November Rain

With our Grandma Lida in 2007

Bob Geldof wrote a song proclaiming August is "a heavy month." True, Sir Bob, but November is the heaviest month for me and my family. This month marks 5 years since our beloved Amir left us. I still have moments where the very fact that he is not here takes my breath away. I still do not believe it's possible that he is not with us, that the sun keeps rising, that our lives could possibly continue without my brother. How can they keep making Star Wars movies when he's not here? How can his favorite artists continue making music? How can Yael and I continue to exist as two instead of three? How has this new reality gone on for FIVE effing years? How have we survived it?

And yet, life goes on. That, I've learned, is one of the most painful elements of grief - the unending sorrow of being left behind to carry on when that's the last thing you want to do. I don't want to end my life but, more often that not, I resent and lament that I have to go on without him here.

Grief continues to sneak up on me like a sly cat. Hearing a random song in the grocery or drug store, smelling a certain brand of cigarette or laundry detergent, stumbling across a meme that would have Amir giggling, reading a news story about something from our childhood... all can stop me cold in my tracks, aching with remembrance.

For example, there's been extensive media coverage lately about the fall of the Berlin Wall, 30 years ago. It was my first year of college and I remember talking to Amir about how fucking bizarre it was that David Hasselhoff was performing there. Then, this week, in NPR's reporting on the anniversary, they interviewed a man who was 6 years old when the wall fell. I listened to him recall how, after watching Hoff's concert, he and his little friends had presumed that Hasselhoff himself was responsible for the wall coming down! I got a chuckle out of the story, but Amir would have found it utterly hilarious. The thought of Amir missing out on so many of life's little absurdities makes every memorable moment bittersweet. 

13-year-old Amir, with Dad

I'm also hearing a lot about the 50th anniversary of Sesame Street, the show that was so integral to our childhood. Oh, how the coverage takes me back! Even the voices of the muppets remind me of Amir, particularly Bert. Why did preschool-age Amir seem to feel such an affinity for Bert? Probably  his gentleness and wiseness. Even as a preschooler, Amir understood that, in many ways, Bert was the teacher and Ernie the student. Bert was the reasonable foil to Ernie's silliness, which, to be fair, Amir also got a kick out of. No one could ever say Amir wasn't silly - he thrived on it. I will never forget the sound of young Amir's high-pitched giggles at the antics of the muppets or Mel Brooks movies or so many other ridiculous things he loved. What would he make of the endless stream of absurdities the world is seeing now?

Fuck November.

"I'll never forget that phone call..."

25 years ago, I was living in L.A. when news broke of the brutal murders of O.J. Simpson's ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman. In the weeks that followed, Ron and Nicole's families appeared in the media often, sharing their pain and their pleas for justice. I remember being particularly struck by Goldman's heartbroken father and by his sister, Kim, whose deep pain and anguish at losing her brother read so clearly on her face. She was my age and she was going through the worst pain I could have imagined in my life: losing a sibling. Two decades before I experienced her sorrow for myself, I truly ached for her.

Like so many others, I followed O.J.'s trial closely and was shocked when the jury acquitted him in spite of formidable evidence against him. I could not imagine the unspeakable toll that verdict took on Ron and Nicole's families. How could they bear the anguish of, first, losing their loved ones in such a horrifically violent way and, then, seeing their loved ones' killer walk free?

Years later, never having made sense of the injustice of the trial, my interest in the crime lies mostly in thinking about the families. So, when I learned that Kim Goldman had created a podcast about her family's loss, the trial and its aftermath, I was intrigued. Even before I'd lost my own brother, I'd felt a certain kinship with her because, any time she spoke of Ron, she described their incredible closeness and how few people could comprehend the immensity of her loss. Having enjoyed that same exceptional closeness with Amir, I could not fathom having him ripped from my life.

Goldman devotes the first episode of her podcast (Confronting: O.J. Simpson) to remembering her brother and sharing stories about his life. She speaks to friends about Ron and what he meant to them. She does what I've attempted to do with this blog for the past 4+ years: she invites anyone listening to understand the person her brother was, how he lived his life and how deeply missed he was.

