Feeling older

I'm a member of Generation X, meaning I'm in my early 40s. There have been recent events reminding me I'm not getting younger, such as the death of my uncle, the last survivor of my father's nuclear family, meaning, at least for that part of the family, mysiblings , cousins and myself are the elders. It is times like that where I realize I'm not a 15 year old anymore and I have to acknowledge that my youth is passing and I'm an adult. This week's events felt like that all over again.

It doesn't seem that long ago when I was driving home from my after school job, listening to one of Michael Jackson's latest hits on the radio, before crashing on the couch for a few minutes, listening to Ed McMahon laughing at Johnny Carson's monologue while I wound down so I could go to sleep in my room where the Farah Fawcett Majors poster used to be (that thing fell off the wall years before). And this week, all died.

To be honest, none of their deaths surprised me. McMahon was older and had been reported in poor health for some time. Rumors of Fawcett's impending death had also been circulating for a time. And let's face it, are any of us really surprised Jackson died at a relatively young age due to a possible perscription overdose? Additionally, unlike when older relatives and friends my own age have died, their deaths don't affect me personally. Carson's Tonight Show has been gone for almost two decades and, aside from clips when he was about to lose his home, McMahon had been out of the limelight of late. Same for Fawcett, aside from occasional appearances here and there. As to Jackson, it has been almost 20 years since any of his music appealed to me and I prefer to remember him as the entertainer of the 1980s and not this weird, sick creature he morphed into in the 1990s and 2000s. So why am I feeling a little sad today?

As a child of the late 1960s to mid 1980s, my childhood was one surrounded by cultural icons. And, for better or worse, Jackson, McMahon and Fawcett were the icons of my youth (along with Prince, The Brady Bunch, Lucille Ball, the original Star Trek crew etc), even if they had drifted in from the previous generation. Though I didn't know Robert Reed or James Doohan (though I did see him once at a Star Trek convention, funny guy) I remember being sad when I heard they had died. And though I remember being interested in the coverage of Presiden's Nixon's death, I was much more affected by President Reagan's death, though it was also somewhat expected, as I recalled his presidency and barely remembered Nixon's, aside from being confused at the time as to why the President of the United States would consider breaking into our home to steal my mother's scotch tape. Still I had never met Ronald Reagan so why should I have been affected? Probably because it simply marked the passage of time.

During Reagan's presidency, my parents were young and healthy (though I thought those old farts in their 40s and 50s to be ancient) and even most of my grandparents and their generation were still around (at least in 1981). By the time of Reagan's death, my grandparents' generation was all but gone and even many of the relatives of my parents' generation were dead or ailing, including both of my parents. With children of my own and a mother suffering one health crisis after another by then, it was as if another piece of my childhood had died. So maybe that is why now, when I am at an age I remember my father being and my children are at ages I remember being, these latest deaths just remind me that I am getting older. And that's the way it is.

Another of the greatest generation is gone

My mother-in-law's Uncle Paul passed away yesterday morning, just 7 months after his wife of 63 years, Jeanne, died from cancer. Like many couples who had been together forever, or so it seems, when one dies the other soon follows. I saw it with my grandmother after my grandfather died (and saw it again a few years later when my father died of a broken heart after my brother died in a car accident, but that is another story). They were from a generation that we will probably never see again.

My own grandparents had been gone about 10 years when I met Jeanne and Paul when I started dating my wife about 14 years ago. A close family, they were surrogate grandparents to my wife and brother-in-law, and took up the roll with me, my brother's law's wife and their grand-daughters' husbands. They were special people. They had a charm that made hosting parties seem effortless, which they were still doing well into their late 80s. They could communicate with those from 9 months to 99 years; nothing like Aunt Jeanne sitting at the piano to get the little ones attention or great-grandpa Paul making his sound. You didn't feel like you had to visit them, which, less face it, can happen with some older relatives; you felt like you wanted to visit them. They always seemed to put others ahead of themselves, making sure their guest were comfortable. The last few years, as various family members aged and/or moved further away, the Long Island couple took to celebrating their wedding anniversary with a big family dinner at a Manhattan restaurant, central to most of the family (and traveling distance for some of the older NJ relatives). They were the first people, outside of our own mothers who we told when we were pregnant with our first child.

