Goodbye, Again

Amir and Jason, late '90s

I've been neglecting this blog due to yet another horrible tragedy in our family: the death of my husband, Jason, at age 40. As most of you know, Jason and Amir were friends since their teenage years, sharing a biting wit, a keen sense of humor and a love of wordplay, music and Star Wars. Sadly, they also shared a susceptibility to anxiety and depression and the resulting tendency to isolate from friends and family while self-medicating with substances (pills for Amir; alcohol for Jason).

Amir and Jason were both troubled souls, both tortured by insecurity and crippling self-doubt coupled with a somewhat inflated sense of self-worth common among addicts. They each were keenly aware of how incredibly intelligent, funny, creative and sensitive they were and yet they struggled to achieve the successes and milestones so many of their friends had. There's a reason Jason stepped into my life and became my best friend, lover and partner: I fell deeply in love with a man who was a kindred spirit to my brother, the closest male to me in my life.

I don't believe in heaven or an afterlife, but I can't deny the sense of calm I get in imagining Amir's and Jason's spirits together somewhere, discussing their lives and sharing their relief at being free of the horrific prison of addiction. The idea that they both are at peace--their troubled minds quieted, their anxiety finally quelled--is a comfort to me as I mourn them in different ways. They are no longer struggling, no longer questioning, no longer sad or confused or anxious, no longer suffering.

That just leaves the rest of us to suffer in their absence.

Your Guess Is as Good as Mine

The following was written by Amir's boss and read aloud during a memorial for Amir held by his coworkers and clients a few days after his death:

"I realized over the last several days that Amir touched everyone's lives who entered the tennis center over the last 6 years. Every kid, adult, member and guest he had helped in this club in some way with amazing poise, courtesy and honesty. That is why I remember I hired Amir that I noticed he had those qualities.

He loved his Lakers and loved baseball and all you had to do is ask him about either and he would start talking. You may have thought he was a quiet, shy kind of guy but just get him going on most subjects actually and it got his mind and voice going.

I learned new things about Amir from members and friends over the last several days that he had shared with different people that I never knew about. Such as his love for doing crosswords with ease (often teasing others who did and those that attempted them, he'd often say the daily crossword was easy and he had already finished it). I also never knew about his love to write literature and his amazing story about his grandmother, who survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps to eventually get his family to America. If you haven't read this, please do so, it is an unforgettable story.

Amir told me how he felt that SAC [Sunset Athletic Club] had saved his life over the last several years because he was finally able to get insurance to help him with the cost of his medications and treatment. Amir treated SAC and its members as it was his life here. I want to say thanks to all the friends/members that helped him along the way survive through some tough times.

I am going to read you something I found that Amir had written a couple of years ago that I think gives us some insight to how Amir's mind worked and what a great person he was...

Endless false starts, hiccups and blown promises later, here we are again. Unsolicited musings from my heart and brain to yours. A lifetime of transformative joys, sorrows, indifference, low-brow humor, cruel irony and bitter sarcasm. From literature to sports, philosophy to pet-rearing, I take pride in spanning a wide swath of disciplines. I intend to take you on a journey that you'll most likely soon forget. I'm your everyman neighbor, if your everyman neighbor was a reclusive, technologically challenged Bar Mitzvah boy with a displaced chip on his shoulder for absolutely no apparent reason. Only one caveat here, folks: Your Guess is as Good as Mine. At turns immodest and self-loathing, decent and crude, radiant and dull. I operate on the premise that we're all individually carving out our place in this world. At the end of the day, the differing paths are all born of the same motivation--the need to sift through the bullshit and chaos and hone in on something authentic and lasting. Corny? Probably. Beautiful? Certainly.

Amir, we won't forget your journey."

If I Could Turn Back Time...

Now you have an earworm. You're welcome!

