My dad may have prostate cancer. Cancer. Cancer. Cancer. That's all I can hear right now. Please say a good wish for my family.....and to those men out there, get checked out. Early detection is a life saver.

Dear Ether, 

I’m really scared.  My dad just had a test for prostate cancer and they found that it was hard (a healthy prostate should be soft and spongy).  They are doing a biopsy tomorrow and won’t have the results until Friday.  All is gloomy around the household.  

My uncle, his brother, was diagnosed with prostate cancer just last year.  They say if you have sibling who has had the disease, your chances go up.  

My father, whom I just recently posted about (Read: The First Man I Ever Loved Was My Father) and wrote that he never had an injury in his life, could be thrown a very heavy blow.  I know prostate cancer, if caught early, is very curable.  But cancer is cancer and that’s an ugly word.  They say that it’s most virulent in men in their 50’s.  My father is in his early 60’s.  But, again, whose to know.  All is speculation.  

My mom, always positive, thinks he will be fine and will be healthy as he always has.  I can tell by the sallow look on his face and his body language that he does not feel the same way.  

This is the man who I thought was infallible.  A man who I thought was perfect, may have something that will mar him internally and change him psychologically.  I do not fear anything as serious as death, but I do fear suffering for him and the severe shake to his belief in his youthfulness and health.  My father.  Mr. Perfect.  The man I love most.  I can’t bear that he is potentially living with something destroying him. 

Everyone always told me that I took after my father.  I always felt so proud of that because he had a constitution like a rock and had aged handsomely.  If HE is bound for any sort of demise, than I, too, am not going to be always strong and healthy either.  

I’ve never really been unwell.  My brother takes after my mother.  He has a zillion allergies, and always complains of aches and pains (whether this is psychosomatic, I don’t know).  He is always taking off work because he is sick.  I can’t remember the last time I visited a GP. 

But back to my Dad.  He is aging.  He has graying temples, sagging skin, a few scattered sunspots and thinner hair (though a full head—he is not even close to bald).  Aging is a reality, but to see your perfect father lose to the inevitable hands of time.  That even HE can’t beat the clock………it makes you realize that you too, are bound for the same fate. 

My dad wont be alive when I reach his age.  He won’t see me with paper thin skin on the tops of my hands, fat blue veins popping out of them.  He won’t see me chop of my lovely hair and wear it as a woman of my age should.  He’ll never see my lens prescription grow thicker or my eyes grow less clear.  I’m grateful for that.  Because watching him vanish is terrifying and painful.  

Please send out a good word for him.  I hope he is going to be okay.  You’ll remember from my earlier post that I have so much I still must work out with him.  I can’t lose him.  I can’t allow anything to harm him. 

Nobody’s perfect.  I know that.  But to give him cancer?  No.  Please.  No. 

Dedicatedly yours, 

—One of 365

The words highlighted above are the perfect summation of how I feel about my father. However, we are bound like a book, and I believe our words, like a novel, are already written. Read this post which is so dear to my heart and let me know your thoughts. I think anyone with a father can relate somehow to this piece. Maybe Ethers, you can give me SOME hope? If we keep using the book analogy...and the picture above....the page is not fully printed. Maybe there's time to add more text to it.

Dear Ether, 

The first man I ever fell in love with was my father.  I suppose you could technically call it love at first sight. 

He was born in Longmeadow, MA (a small, peaceful town where homes are from the 18^th century and have plaques proudly boasting their build dates on their spotless facades).  He was the eldest of three boys and since this is an anonymous blog, I will attest to the fact that he was by far the smartest.  He excelled at everything he did and when it came time to go to University he was courted by every Ivy League school (Harvard even offered him a yearly stipend for his pocket money).  He became one of Eli’s men and went to Yale on full scholarship, became a Skull and Bone and sailing through college with perfect grades and varsity sports under his belt, went to Yale Law School.  If you look at notebooks from his time at college (this was before laptops) his handwriting is in perfect script and there is not a cat-scratch in them.  Of course after graduating from Yale Law, he went to one of the finest firms in the country in Manhattan, got a stunning apartment in a brownstone on the Upper East Side and worked for five years, toiling away being told he’d probably be made the youngest partner if he kept up his fervor.  However, he was unhappy.  He was a writer through and through.  And, lucky, brilliant Dad, and his writing partner, wrote a script and sent it to Hollywood with their fingers crossed.  And guess what?  They landed a job on a TV show immediately.  

