Oscar had it right…

Oscar Hammerstein could write lyrics in a very overripe style—witness his extravagant words, You are the promised kiss of springtime/That makes the lonely winter seem long. Now, as someone who is not unfamiliar with the charge of “overripe,” it doesn’t really bother me (unlike how this “bothers” Stephen Sondheim) much, and I am fond of other overripe lyrics like you find in “You’ll Never Walk Alone” (Graduation song anyone of the last 68 years??). But I have had another Oscar lyric going ‘round my head in the last couple of weeks that is not overripe, and very much right on the money.


Picture it—Anna Leonowens is in 19th century Siam—and to her students she sings,
“It's a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought,
That if you become a teacher,
By your pupils you'll be taught.”

This is the time of year when my two courses (Art History and History of the 20th Century) have come to an end and my students have taken over the teaching, offering an entire class of a topic as in the 20th class, or a self-curated art exhibition presentation in Art History. This is when I get to be taught by my students. And it’s a kick.

But even more wonderful than that annual parade of neophyte teachers, I had a guest in Jordan for nearly two weeks, a former student named Adam, he of the famed and wondrous Class of 2000, current PhD student, and a former member of three courses of mine at Hackley. I taught Adam sophomore, junior and senior years, and I remember, I think it was in his junior when I saw him around campus I would shout out, “Vive Le Kahn!” as a way to say hello. Adam is not terribly French, and yes, one could say the nickname/greeting was a little overripe, but again, pretty much on the money!

Anyway, Adam had been trying to visit me in Jordan for a couple of years, but I often had a play going on when he could come, and then that of course would not make for a very interesting visit for someone since they would only see me in the classroom and then working on a play, and that would be about it. This year, there was no play in the cards—someone else needed to postpone an event and that ate into my rehearsal time—oh well, c’est la vie.

So when Adam asked, I said, “Sure, just know there is a lot of time in school!” Adam also asked if he could teach a class…he was coming at the right time of year!

He combined a bunch of interesting things at Stanford for a major that included History, Computer Science and Communications. Adam wanted to teach a class in his field which is something like the history of computer and human interface…I think, but along those lines. This is obviously something I didn’t teach Adam in high school!

When it came time for Adam’s day to teach, I sat back, and enjoyed the thrill of learning about something about which I know—nothing! Adam decided to frame his lesson very much in a way that I would frame a lesson, with a “cultural artifact” to start us out, whet our intellectual appetites, then begin weaving together the context that is the broader landscape of said artifact finally hurling us into an epiphany—how did I not know about this before?! Don’t you just love those moments??? It is not just because Adam aped my style—it is hardly that revolutionary of a style, but taking a detail, processing it, scaffolding it, building it onto pre-existing knowledge and finally that exhilaration of how did I not know about this before?! is breathtaking.

Adam began with a cover from Time magazine from1943 of a man totally unknown to me, a man named Vannevar Bush (no relation to the Bush family pere and fils who have occupied the White House). Bush is on the cover of other magazines as well, and one announced, “Meet The Man Who May Win Or Lose The War.” I am intrigued. Oh, I love the exercise of accruing bits of knowledge and making sense of them. So who is this V. Bush guy? His pedigree was exceptional in terms of the universities for whom he worked or represented. He was interested in the information overflow he noticed and imagined ways to deal with the storage of information. Adam spun a great historical narrative as well, never leaving far behind the suspense of how this particular man, unknown to me before that day, may help the United States win or lose World War II! Bush imagined many ways to store information, and as Adam explained Bush’s musings, wow, well, we have achieved all of these things with our laptops and PCs etc. now. As Adam helped the class understand the impact of Bush’s musings we began to think about the link of our computers, the very keyboard at which I type at present, and how they are indebted to Professor Bush and his desire to help the United States win World War II. After we understand Bush’s proposals, Adam helps us understand the rush to progress with electronic computers (the rush is to beat the Germans, and then as the Cold War insinuates itself into the fabric of post-war life, the rush to beat the Soviets) not just as esoteric technological knowledge, but as a way to predict Soviet missile ballistics.

Adam explored the work of three other scientists all interested in “Man-Computer Symbiosis,” and in true Adam Kahn fashion (remember I taught him three times so I know him) he dazzled me. Adam took the concept of a personal computer, something now so quotidian, almost bordering on the mundane, and re-cast its history in light of the historical context of the last 70 years. Adam relayed that scientists involved with the first personal computers in 1975 found it to be a “religious experience.” Now this might sound overripe, but wait until you have watched a crackerjack former student teach you, and I might suggest, that is a religious experience as well.

Adam did the usual things while in Jordan—we tromped around Roman ruins in Jerash, Byzantine ruins in Um Ar Rassas, looked out over Mount Nebo as Moses did thousands of years ago, visited with Jordanian friends, shopped at Carpet City in Madaba (Ziad is the nicest shopkeeper in all of Jordan) and marveled at KA. Twelve years after he graduated from my daily tutelage, Adam and I spent more time in 2 weeks than in all those intervening years combined.

Just a few minutes ago I was presented with a gift from a graduating senior, a delightful and vital student named Noor. Noor decided to paint for me my third favorite painting of all time, a 19th century Friedrich work entitled, Two Men Contemplating the Moon. Noor knows how much I like it—especially because the painting is about Friedrich expressing thanks to his teachers and pupils. The two men in the scene have been apart from each other, but now are standing on the ridge of this hill, contemplating. Musing. Wondering. Reminiscing. I imagine the pupil is teaching the teacher a thing or two. It is natural. It is marvelous. It is education at its best, friendship at its most authentic, and, yes, beyond Oscar just being right, a rather religious experience.

Savor the view gentlemen.

It is easy to forget about Mother's Day in May here in Jordan. I am not suggesting that my Jordanian friends and colleagues do not celebrate Mother's Day, indeed they do, but they celebrate it on the first day of spring every year. Very fitting in many ways...but it is easy to forget about American Mother's Day in May. We are in school, busy-at-work, so it is not like the Sunday Mother's Day pre-Jordan life, and there are no reminders in the stores or anywhere in front of us.

Of course with a mother like mine, Mary Martha, it is pretty hard to ever forget her, her warmth and humor, intelligence, charisma, and impact on our family. I thought I would re-run a blog entry I wrote about her for her birthday in November, 2007, my first autumn in Jordan, and the second November since she joined the Heavenly Sunday School class. As you think about your own mothers today, indulge me a moment while I revel in the life of Mary Martha, who graced our planet from 1938 until 2006.

