One of the memorable and haunting songs in Lin Manual’s Hamiliton is Who Lives Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story.
For Carrie Trauth, it is no question about who will tell her story.
Over the final weeks of Carrie’s life, family and many, many friends have been telling their stories about her, about what she has meant to each of us, how close so many of us felt to her, how important she was in so many of our lives.
It may not always be the exact same story, but what is being told has similar themes: her importance to her family, her compassion and caring for others, including animals, her nurturing kindness, her toughness, her consistency, her mentorship, her leadership, her remembrance of birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, her laughter, her genuine interest in others, and, above all, her friendship.
Some biographical information tells just one story about her.
Carrie began her career as a staff nurse at the Washington Hospital Center. She then worked at The Psychiatric Institute of Washington as a staff nurse, assistant head nurse, assistant to the Training Director, and then as the Clinical Coordinator of their day school in Rockville, MD.
In 1975, Carrie was one of the founders of The Frost School and of The Family Foundation, Inc. She had many roles at the school, including being its Clinical Director. She was the team leader for our first high school program, then for our middle school, and then for our elementary school. After retiring from Frost, Carrie continued to return to the school to assist in nursing duties and to give workshops to staff.
At the Foundation she was the Secretary and then Vice President and was a leader in our granting process over the past 15 years. She was an active member of her synagogue and of numerous state and national professional organizations.
For me, Carrie was many things: she was a partner in everything I did professionally since 1971. She taught me about what was important with working with kids and family with problems. She played a key role with the founders of Frost & the Foundation, always bringing her perspective to whatever issue we discussed, problems we were trying to solve, and decisions we had to make. She was fully present at all times. She was a trusted ally and therapist to every student and family with whom she worked. In addition, she was a mentor to many younger staff members and a model to all.
Carrie was all those things everyone has been recounting in the past week – kind, compassionate, caring, engaged, nurturing, strong, and, by example, taught me about friendship and how one individual can have an impact on so many others.
Carrie did all of those things, and many more. She was the first person Ellen I trusted to take care of our first born overnight when we had to be away for one night. That daughter, Annie, is now in her early 40s and has gotten a birthday card every one of those years, as have Annie’s children, and we have received similar cards every year.
Until the last several weeks of her life, she continued to be a touchstone for me whenever I called her, needed to discuss Foundation issues, and most importantly, when I needed her thoughts and advice on whatever was concerning me.
And when I saw her just two days before her death, her first words were, “Rick, thank you for coming,” and final words were, “I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve had a good life.”
There is no doubt that Carrie’s many, many friends, family, and people she touched will continue to tell her story and keep alive many of the lessons she taught all of us.
I recently came across a lengthy article by Andrew Sullivan I had read more than five years ago about being “a very early adopter of what we might now call living-in-the-web.”
See: I Use to Be a Human Being, by Andrew Sullivan, Sept. 19, 2016. New York Magazine. (If you are unable to open and read it, please let me know. I can paste it into an email.)
Upon my initial reading, it led to, though was not the total reason for, my withdrawal from Facebook. Now, upon rereading it five years later, it is leading to my withdrawal from Instagram and Twitter.
Sullivan nailed many of the factors in the addictive nature and power of the Web, Smart Phones, and similar devices and activities. Now, five years later, there is even more evidence of the negative impacts of what this is doing to us as individuals and as a society.
I am not withdrawing totally from that world (mainly the prime social media platforms). I will continue to use it for some connections and communications with others (i.e., MillersTime, The Family Foundation, Inc., email) and to keep in touch with many of my areas of interest – news, sports, weather, travel, etc. I hope, however, that I can significantly reduce the time I am involved with the iPhone and the time I spend on the Web.
Like many addictions, this one is powerful and perhaps more intense than any of us realize.
My hope is that I can get more control over it, spend less time with it, and when doing so, use it for its best attributes
A contributor to the 2021 MillersTime Favorite Reads recently wrote me with the following thought and idea:
Here’s a thought (more work for you): what about a corner on MillersTime like “staff picks” at Politics & Prose where we can post during the year, between the twice yearly list, when we want to share a book of exceptional interest?
I love that idea.
I like not waiting until midyear or the end of the year, often by which time it is easy to forget something I read much earlier in the year that was “of exceptional interest.”
So this is what I’ve decided, thanks to FH’s suggestion:
Whenever you finish a book that fits into the category of “exceptional interest,”please consider sending me (Samesty84@gmail.com) the title, the author, a description of what you just read, and why that book was particularly special for you.
Whenever I have three or four submissions, contributions, I will post what I have received. I foresee possibly doing this once a month if there are sufficient submissions.
And feel free to contribute to this new portion of MillersTime as frequently as you want with something you want to share with others
In light of that, I write below about a book I just finished that was a favorite read from 2021 from CL and for me fits into this category of “exceptional interest.”
The Beauty of What Remains: How Our Greatest Fear Becomes Our Greatest Giftby Steve Leder
It’s only the beginning of February, and I have what will undoubtedly be one of my favorites for 2022.
Leder’s book is one that I will reread as I do with two others that have similarities to this one. (The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister and Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande.)
This book is about aging, death and dying, loss and grief, and pain.
It is also a book about joy and comfort.
