The Oppenheimer Report 9/30/13

We have been back up north for a little over a week now, and re-entering this house was a bit like opening up a short term time capsule. It is as if summer was put on hold July 6th, and everything froze. We left here in a hurry on that day and short of throwing out some leftovers from the fridge and cleaning up a bit, we did not really close up properly before we left. There is a bathing suit still hung over the post on our bed to dry, plastic flower containers still litter the property, bags of peat moss are stacked on the porch. There is a can of stain lying near the front door, because I had been in the middle of staining some of the porch furniture. I drove the ATV into Burk’s Falls the other day just in time to see what was likely the peak of Fall colors on that route. So much about the past two months is out of focus, a flash of time.

Back in 2001 when Jordan passed away, I made a makeshift flagpole out of a narrow pine, and from the dock we flew a flag of the planet earth at half mast. Jordan had a company called Planet Earth Productions , and the flag was something we found while we were cleaning out his apartment in Florida. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone else flying such a flag, much less at half mast, from a dead tree, but we did. Because he was a veteran, Syd had a Canadian flag draped over his casket, which was presented to the family after the service. A few days ago, I bought a proper flagpole and installed it on our dock, and we raised that flag to half mast to commemorate Syd. I do not know if we were even supposed to use that flag, or what the proper protocol is for flying it at half mast, but that’s what we did. As we did with Shauna’s brother we will scatter a little of Syd’s hair on the lake and recite The Mourner’s Kaddish. This property was his favorite place in the world to be, it is only fitting that a little of his DNA should remain here. I suppose everyone has their own little ceremony for their departed.

For the past week we have been receiving correspondences from people from all over, expressing their condolences and talking about what a good man my father-in-law was, and what happy memories they have of him. Some were patients, some were old friends who knew him from his childhood days. A lot of people have paid their respects. Shauna was worried that, as her family shrinks, it will be forgotten, and I remember raising that existential question when my father passed away four years ago. To me, my dad was an exceptional man, and I think a lot of other people felt the same way, but who would remember him in 20 years? He did not invent a cure for polio, he did not end the Cold War, there are no monuments to his greatness. The same is true of many other good people, destined to be forgotten as generations pass; but that is how it has always been. Unless some gifted author choses to tell their story, many great people are forgotten after they die. When Jill and I went to the Forest Lawn mausoleum in Buffalo to inter my dad’s ashes, we were handed a blue cardboard box to place in the crypt. I remember thinking to myself that we should have bought a fancy urn, but thinking about it, a cardboard box was exactly what my father would have wanted. No fuss. For the same reason he chose to be cremated, not something sanctioned by the Jewish religion, he would have eschewed all ceremony and unnecessary expense. Why pay for the fancy urn when it will be placed behind a stone and never seen by anyone?

I had a stormy relationship with my dad in my early teens, but he and I worked it out, and I grew to love and respect him very much. The same is true of my mom, although I don’t think I gave her as hard a time. Now that they are gone, I feel their life lessons indelibly burned into my soul. Who they were is in me now, and how I choose to lead my life from hereon in is the legacy that will either honor their memory or sentence me and my family to the anonymity I fear. The same is true for any family member or friend I have loved and respected and who is no longer here. How do I best honor the dead; certainly not by grieving incessantly? Whether I believe in the afterlife, or re-incarnation, or that nothing at all happens after we die, it is my life with which I am concerned. Do I matter, can I make things better, have I done more in my life to make my parents proud than ashamed; have I known love; more important, have I given love? I feel the influence of all these departed, and I hope I do not disappoint them.


“I am a shadow on the coat tails of fame, you’ve seen the face but don’t know the name/ I guess in some respects we’re all the same, when we play the imposter’s game …”

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The Oppenheimer Report - 9/23/13

 

The service for Shauna’s dad was last Monday, and given the short notice I was impressed with the attendance. The fact that he died on the Eve of Yom Kippur is I understand considered to be a great honor in the Jewish religion. I found it somewhat amusing that he passed at 11PM, because Syd always stayed up to watch the 11 o’clock news on CTV. The service was beautiful and meaningful. His wife Ethel spoke first, telling the story of their 73 year love affair, and of their 68 years of marriage. Shauna then got up and spoke. She read a poem about a nickname that her dad had picked for himself in jest over 50 years ago. When she asked, he told Shauna to call him her “Handsome, rich, clever daddy with the big brown eyes.” The eulogies were emotional and heartfelt. Then I got up and said something. To follow is my attempt to honor this man I grew to love over 20 years …
 

My Eulogy for Dr. Sydney Taylor - 9/16/13

 I have much to say and little time to say it, so instead of trying to put my many feelings about Syd Taylor into words, I’m going to talk about photographs.

