Big D

BIG D? As many of my readers know, last August I went in for a routine mammogram and came out with a mind focused not on a hanging, but just as fully on breast cancer, which swallowed my next three months, first with surgery -- a lumpectomy requiring pre-op, op, post-op – followed by intensive radiation and consultations with an oncologist who prescribed pills – anastrazole – all of this culminating in intermittent exhaustion. Then came the well-meant advice. “Take it easy,” friends warned me, as if taking it easy is not congenital to me. “Listen to your body.” But, possibly because it is Jewish, my body -- and its unremitting cicada chatter (tinnitus), smoldering joints (arthritis), leaky pipes (post-nasal drip, unreliable kegels), cracking teeth, thinning hair, and malignant secrets -- keeps saying, “So stop kvetching already, and die.” Yet I am not quite ready to obey. Still, having devoted my last U & D Review to Sex, it seems only fair that I now tackle Death. Mind you, I see the plus side to throwing in the towel. As I was waiting on the operating table to be knifed, I thought the ugly acoustical ceiling-tiles above me might be the last things I’d ever see, but I recognized that, even after my son Adam’s suicide in 2000, I owe life far more than it owes me. What’s more, the idea that I’m finished with the future is freeing. No more meals to plan, bills to pay, people to cherish, no worrisome what-ifs. When everything good ends, so does anxiety. And I’d have no regrets or expectations; just a column that adds up to what? In my youth, I scornfully labeled certain people as “nobodies” or “losers.” Now, I accept that I am ordinary, neither better nor worse than anyone else; (“We’re all ignorant,” said Will Rogers, “but on different subjects.”) My very ordinariness may even give me a direct line to the zeitgeist for it would seem death is in the air. Months after I had decided on my topic but before I sat down to write this issue, Zada Smith in The New York Review of Books contemplated her own end, saying she could not picture herself as a corpse. But I regularly find that seeing myself as a skeleton, with its loosened bones and teeth, helps put me to sleep. “It is just a life,” said James Wood in a recent New Yorker, “...that we know with horror will be thoroughly forgotten within a few generations.” Horror? I’ve come to find my eventual, like my current anonymity, liberating. For then there is nothing I must do to justify my being here. I just am. I’d still like to know, though, when exactly does death begin? Over a year after H. David Leventhal was officially deceased, feeling like an adulterer, I started dating Jon, and I silently asked H if that was okay. “Jesus Christ,” he cried out loud and clear, “you don’t need my permission.” So given this continuing input, could H really be counted as among the dead? Many treasured members of my Rolodex club are, strictly speaking, no longer alive. Yet I cannot bring myself to toss cards which, regularly thumbed, provide mini-visits with, say, the poet Ann Knox, the painter John Calandrillo, that consummate gossip, Dan Lahn. I have, however, no trouble deleting the same names from my computer’s address list, as if existence on a cardboard rectangle, but not in electronic form, embodies people’s bodies. So what, if anything, does that say about lives lived increasingly on screens? Will my children and grandchildren be less here after they are gone than I was? Do they perceive themselves differently? Are Clark Gable and Marlene Dietrich on film equally eternal to the digital Matt Damon and Amy Adams? Are H and Adam more not here because they were cremated? What constitutes thingness? The Mormons tell us we all live corporally forever. Does this mean that someone who dies as an infant will never become an adult? If I achieve full old- bagdom, will I be stuck in that mode in the forever? Forgetting the forever, I like the idea of birth and death as parentheses, but having known people who left their bodes before their bodies stopped functioning, I am unclear where to place the closing arc. After September 29, 2000, I thought Adam was gone. But the following May, I was not sure. Some ten years earlier, when he did not place the ritual Mother’s Day call, I’d told him he could do as he wished, but he should be aware that his call meant a lot to me. He never again missed. And on that first Mother’s Day in 2001 without him, late in the afternoon I heard knocking at my bedroom window; a hummingbird was pecking at the glass. How could this be? Ruby-throats appear in Connecticut only in late summer. On rare occasions one had hovered in August around the bee-balm in my garden, but never in May, and never ever at an upstairs window. My wise friend Betty Anne Cox pointed out that Mother Nature wastes nothing. So what about used souls? Assuming they do inhabit other creatures, accustomed as I am to recognizing people by means of one or more of my five senses, without access