Leder has been a rabbi for more than 30 years at Wilshire Temple in Los Angeles and literally has sat by more than a thousand death beds and officiated at many of the ensuing funerals.
Yet it took the death and loss of his own father before Leder was able to write this book and to understand that what he thought he knew about loss and grief was in fact INcorrect.
He takes us on a journey through loss and grief that is inspiring and comforting, filled with wisdom of the ages but also his own journey of learning to face these issues and find the beauty of what remains.
The Beauty of What Remains is a small book, 288 pages that can be read in just a few hours, but it contains a great deal of understanding, many insights, and so much wisdom that it is a gem, uplifting, hopeful, and even practical.
It is an exceptional book that I am thankful for CL suggesting it and am delighted to recommend it — whether or not you have experienced a recent death or a loss, are facing an impending death or loss. or are just thinking about your own or someone else’s ageing and end of life issues.
For those MillersTime readers who have read my Letters Home, a self-published book with the letters I wrote home during my two years in the Peace Corps, a number of you have commented on the relationship I had with my parents. While that focus was not in my mind when I wrote — and 55 years later published — the letters, I never thought our relationship was unusual.
Several years ago, I posted on MillersTime something my father Sam wrote in 1985 that Ellen and I rediscovered. I am now almost 12 years older than he was when he wrote it – he was then 67, and I was 42.
And if Sam were here now, I think that while I understand his wanting “one more day,” I would disagree with his conclusion that “There Is Never Enough.”
I would tell him, and my mother, that I now truly understand how much we had together and how fortunate we all were to have had and to have shared 65+ years with each other.
*** *** *** ***
Reposting: But I Want One More Day:
Richard & I
The letter with the familiar Sierra Leone postmark came towards the end of his first Peace Corps year. Chatty and whimsical in his usual way, it ended with the startling suggestion – “Sam, you always came to camp on visitor’s day at Samoset – why not now and here? It is probably a rough trip for Esty, but she deserves a separate vacation. Come – we will talk, you will see my segment of Africa, and your citrus will grow even in your absence.”
And so I did. From Orlando to New York to Freetown and then, the toughest part by mammy wagon, to Kailahun. I arrived in the late afternoon, unannounced, to flounder to the rather primitive dwelling my son shared with another Peace Corps idealist. A note on the door suggesting, that since my arrival was indeterminate, I find my way to the school, where Richard and faculty were building an imposing addition.
“You must be Meestah Meeler’s father,” a young voice piped behind me. “And how do you know that?” “You walk like Meestah Meeler.” I curbed the impulse to say, “You’ve got it backwards, kid,” and contemplated a truth revealed. I did walk like my son. Our role reversal was beginning. Here, on turf alien to me, he had established an identify all his own, independent and unconnected by any umbilical chord.
Pure pleasure to be with him – his obvious love and joy at the reunion matching mine. After the ground nut stew supper and news catching up, he said, “”Let’s talk about Ellen,” and we did. She was finishing college during his Peace Corps stint, and Esty and I had recently driven to New Jersey to vist and spread around some parental blessing. A lovely girl, our son had chosen, and we talked late of plans and marriage and the difficulty of separation.
The village chief, with a gesture of hand to breast, gifted me with a robe of country cloth. His praise singer informed me that the gift and gesture were unusual – the hand motion indicating he took me to his heart. Not that he truly knew my inestimable worth, but an indication of the community regard for my son.
Maybe the child is father to the man. Of course, it is warming to know that one’s flesh and blood has his own strong and sure identity, yet there is an ambivalence. The years had rushed by and regrets coursed through of missed words, missed chances, and missed touches.
Two days before his sixteenth (the legal driving age in Florida), Richard, his grandfather (Rob), and I went to Reed Motors in downtown Orlando. He had saved his bar-mitzvah gelt, his money from his two summer labors with an idiot stick in the groves, and our modest additions to bring it to a grand total of eighteen hundred dollars.
The Monza on the lot was his heart’s desire. Color, line, sleekness — all exactly right. The best deal was an even two thousand dollars. Rob started to reach into his pocket when callous, arrogant me caught his arm and told the man if he could find a way to accept our eighteen hundred dollars, call us at home at this number. Richard, with a slight lip termor, nodded at me and we walked away,
If I could only relive that day and save my good son that two hour agony until the call came saying it was ours
When he was nine or ten, with Jimbo, he built a tree house in the big oak fronting our Florida house. I came home tired and hot from the packing house and grove to face the small problem. I had visions of fifteen foot falls, hurts, law suits, and assorted ills. Balancing his enthusiasm while understanding my problem, we discussed it fairly amicably. At his suggestion, we resolved it thusly. I would climb into the tree house and if after stomping, banging and shaking , it survived. I would withdraw my objections. To my mild consternation, that solidly built hut withstood my assault. He was gracious in triumph and exercised care and prudence in maintaining security.
And he returned, after the two years, from Africa – bearded and some how bigger – to get a doctorate and start teaching at Kennedy High School in Washington, a rather unorthodox and free wheeling, open sort of school. On one of intermittent visits to DC to visit Richard and Ellen, now safely married, he suggested I spend a day at school. Seated in the rear, trying to be unobtrusive, I was bemused by the freedom and interplay betwixt student and teacher — a far cry from my high school experience.