From November, 2007:
"Sixty-nine years ago today Mary Martha Griley Leistler leapt upon the world’s stage for the first time. She was born on a snowy Sunday morning, in Cincinnati, just a couple of days after Thanksgiving in 1938. Not surprisingly, the celebrations of my mother’s birthday and the spirit of Thanksgiving have always been intertwined for my family. As an adult I have only been absent from Thanksgiving in Cincinnati a handful of times ever: in 1984, 1989, 1994, and now 2007. Sigh. Thanksgiving, and those days around my mother’s birthday, always marked my first visit home since I had gone off in August to teach somewhere in the world.

Naturally this year a bouquet of memories sweetened the day away from home. It is funny how memories work: they don’t follow chronology necessarily, and they wash over your brain in a haphazard, yet utterly exhilarating way. I recall the year my mother saw in her Frisch’s, her coffee shop away from home, a sign noting, “CLOSED FOR THANKSGIVING.” My mother asked to have the sign after the holiday—for years she put it up at home, declaring that she was closed for the holiday! Ever since I was a child we had a rule in our house—you can’t talk about Christmas until after Mommy’s birthday had passed on November 27. Oh, and I remember the recent Thanksgiving weekend that I took my mother to the dentist, and as I wheeled her in, she announced to all in the waiting room: “Yes, this is my son Johnny. He finally came home after being gone for five years.” As her short-term memory became more of an option, my mother still reveled in being a drama queen!


There was the Thanksgiving in the mid-1970s when my mother invited the entire Griley clan for the feast. I remember the day well—in part because she invited my cousin’s fiancé, a woman named Kathi—I had the biggest crush on this cousin-to-be, and she was coming to my house! I also remember vividly the main course of that Thanksgiving meal—a roasted ham that still tantalizes my memory some 30 years later. As some of you may know, my dad and Uncle Jack are kind of poultry-phobes, so my mother decided to have a ham instead, and she went to a local bakery and asked them to roast the ham, and it came encased in the most fragrant rye-bread coating you could imagine.


As much as I love the food memories of Thanksgiving—what a wonderful way to connect to dear ones through the comfort-foods of our blessings (and I could go on about Aunt Dot’s yams, or Aunt Joy’s succotash, but I will not digress!) I more deeply appreciate collecting all the memories of Thanksgivings and Mary Martha as a chance for me to reflect on the power of my mother’s influence on me, and the simple thanks I send up at simply knowing her. For those of you who knew her—she had a way of putting her own personal spin on everything. For example, sometime in my childhood she decided that a better way of observing the holiday was to wish everyone a “Happy Thanks-living.” Of course as a child I thought it was just weird. But as an adult, now more cognizant of her 49 year battle with MS, I plainly see how she embodied an appreciation, a thanks, simply for living, and loving.


Her name was a dual name: Mary Martha. She couldn’t stand just being called Mary, although she loved it when my father called her “Mare.” Her name is a combination of the sisters in the New Testament we meet in the book of Luke:

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to Bethany where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me! “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

--Luke 10:38-42

Mary and Martha both loved Jesus. These sisters of Lazarus are known for their hospitality, but they go about their goals of serving very differently. Martha wished to please, to serve, to do the right thing, but tried too hard sometimes. She tended to feel sorry for herself when her efforts were not recognized. Martha’s frustration was so intense that she finally asked Jesus to settle the matter. He gently corrected her attitude and showed Martha that her priorities, though good, were misplaced. On the other hand, Mary’s approach to social occasions shows her to be a quiet responder—Mary had learned when to listen, and when to act. Mary had learned from Martha that the busyness of serving God can be a barrier to knowing him personally. Mary understood that one should not be so busy planning and running things that we neglect precious time with loved ones. My mother’s personality and priorities reflected the duality of these sisters—indeed the lesson of the Biblical Mary and Martha continues to challenge us to have a Mary heart in a Martha world.


Of the many legacies I enjoy from my mother, perhaps the greatest gift she leaves me is her desire never to squander a teachable moment. As a young boy, perhaps 7, I recall her coming home from her annual trip downtown to have her diamond rings cleaned. I commented on how beautiful her ring was. She clearly loved them too, and she showed them off to me saying that this diamond ring was more than just a pretty ring—she taught me that it was a symbol of the love Mommy and Daddy shared. She told me that diamonds were chosen since they were such a hard stone, and they could stand up to anything—just like the love Mommy and Daddy enjoyed. She said plainly, life is hard too, but love as strong and brilliant as a diamond would always stand up to that. She then took off her ring, and had me stare at it, and taught me the word, “facets.” She taught me: a radiant diamond has many facets, like our lives, and we must cultivate our many facets, our many gifts. Ever since that tender age, that diamond ring has meant more than just cost or status or bling.


Although I rarely saw her perform on stage, she loved the theater, and in college had starred in two classic plays, Our Town and Death of a Salesman. These plays certainly informed so much of how she embraced life, for her character Linda Loman demanded in Death of a Salesman, “attention must be paid,” to the poor forgotten salesman. I don’t think she ever forgot those words, and she always wanted to pay attention, especially to the ones most forgot. In Our Town you have the story of Emily who comes back to earth and finds that people don’t look at each other enough. “Why don’t they tell each other they loved other,” Emily urged. We have talked for years in our family about the “Our Town” moments we enjoy. Just as MM never squandered a teachable moment, she never missed a chance to remind us what Emily learned in Our Town.


On that May evening when my father called to relay the news that my mother had passed away, I was on the way to one of my plays I had directed. There were scenes in this play from the myths that Ovid wrote in ancient Rome. My favorite was the last scene, wherein a man and wife begged the gods not to outlive their own capacity to love. In the weeks preceding the performance I had enjoyed this scene anyway, for it reminded me of the love between my parents. In the play, this man and wife stood hand in hand begging the gods not to allow them to outlive their own capacity to love. As I drove to school that night, it was such a natural thing to honor her life by watching this play of mine. She was the one who infused my life to enjoy adventure and excitement, instilled in me a love of imagination and wonder, and taught me that love was the mightiest bulwark. As I watched those two beg the gods, “let me not outlive my own capacity to love,” I knew that I had witnessed the best example I will ever know of a man and wife who never outgrew their own capacity to love.


At my mother’s funeral in 2006 we marveled that on earth she had freely lived her life in the service of God, and now she would eternally bask in the presence of God. How fitting that I can celebrate the lessons of her life every year as Thanksgiving rolls around. Just as the pilgrims celebrated their survival, their thanks-living, we can also offer thanks for the miracles around us.


In December, 2004 my mother again entered the hospital, and again doctors offered a grave prognosis for a return home. A couple weeks later one of the doctors confided, “frankly this is a miracle she has done so well.” My father calmly said, “You should know something about us. We expect miracles.”
A woman as charismatic as Mary Martha deserves a major holiday for remembrance. It is almost as if the poet W.H. Auden had her in mind as he once wrote, “All our thinks should be thanks.”