I haven't written here in weeks but that doesn't mean I haven't written. I just have trouble formulating my ramblings into anything coherent. My thoughts are so garbled these days--I'm struggling with focusing in every sense of the word. Part of that is my health issues (certainly not going into that here) but it's also due to grief. While my parents and sister and I are grieving in different ways, with some obvious similarities, we all share this lack of focus. My mind wanders constantly and thoughts of Amir pull me out of whatever I was thinking or doing, leaving me confused and scattered. No one tells you grief makes your mind stop working properly.

In the days immediately after Amir died, I was desperate to find some kind of support group for my particular type of grief. There are plenty of support groups for parents grieving a child or for spouses who are widowed or for children who have lost a parent*. But I found limited resources for adult sibling loss. One group I found here in NYC didn't have enough participants to continue after the first meeting.

On Facebook, I found Grief Beyond Belief, an online group that has helped both my mom and I immensely. It is here that I can openly share with others and derive comfort and support from people who know the shitstorm grief can dump onto your life and also understand and relate to the ups and downs of grieving that I never would have understood had I not lived it these past 7+ months. I've never met any of them but, as a group, they have guided me through this new reality and I'm very grateful for that.

When I was in junior high, I remember wishing I could rewind time and go back to my younger years, a feeling that hit me even more strongly in high school. Can you imagine being 16 or 17 and wanting to go back to a "simpler time"? Well, that's how I felt. I wrote about it in my journal, how I longed to go back to the days before SATs and AP exams and anxiety over boys and money and my body and college and whether I was smart or savvy enough to succeed in the world.

An oft-repeated adage says "time heals all wounds." And yes, the immediate shock and grief of a loved one's death fades as time goes by. But in some ways, my grief has intensified. Grief changes as weeks and months go by and you get further and further from the time when your loved one was alive. The formerly routine act of turning the calendar page to a new month has become a painful reminder that I'm entering yet another new month without my beloved brother and friend. I ache to be able to rewind time, to go back and be with him again, to have one more deep conversation, one more hug, one more laugh.

The passing of time has factored into my grief in a way I never expected. Members of the GBB group share often about their longing to rewind time. Not to save their loved one or alter history, but to just recall how they felt before their hearts were weighed down by grief and longing. I think of November 2014 and I ache--a deep, painful ache--to go back. If only to tell Amir what an incredible person he is and how dearly we all love him. I know he knew it, but I wish I could tell him one last time.

*In fact, I recently heard a wonderful podcast about a support group for children who have lost a parent. I'm an ass for not remembering which podcast but I can narrow it down to two or three. The name of the support group has completely escaped me. This is why I have to write everything down now. Even the important stuff gets lost amid the chaos in my mind.

Higher Power

Amir and I had a great many personality traits and beliefs in common, one of which is atheism (or, at the very least, agnosticism--we had not discussed it in some time and though Amir knew that I am an atheist, I can't say whether he had come to the same concrete realization, our shared fondness for Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins notwithstanding). We had talked about the lack of evidence for any type of god or god-like higher power in the world and how glad we were to be part of a family in which religion was never important nor emphasized as an essential part of our lives. For me, the term "higher power" meant nature and the living, breathing world around us, oxygen, water, our universe, our planet, our loved ones--all the things that keep us alive in both the physical and emotional sense. My family and friends are more of a higher power in my life than any god conjured up by me or any religion could be.

I have found heartfelt and helpful support through a Facebook group called "Grief Beyond Belief," which brings together those of us grieving a loved one without the comfort of belief in god. I'll admit sometimes I wonder if I'd have an easier time accepting my brother's death if I believed he was in "heaven" or that he was with our deceased grandparents or that I'd see him again someday. Would mourning him be easier if I didn't believe death was final? If I believed he was still "here" in spirit? I wonder about these things often. The religious find comfort in ways we atheists never will--they express their grief through prayer and belief in god. They glean comfort from their fellow believers and the notion that their loved one is "with god" or "in heaven" or watching over them, a guardian angel.

Comforting as those ideas may be, my logical brain prohibits me accepting those ideas for which there is no evidence. I can only find comfort in my memories of my brother, the life he lived, my memories of him and the love we all have for him. I know that only my own death with be a release from the pain of losing him and other loved ones.