Halfway through the first hour Richard announced, “we have a visitor.You have heard me mention my father; well he is that guilty party sitting in the back. You want to pump him. All I will add is that he thinks I am somewhat square and he will be honest with you.”
After about thirty seconds, the kids started firing, “How did your relationship come? Did we talk about sex? Why did I think him square? What was Esty like? How come we let him go to India on the Experiment in International Living when he was in his teens?”
The whole tenor of the hour left me with a sense that these adolescents hungered for communication with their parents that generally was non-existent; and a profound sense of gratitude at what we had.
With some of the faculty at Kennedy, Richard started a program for emotionally disturbed teenagers that came to be known as The Frost School. One of the teaching techniques involved the use of a video camera. On various holidays and family visits, Ellen borrowed the unit and video taped — a nice way to enfold us into their lives and keep us abreast of Annie, now seven, and Beth now three.
The last tape depicts Beth on my bearded son’s lap gravely discussing her day. “You went to the doctor with mommy?” Vigorous nodding of the head. “Why? “My ear hurt.” “What did the doctor do?” Indignantly, “He put a stick in my mouth.” “What?” “Yes he did.” “If your ear hurt, why would he do such a silly thing?” Giggle, “I don’t know.”
Why my sudden ache and nostalgia to have my forty-two year old an infant in my lap and to gravely joke with him as he is now with Beth? Is there ever enough? What I would give for one more day — to ride the groves, to talk of my day and his day; of what he and Jimbo fell out about — the Little League prospects and maybe girls; and I would try not to hug him too tightly.
Ah, the magic clock. We have four grandchildren, the two girls in Washington and two older grandsons, courtesy of Richard’s slight older sister, Janet. (I suspect that he thinks I am soft in the head as well as heart about my first born.) Why then, the fantasy of turning back the clock and longing for one more day? “Dote” is the hackneyed accurate word re the grand children; and our relationship with our children strikes me as rare. They embrace us and include us in their lives. Filial piety, in the Chinese sense, is rendered in full measure. But I want one more day.
If, like Sisyphus, it were granted by the Gods, I would merit the same punishment and receive the deserved doom There is never enough.
*** *** *** ***
{Note: If you want to read Letters Home, I have a number of copies I can lend. Just send me an email with your snail mail address. Or, you can purchase a copy through our local independent bookstore, Politics-Prose.}
When I was 22, I joined the Peace Corps and taught at an upcountry secondary school in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
Prior to serving in the Peace Corps, I had spent a summer during college in Tanganyika and a second summer living with two different families in India.
Then, upon graduating college in 1965 and inspired by President John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural challenge – “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country” – I embarked on two years that profoundly affected me and my future.
I wrote home frequently, and unbeknownst to me, my mother saved the 91 letters I wrote during those two years.
It is one thing for me to think back on those times – 56 years ago – and another to be able to read what I was actually doing, thinking, and learning at the time.
Recently I had those letters typed, added a few pictures, and, through our wonderful Politics & Prose Bookstore, self published as Letters Home. They have not been changed in any substantive way, other than a few very minor edits.
If you have interest in reading Letters Home, let me know. I’d be delighted to send you a copy.
I just finished reading what will definitely be one of my Favorite Reads of 2021: Anything Can Happen by George & Helen Waite Papashvily (NF).
I know. I know. I just posted the 2020 Favorite Reads, and here I am already making a list for this new year. But there’s no doubt this wonderful, uplifting story will be at the top of my list, and I’ll reread before the end of the year and encourage others to read it too.
But first, how I came to find and read Anything Can Happen:
My father, Sam Miller, was not a person who cared about acquisitions, except for his books and his chess table. When my mother died in Florida and he subsequentially came to live in DC, the one thing he wanted to bring was his library. And of course, we readily agreed. When he died, I inherited that collection.
I always knew that Sam’s father, Tom, had frequently given him books on his birthday, and these were Sam’s most prized possessions. For years now I have been meaning to look more closely at the books Tom gave Sam, with the possible idea of reading every one.
And so with the ‘enforced’ and extended time at home, four days ago I went through Sam’s treasures. I was surprised to find there were 40 books from his father, each inscribed, including the date given.
(I was also surprised to find five volumes Sam had taken from the University of New Hampshire Library, where he had been a student for a year and a half before leaving college to go to work and also a half dozen books from the Orland Public Library, where Sam was a known offender for keeping books long overdue before, sometimes, returning them.)
There were other books in Sam’s collection that I didn’t remember ever seeing – three from Tom to me and one from my mother’s parents.
Since I wasn’t ready to commit to reading the 40, I thought I’d start with the one from Esty’s parents, Anything Can Happen, a slim volume given to her and Sam when I was just two years old.
What a pure delight.
And not just because it was from my grandparents to my parents and was now in my book collection.
Anything Can Happen (hereafter referred to as ACH) was originally published in serialized form and became a Book of the Month Club best seller in January 1945 (600,000 copies sold in the US and 1.5 million worldwide). It was also turned into a movie directed by George Seaton and starring Jose Ferrer & Kim Hunter.
ACH is the (mostly?) true story of George Papashvily, an immigrant from a village in Caucasian Georgia who came to Ellis Island in 1923 after being an apprenticed sword maker and ornamental leather worker. He was a sniper in the Russian army in WWI, and after his return to Georgia, he fought against the Red Army before fleeing to Istanbul and then on to the US.
