Joy

Yesterday, I cleaned all the windows in my house, by myself, inside and out, in less than an hour.  It seems disproportionate, but this made me feel almost giddy with joy.  As I sprayed and wiped, sprayed and wiped, I thought about what it had taken in our 3-story + attic + basement Victorian with about 45 windows, most of them 7 feet long.  We couldn’t do it ourselves, it took a crew at least a full day, sometimes a second, and it was too expensive to do as often as we would have liked.  Thinking back on this, rag in hand, I smiled ear-to-ear.  Joy.  While cleaning windows.

Everything in our home is something we have consciously decided to own and use.  With the exception of the guest room, we spend a lot of time in every room in our home.  (And the guest room rarely goes empty for very long.) When our children were young, we used all the rooms in our last home as well.  But when we became empty nesters, we didn’t even need to open the heat registers on the second floor.  The house lacked the amount of activity that made it fully a home.  We fit our new home; it fits us.

In our last home, we had a stand-up attic stuffed floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall, and a basement much the same.  Now the items we’d held onto, just because we could, have homes with people who might use them.  We donated what our family had outgrown but others might still enjoy, and we discarded what no one could want (my college notebooks, anyone?).  In our new home, we never have to slog through the morass of our past belongings to find what we need right now.  How wonderful that feels!

We also felt joy when we moved into our big home 25 years ago, two young parents and their 2-year-old leaving their starter home for the place in which they could grow as a family.  On settlement day, though it would be a few weeks before we moved in, we took a picnic dinner to the December-chilled, empty house, turned on the heat, and sat on the dining room floor around the heat register to enjoy our dinner.  We were in heaven.  After moving in, I marveled that we put less time into straightening up a large house rather than more, because the extra room meant we weren’t tripping over toys.  This became the home where our two children and their friends found the nooks and crannies for hide-and-go-seek, where we hosted huge open-houses, terrific birthday parties, and extended family dinners.  Where we had the room to volunteer for an organization providing housing for people while they or their loved ones sought medical treatment at the world-class hospitals in our area (we and our children gained so much from sharing our home and lives with people from Siberia, China and all over the US).  We fit our home; it fit us.

Recalling our starter home, joy comes flooding back again.  My husband and I, married a year, each night after work attacked the institutional green on every wall and ceiling (what were they thinking when they chose that color?) of the little one-story Cape, armed with brushes and rollers--buckets of paint as the ammunition. We had such fun, sinking our energy and hopes for the future into weeks of making the place our own.  It was the perfect size for us to learn the ropes of homeownership, to bring home our first child from the hospital, to experiment with growing a few fruit trees and a compact perennial garden as we tested the capacity of the small property.  We fit our home; it fit us.

Yesterday, cleaning my windows, all of this came to me, with the three homes we’ve owned representing the joy of each stage in our three decades of married life.  The people, relationships and experiences that developed and intertwined within the homes have been the true source of our joy, of course.  Whatever our challenges, setbacks, struggles and sorrows along the way, we have been and remain extraordinarily fortunate.  

As we shopped for our current home, while we sought a smaller space we also wanted the perfect spot for the grandchildren we hoped eventually to welcome (the rec room, the protected back yard, the park and playground a few steps down the road).  And now our daughter who began life in our starter home 27 years ago is expecting her first child.  The joy continues.

Remembrances of Dad: Bernard Wolfman, July 8, 1924 to August 20, 2011

Remarks at Dad's Funeral, August 22, 2011

When I google the term “Bernard Wolfman,” it’s not until I get past the 40th page of results that many of them no longer refer to my father.

Thirty-some years ago, when I was in high school, I sat in on one of my father’s classes.  I took a seat in the back row of the lecture hall.  The students around me glanced over several times until one asked, “Who are you?”  The reply “Professor Wolfman’s daughter” was greeted with momentary silence and then the question, “He has a daughter?”

Indeed, many knew my father for the breadth and force of his intellect and influence as a legal scholar.  But he did have a daughter.  And four sons, ten grandchildren, a sister, niece, nephews, parents… and the privilege and joy of having been married to two women whom he deeply loved.   For all of these people, and the further extended family and his dear friends, his intellect made him all the more interesting and exciting to be around, but it did not define him. It is my father’s love, warmth and generosity for which we have always appreciated him and will remember him.

I should add that we’re not likely to forget his stubbornness either.  Then again, most of us share that trait so we’ll have constant reminders.