A Question of Nerves

In my over 300 blog entries about life in Jordan, have I talked about going to the dentist much? I might have mentioned it, because it always made me chuckle, but in my twice-yearly visits to the dentist in Amman, I always thought it odd that he didn’t take x-rays. The first time I went to the dentist here I actually asked toward the end of the very quick cleaning. “Don’t you take x-rays,” I inquired innocently but directly. “Oh, no, Mr. John, your teeth are good!”

That reaction and observation actually reveals a great deal. But anyway, I always found it a little comical that you had to have bad teeth, or at least noticeably bad teeth, to warrant the taking of x-rays.
In January, 2012, I started to have some shooting pains in a tooth (I had just been for one of my cleanings the month before) so I went back to the dentist. I am not a dentist, mind you, but I figured I had a cavity. So the way my trained dentist figured out which tooth it might be—why we couldn’t take an x-ray did seem a mystery again—he had an instrument that shot air and he used it against the teeth on my upper left side until I jumped from the pain. (I half-expected him to yell, “Found it!”) So we did the filling and that was that. I said good-bye to the jovial dentist. Have I mentioned he wears a biker jacket? I am not judging, just filling in the landscape for you. Have I mentioned he looks the age of our seniors? Probably a child prodigy.


Anyway, when I came home from the trip to Belgium in March, the shooting pains returned and the tooth aches intensified. I started chocking ibuprofen like I would love to eat Reece’s pieces. If you have ever had tooth pains, do you remember how difficult it is to sleep? During the day it is a little easier to manage except—wow, the shooting pains again!!—but the nights are hard. Shooting pains are hard to overlook when trying to fall asleep. One night I almost called Julianne here and asked her to come and have my teeth all ripped out.

I mentioned the problem in the history department office and two colleagues immediately suggest their dentist, the same man, assuring me he is great. “Does he take-x-rays” I inquired innocently but directly. That is my new criterion for greatness in dentists. “Of course,” they answered, “Dr. Sami really is great.”



Later that day I called Dr. Sami and got someone whose English is as strong as my Arabic. She had difficulty with the phone number, getting it so very close so he could call me back, but not quite getting it accurately. Finally she said, “Oh, you have more than one number?” I sighed, and hoped he might try one of the combinations she wrote down. In a few hours I got a call from Dr. Sami. I told him about the pain—very hard to describe the quality and intensity of pain, I guess a little like trying to describe your “heat” spice level you want in an Indian restaurant—and he asked if I could wait until Sunday when he had an opening. I asked if Saturday might work. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could be poppin’ pills to try and curb the pain.

Of course finding his office was a struggle. We don’t really do street names in Jordan, and so you say things like, “His office is in Sweifieh, but not on the main walking street, and kind of near the Papa John’s pizza place.” Uh-huh. Could we have a number? How near Papa John’s??? Is there a sign? One colleague drew a map for me. When I got there, the map wasn’t perfectly accurate…I called the other colleague at home and asked if she could guide me to the office. “I was told it was in an office building with glass.” There were several of those. Finally, I got there. The street address is #23 though, in case you want to find Dr. Sami. His sign is in Arabic but does have the English word “California.” I don’t know the street name however, but it’s only about a 4 minute walk to Papa John’s.

Dr. Sami is so nice! And so interested in explaining everything. He takes x-rays. As he looks at the x-rays he actually utters an “Uh, oh.” In what context in any doctor’s office might that be a hoped-for response??? So he says there is a problem with the tooth that was filled in January. He says he wants to drill. He then gets out a little white board—honest—and draws for me what he wants to do. He says, “I want to drill without numbing you because I need to check on the nerves. I think there might be some nerve damage.” I said, “I know I just met you, and my colleagues like you, but doesn’t that sound like torture?” He said he had lived and worked in California and liked Americans’ humor.

So I grab the sides of the dentist chair and he begins to drill. He is very kind, asks if it hurts. Hmmm…no, it doesn’t hurt. After he drills some more I find I haven’t winced once. He asks if it hurt. No, I said. He explained that he hoped it had hurt a little. He worried about the damage and worried that the nerves for that tooth might be dead. He then said, “Mr. John, can you take bad news?”

We retired to his office and he got out a chart, his white board, the x-rays and a pad of paper. He explained that he wanted to see if the nerves were still sensitive enough, and they did not seem to be. Moreover, he spied a crack in the tooth, and he said it was a crack that went down to the base of the tooth. Had I done something to cause that? I had no idea. He used the white board to draw pictures, and then he showed me the x-rays—I mean he wanted me to see and understand everything and get a sense of the scenario. He then worried that the tooth might have to be extracted. He looked so pained to have to tell me this. Extracted. Then he got out the pad of paper to explain the alternatives one might choose in dealing with the extraction. He even explained, and then drew it out, why I had had pain. It wasn’t a cavity, although he said it wasn’t filled expertly, but he said bacteria had probably settled into the crack and caused the pain.

He really couldn’t have been nicer, or a more detailed explainer of everything! He called a colleague of his, an endodontist, and suggested I go to him for him to take better x-rays and see if possibly I might be able to have a root canal. The root canal became the best-case scenario!



A different colleague drew me a map to his office (at the third light make a left and then go across from the hospital and find the flower shop that sells cards and balloons—it in that building) and this map proved more successful for me. I meet him, we take pictures, we schedule the root canal (Dr. Sami even calls me to see how that appointment went! He also burst my bubbled by saying, “He may find in the middle of the root canal that we can’t save the tooth. Sorry.”)


Let’s make this long story short—the root canal went fine. There was no pain, but of course the sounds are unbelievably harsh—what are they doing in your mouth anyways?? It went fine, I went back to Dr. Sami, and I have been twice more. We have taken care of the less-skillful dentistry of the last couple of years. Now, these doctors aren’t on the insurance plan. For those of you who know me well, yes, I can be frugal, and even a cheapskate. But I decided you don’t fool with this. The crown I got was top-of-the-line (Dr. Sami had written out all the options, drawn pictures about how each option would affect the tooth) and no it wasn’t covered by insurance. But the cost of all this was probably a third of the cost in the USA.

Anyway, the saga of the teeth really ended last week. I had a filling taken care of and Dr. Sami, my BFF, bid me adieu.

But this morning I thought about this whole story, the nerves, the anxiety, the wondering when and how it might play out…strangely I thought about this as my art historian warriors went into battle for their AP test.