Members of the Grief Beyond Belief group post stories of their loved ones or share their grief in ways that I find comforting, particularly from those who have lost a sibling. I feel a strong connection with people who have lost a brother, just as my mom has found comfort from stories of those who have lost a son.

One member of the group, Amy Teel, recently lost her 17-year-old son. She wrote a long, insightful post that resonated deeply with me and I asked her permission to share it here. An excerpt:

"The problem of evil is one of the main contradictions when I consider the idea that a loving, omnimax god exists.
It cannot. No logical definition for a god has ever been introduced, i do not pretend to need one when tragedy strikes.
The characteristics of all gods on offer are dismantled when a guy like Jake dies.
My son is not the only important & good human to have been taken too soon, to have died while being stellar.

If there was a omniscient god, it would have known this was going to go down prior to February 6th.
If that god was omnipresent it means it stood by and watched.
If it is an omnipotent god, that means it was powerful enough to stop that event in a plethora of ways, but it didn’t.
It stood there, present in the 20 seconds my son was conscious, and did nothing.
If it is an “all-loving god” and it didn’t prevent this event, it cannot be omni-benevolent.
It is logically impossible that that god exists and is "all loving."
The god is dismantled and must be taken out of the equation, and because I consider myself an honest person, it’s gone. Logic dictates, and I do my best to follow only that road.

Some people have said, “God needed him more, he needed another comedian”
A god that needs anything is not a god.
Some have said, “He’s watching over you” or “He’s in a better place"
His optic nerves, his entire body is ashes now, he cannot watch anything. “He” is not a conscious thinker or intender, anymore.
Consciousness, as evidenced, is the result of a brain, nervous system, physiology. It cannot exist without those components.

The dead are dead. The facts are cold, and I don’t need or find any use for an emotional crutch to save me from this bitterness.
Time will carry us to a place where we don’t feel broken.

I am in one piece, I will be able to accept my fucked reality and not find it taking me to my knees, some day. I will do this, because I intend to.
I can take actions that are contrary to the way i feel. I can walk into life and participate, even if I don’t think I have the strength to. We all can.

Jake in skin, is done. There is no evidence that a soul exists.
The ambiguity of supernatural ideas concerning what a soul or spirit would be doing are a mind fuck that my prioritizing of evidence saves me from.
Thank you for understanding, and if you don’t understand, thank you for respecting my lack of belief and instead focusing on being close, loving and fully present."

Six Months

It's been six months since we lost my brother and I'm still having a hard time coming to terms with the sad fact that he is not here. Six months and there's a sense of disbelief that won't leave me. Six months and I still pick up the phone to call him. Six months and I still have to stop myself from starting emails to him. Six months and I still forget, momentarily, that I can't forward that funny video or article to him. Six months and I wake up each morning having to remind myself that I'm no longer the eldest, but the elder. That a huge, irreplaceable part of my life is gone.

Last week, we celebrated my sister's marriage to a warm and wonderful man who made a beautiful speech at Amir's funeral in spite of never having had the privilege of meeting him. Yael and Thiago's party was a lovefest for all, in a room bursting at the seams with warmth and joy. My mom admitted a few days before that she felt overwhelmed about a weekend of celebrating when we are all grieving and missing my brother. I admit I felt the same way. How could we be joyous when his absence was so palpable? How could we eat, drink and dance when our sorrow is so profound?

But we did. I reminded my mom the day before the party that Amir would be fucking peeved at all of us if he knew we spent any precious time being too sad over his loss to enjoy ourselves, particularly my sister, who waited so long to find her perfect partner and deserved this party so absolutely. Amir would want us to have the best fucking time and to celebrate the joy of the occasion unreservedly.

I thought of him all night long, as I'm sure many people did. Every photo snapped should have had him in it. Every toast--he should have been there raising his glass along with the rest of us. Every song--he should have been there dancing (though, frankly, he likely would have skipped the dancing in favor of hanging out in the parking lot, smoking pot and shooting the shit with cousins and old friends).

