permeates my soul when I see grandpas and grandchildren together.

Sixty-Seven called me up the other most shittiful day with Forty-Seven on the line. The two of them together meant something was a-brewin'. Apparently, they had just gotten off the phone with a psychic and needed to inform me of what had happened. Over the past 20 years, we have talked to psychics: some on the phone while they searched through old coffee grinds to "read" our fates, and others in person. Some seemed to say a few remarkably accurate things, while most just generalized. We've been to George Anderson, one of the first famous mediums to blast into the public eye claiming to communicate with the dead. My family read his books voraciously; they explained how he learned of his "gift" of communicating with dead people and how he couldn't be disproved. We suddenly had a tiny spark of hope: maybe there were people in this world who really might be able to help us communicate with our dad so that we could finally get some answers. Then we found John Edward. He, too, communicated with the dead. We read his books and watched his television show and even saw him in person. We still hoped for answers even when we weren't able to get them from either medium. But that day, two days ago, that awfully shitty day-in-the-life-of-Thirty-Nine, was somehow different.

Sixty-Seven: "This psychic told me I had a daughter with one child, and another daughter, my youngest, with two. She said the oldest grandchild has an attitude and a half and is a crack-up. He's also sometimes a prick."

We all laughed. Accurate enough.

Sixty-seven: "She then said my youngest daughter has a son who's sweet and mild-mannered."

Awwwws all around. My boy, Twelve.

Sixty-seven: "And listen to this."

I sensed something good, but never this good:

Sixty-seven: "She described Seven to a T. She's a princess and a yenta and a half. (laughter) She said Daddy can't get enough of her and he's with her all the time, protecting her. In her exact words, he's with her 'like white on rice.' He gets such a kick out of her because she reminds him of you as a little girl. He's always with her."

I cried the moment the words fell out of Sixty-seven's mouth. Just the thought that my dad was with my baby girl -protecting her, hovering around her- made me weak with relief. And belief. I never believed anything so much in my entire life and nobody will ever convince me otherwise.

Sixty-seven was flabbergasted as well. She said she was sure the first boy in the family, Fourteen, would be the focus of his dead grandfather's attention; never once did it cross her mind, or our's, for that matter, that Sassy Seven would have been the one Grandpa liked to hang around.

I wiped my eyes and fetched the now-burned chicken nuggets out of the toaster oven.

Thirty-Nine: "Here, Seven. Sorry they're burned."

I handed her the plate, phone still cradled on my shoulder. I couldn't help myself:

Thirty-Nine: "Hi dad."

Sixty-seven and Forty-seven laughed.

It was funny in a way, but serious in another. Funny that I addressed my dead father as I handed my daughter her lunch, yet serious in the way that now when I look at her, at her heavy-lidded eyes that we always joked were like her Grandpa's, I see my dad. Almost literally.

We were told by this psychic woman that my father is always with us, watching and protecting. We were told he loves my mother now more than he ever did. We were told that my father's father saw the gun and immediately came down and brought my father's soul quickly to heaven. We were told that his biggest regret is how he left us alone and in such a mess.

Sure, we might be gullible. But if someone told you after 20 years of whys, what ifs, and I wishes, that your daughter was being protected everyday by her grandpa, wouldn't you, too, believe?

It's the kind of closure I always dreamed of...

"Seventy-Two"

Today, June 7th, would have been my dad's 72nd birthday and this December marks the twentieth anniversary of his murder. I have spent half of my life without a dad, and to tell the truth, I don't really remember what it's like to even have one.


Every year, when either his birthday, Father's Day, or the anniversary approaches, I tell myself , "Just don't think about it too much. Don't walk around or mope so people will know I am thinking about him. I can think about him, (or not), and cry about him, (or not)." Trying not to think about any of it just makes his absence even more overwhelming, which, of course, makes me cry anyway.


Last night I was looking at some pictures my mom posted on her Facebook page and I was so taken by both my parents' youth, their beauty, their...togetherness. It struck me that once upon half-a-lifetime-ago, I had parents - plural. In that other part of my life, never did I imagine that there would be any parenting done by anything less than two people.


As a kid, I always imagined that when I was a grown woman with my own kids, I'd return to my parents' house - my childhood house- to watch them "grandparent" my children. I struggle now, still trying to imagine what it would have been like. Would my dad be more interactive with them than he was with me? Would my mom have the kids sleep over on weekends and make them teddybear-shaped pancakes in the morning? Would my mom even wake up before 10:30 to make the pancakes? Would my kids climb the same tree that my sisters and I climbed in the backyard? My life seems punctuated with endless question marks. You know, I actually rent out small spaces in the worlds of "what-if," "it's not fair," and "why us? why me?" It's not even like I want to be in any of those places; real estate there is automatically included in the "losing-a-loved-one" package.