Oh, of course there are many more things about him.  That he was perpetually youthful looking which would serve him well as he aged (people often ask him where he hides his portrait).  That he has never had a health problem in his life (knock wood).  That he has always had a love of cars, so much so that when my grandparents, in the 1950’s bought a pink Cadillac (yes indeed) with white leather seats and, amazingly, a record player (the latest and greatest in technology—if they only knew what the future would hold) he sat for 7 hours in it mesmerized.  He says when he closes his eyes he can still see his feet not being able to touch the ground and can smell the interior. 

And so, the tale continues.  My father comes to L.A., works on very famous comedy shows, meets my mother, 2 years later they get married, a year later they have my older brother and then 2 years later I’m born—and my love affair begins.  It’s unfair, really.  It was my mother who gave up a hugely powerful job as a producer, rare for a woman in those days, to become a stay at home mom, and become the bad guy.  My dad worked 12-hour days trying to squeeze out jokes sometimes at 2am (not an easy task).  Often I wouldn’t see him at all.  But when I would hear that car pull into the carport, I would run downstairs and throw my arms around his legs.  

This is what I remember.  He always had a brown briefcase with gold numeric lock keys and never wore a suit.  He always had a stern look on his face and disappeared upstairs.  It was only later did I find out that he was so stressed out and filled with anxiety that he needed to be left alone and decompress.  As an adult and a writer I understand this now.  But then, it wounded me.  And that made me want him more.  And this could be why I have so many attachment issues with men.  But that’s a whole other round we can discuss another time Ethers.  Through the years and his many styles of eyeglasses (whoa, there were some beauts’) I sought his approval.  My mother was so hard on us and was the school marm while my father was the hero who swept through and was quiet and calm.  On weekends we would go to the beach or he would read “The Arabian Nights” or Dickens to us.  I had a canopy bed and he would sit in the dark improvising the most masterful tales until he lulled me to sleep.  The only requisite was that I give him a topic.  

As I became a teenager and he became a very successful drama writer and producer (and eventually and Emmy Award winner) we became wealthier, he calmed down, but no matter what I could do, the man I was in love with never indulged me with pride.  He always was a critic.  I would show him my writing and it would be scarred with red marks.  I’d be talking to him and he’d correct my grammar.  I’d be playing soccer and  could see him peripherally on the sideline with a puckered look on his face and screaming “Come on One of 365, get in there!”  He did always tell me how beautiful I was—even when I had braces, bad eyebrows, spots and frizzy hair.  But I never felt like I was ever going to be good enough.  I was never going to be a savant like him.  I’d already failed and I wasn’t even 18.  I certainly wasn’t going to get courted by Ivy League schools or become a lawyer.  I tried everything to make up for that.   I killed myself in school to the point of exhaustion.  I forced myself to become a straight-A student when it wasn’t natural for me.  I went to summer school and did extra work to make up for, god forbid, a B or B+.  I joined every team possible and became a varsity tennis and soccer player.  But my math failed me and I failed my SAT’s in math.  2 hours of my life, after 13 years of school,  and I didn’t get into any of the colleges I wanted.  I ended up going to a top 25 small liberal arts college in CT (a pathetic attempt to try and re-live what my father had in New Haven) and fell apart there.  I became angry and depressed and slept all day and never attended classes.  I had bad relationships with men who I didn’t like let alone even love and was pained and lonely.  That’s when I bolted for England.  You’ll know the rest of that story eventually.  This is about my dad.  