Together with the writing assistance of his American born wife, Helen Waite, ACH tells in broken English about his life from the time he arrived here and continues through one memorable experience after another. It is told with a wonderful sense of self-deprecating humor as he discovers that his new country is not exactly a “land of milk and honey.”
It is the quintessential story of an immigrant, one who is able to find humor in situations that could easily be overwhelming and discouraging to many others. Helen helps George tell his stories, many of which are “foibles of his own making.” (see NYTimes article, March 31, 1978 upon his death).
While Anything Can Happen can stand alone because of how well these stories are told and who George happens to be – a loving, decent, creative, curious, clever, hardworking immigrant with dreams and never-ending optimism, I think it is also one of the stories of America, one that some of us may recognize, and many can appreciate.
I suspect I will not be the only MillersTime reader too have Anything Can Happen on his or her Favorite Reads list 11 months from now.
I didn’t get to see Hamilton last night, but I am forever grateful for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s genius production (which we fortunately saw it with him in it on Broadway when it moved from the Public Theater).
Not only am I grateful for the production and for everything that has been praised about it, but in particular, I am thankful for the song, the refrain about “who will tell your story?” As readers of this site no doubt know, I have taken that question, that thought, and made it my mission, my responsibility to annually tell the story of my mother (Esty) and my father (Sam) in order to keep the memory of their stories alive.
And so once again I post the eulogy I gave at Samuel Miller’s burial at Temple Beth El Cemetery, Chelmsford, MA on July 7, 2011.
Sam died, as he requested, peacefully and without pain, in his own bed, in his apartment, surrounded in the last months, weeks, days, and hours by three generations of his family. His daughter, son, son-in law, daughter-in-law, four grand children and their spouses, four great grand children, and of course his wonderful caretaker, all of whom were able to spend time with him at the end of his life.
Eulogy
When we were last here, it was for Esty. And when it came to talk about her, it was pretty easy.
It was clear what to say about her. She was a caretaker and a builder of family.
Sam, on the other hand, is not so easily categorized. He was a person of contradictions and (seeming) opposites.
He was not religious, yet he tried to volunteer for the Seven Day War.
He played football – a lineman – in high school and college during the day and read and memorized poetry at night while listening to classical music.
He was a gambler, in business, at the dog track, and at jai alai, yet husbanded his money carefully to provide for his family and especially for Esty and himself for their later years.
He could be arrogant, intolerant, stubborn, judgmental, and certainly impatient, but he was caring, compassionate, and involved with his family, and could and did cry like no man I have known.
He was a tough businessman who also played chess, read voluminously, and remained liberal in his political views all his life.
As Esty often said, he was a loner but not lonely.
He was self-centered but fiercely family focused. (I’m sure everyone assembled here could tell stories about Sam’s intimate involvement with each of you.) At Daytona he taught many of us to drive, to play chess, and he watched endlessly as many of you yelled, “Watch me Sammy” as you jumped into the pool. And there were many long walks and talks on the beach.
He was not close with his parents growing up, especially not with his dad. Then later, in Bebee and Tom’s later years, he moved them from Boston to Orlando where he and Esty were living, and he saw them everyday.
He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day but quit when his sister-in-law Caryl was dying because he said he wanted to see his grandchildren grow up, at least until their 20’s (they’re now in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s).
He loved to ask questions and sometimes even waited for the answer. He was often thinking of the next question before you answered the first one. But you always felt he wanted to know about you — as one person wrote on his 92 birthday: “When I talk to you, you make me feel that I am the most important person…I can ‘feel’ that you are with me…you take a deep interest in what I am saying…you are present to the moment and you live the moment.”
He was an intellectual who read two or three books a week, went to the dog track frequently, and walked two or three miles every late afternoon well into his 80’s to maintain his good health.
He was a ‘Yankee’ (not the baseball kind, thank God) who loved Florida (much to Esty’s chagrin).
He was basically a ‘homebody’ yet visited his son in West Africa because he said he always visited his kids in camp. He traveled to Central American for business and to Europe with Esty. With various family members, he traveled all over the US, including Alaska, and to the Caribbean, India, China, Russia, Mongolia, Egypt, Lithuania, and Israel. His trip to Lithuania was to see the place from where his mother and her family had emigrated.
Although he was ‘technically challenged’ and could barely screw in a light bulb, he learned to use the computer in his 80’s and emailed well into his 90’s.
He enjoyed good food and liquor, yet took good care of his body and lived longer than any Miller in his extensive and extended family.
He was taken care of by Esty, and then took care of her over the final difficult three years of her life, never leaving her side for more than an hour (and then that was usually only to exercise).
He was very involved with his own kids when they were small, wasn’t around so much when they were growing up as he left for work before dawn and had to spend the evenings on the phone to buy fruit and get picking crews for the next day. Then in his kids’ adult years, he again became involved with them intimately as well as with their spouses, their children, and finally his great grand children, all four of whom he saw within the last few months of his 93 ½ years.
He was a man of seeming contradictions but not of excesses and rarely of unkindnesses. In fact, I believe he mellowed a bit in his later years and became more tolerant, a bit less stubborn, and even patient at times.