As I wrote the other day, I love this time of year. I love preparing them for battle, I love showing them the clip of Henry V and the St. Crispian’s Day speech to galvanize them for this battle (I have been showing that since 1993 to AP classes the night before!) and then we go outside and have a water-gun fight and release a little of the tension.

What my students do, or really any students, on an AP test, astounds me. The tests are hard. It takes nerves to withstand these tests. They cover an entire subject, be it Art History or European History or Biology—and many, many more. You could fold, crumble, dissolve, et cetera.

But my students muster their courage, manage their nerves and go and sit for a test that today asked them to navigate through 5,000 years of visual arts, politics, philosophy, religion, sociology, architecture, and personal crises. And they come out smiling.

As they went in to sit for the exam, we could probably have drilled and they wouldn’t have felt a thing—not that their nerves are dead—no, they are so excited about the prospect of celebrating their knowledge.


It is a wondrous thing every year to watch their display of nerve.

That time of year…

It’s one of my favorite times of the year…right now. That could be one of a few things, actually. Jordan explodes with color in the spring, and we are enjoying the dazzling wild flowers and carpets of green. It lasts for about 5 or 6 weeks, and that it is back to the brown that we know so well.

It is the last few weeks with seniors too, but, if you have ever spent time with seniors in the spring, you know that that is probably not what I am talking about. Sigh. This time of year is actually pretty joy-less in the teaching biz with seniors. Even seniors whom you have adored and felt hung the moon become sullen and defiant and, again, joy-less. I have been seeing it for over 20 years. It comes with the territory. They begin the separation, and that includes teachers, especially teachers with whom they may have been close. They speak to you less frequently, dare not to act excited about class, and adopt a world-weariness that is unbelievable.


Oh, wait, this blog entry is about one of my favorite times of year, not one of the most trying times of year! Sorry, I lost focus!


It’s the time right before the AP Art History test. We have made the long haul from pre-historic times to post-modernism, so we covered all the ground required. And it is not that students are newly smart, but they are smarter, and more profound than ever before. They have come to that point in the course when they are not studying something for the first time, or probably even the second or third. They recognize that this test is not really about recognizing art works, but discussing how the visual arts have worked over millennia. They see how similar a pre-historic sculpture might be with a post-WWII de Kooning painting. And they say the most amazing things!


I feel a little like a parent of a chatty, inquisitive 5 year old at this time of year. Yes, everything they say is phenomenal! Well, it pretty much is really. We are not just cramming facts in heads, but they are responding to art works and testing themselves with mock essay topics and as Art Linkletter swore for decades, they say the “darndest things.”

Last week I asked the class to come up with their list of 50 art works upon which the whole course hinges. Now, admittedly, it’s a pretty easy assignment. Frankly, copy down any 50 art works and you get credit. But year after year, students take this assignment seriously, and they strain and furrow their brow and they try and have a list whittled down from the possibly 1000 art works we studied this year.


Last year a student decided to choose the one art work that moved him the most in the entire course. It wasn’t an assignment actually, he just wanted to select one and write about it…for fun…He chose a Rembrandt painting that is in the Met in New York, Aristotle Contemplating the Bust of Homer and wrote so well about why it matters to him more than any other art work…wow…sigh…This year I decided to pose that same challenge and asked if there was one art work that moved them more than any other. They know my choice since in February I tell them a particular Vermeer is my favorite and most moving of the entire year. I am pretty sure I have mentioned it in the blog at some point.

I had a student write and tell me the one he would choose. Again, it was a Rembrandt. Maybe there is something to that guy. The student chose a work that is in St. Petersburg, a narrative about the biblical story of the prodigal son. I will wait a second while you google image the work so you can see this Rembrandt work late, late in his career.


The story of the prodigal son is always interesting anyway. It is famous beyond the confines of the Bible and Jesus’ parables. Did you know that this biblical story is alluded to more often than any other in William Shakespeare’s works? There is something about the story. Think about it—it has almost everything, from greed to envy to confession to celebration to jealousy to bitterness to forgiveness. A sweeping array of emotions and responses!

The student explained why it moved him so much. Firstly, Rembrandt’s career had taken a nose-dove and he had become a pariah, of sorts. The student explained how the trajectory of his career had gotten him thinking about how we treat people on the way up the ladder and then, gulp, down the ladder. The student appreciated Rembrandt’s technique, yes, but the part of the painting that he responded to so much was how the story evokes “unconditional love.” He said that! Again, a painting can make you think about the most important, universal things.


The student’s response offered me the opportunity to think about the story again. At times when I have thought about the story, I think about that other son, the elder son, and how he reacted to his brother’s return and his father’s response. I can picture him now, with his arms folded, marinating in his own bitterness. I wonder what happened after the parable ends…does he let go of his resentment? When we resent someone, it gets down into our bones and our tissues and our cells. It can rot away at our insides.

We don’t know what the younger son did. The Bible doesn’t relate many details about his escapades. In class, as we look at the painting, I always suggest the younger brother went to Las Vegas, or a fraternity party, so that they have an idea, but I don’t have to spell out exactly what he might have done. The King James version does tell us that “he wasted his substance in riotous living.” They get some of the levels of what “wasted” can mean.

Then I think about the younger brother—why did he come home? Was he out of money? Hungry? Needed to wash clothes? Sorry for his having “wasted his substance in riotous living”?


But of course, the real focus of the story, and the student reminded me of it, was the attitude of the father, the bar set so high in how to love. The story is about transformation—at the beginning of the story the thoughtless kid has a “gimme” attitude as he claims his inheritance, a kind-of biblical Veruca-Salt who wants it, and wants it now. But upon his return, and look at the Rembrandt painting now, and you see how that has changed. He has transformed and begs his father to “make me.” He wants to be made a hired hand so he is worthy of his father.

But the student’s response focused my attention on the father and his character. When the young son confesses his unworthiness, it is his father’s love that prompts the confession, not the confession that prompts the father’s love. When the older son rails against the father for showing a special, favored love to his decadent brother, Dad reminds him that it is not a special, favored love. This just happens to be the way the father always loves.


The student marveled at the unconditional love shown by the Dad. I also marvel at that as well. For most of us, loving part of the way is what we tend to do, instead of all the way, and that acts as our defense against being hurt. Not so with the father in the story. His love is not an “if you do this, then I will love you” variety. It is so much more a “because of who you are and who I am, I must love you” type.

The student said he had a father like that. I told him that I also am fortunate to have a father like that. We didn’t say much to each other after that—who needed to speak when we had just figured out one of the most important lessons for humanity???


But it is not an easy lesson, is it? It is a love riddled with unfairness. The younger son is mystified by the extravagance of the father’s love, and the older son is infuriated by it. But then, the father isn’t working on fairness. Indeed, if you think about the end of the parable, the story is actually an exercise in un-fair¬ness. That party! The father practices unfairness in the celebration of the return of that younger son.