To this day we bang heads at every occasion.  He’s retired now and is always around to judge.  He’ll comment on everything from weight to writing.  He’s yet to ever look at a piece of my work and ever say it was good; he always has a qualm with it.  He’s even sent back an E-mail I wrote him with corrections for me to fix.  When we fight we are both so similar.  We’re cutting and mean.  But it’s so funny…….I try to be intelligent when I fire at him because even in an argument I want to earn his respect.  So Ethers, you must be asking, “This is the first man she ever loved?”  Oh yes.  And I compare everyone I ever meet to him.   Even myself.  Because to me, he is what I would have liked to have been.  He is a constant reminder of, what I see, as perfection.  Yes, of course I’m no fool and see that he has so many character flaws.  But his achievements and his health and his wit and ease with himself–I would have dreamt for that to have been passed down to me.  Whenever I meet an old colleague of his or a college mate, they always say he was the greatest guy they ever met.  My friends all swooned over him.  I once asked him why he was so easy going to those he didn’t know as well or care as much for and he said, “Because I don’t love them.”  I guess that’s why I have such a fucked up view of love too.  He feels he has to be the bad guy to get the point across and get the irons in the fire.  I just wish instead of irons being in the fire, that there would have been just a tremendous glow and warmth exuding from it.

I don’t know what I will do when the time comes when my father is out of my life.  He’s so intertwined with it.  My brother resembles my dad AND my mom.  But I’m a spitting image of him.  It’s funny, everyday I have to look in the mirror and see the man who I love more than anything.  The first man I ever loved.  But also the man who will probably always haunt me.  When I close my eyes and I picture my father I see him sitting in the backyard on a sunny day.  He’s tan with dark hair, trim and in one of our lovely wooden chairs with the dog at his feet.  As always, he’s immersed himself in a novel.  I stare at him through the French windows of our sunroom and I see him look up from time to time putting his finger in the page where he’s left his last paragraph, and he closes his eyes.  Is he soaking up the sun?  Is he worried?  Is he thinking about life?  Thinking, possibly of ME?  And then I see him give his head a small shake and open the book again looking down once more to read.  This is the first man I ever loved.  And to my dying day, even when I am old and he is dust, I will always wonder what he really thought of me.  

If he could read this, which he never will, I would beg for his forgiveness for failing him and I would tell him that the only reason I ever stood up to him was to try and earn his respect.  But inside I was crumbling.  And if he had said the word or just put his arms around me, he would have silenced my vicious tongue.  Every year that passes I know that we are too far-gone to ever be what I had hoped for.  He really has always been the old dog that can’t learn a new trick.  And part of this is my embracing being an adult and learning acceptance.  But I still look at him through the same eyes I had as a little girl, for he hasn’t really changed much, and I walk around haunted by my first love. 

Dedicatedly yours, 

—One of 365

I know this is a pretty horrible picture. But when you read my story you'll understand. Almost 12 years later and I feel like I can't wash my hands free of this horrible memory I'm going to share with you. Like Macbeth, it's like a bloody mess that I keep on visualizing that I know logically isn't there, but I keep seeing because of my paranoia. It will also make sense to you why hands were chosen. Oh those hands......

Dear Ethers, 

When I was in High School I took a class called Physiology.  It was my senior year and it was considered a privilege to be chosen for this course.  The class was intimate.  Only 13 students were enrolled and we were warned before signing up that it would be graphic. We would have to do things we weren’t normally used to so we would need parental permission.

Other kids who had taken the class told old wives’ tales of its horrors, but I was really interested in the human body.  I’ve never understood why we had to grow old.  How we were created.  Why we got diseases.  I was hungry for information.

The class was very raw.  We had our blood taken for samples and then shared our vials with the class.  Strands of hair were plucked and sent to labs and given a DNA check.  We urinated in cups for drug tests.  We were  only 17 years old.  I’ll never forget when a guest doctor told me that with my lifestyle I could make it until 90.  It felt like “Gattaca.”  Others were told by this same doctor they might not see 70.  Can you imagine being that age and hearing you have 20 less years than the girl next to you?  Our genetic future was being told and we hadn’t even lost our virginity yet.  