So if it can be said that Esty took care of people and family, it must also be said that Sam did too, especially family, in his own way.
And as Esty taught us how to deal with medical and physical difficulties with wonderful grace at the end of her life, so too can it be said that Sam taught us that one can age with grace and softness and love.
This is a story about Beijing and Washington, the two capital cities of the two most powerful countries in the world. Actually, it’s also a tale of two countries.
First, some Background:
Almost 40 years ago we had the good fortune to meet Qin Xiaoli. It was 1982, she was finishing a graduate year at Stanford, and under the sponsorship of the US-China Peoples Friendship Association she was visiting several parts of the US before returning to Beijing where she was a journalist.
We hosted her for five days, while she attended various seminars and meetings in Washington, and we became friends. Over the next four decades we continued our friendship, visiting her and her family in Beijing sometime in the early 1980s and hosting her husband, Qian Jiang (several years later), when he came to Johns Hopkins as a Visiting Scholar. (He too was a journalist and an historian).
Xiaoli came to our elder daughter’s wedding here in Washington, some 25 years after she first met Annie as a three-year old. Then, when their son was married here in DC, we ‘stood in’ for his parents at the ceremony, and two years ago we traveled throughout China with Xiaoli and Jiang for almost three weeks. Most recently, Xiaoli and Jiang came to DC to visit and stay with their son Kun and daughter-in-law Xi, but primarily to get to know their first grandchild. Now they have been here five months as it has not been possible for them to return to Beijing.
The Tale: Yesterday, when they ‘strollered’ young Dun Dun (Alex) over to see us – they were masked and socially distanced themselves – Xiaoli told us the following stories:
Two weeks ago her sister in Beijing received a phone call from the authorities saying she needed to appear for a COVID-19 test because of a new outbreak of the virus in the largest outdoor wholesale food market in the city. Her sister said she had not been there. She was ‘reminded’ she had been at a ‘nearby’ flower market and was told to appear the next day for a test. Apparently, “Big Data’ (Big Brother?) had identified her whereabouts from her cell phone. Taken to a hospital, she was tested, found negative but had to isolate herself for fourteen days. Today she can emerge from that isolation.
(Note: “Before the new cluster, however, Beijing – population 21.4 million – had only recorded 420 local infections and 9 deaths compared to over 80,000 confirmed cases and 4,634 deaths nationwide, thanks to its strict travel restrictions imposed at the start of the pandemic,” according to this CNN article – China’s New Cornovirus Outbreak.)
Xioali also told us that here in Washington where she and Jiang are staying in a West End apartment building with their son, daughter-in-law, and grandchild, there have been three cases of COVID-19 in that building. When her daughter-in-law asked the management of the building for more information about the ‘outbreak’ (which elevators had been used, what floors the three positive cases were, and in what part of the large apartment building they lived), she was told no information could be given out. They received no instructions on how to protect themselves and their family from contagion. Xiaoli and her family here (three generations living together) rarely leave their apartment and are trying to protect themselves as best they can.
(According to the most recent statistics, Washington, DC, has a population of 705,749 and has had 10,327 positive tests of its population and 551 deaths).
Two different responses to handling COVID-19 issues. Each raises questions.
When both of my parents had died, my mother Esty at the age of 90 and father Sam at the age of 93 1/2, we kept some old papers of theirs we had discovered and put them in a file we labeled as “Memorabilia.”
Yesterday, as Ellen and I were going through and discarding some of the huge amount ‘stuff’ we have stuck into various draws, cabinets, and boxes, I came across something my father had written that we had found and saved. I’m not sure of the date he wrote it, but it was sometime when our two daughters were quite young; so he wrote it at least 30-35 years ago and left it in the back of a drawer in our Orlando home. I don’t remember seeing it while he was alive.
I thought it could have interest for family and friends, not only for how important it is for me personally but perhaps also for others in these difficult days.
Richard & I
The letter with the familiar Sierra Leone postmark came towards the end of his first Peace Corps year. Chatty and whimsical in his usual way, it ended with the startling suggestion – “Sam, you always came to camp on visitor’s day at Samoset – why not now and here? It is probably a rough trip for Esty, but she deserves a separate vacation. Come – we will talk, you will see my segment of Africa, and your citrus will grow even in your absence.”
And so I did. From Orlando to New York to Freetown and then, the toughest part by mammy wagon, to Kailahun. I arrived in the late afternoon, unannounced, to flounder to the rather primitive dwelling my son shared with another Peace Corps idealist. A note on the door suggesting, that since my arrival was indeterminate, I find my way to the school, where Richard and faculty were building an imposing addition.
“You must be Meestah Meeler’s father,” a young voice piped behind me. “And how do you know that?” “You walk like Meestah Meeler.” I curbed the impulse to say, “You’ve got it backwards, kid,” and contemplated a truth revealed. I did walk like my son. Our role reversal was beginning. Here, on turf alien to me, he had established an identify all his own, independent and unconnected by any umbilical chord.
Pure pleasure to be with him – his obvious love and joy at the reunion matching mine. After the ground nut stew supper and news catching up, he said, “”Let’s talk about Ellen,” and we did. She was finishing college during his Peace Corps stint, and Esty and I had recently driven to New Jersey to vist and spread around some parental blessing. A lovely girl, our son had chosen, and we talked late of plans and marriage and the difficulty of separation.