It is extraordinarily difficult to convey how essential it is to me that people remember Amir. As the five-year mark of his death approaches, I may write less often, but it is no less important to me that he remains among us in our hearts and minds, in stories and writings and memories. I will continue to ask Amir's friends and family to share stories about him, be they short or long or seemingly inconsequential. I want to hear them ALL and put them on the record. I am persistently hungry for any tidbit about his life, any small glimpse into his mind, any delicious dollop of his humor. I treasure these morsels and hoard them in my memory as if they were the rarest of diamonds.

*This post's title comes from the first episode of Kim's podcast, in which she and her father relate the details of Ron's death. Her father, Fred, begins his remembrance by saying, "I'll never forget that phone call." Sadly, Fred, I know exactly how you feel.

Co-Conspirators

"My siblings were my first co-conspirators in the harvesting of my imagination." - Patti Smith

I fucking love this quote and I have for years. Not only were Amir and Yael my very first co-conspirators, they were the most present and persistent harvesters of my imagination and, for that, I'm eternally grateful. I could not have asked for two more exceptional co-conspirators, collaborators and friends.

April has begun, a month always difficult and bittersweet. Amir would have, should have, turned 43 on April 7. How I wish I could clearly visualize my brother at age 43. He was 38 when he died, still partially a child in my mature eyes. Would he always have seemed like a child to me, as his older sister? He will always be 38 - a fact that I will never be capable of grasping fully. The brutal unfairness of his absence still blows my doors off every fucking day.

And I don't believe in unfairness. I don't believe fairness is promised to anyone, anywhere. I have seen little reason to believe in karma. I don't believe people get what they deserve, be it good or bad. I believe that sometimes good, deserving people get dealt atrocious fucking blows in life while undeserving, garbage humans win at everything. Naturally, I don't believe it should be that way. That's the rational side of my brain speaking, the side that nearly always speaks the loudest.

Last night, I dreamed that my sister Yael and I were engaged to marry the Princes Harry and William. (I could not possibly hazard a guess as to why.) In this curious dream, we were in Buckingham Palace, sporting obscenely gigantic diamond rings and discussing wedding details with the princes. Amir was there, laughing his face off and snarking hard at the notion that his goofy sisters were to become princesses. He suggested Yael was excited about her royal bethrothing, while I dreaded being in the spotlight, forced to live in some cold, sterile castle, raising joyless potential heirs.

Even stranger is that Jason was there, asking me if I thought I'd be happier with Prince Harry than I was with him. (My response: "No fucking way.") Odder still is that Jason's family was there, including his deceased mother and stepfather, who congratulated me excitedly in spite of Jason's disapproval. Hours later, I am still furrowing my brow over what that shit was supposed to mean. No fever or drugs were involved in the conjuring of this bizarre scene.

Any time Amir or Jason visits me in a dream, I awaken disoriented and frustrated. When they occupy my mind during those hours I'm awake, it's because I invite and implore them to step to the forefront and to be present during my daily doings and musings. I suppose I subconsciously invite them into my nocturnal mind as well, longing to interact with them, to hear their voices, to be near them again, if only for a few precious minutes.

Amir would be turning 43 on Sunday. I will turn 48 this year, meaning I'll have had a full decade longer on this earth than my darling brother was granted. 10 years more of experiences, good and bad, of adventures and travels and laughter and hardship. 10 more years of life. How have I used those years to honor him? This question inspires and motivates so much of what I do and how I live. How am I honoring him? How am I honoring both of them?

Amir's iPod

Changing the calendar over to 2019, I realized this year will mark five years since Amir's death. Five fucking years of a deep heartache that never lets up and never will. As one friend puts it, grief gets "softer" but not easier. That will never change.