The final act of this slightly macabre class was a visit to the morgue.  I have been terrified of my mortality since I knew what mortality was.  I’ve been afraid of aging since I was a little girl.  I will, Ethers, eventually face this demon and write about it.  Death and aging=my Achilles Heel.  But Christ!  The morgue.  I would be dealing with the inevitable.  

We piled into a yellow school bus and were all very quiet.  When we arrived, they had scrubs waiting for us and face-masks.  The face-mask was to hide the overwhelming stink of formaldehyde.  Before even seeing a body, the stench made me woozy.  The room was lit by yellow lights.  The types you see in a parks—the ones that cast an eerie glow.  There were bottles with specimens in them.  Blackened lungs, an embalmed fetus, a damaged heart.  This I could handle.  This was like a set of a movie.  (I kept saying that to calm me).  But then a silver gurney was wheeled out.  It was odd as it didn’t seem to carry a full body.  A blue sheet covering a very small area was sitting in front of us.  Was it a child? 

And then they removed the cloth and all that remained was a breastbone, arms and hands of a woman.  She was as yellow as the lights and I remember her fingernails were perfectly manicured and she had long, elegant hands.  

We all wore latex gloves and were encouraged to touch “it” and study the forever frozen pose.  They didn’t consider “it” as a “her” anymore. But those hands. She was so human to ME. I couldn’t touch her.  I couldn’t fathom that she was once whole.  I asked the man who she was.  He said she was a homeless woman that was never claimed and therefore donated to science.  Can you imagine?  No one wanting you in this world and then being cut apart and being groped as an experiment? 

My classmates were extremely involved with the remains, but I couldn’t bear it.  The lights, the smell, her fingernails.  I had to leave the building.  When I walked outside and it was sunny with trees humming in the wind and an airplane passing in the sky, I couldn’t believe that there was a body in there who was once able to see what I was looking at.   That one day, I too, would be like her.  The sun felt awfully vibrant.  Such a juxtaposition from the deep yellow of the morgue.  When I went back in she was gone, but I noticed a refrigerated room.  The door swung open and I saw the stainless steel shelves stacked on top of one another.  Hotels with toe-tags as their room-keys.  

I think I was the only one who was really devastated by that corpse.  I kept seeing her damned hands.  When I wrote my report on the experience, I said that death was far uglier than I had thought.  The year ended and we finished the course.  I don’t remember much else besides what I told you about the class.  But that visit to the morgue.  I wonder if I was too young?  Because it left such a imprint on my brain that a decade later I still shiver when I think about it.  While I’m writing this, I see her arms on that metal gurney with those glassy nails—I will never get that image out of my mind.  

Death is hideous.  And some would say “Sometimes you’ve got to learn the hard way.”  But I don’t think I was ready.  I think it just solidified my fear.  I never thought I’d live to be almost 30 when I was 17.  Yet here I am.  And one day I’ll be on my death bed and I swear to you, I’ll wonder how this happened to me.  But, alas, the Grim Reaper has a date for me.  He certainly had a date for that woman on that metal slab. 

My god.  Those hands.  So yellow.  And so am I–especially about death. 

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365

I always wanted to "see the light." To unearth the secret of piety and understand religion. But no matter how hard I've tried and closed my eyes to see God, when I open them again nothing is different. Someone once said to me, "God's light shines on you." Oh, if it were only true. I'd love to feel the warmth if it were so. But so often I feel cold and alone. These are not my eyes in the photo--but another young woman's. Maybe she is looking into the light of God. I hope so. I wish I could see this magic so many people believe.

Dear Ethers,

Yesterday was the holiday Rosh Hashanah, which is the Jewish New Year.  It’s considered the first day of repentance.  Jews are supposed to think about their sins of the year for ten days—basically Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the day of judgment.  After pondering your behavior, you attend Temple for Yom Kippur (you fast on this day to REALLY think) in which you have hopefully repented and then become righteous.  

