September 10th

When Good Things End

I learned yesterday that a girl I went to high school with was murdered recently. Murdered. Along with her father and her mother, she was beaten and then stabbed and then torched. Her mother survived - although her medical state is critical - but her father perished with her. Their home was destroyed in a fire.

When I say that I went to high school with her, I need to clarify that I did not know her. We were not friends or even acquaintances and her name didn't sound familiar. My sister had to pull out the yearbook and show me photographs. She was a few years younger than me, which may be part of it.

In the grand scheme of things, high school is a very short period in one's life. Every year or so, I run into so-and-so at the supermarket or in line at an amusement park or out to dinner and we'll stand there for five or ten minutes and catch up. This is how I have found out about weddings, divorces, babies, graduations, deaths, and all sorts of other occurences. But I also run into so-and-so from other facets of my life: former coworkers, fellow volunteers, ex-clients, people my parents or sisters know, etc. And from these people, I also hear about a multitude of happenings. High school figures - students, teachers, coaches, and administration alike - are a very small percentage of the total number of people I encounter like this, but they comprise a total after all and that's something.

As high school is a definite period in my life, something I can measure as having been a constant in my life over the span of four years, it is easy to use that one as a measuring stick of sorts. And since those years, it never ceases to amaze me what I hear along the road. Last year, I ran into a former teacher who had married a fellow student. About six months ago, I saw a high school friend who told me about the suicide of someone I hadn't seen since graduation. Things like that, they always hit close to home because they make me reconsider my life.

This murder, this heinous act committed against a family who CERTAINLY DID NOT DESERVE IT, struck me last night. I researched it in the news this morning and I have spent the entire day turning it over in my head. What was she like, this woman? Who was she and would things have been different if we had ever met? Did I ever brush up against her in the hallway, did I know her and have since forgotten, what could she have taught me in life? What was her family like? Who were they and why would someone do this to them? What could possibly possess someone to do something like this to another human, to an entire family, to a full community?

I guess you could say that I have always been a fairly idealistic individual. I like to think that people are inherently good and I prefer to consider their mistakes while believing that they did the best they could, the best they knew how to do. The more I hear about incidents like this - the incidents that hit me the hardest because I have something in common with that victim - the more I loose a little of that shimmer from my youth. I know that it is only natural, that with time all peoples' optimism fades a little. I'm still a silver lining kind of gal and I am more grateful today than I was yesterday. It's just difficult to learn of an event such as this one and not realize that innocence is something which is stripped of someone, layer by layer, in this world.

And that's a shame. It really is.
Rest in peace. I am praying for your family.

A Time to Remember

With loss, there was darkness.

I have never been good at dealing with death. When my grandmother passed away, I remember leaving her home and sitting on her steps rocking back and forth sobbing uncontrollably. And when my grandfather passed away six months later, there were questions boiling beneath my skin and itching to escape. I have watched family and friends alike exit this life and it always hits me in a way that I could never describe, wherein my life appears to have overnight lost its every purpose. My faith is tested in a manner that grates at the core of me, and I'll find myself flipping through pages and pages of prayers looking for the light in a sea of darkness.

What I have always been good at, however, is stepping up to the plate.

Last week, a friend of mine experienced a loss of her own. Together, Fiance and I opened up our home to her and began to think about how we could accomodate her. Then, over the weekend we found out that one of Fiance's close relatives had passed away. I have been astounded by his ability to overcome this loss, to take everything in stride and to be such a strong man throughout this. As well, we were informed that one of my relatives had been checked into the hospital, and subsequently a rehabilitation center, after a fall.

It has been a difficult month for Fiance and I. We have been faced with losses, insecurity, and stress. Every time I begin to write something, whatever is going on gets in the way. We both expect everything to settle down within the next week, but in the meantime I just have to say that Fiance has been a hero through everything - especially considering his recent loss. He was excited about waking up early to surprise my mom for Mother's Day, and he has been looking forward to my family reunion this weekend almost as much as I have. He has been encouraging with regards to Jet's death - reminding me that people deal with grief in different ways - and strong with regards to his own. I am so proud of him and so thankful that our relationship has solid foundations, that we are able to go through these things together however distant either of us may be from time to time.

So when things come to halt around here, I'll write a little more. In the meantime, I am just using this post to record what is going on in my life. However difficult this month has been, it is a period in my life that I don't want to forget.

I hope there are LOTS of tennis balls in Heaven

My parents bought me a black dog one year for Christmas. A few weeks after the holiday, my father and I drove out to a breeder in Cherry Valley where two labs were looking for a home. I chose the black one because he was beautiful, shy, interesting, sweet. And I named him Jet. Yesterday morning, somebody driving a car on a road near my parents' home didn't stop. Jet had been out all night - only the second time in six years he had strayed for longer than an hour - and my understanding is that he was dead upon impact. And that's all there was to it. My baby, my sillygoosedog, was gone.

I never realized how lost I would feel without Jet until I heard the telephone message that there had been an accident and all the neighbors had was his collar. So now I worry about how lost he felt without me when he was trying to find home. And Jetboy? I'm really sorry I wasn't there. We loved you and we miss you.

When Did Choosing a Church Become Choosing a Stalker?

Boyfriend hates evangelism. He has no appreciation for other people telling him what to believe, how to feel, and which of his thoughts are going to send him to burn in eternal damnation. In Boyfriend's eyes the evangelists are akin to Lucifer himself. The face he pulls when the local Jehovah's Witnesses stop by to distribute their bilingual "Do you know Jesus?" pamphlets is evidence enough of this. I, on the other hand, am a big fan of religion. If it were up to me, we'd be in Shabbos service half the weekend and taking Mass the other half. There is nowhere that radiates a community more to me than a group of people with faith (common or otherwise) engaged in worship. One of my favorite feelings is stepping into the sunlight after devoting a morning to prayer and reflection.