A year or so ago, Amir's girlfriend Joleen was kind enough to send me his iPod. Amir had owned an iPhone, but he preferred the old click-wheel iPod for cataloging his music. Once I could procure an old 30-pin USB cable to charge it, I eagerly scrolled through his music library, nodding familiarly at most of the artists, but surprised by some others and, subsequently, crestfallen that I wasn't aware he liked these particular artists because (a) I like them, too, and we could have discussed their merits; or (b) I'd never heard of them and wish he could have told me more about them; or (c) I wish he could have explained to me why certain songs were meaningful to him. Now I'll never know and that fucking sucks, to put it rather ineloquently.

Eventually, I turned over Amir's iPod to Yael so that she could pull his music and add it to her own. Soon after, she and I got to discussing Amir's music library--the oddities, the surprises, the memories. Nearly every song prompts some emotional response, be it nostalgia, sadness, amusement or a momentary tick of joy. We talked about his love for Queen and pondered what his reaction might have been to the film Bohemian Rhapsody. Yael reminded me how Amir pulled us into his room to spin A Night at the Opera, demanding our specific attention to this extraordinary song that blew his little-kid mind. (These days, I dread hearing it, partly because it is so overplayed, but also because I hear Amir's boyish voice singing "Gal-i-leeeoo!" and it just eviscerates me.)

Years ago, during a time when Amir had been going through a breakup, he and I talked nearly every day, sometimes very late into the night, until I physically could not stay awake any longer (at which time Jason often took over as his counselor in those post-midnight hours while I attempted sleep.)

During one late-night call, Amir and I were discussing the distinct soul-crush of listening to certain songs during a sad time. As Amir noted, putting music on "shuffle" mode during a time of heartbreak could be likened to playing Russian roulette. Exactly, I'd responded. We singled out our revered Elliott Smith, Lou Barlow and Jeff Tweedy as embodiments of songwriters who know precisely which heartstrings to tug until they howled. (I'm looking at you, Barlow - Amir and I concurred that "Soul and Fire" is a 4-minute machete to the chest.)

Four years after Amir's death, listening to music on shuffle mode still elicits an unending range of emotional reactions. (Even tedium like "Dust in the Wind" [not found on Amir's iPod, lest you admonish his musical taste] affects me in a way that stirs contempt.) Every time one of his favorite artists releases new work or announces a tour (or dies), my heart sinks into my stomach. He won't be here to experience it. He won't be here to discuss it with. He is missing out on so much and, as long as I remain breathing, that horrific fact will never cease to devastate me.

Four Years, Part Deux

Please read my last post (November 15) for context. Here are more excerpts of messages from Amir's coworkers as well as SAC members:

“Amir and I had a shared sarcasm and his sharp wit and biting sense will be greatly missed. We had joked together about what a (joyful) pain in the butt some of the players here could be. I’ll miss his smile and his voice on the phone. It breaks my heart knowing how much life he had left, but I know he had a positive impact on many.”

"Amir was a part of our community and now there is an empty spot that can't be filled. He never did convince me that baseball isn't the most boring sport ever, but he definitely tried his best."

"I have known Amir for the past year. He was great. He was my go-to guy for information and always an ear to talk to. We often talked about office politics, but he always said nice things. He always kept such an even keel and it seemed he couldn't be bothered by anything."

"I worked with Amir and had a chance to listen to some of his heartaches. He was really a sensitive man who loved and was loved much. I am glad I had the opportunity to meet him. He will be missed."

"I will miss Amir's kindness and sense of calm. A very good man who always interacted with quiet respect and touched our lives. He will be fondly remembered."

"I always enjoyed chatting with Amir. He was always patient with my questions. He struck me as a sweet, gentle person and I will deeply miss seeing him every week. SAC was a brighter place with him here."

"Amir was a good, lovely man. He always had a kind word."

"Amir was a sweet, always-helpful man. It was always reassuring to see him."

"Amir was a special person. I truly enjoyed his company and friendship. He was a good person."

"Amir was the best man to ever work at the tennis desk. I've known him personally for over four years. Amir meant a lot to me; we watched many Blazers games together and we would talk for hours. Amir will always be close to me and I'll never forget the person he was."

"Amir was a wonderful person. I used to chat with him a lot; he was very interesting and nice."