Even Dad’s stubbornness was in the service of his love for us.  Shortly after we moved to Cambridge, the window air conditioner in my bedroom broke and he arranged for a technician to come to the house to repair it.  While he was at work I hosted the service call.  I don’t recall the specifics, but the technician in some way cheated us.  My father was furious, not at me but at the technician for seizing on the opportunity to take advantage of my youthful naiveté and gullibility.  The combination of his protective, paternal instinct, and his stubborn inability to let anything go, ended with me – scared witless – speaking in small claims court after he had thoroughly prepped and rehearsed me.

My father was an extremely difficult person for whom to select gifts, a trait he generously handed down to the other men in our family.  So I’d put great energy into coming up with ideas, sometimes even holding brainstorming sessions with my co-workers.  For one major birthday Brad and I gave him a trip to adult space camp, as he always was enamored with space exploration.  True to form, he rose to captain of his team in the simulated space flight, and he loved the experience save for the terrible food (space camp seems to serve the adult groups exactly what they supply to the child campers) and the ruination of his team’s excellent record with his crash landing at the end.  On another occasion, we gave him a very fine, vintage bottle of red wine. He liked it as he would any bottle of red, never realizing it was anything different, but at least the sommelier standing by during the celebration feast was mightily impressed.

Despite these attempts to somewhat lavishly overcome the difficulty of finding the right gift for my father, it was the simple letter that I sent him to mark Father’s Day 1999 that was most effective.  My father was not raised in an era that promoted the emotional side of men.  However, Dad managed to defy that.  My letter thanked him for being so emotionally available to me because – especially during my mother’s illness and in the four years between her death and Dad’s marriage to Toni – that made all the difference in my life.  I recall one night while my mother was hospitalized; I came down from my room, unable to sleep and feeling terribly sad.  He took me into his lap, as he sat in a chair in the family room of our house in Elkins Park, and not only held me while I cried but cried with me.  In response to my Father’s Day letter, he drafted to me a heartfelt note in return, one I have kept.  I believe that it was for him the best gift I ever gave.  My father didn’t need great things from us, just love.

Marrying Toni was a one of my father’s choices that made a tremendous difference for me.  Toni, I want you to know how much I appreciate what you have brought into my life as a friend and as a mentor. You have been far more than the term step-mother can encompass, and your love for Dad has extended to love for and generosity to the rest of us, which we deeply feel and appreciate.

It is hardly surprising that Dad would have loved someone so giving. He generously gave of his deep well of affection, never short on hugs and kisses. He held my hand when we’d take walks together no matter how old we got (except during my adolescence, when I found this mortifying).  I learned from Dad not only love for family, but also for friends.  He offered unbounded loyalty and connection to lifelong friends whose meaning in his life he would readily articulate.

My father loved his family, loved his friends and loved the law.  He also loved baseball – though here he showed less loyalty as he rather capriciously switched allegiance from the Phillies to the Red Sox, after moving to Cambridge, much to the dismay of his children. He was really looking forward to a Phillies / Red Sox World Series this year.  And he loved natural beauty, taking us for bike rides and picnics on the Schuylkill River in Philly, later for walks in the extraordinary arboretum of Mt. Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, and on outings to garden centers and nurseries.  Technology fascinated him and he became a computer user before I did, explaining to me DOS with complete awe and remarkable competency. He did this because he believed we should not simply do, we should understand.  To this end, my first driving lesson consisted not of driving but of learning how and why, behind the scenes of the automatic gears, they were shifting on my behalf.

Dad also had an extraordinary appreciation for and knowledge of language.  He was facile at foreign language, something I failed to inherit, but it was his interest in the English language over which we often bonded.  When I was in high school, after he’d acquired an edition of the OED that required a magnifying glass to read, he and I would pore over it together looking up words, and then the words from which they derived, and on and on.  Whenever I’ve been unsure of a grammatical choice, and could not arrive at a clear decision through my reference sources, I’d simply call my father.  He’d respond immediately and always accurately.  Then I’d receive a series of follow-up calls or emails with further explanation as he thought more about reasons for and nuances to the usage he’d recommended.

I will miss Dad’s calls and emails, his knowledge, his appreciation of nature, his joy for language, his enthusiasm for baseball (albeit for the wrong team), and even his stubbornness.  I will miss his love.

Parenthood Transcends Terminal Illness

In a disturbing story that has hit the news, a child custody battle nearly turned on whether the child should stay with a mother suffering from terminal cancer.