Fairness. Whoa. Talk about your weighty subjects. I guess fairness really only works in the realm of mathematical calculation. I don’t teach or spend much time with mathematics, but I deal with the mess of humanity. I guess grace and generosity have little to do with math, and we no doubt, probably deserve little of either if we scrutinize our own behavior.

It is now May, the month of Mother’s Day (in the United States) and my father’s birthday. How lucky I am to have had parents who both exhibited that kind of unconditional love, both to me, my sister, and to each other. I need no better example about love and generosity.


So these seniors…well, I love them, and I have loved teaching them. But they seem awfully like that younger brother, itching to go, and not very grateful. No, I suppose it isn’t fair. But it also isn’t fair, perhaps, that I have gotten more than my fair share of exciting, invigorating, challenging, thrilling students over the years.


One art work can spawn such a great discussion. I wish you had been there the other day in class as a student masterfully analyzed a work by 1980s artist Barbara Kruger, or the student who talked about Gauguin’s Nevermore in a powerful way, or…I could go on and on…it’s just that time of year. Each day offers thoughtful, moving analyses, not about names and dates and show-off cocktail party conversation about art works, but about the human condition. And how we might appreciate it just a little bit more.

Return to Normal

Well, I just put the suitcases away.

The suitcases I used for spring break, I mean. Never mind that I arrived in Jordan just about 11 days ago this minute, I always linger a little in unpacking and putting the suitcases away since that definitely signals an end to the break! The suitcases were in the middle of the floor of the second bedroom here in the KA apartment. There were several suitcases involved. There is the big dark green one, capable of being filled easily and weighing 50 pounds easily (the weight limit before they charge you on the airlines,) and then the All Ohio Youth Choir duffel bag that I won in 2008 at an All Ohio Youth Choir reunion (I pretty much win any contest now of the game “Who came the farthest?????!”). That one is great, of course, because it can be folded up to practically nothing on the way over, and then filled to about 38 pounds on the way back. Then there is the nice rollaway carry-on bag that fits a laptop and a surprising amount of stuff, be it books, or cheese or Girl Scout cookies. That’s another 30 pounds easily for the plane. You notice that the weight part matters here. No, I don’t really need clothes to be in the suitcases either direction—I have enough clothes on both sides of the Atlantic. But I do bring a considerable amount of groceries (like 50 pounds!) and new books and things! Anyway, I got the suitcases away finally.

You know, the other day a young colleague asked me where I had gone for spring break. I smiled, and said, “I went home.” The colleague looked at me with a mixture of regret and pity and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ask.”

Okay. Yes, many colleagues went on glamorous trips in our 11 day spring break—they went to India, or Thailand, or Africa, or Spain, or France, or England, or Turkey—and they had—wait for it—an a-maaaaaaaaa-zing time. Good for them! For the fifth spring break in a row, I went to my two homes, my New York home and my Cincinnati home! And how interesting that the colleague felt the need to apologize for asking me and finding out I went home. What did that mean? Okay, I get it. They thought I missed out on an exciting trip abroad, discovering a secret beach in Thailand, or an obscure town in India, etc. But I rebounded to the colleague, “Oh, I wanted to go home—I like to return to my normal life when I am on a break. Besides, I have been to really exciting places around the world. I actually find it strangely glamorous to go home to that normal life.”

I am not sure she really believed me! I have talked about how fun it is to return to the US and my two homes before in blog entries. I have talked about how much I love returning to the New York world of walking around Manhattan, eating at my favorite places (and even ordering the very same thing every time at Saigon Grill, Tom’s Diner, Patsy’s Pizza, and Ivy’s Chinese) going to theater every night, going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art as often as possible. I thrill to the return to the Cincinnati food haunts, seeing the New York A-list, the Cincinnati A-list—it is practically the same break every single time! I love it! It’s my normal!!!!! But I am experiencing a different understanding of that impulse for “normal” right now as I look at the suitcases high above the closet waiting for their trip back down to my level on June 20.

Hmmmm….I was in Cincinnati talking with a friend about our summer plans (yes, there would be a healthy amount of time in both homes again) and I commented, “Well, you know my family is going to Disney World again.” I am pretty sure I said that with a dollop of world-weary disdain and maybe even irritation. Maybe even an eye roll. You see, my sister loves planning the Disney World trips and we have had more than our fair share of trips to Orlando (to be exact, I went in the 3rd grade, and then 30 years later again, returning over and over in the last decade, in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2010, and now gearing up for 2012. It’s more than the Olympics!) My sister loves going there. My sister loves going there. (I know I said it twice.) She loves our family going there. My sister loves the luxury of the Polynesian resort. She even knows what room she wants us to stay in. She will have the entire trip planned out, and we will be doing many of the same things again—uh-oh… Whoa! It’s fine for me to yearn for a return to my normal and not for my lovely, wonderful, sister???? I better take back that eye-roll…okay, I withdraw the dollop of disdain and irritation.

Don’t get me wrong—I don’t mind going to the Happiest Place on Earth. (I mind going in the summer actually, because of the humidity, but whatcha gonna do?????) I guess I mind that my sister isn’t dreaming up a new (!) daring (!) totally unpredictable (!) obscure (!) unknown (!) trip that we hadn’t done before.

Let’s get a little historical perspective. In the 1920 U.S. presidential election, the Democrats pledged that the United States should embark into the brand-new League of Nations and take a huge risk on this new chapter of world history. The Republicans offered Warren Harding, a candidate who looked like he would have fit right into the world-view 20 years earlier. He pledged that a vote for him was a vote for the “Return to Normalcy.” Harding won handily.

We like a normal. Nobody’s normal is quite the same as anybody else’s normal, of course. But I reveled in my normal over the spring break. I reveled in seeing Anne Siviglia and Kate Lamper and Harrison Unger in New York and Sylvia Weber in Cincinnati. I reveled in that familiar perfect taste of the lunch special at Ivy’s and the arugula salad at Patsy’s and the Skyline and Graeter’s and LaRosa’s of Cincinnati. I wouldn’t dream of ordering something new!! Not when my normal is so good! My sister feels the same way about Disney World—she understands every contour of the trip, every challenge, every wrinkle and she works it out to be a perfectly timed, well-oiled machine of morning racing around, afternoon relaxing and evening buffets and light shows. She knows it like a trouper in a long-running, exquisite Broadway show knows her stuff. And I should be more supportive of her normal. After all, I got my normal. Why shouldn’t she get hers? I am retracting my comments about the trip before. She will come home from Orlando, put the suitcases away, and have the same sense of satisfaction and perfection about her normal as I did about mine.