The village chief, with a gesture of hand to breast, gifted me with a robe of country cloth. His praise singer informed me that the gift and gesture were unusual – the hand motion indicating he took me to his heart. Not that he truly knew my inestimable worth, but an indication of the community regard for my son.
Maybe the child is father to the man. Of course, it is warming to know that one’s flesh and blood has his own strong and sure identity, yet there is an ambivalence. The years had rushed by and regrets coursed through of missed words, missed chances, and missed touches.
Two days before his sixteenth (the legal driving age in Florida), Richard, his grandfather (Rob), and I went to Reed Motors in downtown Orlando. He had saved his bar-mitzvah gelt, his money from his two summer labors with an idiot stick in the groves, and our modest additions to bring it to a grand total of eighteen hundred dollars.
The Monza on the lot was his heart’s desire. Color, line, sleekness — all exactly right. The best deal was an even two thousand dollars. Rob started to reach into his pocket when callous, arrogant me caught his arm and told the man if he could find a way to accept our eighteen hundred dollars, call us at home at this number. Richard, with a slight lip termor, nodded at me and we walked away,
If I could only relive that day and save my good son that two hour agony until the call came saying it was ours
When he was nine or ten, with Jimbo, he built a tree house in the big oak fronting our Florida house. I came home tired and hot from the packing house and grove to face the small problem. I had visions of fifteen foot falls, hurts, law suits, and assorted ills. Balancing his enthusiasm while understanding my problem, we discussed it fairly amicably. At his suggestion, we resolved it thusly. I would climb into the tree house and if after stomping, banging and shaking , it survived. I would withdraw my objections. To my mild consternation, that solidly built hut withstood my assault. He was gracious in triumph and exercised care and prudence in maintaining security.
And he returned, after the two years, from Africa – bearded and some how bigger – to get a doctorate and start teaching at Kennedy High School in Washington, a rather unorthodox and free wheeling, open sort of school. On one of intermittent visits to DC to visit Richard and Ellen, now safely married, he suggested I spend a day at school. Seated in the rear, trying to be unobtrusive, I was bemused by the freedom and interplay betwixt student and teacher — a far cry from my high school experience.
Halfway through the first hour Richard announced, “we have a visitor.You have heard me mention my father; well he is that guilty party sitting in the back. You want to pump him. All I will add is that he thinks I am somewhat square and he will be honest with you.”
After about thirty seconds, the kids started firing, “How did your relationship come? Did we talk about sex? Why did I think him square? What was Esty like? How come we let him go to India on the Experiment in International Living when he was in his teens?”
The whole tenor of the hour left me with a sense that these adolescents hungered for communication with their parents that generally was non-existent; and a profound sense of gratitude at what we had.
With some of the faculty at Kennedy, Richard started a program for emotionally disturbed teenagers that came to be known as The Frost School. One of the teaching techniques involved the use of a video camera. On various holidays and family visits, Ellen borrowed the unit and video taped — a nice way to enfold us into their lives and keep us abreast of Annie, now seven, and Beth now three.
The last tape depicts Beth on my bearded son’s lap gravely discussing her day. “You went to the doctor with mommy?” Vigorous nodding of the head. “Why? “My ear hurt.” “What did the doctor do?” Indignantly, “He put a stick in my mouth.” “What?” “Yes he did.” “If your ear hurt, why would he do such a silly thing?” Giggle, “I don’t know.”
Why my sudden ache and nostalgia to have my forty-two year old an infant in my lap and to gravely joke with him as he is now with Beth? Is there ever enough? What I would give for one more day — to ride the groves, to talk of my day and his day; of what he and Jimbo fell out about — the Little League prospects and maybe girls; and I would try not to hug him too tightly.
Ah, the magic clock. We have four grandchildren, the two girls in Washington and two older grandsons, courtesy of Richard’s slight older sister, Janet. (I suspect that he thinks I am soft in the head as well as heart about my first born.) Why then, the fantasy of turning back the clock and longing for one more day? “Dote” is the hackneyed accurate word re the grand children; and our relationship with our children strikes me as rare. They embrace us and include us in their lives. Filial piety, in the Chinese sense, is rendered in full measure. But I want one more day.
If, like Sisyphus, it were granted by the Gods, I would merit the same punishment and receive the deserved doom There is never enough.
I know we’ve all heard, read, watched all sorts of advice, much of it good, some questionable, and some simply not up-to-date or just inaccurate.
Below you will find links to two videos/advice from Dr. David Price, a critical care pulmonologist caring for COVID-19 patients at NYC’s Weill Cornell Hospital. (Hat Tip to David P. Stang for alerting me to this information.)
He will tell you some of the things you know, some things you may not be sure about, and some things you may need to know in the days and weeks and months ahead.
What is outstanding about these two videos is the level of practical advice that comes from someone who is on the front lines of caring for people who come to one of our best hospitals. Dr. Price is clear, straight forward, and seems to have the very latest experiences and knowledge from the front lines.
I’m sure there is something in these two videos for everyone, no matter how much information you may know or where you live in this country or abroad, or what you already know that is valid or perhaps not valid.
He is positive and focuses his remarks for a wide range of people.