 The last two months have been extremely challenging for the Taylor family, as we struggled to make Dad Taylor as comfortable as possible, knowing that his demise was imminent. One day last week, after we drove home from a particularly long day, I opened up my laptop and, as I often do for diversion, I started looking through old family photographs. I have A LOT of old family photographs from both sides of my family. Many of the Taylor photos show happier times up north at the old cottage in Katrine. Fishing was one of the things Syd loved to do up there. He was an excellent fisherman, probably one of the best on our lake, and he almost always came home with a string of presentable fish. In one of my favorite photos of Syd – he was a young man probably in his early thirties – he is standing next to his father Ike, and Ike is proudly holding a string of big fish, with a huge grin on his face. Next to him is Sydney, with an embarrassed smile on his face, holding up one of the puniest fish he would ever dream of keeping. You know Syd caught those big fish. The loving son, with a great sense of humor.

 One picture speaks a thousand words…

I paged through the volumes of photo files, through the old holiday pictures of the Taylors, at the dinner table, at family gatherings, during holidays, at the cottage, at bar mitzvahs and weddings, etc., and I was for a moment distracted from my current distress over Syd’s declining condition. I was instead reminded of a man who had lived a long, happy, and mostly healthy life, who loved nothing more than to excel at his chosen profession, to spend time with his family, to travel, to eat good food, to fish, and to laugh and joke. You could see in his face how proud he was of his family, how much he adored his children and his wife. That kind of love is not hard to spot. I particularly love one picture of Dad with Shauna perched on his lap grinning – she must have been about two or three -- and she was looking particularly adorable. In that photo I see the protective, nurturing man I came to know so well. He loved Dean Jordan, Shauna, and he loved me. The loving, protective father.

One picture speaks a thousand words.

 As I was paging through the family photos I came across one in particular that made me chuckle and then I teared up. It was dated September 17^th 2010, almost three years ago to the day, and it is of a day I remember very well. Syd and Ethel were up visiting us in Katrine. In large part due to their generosity, Shauna and I built as our primary residence a beautiful log home on the site of the old cottage, and they were visiting in the Fall. Syd was still ambulatory but was beginning to have difficulty walking. We knew he missed fishing, and we were not sure how many more chances he was going to have to fish, so I suggested we go out. Of course that meant driving fifteen miles away to find the minnow bait he required. We then rushed home to get it in the lake before the minnows died. Then, because he wanted to troll, we decided to take the little dingy. As he was stepping into the boat he slipped and got wet enough that he needed to change into dry clothes. Finally, after some difficulty, I got him into the boat, and as I was getting ready to start the motor, I heard a crash, to see that he had lost his balance and fallen backwards off the seat. In so doing, he had managed to get a fishing hook caught in his chin. Now he’s bleeding, and as I got him back on the seat, he looked at me with a sheepish grin as if to say, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea … wherein I gave him the Jewish pep talk: “look you SOB, I didn’t just drive all that way to Magnetawan, then race back here, then wait for you to change your clothes, then struggle to get you in the boat, just so you could wimp out on me etc. Here’s some Kleenex now cowboy up, we’re going out!

 Long story short we did go out, and Shauna photographed us, Syd all bundled up in a winter coat, both of us grinning as we trolled around the lake. We didn’t catch anything that afternoon, but we watched a beautiful fall sun set together, and we joked and enjoyed our putt around the lake. My memory is of a man who despite the ever increasing limitations of old age, was willing to embrace life, with a smile on his face and a light- hearted insult for his beloved son-in-law. One picture speaks a thousand words.