On any of the occasions that would typically honor my father's life, like today, it's his death that somehow winds up dominating my mind. It's not the memories of his life, or the memories of the (very) few things we did together that pop into my mind, but the way he died and what my entire family is missing because of his death that saturates my thoughts. However, there are years when his birthday comes and goes almost as if it's like any other day, but maybe because my kids have to be somewhere or the day is simply over-scheduled enough to keep my mind mostly occupied. While I always acknowledge the day somehow, even if silently to myself, and allow it to pass dry-eyed, I will still call my mom just because I want to acknowledge it outloud for her.


So many years have gone by now and all of the people in my daily life have no clue who my father was, including my husband and children. My mother recently said that she wanted to write a memorial to him on the twentieth anniversary of his death because, "I want people to remember him, to remember he was here." Maybe it wasn't in those exact words, but pretty close. When a person passes away, all you hear is that person's name for some time. But then what happens after those first few months or even a year? Nothing. Nobody ever mentions it again, as if that person never existed at all. At least that's how it feels. Certainly, I don't expect anyone to say my dad's name in casual conversation every day for the remainder of my life, but it would be nice if someone had a random memory to share with me about him. I'm a huge believer in sharing; I do it all the time. I remember seeing a friend many years after high school and telling her how I still remembered the smell of the soap in the bathroom of her childhood home, and also a funny story about her father, who had since passed away. She seemed so grateful to know that someone remembered those things, especially about her dad. Honestly, I told her because they were happy memories for me and I really wanted to share them just for the sake of reconnecting through that old childhood bond, but in the end, I was thrilled that it made her feel good on a completely different level.


I feel so accustomed to silence where my own dad is concerned. Sure, every once in awhile you have to tell someone that your loved one is dead if it comes up in coversation, and sure, he or she says they're sorry. As sorry as anyone might be, there's a certain disconnect to their sympathy because they never knew the person who died. I really wish someone in my life actually knew him, knew he existed which makes me understand my mom feels compelled to write a memorial in honor of him. Last night, feeling overwhelmed with life and feeling sad looking at the old pictures of my parents, I started to cry for a few minutes. Nobody wants to be sad alone, so I went downstairs to sit with my son and my husband but I started to cry again. My son asked me what was wrong and I said, "Tomorrow would have been your grandpa's birthday." Neither of them said a word. Their complete, yet faultless, disconnect to my sadness was because neither of them knew my dad nor understood my loss, but their silence made my grief even more suffocating. So, I called my mom.


I really never know exactly how I'm going to feel on Father's Day, when I have to give cards to my husband's dad instead of my own, for instance, or on my dad's birthday, like today. Maybe I'll mention it to my friend if we're on the phone, or I'll call my sister and talk about how old my father would be if he was still alive. Maybe I'll say hi to him when I finally go to bed, in the dark, at the end of a long day full of child-related activities. Maybe I'll cry alone, like I've done many, many times.


What I do know is that I love him and I'm heartbroken that he's not here anymore. But at one time, he was here. For all of you who never knew him, or for all of you who knew I once had a father but don't remember him, his name was Nathan Mizrahi.


And today, he's "Seventy-Two."

Fear Factor....

(Note: This isn't really my blog... This is just an assignment I had to write for my class in school. When writing for magazines, word-count is of the utmost importance, so it's important to be aware of it as you write. But how do you get across a feeling, an idea, or an experience when you have to do it in 1,500 words or less? It's hard...really, really hard, and word choice is crucial. So, because I am unable to blog the silliness I sporadically blog about, I figured I would post this. Hopefully, if anyone reads this, everything, or at least some of the things, I was trying to convey in this piece will come across the way they were meant to. (And if the message you get by the ending is that I'm a freak... wrong message!) Anyway, this is my Fear Factor...