Not the kind of diet I’ve been on for the last three years, with some success, despite some ‘give backs.’
But a diet from the two to three to four hours a day I spend between email, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and a variety of websites that provide me with some form of input about things important and not so important.
I’m starting by withdrawing from Facebook, which is something I’ve been considering for a year or more, not just because of the amount of time I spend on it, but also for a number of other reasons.
There’s lots I like about FB, particularly for being in touch with friends (and some foes) with whom I otherwise might not have frequent contact. Certainly I enjoy posting photos (mine and Ellen’s) and links to my MillersTime.net blog. And there are a number of links that I follow from various FB posts that I might not know about otherwise.But I’m choosing to start this diet with FB because of what FB has become and what its leaders, particularly Mark Zuckerberg, have done with this once promising social networking website. I’ll spare reposting Lisa W’s list and explanation of Ten Reasons Why You Should Quit Facebook Now. Suffice it to say that I agree with at least eight of her 10 points.
(I have previously posted (on FB!) Sacha Baron Cohen’s powerful three minute video of how FB’s platform and policies are allowing the spread of hate and lies in our political and other discourse and, in fact, makes what is occurring there even worse by their unwillingness to intervene. If you haven’t listened to Cohen’s message, stop now and click on the link above.
I will continue, for now, with my Instagram and Twitter accounts knowing that Instagram is owned by FB. As with any diet, you can’t cut out everything at once, but you have to start somewhere. In order not to just transfer my FB time to one of the other social media time killers, I will also limit my total time spent using these (and other) social media platforms.
So by the end of January, I will no longer have a Facebook account. Between now and then, I will figure out alternative ways to stay in touch with some individuals abroad and with friends here in the US. I’m open to suggestions as how to do that.
And if you want to help me (having partners in dieting has proven valuable to me with my weight loss), you can let me know if you’d like to be on my MillersTime.net mailing list, which at no cost to you will get you three for four emails a month that describe my most recent blog post (on travel, photos, family, grand kids, books, films, baseball, and an occasional attempt at describing something that is on my alleged mind.) Just email me if you want to get those notifications about new blog posts.
Finally, for now, I will retain my two Instagram accounts (samesty84 and millerstimeblogger). So feel free to follow me there and send me your Instagram handle (if you want to stay in touch that way).
There’s always that old fashion way of communicating – email (Samesty84 at gmail dot com) and texting. I am diligent in responding to email (and snail mail) from friends…and texts, which seem to be my wife’s and daughters’ preferred way of reaching me.
Contrary to what some of you may think, Ellen and I are not spending all of our time traveling, going to movies, reading books, seeing friends, finding wonderful restaurants, following baseball, or stressing about the state of our nation.
We now have five grand children, and when Ellen is not making picture books from our travels (she’s up to 25 now!), she focuses on Eli, 10, Abigail, 8, Ryan almost 6, Samantha 3, and Brooke 18 months.
Today’s post are photos from the last three or four weeks, some from a weekend when all five were together and some from KC and others from DC/MD.
Usually we just post photos from trips abroad, but as many of you know, the US has as much outstanding scenery and wonderful sites to visit as almost any place in the world.
Below are a baker’s dozen photos from a recent family trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Grand Teton National Park, and Yellowstone National Park. Thus, you get not only the benefit of Ellen’s eye but also a glimpse of the family too.
The best way to see these photos, however, is in the slide show which you can access by following the instructions below.
Now that we are ‘old’ hands at this grandparenting thing – nine plus years and five grandchildren – we have learned a few things that no one told us when we started doing this drill. Some of these ‘do’s and don’ts’ are very important to your sanity while being in charge.
(Recently, we had the two pictured above for ‘four’ days.)
DO totally clean out your refrigerator before they arrive and before your daughter goes through it to throw out anything labeled with a sell date being before the day she checks on you and accuses you of “trying to make my kids’ sick.”
Do purchase a half gallon of milk per grandchild per day, one 24 oz size of Hershey’s chocolate syrup per grandchild per two days, one pound of blueberries, one pound of raspberries and a half pound of blackberries per child per day, and most important, three cups of Edy’s ‘Light’ Ice Cream (5.8 fluid ounces) per child per day.
(On the first day, we gave them ice cream after dinner; on the second day we gave them ice cream after lunch and dinner; on the third day we gave it to them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.)
Do get plenty of rest the week before you begin this care taking assignment and be sure you have nothing scheduled for the week following.
Do plan to go to bed within seven minutes of putting the grandchildren to sleep (12 minutes if the child takes time to fall asleep).
Do bring the grandchildren to your home for at least most of the time you have them. There’s a chance (slight) that they might be on better behavior in your house than in their own (particularly if you let them know that if they want to be ‘invited back’ they’d better behave).
Don’t agree months in advance to do a long weekend of care taking expecting or hoping that your children’s plans requiring your assistance will fall through, thus relieving you of having to take care of the grandchildren. If your children’s plans do fall through, they either won’t tell you or they’ll just make new plans, once they’ve got your agreement to take the kids.
Don’t expect to do anything other than be available 24 hours a day every day the child/children are with you.
Don’t even consider using one of those video monitoring devices that show you what’s going on in the children’s rooms once you’ve put them to bed.