That Boyfriend and I still get along despite this MAJOR difference in our faith and our perception of faith is testament to just how tolerant he really is. Now imagine two so different people looking for a home church. And if that's not enough, imagine when we start looking for our home synagogue. Luckily, we found a church last Sunday that is trying to make the whole selection process easy.

On Monday, an elderly gentleman stopped by to deliver us a loaf of bread. "It's our practice in the church to bake a loaf of bread for newcomers. We hope to see you again next week!" On Tuesday, one of the pastors left a personal message on our answerphone. It pretty much declared that they miss us already and can't wait to see us in a few more days. On Wednesday, we received a letter that thanked us for our attendance and encouraged us to return. A letter, Internet! A LETTER! With our names all typed up looking spiffy and the whole nine yards.

It's like we're being stalked. I'm starting to wonder if Boyfriend has a point with all his evangelism-hating. At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if the bread did contain what he thinks it may: brain-washing chemicals.

Yes, the Pastor Actually Said it Out Loud and in Public

"Can you just imagine if we dropped plane loads of chocolate bars on Iraq instead of bombs?"

Yes, I can. It would ruin all those spiffy military uniforms we've bought our armed forces, though, and that would be a shame.

For the Love of G-d

I have faith.

As is rarely the case, I do not consider my faith an original idea. There was no spiritual epiphany that brought me from faithless to faithful. Instead, my faith is like a quilt - fashioned from the patches and stitching of other peoples' ideas. And it is best compared to an incomplete quilt at that - one which is still coming to light beneath the eye of a practiced seamstress. I do not pretend that I have the answers which so many find in their own religions but that is not to say that I do not share in their comfort. My faith, like myself, is constantly evolving. It changes with every experience.

There are many experiences to be considered when one takes into account that which influences any individual. The patchwork of my faith is no different: I am influenced by people from every walk of life, from every hiccough in history.

Why people refuse to accept my spirituality as a valid walk is beyond me. No, I do not subscribe to one religion and one religion alone. Yes, I dabble in many schools of thought. As any literature professor worth her word would have prompted you to ask yourself once upon a time: so what? So what if I can reconcile aspects of multiple religions? So what if I can attend a synagogue, temple, and church in one week - and believe in all three? So what if I don't value one faith above another?

I explained it to a Christian friend once: I just do not see G-d as having the limitations many religions assign Him. That doesn't mean I am without faith or without a valid faith. It just means that you and I as neighbors on this Earth ought to agree to disagree. I may not believe in everything you say, but I will listen and respect and I will not judge.

Unfortunately, my coworker cannot fathom a world in which multiple faiths can be let to agree to disagree. Unfortunately, he feels that my faith is not a faith at all. I wouldn't mind if he felt my faith were flawed and he communicated that to me in a respectful manner, but he did not. No. He began a conversation, judged me openly, and then concluded the conversation without allowing me more than two words edgewise.

I think he missed a very important point last night. If we had different skin colors, that wouldn't make me less of a person to him. If we had different eye colors, native tongues, or weights...that wouldn't make me less of a human in his eyes. And if we had different cultures, ancestries, and played different sports then he wouldn't find me to be more offensive or dangerous a thinker than the next man in line. Why then should he judge me for believing differently than he does?

I may not have his faith, after all, but I do still have faith.

Never Too Late To Remember

I live fifteen minutes from an airport.

As a result, I am very familiar with the rumble of airline jets. They zoom overhead several times daily interrupting everything from peaceful dinnertime conversations to impatient he-said-she-said arguments. In fact, sometimes I even take Kitten on the porch when I hear a plane coming; I think it's funny to watch him try to decipher the large shadow and larger sound.

Some people might not like living near an airport for exactly the reasons I do. I see this in dinner guests all the time. "How can you stand these airplanes all the time?!" a friend once asked incredulously. "They're loud!" she pointed out, "they're just too loud!" And what about the traffic near the airport - the coming and going of strangers in a strange land?

There's more to it than that, though. So the traffic is a little thick at times and so the airplanes make a little noise. That seems a small price to pay for my freedom. See, when I look at the sky in the morning...I'm safe. And everytime I hear a plane pass by...I'm still safe. Everyone is. The world is spinning, the President's heart is beating. The terrorists haven't won. Other people hear nothing more than the shocking bellow of a jet's engines, but I hear so much more.

Sometimes when I hear a plane, I think about it. That day. The day when I spent hours watching a national tragedy unfurl. The day when people I know lost their loved ones and other people I know gathered their loved ones close. The day when I started saving news articles and magazine clippings because they were my only link to innocent heroes I grieved without making acquaintance. The day when flags and flowers went up on a street corner near my home. The day my family purchased a television set so we could hear our leaders speak. The day we all worried: were we at war? Were we under attack? Were the men we knew to be sent to fight an enemy we'd not anticipated? The day I felt guilty that the sun was shining.

Not always, though. There are times when I hear a plane and it doesn't cross my mind and there are times when I hear a plane and am simply annoyed by the sound. But the rest of the time, I'm thankful that I live directly in a flight path. I appreciate living so near an airport. After the skies were so dreadfully quiet, the zoom of the jets is still refreshing. Because that day that the planes stopped flying? That day when everything we knew was in jeopardy? That day that made it feel like the world might end? That day when parents lost their children and brothers lost their sisters and grooms lost their brides? Indeeed, Boyfriend and I are blessed to live so near an airport because that day when the skies were eerily silent and empty and flights stopped altogether?

My dinner guests may not remember it, but I do.