I fucking hate that he wasn't there. I'm so angry that he missed out.

Amir would have been fast friends with our new brother-in-law, with their shared intellect and curiosity. Their new bond would have made the occasion all the more glorious. But it was not to be, shitty as that is.

I am immensely proud of my sister and my parents for enjoying the fucking hell out of that party in spite of Amir's glaring absence and the gaping holes in all of our hearts. I don't believe in heaven or spirits but I was comforted knowing Amir would have been beaming with joy for our sister, the beautiful love she has found and the wonderful blended family she and Thiago have created.

Axl Rose's Orthodontist

I've spent my Saturday morning reading through old emails and chats with Amir, feeling a strong need to connect with him. Grief is a more complicated thing than I'd ever imagined. And yet... you strip away all the complex emotions and ups and downs and "what ifs" and you're left with "I fucking miss him."

Reading this Gmail chat from last year made me smile. I can "hear" Amir in these chats and emails (and cherished piles of handwritten letters) that I will forever cling to as a way of keeping Amir's exceptional wit, humor and intelligence alive and preserving our unique interplay. In this one, I believe we started off talking about David Bowie and Mick Jagger's semi-ridiculous cover of "Dancing in the Streets." (P.S. I never did get my $20 money order.)

Fwd: Hangout with Amir (Jun 23, 2014 - 4:21 PM):

Amir - 4:21 PM
Yeah, that video was a low point for both icons. Then again, very few Rock stars from the seventies made a smooth transition into the eighties.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:22 PM
C'mon, David Lee Roth transitioned perfectly to the 80s!
And what about the Steves? (Perry and Tyler)

Amir - 4:27 PM
You are mistaken. First of all, Van Halen and Journey were both more eighties than seventies. So yes, their lead singers were younger and more hip in the MTV age. And though Aerosmith are clearly a seventies band in origin, Tyler was a raging coke addict in the early eighties and looked like shit. Aerosmith went dark between 1979-1986, they were a fucking mess. Tyler cleaned up and they busted out "Permanent Vacation."

Ayelet Prizant - 4:30 PM
Yes, Tyler came back in late 80s and made gazillions w/ new fans and videos. I"m sure I can come up with someone else. Elton John? Big glasses in 70s, different big glasses in 80s = $$$$$!

Amir - 4:32 PM
Yep. Also: Billy Joel (until he grew that shitty goatee and crashed into a tree), Mark Knopfler, Neil Young, ZZ Top (shittier beards that hid the fact that they were 50 yrs old) and actually, Bowie from '80 - '84 was very much at the forefront of all trends.
"Serious Moonlight" Bowie. Not "Blue Jean" Bowie.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:33 PM
Don Henley! Pansy-ass lite rock in 70s, similar in 80s, with artsy black and white videos to sell gazillions more.

Amir - 4:34 PM
A Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:34 PM
Hey, I learned the word "deadhead" from that song.
Sad but true.

Amir - 4:34 PM
Everyone born after 1960 did.
Then Henley did that one with Axl Rose. Twenty bucks if you name that tune without Wikipedia.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:35 PM
I Will Not Go Quietly

Amir - 4:35 PM
Holy shit.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:36 PM
Boy am I a sad specimen of what the human brain is capable of.

Amir - 4:36 PM
I'll send you a money order.
I was gonna say I Will Not Lie Down
A strange pairing.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:37 PM
I remember really liking that song.
Recently downloaded "Sunset Grill," too--always liked that one.
But Jason and I were listening to oldies radio at home yesterday and we both groaned loudly from different rooms when "Hotel California" came on.

Amir - 4:43 PM
Is "Sunset Grill" the name of a good steak house in Hollywood?
What is that song about?
And yeah, it's very difficult to hear Hotel California with fresh ears. It's just too ubiquitous.

Ayelet Prizant - 4:44 PM
Probably a titty bar
Or gay bar

Amir - 4:44 PM
Or an orthodontist.
Axl Rose's orthodontist.