Don’t expect that anything you learned or was successful with your own parenting of your own children will be of any use with your grandchildren.
(We tried to mitigate the arguing between the two grandchildren by alternating who got to ‘go first’ whenever there was a decision about something where there was choice, something we had done with some degree of success with our own children. This ‘proven tactic’ was easily obliterated by the grandchildren arguing over whose turn it was to choose first.)
Do encourage the grandchildren’s parents to put them in day camp for at least half of the total number of days you agree to take care of them.
Don’t tell the grandchildren anything you don’t want them to tell their parents.
(When I responded to pleas for stories about when we were young, I mentioned that I was arrested for stopping traffic, trying to shut down DC, during the Vietnam War. The five year told his parents that Grandpapa was put in jail for stopping cars in the war in the streets.)
Don’t, under any condition or despite any pressure, even consider having more grandchildren to take care of than the number of adults you have available to manage this task.
You’re welcome.
PS – Please put in the comment section of this post any ‘Do and Don’t’ suggestions that you have discovered that may be helpful to fellow grandparents.
On this July 4 anniversary of my father’s death, a repost from seven years ago.
from MillersTime, July, 13, 2011…
Sam died, as he requested, peacefully and without pain, in his own bed, in his apartment, surrounded in the last months, weeks, days, and hours by three generations of his family. His daughter, son, son-in law, daughter-in-law, four grand children and their spouses, four great grand children, and of course his wonderful caretaker all were able to spend time with him at the end of his life.
Eulogy
Samuel S. Miller
Jan. 13, 1918 – July 4, 2011
Temple Beth El Cemetery
Chelmsford, MA
7/7/11
When we were last here, it was for Esty. And when it came to talk about her, it was pretty easy.
It was clear what to say about her. She was a caretaker and a builder of family.
Sam, on the other hand, is not so easily categorized. He was a person of contradictions and (seeming) opposites.
He was not religious, yet he tried to volunteer for the Seven Day War.
He played football – a lineman – in high school and college during the day and read and memorized poetry at night while listening to classical music.
He was a gambler, in business, at the dog track, and at jai alai, yet husbanded his money carefully to provide for his family and especially for Esty and himself for their later years.
He could be arrogant, intolerant, stubborn, judgmental, and certainly impatient, but he was caring, compassionate, and involved with his family, and could and did cry like no man I have known.
He was a tough businessman who also played chess, read voluminously, and remained liberal in his political views all his life.
As Esty often said, he was a loner but not lonely.
He was self-centered but fiercely family focused. (I’m sure everyone assembled here could tell stories about Sam’s intimate involvement with each of you.). At Daytona he taught many of us to drive, to play chess and he watched endlessly as many of you yelled, “Watch me Sammy” as you jumped into the pool. And there were many long walks and talks on the beach.
He was not close with his parents growing up, especially not with his dad. Then later, in Bebee and Tom’s later years, he moved them from Boston to Orlando where he and Esty were living, and he saw them everyday.
He smoked two packs of cigarettes a day but quit when his sister-in-law Caryl was dying because he said he wanted to see his grandchildren grow up, at least until their 20’s (they’re now in their 20’s, 30’s, and 40’s).
He loved to ask questions and sometimes even waited for the answer. He was often thinking of the next question before you answered the first one. But you always felt he wanted to know about you — as one person wrote on his 92 birthday: “When I talk to you, you make me feel that I am the most important person…I can ‘feel’ that you are with me…you take a deep interest in what I am saying…you are present to the moment and you live the moment.”
He was an intellectual who read two or three books a week, went to the dog track frequently, and walked two or three miles every late afternoon well into his 80’s to maintain his good health.
He was a ‘Yankee’ (not the baseball kind, thank God) who loved Florida (much to Esty’s chagrin).
He was basically a ‘homebody’ yet visited his son in West Africa because he said he always visited his kids in camp. He traveled to Central American for business and to Europe with Esty. With various family members, he traveled all over the US, including Alaska, and to the Caribbean, India, China, Russia, Mongolia, Egypt, Lithuania, and Israel. His trip to Lithuania was to see the place from where his mother and her family had emigrated.
Although he was ‘technically challenged’ and could barely screw in a light bulb, he learned to use the computer in his 80’s and emailed well into his 90’s.
He enjoyed good food and liquor, yet took good care of his body and lived longer than any Miller in his extensive and extended family.
He was taken care of by Esty, and then took care of her over the final difficult three years of her life, never leaving her side for more than an hour (and then that was usually only to exercise).
He was very involved with his own kids when they were small, wasn’t around so much when they were growing up as he left for work before dawn and had to spend the evenings on the phone to buy fruit and get picking crews for the next day. Then in his kids’ adult years, he again became involved with them intimately as well as with their spouses, their children, and finally his great grand children, all four of whom he saw within the last few months of his 93 ½ years.
He was a man of seeming contradictions but not of excesses and rarely of unkindnesses. In fact, I believe he mellowed a bit in his later years and became more tolerant, a bit less stubborn, and even patient at times.
So if it can be said that Esty took care of people and family, it must also be said that Sam did too, especially family, in his own way.
And as Esty taught us how to deal with medical and physical difficulties with wonderful grace at the end of her life, so too can it be said that Sam taught us that one can age with grace and softness and love.