Every Sunday night when I was around nine years old, I would start crying as soon as I went to bed. To this day, my mother still tells me how frustrated she was whenever she heard the whimpering coming from my room.
“What is it?” she’d ask when I’d peek through her bedroom door minutes later, rubbing the tears from my eyes.
“I don’t wanna go to school.”
“You have to.”
“It just comes into my mind that I do not want to go to school.”
And that’s what I said, verbatim, every week. I didn’t know why the thought of going to school on Monday mornings caused me so much grief and anxiety. But halfway through my favorite Sunday evening television show, The Jeffersons, I’d start feeling sad, and by the time Alice came on afterwards, I’d start monitoring the clock, counting the minutes until it would be over. When I finally turned off the T.V. to go to sleep, my eyes would get scratchy and begin to water.
It was only when I became an adult that my mother finally figured out the reason for my weekly crying jags. I had lost two relatively young grandparents when I was around five, the only uncle I ever knew when I was around eight, and the family dog (who’d been with my parents longer than I had), when I was nine. My mom’s theory that I was scared she might die while I was in school made sense and manifested in my Sunday night crying jags. Even if I couldn’t articulate it, the seed of fear had been sown in my mind. I somehow knew that a person didn’t have to be old and wrinkled in order to die, and that once you were dead, that was it. My uncle could never make me one of his toasted-bread-tuna-fish-and-lettuce sandwiches again; I’d never hear my dog, Kelly, howl from the sound of a passing police car’s blaring siren; and because I rarely saw them to begin with, I’d never remember what my grandparents’ voices sounded like.
That cluster of loss unfortunately was not the only one like that in my life. When enough years had finally passed to at least mellow my fears about death and loss, a friend of mine was killed while crossing the street on her bicycle, and a few years later, a boy from my high school died in a car crash. As all bad things happen in threes, or so it’s been said, my mother’s fifty-two year old best friend died right after I turned sixteen. What he figured was minor heartburn had actually been the beginning of a heart attack and he died that night. Death was neither choosy about age, nor its method, as I was learning, and its unpredictability was unnerving. How would these families ever survive?
In November 1989, my friend’s father, who was a cop, was killed on the job. I couldn’t imagine how he’d be able to go through life knowing his dad died by someone else’s hands until a month later when my own father never came home for dinner. He’d been late many times before, but my mother had never gone looking for him, until that night. My one sister had gone with her while my oldest sister and I remained home. The tension in the air between us while we waited wasn’t because of her usual disdain for my presence; it was caused by an unfamiliar worry. They seemed to be gone for a long time, as the store my father owned was only about seven minutes away, but for all I know now, it might have only been a few minutes since the anticipation of anything invariably makes time go by slower. When they finally did return, my mother must have been shocked into an eerie sense of calm when she rather neutrally announced, “Your father’s been murdered.”
We had no solid reason to think anything was wrong that night; we never received a phone call, nor had a grim-looking officer shown up at our doorstep informing us of bad news. The friendships the Freeport police had cultivated with my parents over the twenty-plus years they’d known them had indeed been in conflict with their duties as officers. It was only our mom’s sixth sense that something had happened to our dad that spurred her out the door that night. Her fears were confirmed when she saw police swarming the parking lot where my dad’s car was parked. My mother’s last vision of my father was his body slumped over the steering wheel in his car. We were later informed that after he had closed his store for the night and sat in his car waiting for it to warm up, someone shot him at close range. From what we were told, he must have seen the person, lifted his arm instinctively, yet uselessly, to protect himself, and the bullet hit the main artery to his heart, killing him instantly.
There was scarcely time to absorb what had happened as funeral arrangements had to be made within twenty-four hours, according to Jewish law. The funeral, however, was two days later, and I can only guess it had to do with the nature of his death. His extended family made all of the arrangements as best as they could to conform to the religious procedures of a faith we barely practiced because, “that’s what he would have wanted.” We were driven to an Orthodox Jewish synagogue in Brooklyn where the women huddled together on one side, while the men prayed on the opposite side. We watched as an unadorned pine box was carried in by some of his cousins and his deceased brother’s sons, his body naked inside and wrapped in a religious shroud. The entire service was done in Hebrew, none of which we understood, and without emotion or consolation. When it concluded, we left the temple and stood in the middle of some street in an unfamiliar city. Because of a ridiculous rule that didn’t allow women at the cemetery, we were only allowed to watch as his body was driven away in a hearse. We never saw him; we never threw dirt on the grave after it had been lowered into the ground; we never said goodbye.
We grieved by instruction, not by individual need. Jews sit Shiva for a week and that’s what we did. We were told when to eat, how to accept visitors, where to sit, and not to answer phones or doors. The dictates of a religion I cared nothing about superseded how I needed to mourn. It was my loss; our loss; I wanted to be angry and hateful, eat when, or even if, I wanted to; I wanted to smoke a carton of cigarettes and crawl into bed. But even at nineteen, I knew life outside of my house on Ann Road still continued, and that I had no choice but to continue living, as well. I went back to my same job and my same college classes, although a slightly different person. I knew his death not only signified physical loss, but abstract loss: no cheesy father-daughter wedding dances; no more fishing trips; he’d never know his future grandchildren. I knew I’d be forced to grow up quicker by being forced into the working world, and out of the security of my former family life.
But there are more than just those losses. Although I’m no longer that child with normal fears about death, I’m now an adult with irrational ones. The first, most vivid memory of my life is when my mother told us my father was murdered. The second is the coverage from Channel 12 News. “Freeport Business Man Murdered,” some newsperson said, as cameras panned the image of my father’s dead body hanging out of his car, the Reebox on his feet my Chanukah gift to him a few days before. For a while after he was killed, I was scared and looked over my shoulder wherever I went; I became fearful of everything.
I attach extraordinary amounts of danger to the most ordinary things, and it not only applies to me, but to my children. I worry if they stand by a railing on the second floor at the mall because they could topple over and fall into the Koi pond below; a low-flying airplane means a crash is imminent and makes me wonder if I’m close enough that I’ll get hit with part of the wing; a jog over the Southern State parkway incites a panic that I might somehow stumble and fall over the surrounding fence and die a splattering death on the hood of a speeding Honda. I had never considered the possibility of a murder happening in my family, but because it did, it makes me believe something just as horrific is equally likely, and I unfortunately live my life waiting for it.