to any of them, in an afterlife, how will I identify my own dead near and dear? How will they find me, as Adam’s hummingbird seemed to have done? In any case, the night after my first radiation I woke to find our bedroom bobbing like a small boat in a huge storm. “Nothing to do with the zapping,” the doctor assured me the next day. Whatever its cause, though, that disequilibrium was yet another reminder: the vehicle I am driving is on its last legs. Clearly in the home stretch, I should now uncharacter-istically sprint. But I can’t. For the last 25 years, I’ve been working on a novel. If I finish it, will I then die? Before I do, I can at least grab this chance to write these final directives: let no one equate me with Prophets 31:10 even if I did try to reach out to the needy. Let them instead speak of my children, Amy, Adam, Max, and Seth, each one a mensch. Let them comment on my marrying skill; both H. David Leventhal and Jon O. Newman kind, loving, interesting, instructive men. Speak too of my tendency to have fun (“If I need someone who’ll stand there and laugh, I’ll remember who to take next time,” said H at the end of our honeymoon). Let them mention my gardens, the few edibles, the hundreds of flowers. And let them say that, like Lady Bird Johnson with her wild flowers, every time I strewed words, and imagined at least a few of them in bloom, I kvelled. RESPONSES An unusual number of readers wrote in after the U & D Review devoted to sex. Joan Niiler said, “You certainly are very open about your thoughts. And open communication is healthy. So, where does morality fit into all this? The hurt of the lover left behind, of a wife or husband who would benefit from sex counseling, but instead look elsewhere – not really solving the problem. What about AIDs and the irresponsible ones who spread it? Where does our society end up without the supportive families that are needed to help kids grow up knowing they are loved…and perhaps not needing the kinkier side of relationships. I certainly agree that love is important in an intimate relationship.” As far as morality goes, I believe that while society must protect minors and those forced unwillingly into sex acts, consenting adults, no matter how kinky, must be allowed to choose for themselves. The pain of betrayal is not a public issue. And sex education, which I strongly support, rather than sermons about sin, offer the best protection against AIDs and other STDs. Connie Sattler said, “I loved your last newsletter Ann and it was brave too! Not so brave since I am not running for office. Lou Loomis said, “I am currently enjoying working with 6th grade children at the school we’ve started at Trinity Episcopal Church in Hartford where our interests are on adequate sex education and helping the children balance their emerging sexuality with learning. Current Stars, their behavior, music, clothing, media etc. provide a lot more stimulation than all past history and as you know the USA has a high % of teen age pregnancy Thus there is the challenge to educators to manage classrooms and develop learners.” Nancy O’Neil said, “Of course I agree with all your sensible points, and also find much of today’s presentation of sex in the entertainment media sad. (Haven’t seen “Girls,” but from your remarks, I gather it’s no Mary Tyler Moore.) No one would want to go back to the sexual mores of the 40’s and 50’s; I think my youngest grandchild knows more about sex than I did when I got married. It was sad for both sexes, but fortunately that’s over. I think I am most concerned about sex education. Grown ups find their way, with experience and maturity guiding their choices. But I am concerned about adolescents and young adults just beginning their sex lives. Who is giving them some guidance? …The new sexual climate seems particularly hard on girls, as your example from the TV show illustrates. Maybe girls should all get a CD of the Sirelles’ ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow.’ “ Though in a different way, the old sexual climate was also particularly hard on girls, no? A male reader (name withheld) said, “My sex life at age 89 ain’t what it used to be but still a satisfying and important part of my life.” Hear hear! Alicia Evica said, “I so love the candor, courage and funniness of The Up and Down Review.” David Skover said, “Absolutely loved the latest Up and Down. Haven’t read anything so eye-opening since Kinsey! And finally, when I suggested to a granddaughter that she not commit too quickly to being gay, she said, “Of course I won’t. Haven’t you read Sexual Fluidity by Lisa Diamond? Of course I had not, but now that I have, I strongly recommend it. Announcement You can access U&D at www.theupand downreview. blogspot.com and comment directly on the blog. The Up and Down Review 7157 Victoria Circle University Park, FL 34201 Editor and Publisher Ann Z. Leventhal Art Director Sidney SiskThe Up and Down Review 7157 Victoria Circle University Park, FL 34201