Well, one of the facets of my normal in New York is of course seeing theater. Wonderful Christy belongs to this service to which we joined years ago when you can see non-sold-out shows for $4.50. Stop and smell the roses about that one! Revel in the cheapness! So on my Saturday we did a normal thing for us—we saw two shows!! A two-show day is blissfully normal. We didn’t really plan carefully what we would see, we just took advantage of the phenomenal $4.50 deal. But let’s take a moment to juxtapose our two shows from that Saturday. At the matinee, we saw a new play (from 2011) in previews, The Lyons, and then in the evening we saw a production of a 1918 Eugene O’Neill drama, Beyond the Horizon, the play that won him his first Pulitzer, some 90-odd years ago. Hmmmm….here is another fun thing for us that is normal. We look at our oddly-planned, collage-like day, and usually some fine insight emerges from what we juxtapose. Both plays are about families—dysfunctional families (don’t they make much more fun plays???). Both plays deal with the stuff of dysfunctional families, like loss, betrayal, disappointment, and the banality of our existence. The contemporary, 2011 play is an out-and-out comedy, however, and the 1918 play is, well, a conventional tragedy. But the plays are virtually the same structure. Interestingly, we realized that today we might actually laugh, gasping at the same time, about family tragedies and the stupefying nature of what is “normal” in a family.

The contemporary play was more thrilling. Oh, they’re just awful people, those Lyons. They’re whiny, denigrating, vicious, self-centered, recriminatory — the sort of blood kin who can’t cling to one another without drawing blood. The kind that might be fun to watch on a reality show going to Disney World. And believe it or not, they’re a family that you would really, really want to spend time with. Honestly. They are hilarious as they kick the ego out of one another. But as we looked at them close — no, closer — uh, oh, we’re likely to find an intimate mirror of our own frightened self. As I said before, compared with the O’Neill heavy drama, with The Lyons, there’s often a gasp within the chuckle. Playwright Nicky Silver’s characters crack wise not out of loving, familiar irritation but from a forlorn awareness that there’s no lonelier place to be than in the bosom of your own family, even — no, especially — in times of crisis. A shade of existential emptiness and anger hangs over even the jolliest exchange in this play, the first act of which is set in a hospital room, where Ben Lyons is ungraciously dying of cancer, while Rita (Linda Lavin of 1970s sitcom Alice fame), his wife, looks forward to life in his absence. Seated at the deathbed of her rancorous, obscenity-spewing husband, Rita ladles out sweet-and-sour reassurance. “I’m dying, Rita,” Ben says. Rita answers: “I know, Dear. Try to look on the positive side.”

Given that scenario, you might be tempted to think of Mr. Silver as the strange progeny of a coupling between Neil Simon and Eugene O’Neill!

Enter the children, God bless them. Those would be Curtis and Lisa, bearing potted plants and heaping doses of blame for the parents they believe destroyed them. Bickering, sniping and betraying each other’s secrets, Curtis and Lisa are glowering evidence that a death in the family doesn’t automatically bring out the best in people.

As we thought about the two plays, thought about our own families, we were so grateful for my return to my “New York Normal.” I had come home. I spent time in my two homes! So happy! Home, for Playwright Mr. Silver, is only a myth we invent to reassure and torture ourselves. Is that normal??? The Lyons, which is ultimately not without an endearing gleam of hope, suggests that once you accept that chilly reality, that normal, you just might be able to make a life for yourself.

Oh, I love my normal!!

Postcard from Belgium

A coupla weeks ago I was in Belgium for about a week. And a coupla weeks from now I will be in Cincinnati.

And in between those two trips I taught (and will teach) a coupla classes and accomplish a coupla things.

Busy, busy Spring!

I went to Brussels, Belgium with a group of 14 students, delegates to a satellite version of the Harvard Model Congress. This was the first time of the dozen times or so I have chaperoned students to the Harvard Model Congress that it wasn’t actually near Harvard. But we chose the satellite conference of the congress for a coupla reasons—namely, less far to travel, less airfare to pay, and fewer school days missed. The timing of the model congress was perfect—we left the day winter term exams ended and only missed a coupla school days, and days at the beginning of the new term to boot. A nice chance for a late winter trip to Brussels, Belgium.

The last time I was in Brussels, Belgium—well, it was an exciting evening of parades and triumph. I remember clearly being in the Grand Place in Brussels on May 8, 1985. What a thrilling evening to be there. Do you, dear reader, know why it was so exciting that evening? No, my presence alone in this very international-and-diplomatic city does not inspire parades and joy and happy tears. Thank you for even thinking that! But that night was the 40th anniversary of V-E Day, and I was nearing the end of my semester abroad in Austria, and traveling to a few cities before flying home to the United States. I split that V-E anniversary between two cities actually, to get the full effect of the anniversary of the end of the European front of World War II. I spent the morning in Aachen, Germany, attended a prayer vigil in the Cathedral, and witnessed a somber gathering of tearful Germans there as they meditated on the loss and legacy of that war. Then I hopped a train, and within a very short time was in Brussels, and that moment of glory in the Grand Place that evening. I went from the losing side of the war, to the victorious side of the war in about an hour train ride, and I remember dancing, parades, tears of happiness and joy in the Grand Place that evening.

As I recall the last time I was in Brussels, I feel a little like the character of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard as she recalls the last time she saw some friends of the movie business. She says, as I recall, something like, “The last time I saw him was a very gay evening—everyone was dancing and happy. Lindbergh had just landed!” Desmond says this about 23 years after the event in her memory. Oh my—I am recalling an event even farther back in the recesses of my memory! Anyway, I feel a little like Norma Desmond as I recall my last time in Brussels. I just hope I am not as mad…

So I went to Belgium three times in the 1980s, and then I haven’t been back since the summer of 1987 on the big European trip with Karen and Sharon. My goodness…nearly 25 years since my trip as a first-year teacher and quasi-adult! I liked Belgium fine all three visits, I just somehow never got back there in all the years of traveling…good to have a group of students to take and re-acquaint myself with Belgium.

So our flight leaves Amman at 1:30 a.m.—the good part, I guess of such an early, early departure is that we landed in Brussels by 9:00 a.m. and were at the hotel by about 10:00. Of course they weren’t ready for us, but we could drop the bags and figure out Brussels. We had almost 48 hours to play in Belgium before the congress began!