There are many types of Jews and services, and each conduct their own version on these holidays.  There are Reform Jews who are much more laid back, the Conservative Jews who are bit heavier religiously and the Orthodox Jews who are extremely religious.  Regardless, Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are the two big holidays of the Jewish faith. 

Ethers, in case you didn’t know, I am Jewish.  You must be wondering where I fit into the above.  How religious am I?  The sad thing is that I am not religious at all.  If asked, I say I am Jewish, but a cultural Jew, not a practicing one.  I was brought up with parents who were Reform and we went to the occasional service, celebrated Hanukkah, and I went to Sunday school and I had a Bat Mitzvah.  But for as long as I could remember, none of it meant anything to me.  This gravely upset my parents because they had hoped that I would carry on the Jewish tradition to my future family.  But religion, it just didn’t resonate with me.  

The reason I bring up the above holidays is because, for the first time in I’d say a good 15 years, I went to Temple with my family for Rosh Hashanah.  They were so pleased to have the whole family together for this day.  English gent came to check out what Temple was like, (he is NOT Jewish—he’s Anglican and not religious either) and I was curious to see, after almost half my life had gone by without attending a service, if my feelings had changed. 

My parents belong to a lovely Temple.  But, to me, it isn’t as striking or as powerful as a 17^th century church.  It just doesn’t feel as holy.  This immediately made me feel guilty.  When I would walk into a church in England I would feel the people who had put the stone and carvings into the walls gave their lives to their work for God and I felt the heaviness of this.  Now, don’t confuse this with me feeling a presence of God—but I felt a sense of piety that I didn’t when I entered this particular Temple with my parents.  Though I will say I have visited Synagogues in Europe that survived the World Wars and felt a sense of great power and strength for them. 

I sat through the cantor singing and the Hebrew words melodically spoke.  I repeated the same parts of the Torah that I said when I was 13 years old and stood conducting my own service as a girl on her Bat Mitzvah.  I looked around the room and saw a powerful fresco painted in 1929 with gilt accents that shone with scenes from the Torah.  I looked at the seats around me—the long benches filled with people who shared my religion.  Men wearing kippah’s on their heads, women dressed beautifully all proudly listening.  I heard the compelling speech the Rabbi gave that was so modern and could be given to any sect of people.  

And what did I do?  I walked away on this day to ponder my sins knowing that I didn’t believe…and that was the greatest sin of all.  That not matter how hard I wanted to, I just didn’t feel it in my soul. 

I am a cultural Jew.  When I meet someone else who shares my religion, we share a couple of laughs about the Yiddish words we know, and the crazy family stories we have in common.  And I LOVE that.  It makes me feel part of a culture.  But, in terms of the man upstairs, I gave up on him a long time ago.  I used to pray.  I would get down on my knees and squeeze my eyes shut and beg him to listen.  I would reason with him.  I know that I was probably last on his list—there were many more who had sacrificed for him—but I tried.  And nothing ever happened.  And I saw terrible things and experienced terrible things.  And I couldn’t buy it when people said, “It’s God’s will for that to happen.”  I just thought it was an excuse.  I am jealous of those who believe because I SO want something to give me answers about life after death.  To console me when I’m scared or down.  But my mind won’t allow this—and my mind tends to control my heart and soul.  

I felt like a fake in that sanctuary for that holy day.  I felt like a terrible imposter.  I hated that my mind wondered onto other things and that I didn’t believe a word that was said.  I’m sure that people who are religious would be angry that I would even dare call myself a Jew.  And for that, I have no answer either.  

The cliché is, “If there was God why did he let the Holocaust happen?”  or “If there was a God why is Charles Manson healthy as a horse and a good man like Christopher Reeve is dead from horrible suffering?”  I don’t even ask that.  I don’t even go there.  That’s how little I even think about it.  It’s such a pity so many people have died in religious battles.  But they believed and believe—so who am I to judge, right?  But so many deaths for a man no one can 100% PROVE exists (or can you?).  