We were also the ones to tell them of the space shuttle exploding a few years ago; we were the first ones over for a family dinner and when we arrived they were all upset they couldn't reach a cousin who had recently entered a nursing home. Trying to console them, we said he was probably just watching the news about the space shuttle. When they asked what news, my wife and I both looked at each other and remembered they weren't big on watching TV. That was the only time I ever Aunt Jeanne, a woman from New Orleans who met Uncle Paul during the war, curse (a simple "Damm!").

Like my grandparents, and many of their generation, they were not highly educated, at least in the sense that we think of educated people now with various degrees. They were self taught, reading whatever books and newspapers interested them. They kept abreast of current events and could argue a position as effectively as anyone. When Aunt Jeanne died the turnout by friends of them (or their children) was immense. I expect the same on Sunday when we return to their home for Paul's memorial (they weren't into funerals). For my wife especially it will be hard as it will probably be the last time she sets foot in a house that she has been visiting and sleeping in for almost 40 years (our last sleep over was about 4 years ago).

Of course, like most others of their generation, they were affected by WWII. Uncle Paul served in Europe, dropping bombs on the Nazis and probably killing those who were killing whatever distant relatives he still had in Germany. He had many stories, some that I've forgotten but, fortunately, are written down somewhere. He had his opinion on the atom bomb and how he was just happy he didn't have to go to Japan after the Nazis surrendered. I knew I had been in the family a long time when the stories started repeating. He kept in touch with many of his war buddies, including one who drew a kid in a comic strip for many decades with big ears that we all swore looked like Uncle Paul's. There aren't may of them left now, and the world's poorer place without them.

However, I feel I'm a richer person for having known them. If I had to describe them in one word, that word would be grace. They didn't believe in the after life so I hope that wherever they are now they are happy to be back together.

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Time flies

You always think you'll have time to make that call, then one day you can't.

My dad died many years ago, but his younger brother, was still around and he and I exchanged emails and phone calls from time to time. As sometimes happens when you're younger and raising a family time flies and you get busy. You think oh I'll call later and then one day later never comes. That is what happened to me this week.

Several months ago, I accidentally stumbled onto a portion of the family tree and had been diligently emailing, calling or writing some very distant relatives. The portion of the tree was several generations ago and we were missing a few branches. I called my uncle but, unfortunately, he couldn't remember the exact details of how that branch was related to us, aside from we knew it was ancestor of his mother. As I got more details from the far flung relatives, I planned to pass on the information to my uncle. I even scanned in some old family documents I wanted him to see. But then I realized I had misplaced his email address when my email program changed and didn't email him right away. The messages from the newly found relatives dried up for a bit and I let the project fall to the side as I git side tracked with little league, school and the other things young families get caught up in.

Then, about three weeks ago, I found his email address and I finally remembered to forward him the information. A few days later he called me, but I was out with my son. I called him back a few days later, but he was out. When he didn't return my call after a few days, I kept thinking I have to call him again, I have to call him again, but it was always fairly late in the evening when I remembered and I thought to myself, I'll remember tomorrow. Of course, when tomorrow came, I forgot. After quite a few tomorrows, over this past weekend I finally remembered -- and at a reasonable time! I called and no one answered, so I left a message. "Phone tag, you're it!"

Then came the evening, a few days later, when I came home from work and saw the answering machine flashing. The message was from my cousin's wife, asking me to call her so she could give me some news about my uncle. It was then I knew my uncle was with my father and grandparents once again. I looked up at my grandparents' wedding photos from 80 years ago, which are now so old that they are closer to being a decorative picture then a family picture, and thought, wow, that is it for that nuclear family as my grandparents and now, both their children, are dead.

My cousin said my uncle died in his sleep, apparently very peacefully. He had been in declining health the last few years. He wasn't that old, but I guess he was old enough. Now my uncle and his family had left this area a long time ago and I hadn't seen him in over a decade, probably since my brother's wedding. My cousins didn't know many of our fathers' relatives so he asked me if I could pass the news onto our dads' cousins. Since I knew most of them I agreed and got out the phone book. That's when I got the next surprise, how few were left.