That first hour in a new city is always confusing and maddening. When we got to the train station from the quick train ride from the airport, we didn’t know which door of the 12 choices might be the one for our hotel. I knew what station to go to and I knew the address of the hotel, but not much else. Of course, after a little asking, staring at maps (guess what? Our hotel street didn’t make it on the map!) and wandering in a bit of a circle (I prefer to think we walked in a heart shape!) we found the hotel. Great! The best mnemonic device of finding the hotel is locating the Sex Shop near the northwest exit from the train station! I always believe traveling with students means educating them about maps, directions and context. We needed to learn some context about Brussels, then practice walking around, not being tied to my leash, maybe getting lost, and getting it all figured out.

We walked the half hour to the Grand Place—stopping for our first samples of pastries and Belgian frites along the way—and then I regaled them of stories of the last time I was in Brussels. Judging from the looks on a few faces, they probably did think I was as mad as Norma Desmond, and certainly as old! The Grand Place still is a great spot—the heart of the old town (going back a thousand years) and any time of day the chocolate salons, tea shops, flower markets, and endless people watching is fun. I lectured them briefly on some history of Belgium, the beauty of these late medieval guild halls in front of them, how that became the source of wealth for these trade-hungry Flemish, and how they staved off Louis XIV (just barely) in 1695. I talked to them about King Leopold in the 1880s and 1890s and the enormous wealth he brought to Belgium from his personal property of the Congo. Then I set them loose for two hours—their first bit of independence. They may like me fine, but let’s be honest, teen-agers want to be on their own and experience things without an adult.

They all showed up on time—I had emphasized the point of punctuality for traveling with me. I thanked them for their punctuality and said that that was the one point I would hammer home on the trip. “Everything else takes care of itself if you are on time,” I told them. “If you are on time it means you have planned well, thought of others, thought of me, not gotten into too much trouble, and will be given more and more independence. Think about it—being on time will take care of everything!” This group figured that out and made me proud. Group travel can be excruciating in the “I’m not going to be on time if no one else is”—department.

I began the sampling of Belgian chocolates—one must make sure one buys the creamiest chocolates for your gifts, so one must try from many, many purveyors! That evening we went to a suburb of Brussels where we met a group of strangers for dinner. One of my students, the marvelous young man named Divij, had befriended a group of Belgians on a Model United Nations trip to China (I do travel in some swell circles, don’t I??). Divij had written to the advisor of the group, and she put together a group of Belgian teens for our group to meet and enjoy a dinner. It was a great evening—two groups of teen-agers, second language English speakers all, talking about world events, teen events, school events and Belgium. Lovely!

The next day we went on our obligatory tour of the art museum. Every model congress I have students go on a tour of an art museum, you know, to culture ‘em up. I had never been to the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, but I had planned a tour from the on-line stuff available. I wanted them to feast their eyes on some beautiful Northern European Renaissance art. Oh, the exquisite work of Van der Weyden, and Memling and Bruegel and Rubens. Then some nice Dutch work and the Frenchie Jacques Louis David. One of my goals on these model congress art tour trips is to get a coupla more students interested in art history to take the course. Somehow it is addictive.

That afternoon I gave some more free time but also took a group to Antwerp. Less than an hour train trip away was this city, once in 1500 the richest city in Europe given that its stock exchange and port filled with ships from the New World docked in Antwerp. What a great city! I had never been to Antwerp, but hope it doesn’t take me 25 years to get back. The train station itself is an art work—one of those great and glorious Beaux-Arts buildings from the 1890s with heart-stopping arches and sumptuous columns. It was going to be a good afternoon.

Much of tourist-y Antwerp is serviced by a pedestrians-only shopping zone, past statues of native sons Anthony van Dyck and Peter Paul Rubens. The buildings are ornate, from the Baroque Age and then during the Art Nouveau 1890s age. Like most European cities, Antwerp is a mixture of cities, art, great snacking, promenades, and eccentric history. We learned a little eccentric history—like the name of the town—about a man who defied a giant, severed said giant’s hand and threw said severed hand into the river. “hand werpen,” which means, “to throw a hand,” evolved into Antwerp. After that little knowledge, we noticed severed hand images all over town.

In the next few days the congress began, students began 12-hour days debating issues, writing bills, and role playing a specific U.S. representative. It was different, certainly, than the congress in Boston. For one, it is smaller. About 550 students attended the Belgian conference, whereas about 1800 attend the one in Boston. But it was also mostly “foreign” students, i.e. foreign to the USA, acting as the representatives. Some of them did not quite understand the workings of US government, and some Greek students kept pressing the point that the US government should bail out Greece. But as always, it is great to mix our students with other students.

I hopped a train to Ghent, another town made terrifically wealthy at one time (from the medieval textile trade) and full of ornate guild houses and grand churches. I did update my facebook status that evening to say I had had a bratwurst as big as my arm that day in Ghent. How could it not be a good day???? Ghent was wonderful—more real than idyllic Bruges which I would re-visit the following day, and home to one of the great altarpieces of all time (by Jan Van Eyck). I stood there studying it for awhile, so happy in this town of picturesque embankments and finely decorated gables.

The trip was good—good food and art and chocolate and punctual students. I found a museum about the history of Belgium that was thrilling to visit—I left obsessed about the history of Belgium. You know I love being obsessed.

I left Belgium with happy memories of a trip with excellent students, and memories of my first visit when I was their age, the V-E day celebration night in 1985, and the last time in Belgium in stunning jewel-like Bruges with friend-for-life Sharon in 1987.

The only downside? Well, the student who sat next to me for the two flights back to Jordan had a cold, and happened to sneeze on me…and then again…and then again, for about five good sneezes. You know how you can feel the germs seeping in?? Well, I came back to a bad cold—the kind of cold where you say, “Why do I want to get out of bed???” and then a tooth ache set in (I think un-related.)

Oh well, we can outlive the germs and the aches and pains. I probably didn’t feel those aches and pains when I was last in Belgium, way back in my youth in the 80s.

No Drop-Out

Last night I received news from my sister that I had been expecting for the last month—news of the death of Edna Duebber, a dear family friend. Recently my sister had visited Edna in the nursing center of her retirement home and Edna’s sister looked quizzically at her and said, “Now how did you know Edna?” It is a little hard to explain, and certainly provides evidence of how a friendship can take root and thrive. You see, Edna kind of dropped into our lives about 20 years ago and quickly became a fixture in family celebrations. As I remember the story, Edna had had a nodding acquaintanceship with my mother at Frisch’s, one of my mother’s watering holes (or coffee-ing holes, to be more exact). But my mother was never really one for a nodding acquaintanceship when one could sit down and inquire about the other’s life. So my mother found out that Edna was a widow, a rather lonely widow after the death of her beloved Walt. My mother wrote Edna a letter, and somehow from that letter spawned an admiration and gratitude from Edna for my mother. My mother invited Edna over to her table, no doubt the A-list table at Frisch’s, and then Edna just kind of dropped into our family.