During two and one-half years of my childhood--when I was 9, 10 and 11--I experienced the illness and death of my mother from cancer. As someone who has been there, I find it sadly misguided that anyone might consider taking a child from a dying parent with whom she has a healthy, loving relationship.

I cherish the time I had with my mother, from her healthy years to the last few weeks when she was fading away in a hospital bed. My book for other children in this situation, I Remember Mommy's Smile (www.MommysSmile.com), chronicles not only the sadness of this time but also its beauty and hope. Had my mother and I been separated, I'd have been robbed of precious moments and the quality of my mother's last days would be have been diminished. Perhaps the professionals considering such cases should speak with those of us who have been there.

Midlife Crisis

My husband just marked his 50th birthday.  In preparation, he delved into a midlife crisis about 3 to 4 months ago.  It was unlike any midlife crisis I'd ever expected.  Brad sunk to no depths--of depression, crutches or unsavory activities.

Instead, he began asking and noticing. He has asked where we keep pots and pans we've had for years, rather than leaving them to wait for someone with greater knowledge of the kitchen to put them away.  He has noticed clothing he's never seen before and asked when and where I bought it (never mind that I may have worn it in his presence dozens of times; this truly was the first time he'd knowingly seen it).  He watched me apply lipstick appropriately hued to the deep red turtleneck I was wearing and asked whether I match my lip color to my outfits.  "Yes," I replied, "as I have for about 30 years."

Brad seems to have stumbled on the sweetest of midlife crises, and to make it sweeter he fails to see anything new or remarkable about his behavior.  I comprehend the sweetness, and certainly I appreciate my good luck considering the midlife crises with which many spouses contend.  In fact, I ought to be thankful for the gift of such an attentive husband.

Yet Brad's questions and obervations stop me in my tracks not because they thrill me but because they throw me entirely off guard.  I don't know how to answer a question or comment that I cannot imagine him voicing.  It's hard for me to comprehend that the man I've known since 1979 and married 5 years later is the person saying these things.  Not that he previously was insensitive; he's always been a good, kind, well-intentioned man.  He's also been entirely disconnected from a slew of things including where I keep the pans, when I buy my clothing or the color I apply to my lips.  It's as though he suddenly developed broader peripheral vision that captures a range of experiences he'd simply never seen were there.  And as nice as that may be, despite what it suggests about me I find it easier to get used to his sudden need for reading glasses (in which he looks quite distinguished, by the way)

Family Vacation

Over the 25 years of my marriage, I have not been a great in-law.  Not that I've been a bad one (I hope), but my effort has been lacking.  No doubt I could find any number of excuses, but I cannot claim any good reasons.

 

Nor can I explain my sudden thought, in March, to reach out.  But whatever the impetus, I suggested that my husband Brad and I pool two of our accumulated timeshare weeks to trade for enough space to house the 12 people in our family and his sisters' families for a joint summer vacation.  My thought was to find a spot in the Midwest--where Beth's and Debbie's families live--so they, with younger children, could more readily travel with their kids and paraphernalia by car while we would fly.  And that we'd land at a place with two units available, one of the few weeks all of us were free, where there'd be plenty to entertain families with children ages 2 to 23.  Everyone said yes immediately and agreed on possible weeks and geographies--and I found the place.  Close enough that my husband's parents also could drive in to join us for some of the vacation.  And only about an hour from Brad's first cousin and her family of six...who happened to have her sister's family of five visiting during an overlapping weekend.

When you reach out, it would seem, the world really can manage to reach back.

What a week we enjoyed.  The core twelve of us did things together and apart, within and in various mixes of our nuclear families, with cousins deepening their relationships with each other and with their aunts and uncles.


On August 2, my in-laws having joined us, there were 14 to celebrate our niece's birthday right on time, our daughter's about a week late, and my father-in-law's two weeks early.

We spent the final Saturday on the water:  23 siblings and cousins (the local cousin and their visiting cousin families now joined with us), ages 1 to 55, on two boats, for eight hours, with every one of us loving every minute.  How often does that happen?

Twenty-five years ago, I married into a terrific family.  I've known this all along, yet I've failed to make the most of it.  I won't look back and beat myself up about the opportunities missed, and this is a family that wouldn't think to do that to me.  But I will look ahead and help make the opportunities to come, and this is a family that will appreciatively participate in doing so.