"I had the pleasure of training with Amir a few weeks ago. He was so helpful and patient and I really enjoyed getting to know him better. He had a great sense of humor, too. We will all miss him."

Indeed, we will and we do. Every day.

Four Years

Next week, November 22, will mark four years since the day our beloved Amir died. Some days, I still cannot believe he is not here and, on top of that disbelief is the disbelief that I'm still in disbelief. If you can't quite wrap your brain around that, imagine how senseless it seems in my own mind. I miss him terribly every fucking day and as I navigate this life without him, his absence reverberates in countless ways.

I'll be spending the 4th anniversary of Amir's death in Europe (Prague, this time). I am anticipating another bittersweet journey -- I'm excited and grateful to explore a new city and country, while I'm pained to recall how badly Amir wanted to see the world beyond his own and how heartbreaking it is that he never got the chance. He was robbed of so many other chances as well. (Of course, if I start enumerating all of those, I won't get around to what I'd intended to write here.)

As November 22 nears, I want to share the heartfelt and remarkably complimentary things people wrote about Amir immediately after he died. The health club where he worked for several years (SAC) held a well-attended memorial service, at which they circulated a guest book. I'm proud and humbled to share the wonderful tributes SAC's members wrote about Amir*. Some are lengthy, but I hope you will read them and, in doing so, expand and enhance your sense of who Amir was.

First, a note from his boss:
"Amir was an amazing person. He worked hard for me and the club. The members will miss him; they were his friends and SAC was his home. We will forever remember him. He always took care of us. I read an excerpt from Amir's writings. It was an amazing bit of literature that described himself and life. He will always be in my heart and mind and in the hearts and minds of everyone at SAC."

Notes from club members:
"SAC has been a better place because Amir brought a quality forward that is hard to find. A kind and honest spirit that everyone loved."

“He was indeed Amir (which means ‘rich’ in Hindi) – in his talk, dealings and helping others. He was one of my favorite friends at the tennis desk. May he continue to touch others.”

“[He was] a bright star and sharp wit and always so grateful.”

“Amir will be missed for his dependability, level-headedness, insightful thoughts and all. He was a pleasure to know.”

"Amir was a fine man and we really enjoyed talking to him. We were impressed with his maturity and integrity and we will miss him."

"Amir was a great friend. I loved discussing music with him. He was intense and cultured. We talked a lot. The last CD we discussed was Caetano Veloso and David Byrne at Carnegie Hall. He liked talking about his parents and how great they were. He pointed at the fact that mixing cultures was always a plus. I will miss his friendship. He is one we all liked."

"Amir was the kind of guy that took some effort to get to know, but that is what was delightful about him. Through our conversations, I discovered that Amir had lots of layers. One was his dry sense of humor. We were forever teasing one another and he seemed to be always having the last laugh, so quick and witty. We talked of sports, his love of writing, politics and religion. I learned through our conversations how important family was to him. He told me once his guidelines for dating and the one that stood out was that she had to have a good relationship with her family. This was a true example of his kind spirit, unselfishness and soundness of character. There was so much more to Amir than people realized that was hidden because of his quiet nature. But his compassion for life, honesty and strong principles soon became clear as you got to know him. Amir positively affected other people and brought such joy to our lives."

“I always enjoyed chatting with you and discussing basketball. I remember you as a very kind and cheerful person.”

“I will miss our chats. I will miss your dry sense of humor. I will miss your patience with us members.”

“You were my secret friend. You helped me through the darkest period of my life, simply by being you. For months, I would come to string racquets, just to have something to do other than obsess about my circumstance. I was always glad when you were here. Even our long periods of quiet in that small room were never uncomfortable. I knew we could pick up a conversation where we left off any time. You got the play by play. You knew my secrets. You were wise, tolerant, patient. I truly treasure that time spent with you. You weren’t perfect. You had flaws like we all do. But you were the perfect person at the perfect place at the perfect time – for me. I will miss you, secret friend.”

*These comprise only a small selection of the tributes in the guest book. Please stay tuned... I look forward to posting more soon.