At that time we all became acquainted with Edna we had, in the last few years, lost the grandmothers in our family, and it became such a wonderful treat for Edna to invite our family over for a meal, or a birthday, in that grand grand-motherly tradition. Oh, we loved going over to her lovely home with the immaculate yard and the groaning table filled with mouth-watering dishes. In short order, we discovered that Edna loved to cook for people, and our family, growing now to include new member Steve, obliged Edna, since we loved to eat, especially her dinners!

But Edna became more than just a purveyor of mashed potatoes and roasted meats and beautiful pies—she became the kind of family friend you call when there is sadness and crisis. Edna became a fixture at hospitals and retirement homes. Edna maintained her home she had shared with Walt for over 50 years, but she had a heart for people suffering and wanted to take them flowers, cards, or meals.

As time went on, each of us in the family spent personal and communal time with Edna. We learned much about her life. In so many ways, Edna is the embodiment of the American Dream of the second half of the 20th century. Not just the tract house in the suburbs, but the ups and downs of suburban and family life, rebounding from the grim 1930s Depression, celebrating the expansion of American cities, the unbridled prosperity of the 1950s, a working woman in the 1970s. I loved talking to Edna about her life—and she eagerly filled us in. She told us of the desperate times of the 1930s, all the daughters in the family having to work to help the family survive the Depression. She confided to me more than once, “You know I had to drop out of school in the 1930s to help support the family. But I never dropped out of life!” I can see that characteristic flash in her eyes as she spoke about her life, her good health, her zeal for living. Even when she described the family chicken-plucking business, every story had her sounding like a Rosie the Riveter!

Edna was born in 1917. I loved thinking about that and that she was born in the same year as John F. Kennedy as well Leonard Bernstein. When she married Walt in 1939 they couldn’t decide where to go on their honeymoon. She wanted a big trip, and they debated going east to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows, in New York, but instead the newlyweds opted for a cross-country trip out west instead. She loved recounting those exciting days on the honeymoon trip—“We tried to see the world Johnny! There we were—two young kids—seeing the West.” And like with almost every story she told, she relived the enthusiasm and energy of her youth with style.

Over the years Edna became a fixture at family dinners, church solos, dance and piano recitals, funerals, anything where she could join our family and act as the surrogate grandmother. At one point she visited my grandfather in the nursing home of a retirement village (the very one where she would exit the stage of life) several times a week, offering companionship and friendship. Edna practically kept Hallmark in business in the years we have known her—I have a collection of cards ranging from Easter to birthdays to just hello cards. Edna never faltered in the holiday greeting department.

As with any member of a family, we may have taken Edna for granted from time to time. Some days she was just too perky, or it was out of your way to drive over and pick up another pie…I mean think about it—not bad indictments on a life if the perkiness/spunk factor is so high, or you may not have room in the refrigerator for another pie!

Edna was always dressed as if her day included a party. Her favorite shade was purple, and she had enough variations on lavenders and violets to beat any champion clothes horse. Edna cleaned her house as if she were the matron in a 1950s sit-com, and I caught her mowing her grass in a lavender outfit complete with pearls! Finally, around age 90 she let a son or grandson mow her grass for her.

For over a decade Edna joined my father for the breakfast ritual at the diner. Four days a week, they spent breakfast together in the company of the other breakfast bunch. The men may be discussing politics or sports, and Edna was usually in on another discussion, but no matter, everything got solved by the time the fourth cup of coffee was downed.

When Emma and Jack were born, in 1998 and 2002, respectively, Edna couldn’t have been happier to be in their lives. She loved making cakes, for showers and birthdays, and she could keep up with whatever theme each child desired for the birthday extravaganza. On Halloween, it was to Edna’s street that they trooped for the rite of trick or treating, and Edna was always excited to buy another present.

Edna bought a portable pool for her perfect back yard, and so there are many pictures of the children enjoying a summer swim in Edna’s back yard. Edna would create a luncheon, “no trouble at all,” and we would sit in the shade of her perfect backyard and relish those seemingly mundane summer treats. One of my favorite memories is watching Edna play softball with Jack—when she was 90—throwing the ball to Jack, and excitedly cheering his batting.

Eventually arthritis took a hold of Edna and her dinners ceased. Well, not exactly. She may not have been able to make the whole meal, but she would bring in LaRosa’s or City Barbecue—anything for a chance to invite us over and celebrate something. But I will always cherish my favorite meal of hers, those succulent Autumn Harvest Pork Chops. These would be the pork chops of your dreams…

So today as I think about the blessings I have known, I count our friendship with Edna as a distinct pleasure. She loved to go out to lunch, out shopping, anything to be out and about in the world. Only in the last year was she slowed down when her sons decided it was time she should give up the car.

As I said, it was not just the good times when Edna showed up. Edna was there when someone was in the hospital, or when we worried about the next turn in life. She was there with a hug, actually a ferocious hug, and a smile, sometime a little gloom and doom thought, but mostly there to help smooth over the bumps in life. Then there would come the laugh. Edna had a laugh that was like a giant tickle. Even in her 90s you could hear the school-girl coquettish laugh that drifted back to the 1920s and 30s.

A month ago I called my sister from Boston and lo and behold she was visiting Edna at that moment. I had seen Edna, of course, while home at Christmas, but had worried about her since she had suddenly gone from her vibrant self to a woman more like what we think of nonagenarians. I got to talk to Edna, and the astonishment in her voice that we got to talk again, and I could remind her of the loving moments we had shared in our 20-year friendship. “I’ll see you in heaven, Johnny,” she said as we said good-bye.

Edna held on longer than her family expected—I don’t think they know about her “grit,” her stamina and her ability to weather almost anything—but last night when I got the call, I sighed for the loss of a dear friend. Of course, I know, not many get into our 95th year on earth, so that is itself astonishing. Edna never became cynical—more than once in the last year, if we went out, she would exclaim, “This was the best day of my life!” How wonderful that she could have so many “best days” to warm her heart.

What’s left when all is said and done about a life? About a friendship? What is the legacy?

I guess with Edna it is the exclamation of joy about life. Whether she was greeting you in LaRosa’s with her characteristic, “What a surprise to see you people here!” (“Really Edna? We have been meeting you here for Sunday lunch for years,” we might have said…) or the waving adieu at the door of her pristine home, or the applause at the children playing the piano, or the proffering of a gift of her favorite fancy Fawn candy, or the thrill at hearing my voice on the phone from the Middle East, it was just a re-iteration and re-invigoration of how, indeed, Edna never “dropped out of life.”