Of that generation, our fathers were generally the youngest. The oldest of those cousins were in WW2, but our dads were too young for that, and my uncle was too young even for Korea. But it was a big family and I remember going to family events via the family's landsmanschaften (a Jewish family or town group immigrant benevolent societies formed and named for members’ birthplace in Eastern Europe, most of my great-grandparents' generations were the immigrants), especially when my grandparents' generation was still mostly around 30 years ago. I'm talking of events, usually once a month that if only 30 people showed up grandmothers and aunts were "annoyed" (to put it nicely). On a really good day, usually someone's 50th or 60th anniversary, there could be 80 people at these events easily.

But that was a long time ago and the grandmothers are long gone. However, I hadn't realized how many of the cousins were gone until I started making the calls. I made just 6 or 7 calls, wi th one of my dad's cousins passing on the news of my uncle's passing to a few more cousins, making the total 10 (and several of those were wives of the actual cousins). That's it, 10. Where did all those cousins go? At first I thought some were just cousins we lost track of after my dad passed, but then I thought about it and realized that no, I know where they are -- the same cemetery my dad is.

Here I am 40, with an ailing mother, and, with another death from my parents' generation, I realize that it won't be much longer until I am the senior generation. How did that happen? It feels like it was just yesterday I was in first grade playing with my friends. In reality, it was just yesterday I picked up my first grade son while playing with his friends. Time flies. Guess I should've called my uncle last week and not waited until last weekend.

Death is a part of life

In a recent Dear Abby, I read a letter from an ailing grandfather upset that his son and daughter-in-law were trying to keep his grandson away from him because he was dying and they were afraid their grandson would become upset if his now beloved grandfather died (in lieu of a grandfather in name only). What is it with people being afraid of death?

Last year my mother, who has been in declining health for several years, had a stroke. As she recovered it became apparent that she was not going to return to her old self. Mentally she was, and is, still all there, but her body had taken a severe blow. While she was rehabbing we took our children to see her, explaining to our (then) 6 year old that Grandma was in poor physical shape, would have trouble speaking to him, may look a little different etc, but that she wanted to see him. The visit went as well as we could expect. A few days later, we get a call from his teacher saying our son was acting out all of the sudden. We told her about my mother and then she said one of the more hurtful things to me during this ordeal: that maybe it was best if our son didn't visit her.

At the time we didn't know if mom was ready to give up or not or continue to fight to live and the visit meant a lot to her. I explained to the teacher that our family was not a fairy tale with grandma baking cookies etc, that our son has a very sick grandmother and that my mother would probably remain that way for the rest of her life. I'm not sure if my tears, as I explained all this, were from anger or sadness. There is a part of me that wishes our children would have "normal" grandparents, especially when we want to go away for a weekend and are looking for relatives (siblings, cousins our age have children of their own, older relatives have health issues too or are still working) to care for them, but with grandfathers who died young and grandmothers with health issues of their own at young ages, that is not to be. We've come to accept that this was the hand our parents' were dealt and have lived with it.

Sometimes I think I grieve more that my children will not be able to have the same relationships I had my with my grandparents: no grandfather to take them fishing and tell stories of mom and her brother as children, no grandmother who could cook up a storm (in fairness, neither of our mothers were "gourmet" cooks in their prime) or take them to the top of the Empire State Building in the middle of the week because they were retired.

Today, over a year after the stroke, my mother's health is a non-issue. She's had some setbacks, most of which we are able to shield the children from, and can communicate a little better. We see mom at the nursing home on a fairly regular basis and my children accept her condition: our youngest will have no memory of her healthier days, but we have pictures. I'm sure there will be issues when my mom finally does die, but I couldn't imagine keeping my children away from her (aside from when there is illness of course). She needs to know them, they need to know her.

Yes, she'll never be able to tell them stories like my grandparents did, nor go out for a nice family meal at a restaurant (stroke left her unable to chew solids), but my children will have other memories. They will remember drag racing grandma's wheelchair from their tricycle in the nursing home courtyard. They'll remember walks/rolls to the park. The important thing is that they'll remember her and that she won't just be some picture on the wall of a person they did not know.