My parents asked me if I will be attending Yom Kippur.  The day where you become cleansed of your sins.  I declined. Because, I suppose, the greatest sin of all would be showing up not having atoned for anything at all.  I have guilt everyday for things I do.  And I don’t think ten days and then one single day will give me a cleansing.  It’s the same with Catholicism.  When you die and you call for a Priest for Absolution, how is it possible to, in ten minutes, be cleansed of everything wrong?  Then why do anything right in this world if you know that your last ten minutes you’ll be free to go to the pearly gates?  

I am a Jew.  I’m also an Atheist.  I beg of you, please don’t pray for me for this entry.  And don’t get angry or upset either.  Just like you have your beliefs, I’m simply stating mine.  Let’s think of it as my “confession.”

Dedicatedly yours, 

—One of 365

"Death is always, under all circumstances, a tragedy, for if it is not then it means that life has become one." Theodore Roosevelt

Dear Ethers,

I was there.  I was in New York City.  I was 21 years old and had a plane ticket booked to leave out of JFK on American Airlines for September 13^th to London.   

Tuesday.  I remember the ceaseless noise of sirens.  Trash floating in the street.  The city a barren wasteland.  

Papers plastered everywhere on every possible surface with faces and names scrawled underneath begging for any information about loved ones.  College kids my age.  I stared at a picture of a boy.  It was a recent photo.  It said he was on a high floor.  I knew he was dead.  He looked so alive in the photo.  Handsome, even.  But the shaky pen on the flyer begged for information.  His picture was one of thousands on walls, on lamp posts, across the city.  I fingered these papers.  Hopeless cries for help, dirty and dusty from other fingerprints that had done exactly what I had just done—tried to touch their souls. 

I sat on a train where a couple had a list of hospitals that they were checking off looking for their daughter (this is what I could gather from their conversation).  It was grim.  They had many tick marks with X’s and not many hospitals left.  

The TV was relentless with coverage.  No one looked each other in the eye and if you did catch someone, it was a glazed over stare or a reddened, tear filled orb, exhausted from crying. 

No one understood.  The world had changed forever. 

I walked passed a firehouse that had candles burning for the men they lost.  

People clapped on the streets when a police car or a fire truck blazed by.

American flags were everywhere—it was a sea of red, white and blue.  But mainly blue. 

8 years.  Those interns would have been college graduates.  Some men and women might have been retired.  Many of those people might have been married and have had children.  

It used to haunt me.  The vision of that man who jumped out of the window.  What must he have been thinking?  Can you imagine having to decide to burn alive or jump to your death?  All he did was go into work. 

And then what about the woman who called in sick that day and never recovered? She still shakes everyday and is on disability from post-traumatic stress syndrome.  She believed it was her day to die and never forgave herself for not being in that building. 

I was one of 9 people who sat on the American Airlines 777 plane that finally got clearance to leave on September 19^th, 2001.  We all hoped that 777 was an omen.  I was grateful to leave.  I couldn’t bear the heaviness in the air anymore.  I couldn’t breathe from the pain and the loss.  

Being an American on September 10^th 2001 and being an American on September 11, 2001 was a transformation that will resonate with me for the rest of my life.  

I won’t say anything that anyone else hasn’t today.  But I felt it was essential to say my piece and honor those who perished.  Those who were strapped to their seats in horror when they hit the Pentagon.  Those who were brave and fought to their last breath to try and save their lives and their fellow man by rushing the pilot of that United plane.  Those who died in the towering inferno that was the World Trade Center.  The brave servicemen who went into that building knowing that they probably wouldn’t come out alive and put their lives aside to try and protect and serve.  

I am not a religious person.  It’s days like September 11^th that made me give up on that a LONG time ago.  But for those who perished and were pious—and for those whose families believe, I want to say that I hope that your loved ones are in heaven and are at peace.  And if I had a wish for you today it would be that you could touch those who you lost again and say good-bye one last time.  To have one last day.  To have it be September 10^th, 2001 again. 

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365