 I spent many, many happy times with Dad Taylor over the twenty years I grew to know him, and what I will always remember is how completely he embraced me as one of the family, and treated me like his own son. And I treated him like a father. Whether it was closing up the cottage, or attending a Leafs game together, or just sitting around the dinner table laughing, I felt that profound and indescribable sense of family and I loved him, and I love Mom Taylor, more than they will ever know … He was a kind, gentle, intelligent, wonderful man – the best dentist I have ever had -- and an inspiring role model for his love and dedication to his adoring family.

 I was blessed to have known this good man, and I expect that he is now reunited with the departed family members he so cherished, now that he has been released from this world. Thank you Dad, it was an honor.

 That was my eulogy.

One final note. There was a baby monitor video camera in the Taylor’s bedroom, pointed at their ensuite bathroom. The caregivers used the wireless monitor to keep an eye on Syd when they left the room, and while Syd was in the hospital, and Shauna had the monitor turned on in our bedroom. Shortly after Syd passed away, the night she was writing her eulogy, Shauna looked in the monitor to see three, clear night vision apparitions on the screen. One was Syd, dancing around joyously, clearly happy and fully ambulatory, no longer a prisoner of his body. To his right was his son Jordan, grinning and pointing to his dad, as if to say “I told you there was an afterlife!”, and behind the two of them, with his head sticking out between them, a hand on both their shoulders, was Syd’s father Ike, grinning proudly. All of them looked younger, and very happy. I suppose a skeptic would say this was a wishful hallucination, but Shauna has many times before astounded me with her prescience. I prefer to believe what she saw was how it really is, and that the suffering we endure on earth is but a whistle stop on a very long journey. So far it has been an interesting one.

 

“Some people say they saw you, and you were dancing in the clouds/ Who knows where the illusion ends when the spirit cries out loud” 

                                    - excerpt from “Jordan”

 

Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

Yom Kippur 9/14/13

 

Last night, at about 11PM, my father-in-law Dr. Sydney Taylor passed away, peacefully in the Veterans wing of Sunnybrook Hospital, with his wife and his daughter by his side. He died at 11PM on Friday the 13^th, 2013, on the Eve of Yom Kippur. I don’t think I am going to have a problem remembering that date. How appropriate that he should pass on the eve of the Day of Atonement. Syd was 88.

For all who knew him, Sydney Taylor was a wonderful man. He was humble, intelligent, funny, and generous to a fault. I was his patient for about ten years, and he was hands down the best dentist I ever had. He had patients who routinely flew in from Vancouver and Italy to use him because he was that good. He was the best father-in-law any son-in-law could hope to have, and I will miss him dearly. So will a lot of other people.  

His service will be at Benjamins Memorial Chapel at 2401 Steeles Ave. W., Downsview, Ontario  this Monday at 2:30 PM.

 

Right now I suspect he’s eating his mother’s apple pie up in heaven. May he rest in peace.

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The Oppenheimer Report 9/9/13

Out for a Great Burger at "Holy Chuck"

A belated L ’Shana Tova to all the members of my tribe! Last Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and like so many events of this past summer, I learned of it the day of. As I sat in Warrior’s Hall last Thursday night, alone with my mother and father-in-law, and Dad’s caregiver, a group of young Jewish gentlemen walked by carrying shofars, ram’s horns blown like a bugle on this High Holy Day to herald in the New Year. The sound emanating from a shofar is a wonderful, unique sound, and to me it has always symbolized hope for a good future. We asked this group of Jewish men if one of them might sound the shofar for our little group, which one of them did willingly. It was a moment of joy and humor in what has been an unhappy period in our lives. In keeping with the challenging nature of the past six months, Rosh Hashanah was another deep trough on our roller coaster of hopes. The previous day we had learned that one final attempt to insert a feeding tube had been unsuccessful, and that short of comfort feeding, there was little more we could now do for Dad Taylor. The sad part about all of this is that his vital signs are generally good, but without nutrition he cannot survive. Unlike the sad but definitive prognosis of a standard terminal illness, the uncertain and ever-changing future of stroke victims is full of confusion and emotional pain for the family.

 

Lines are being drawn in the sand, one behind the other. The big news last week focused on the proposed U.S. strike on Syrian targets to retaliate for Syria’s use of chemical weapons on her citizens. This is when international politics baffles me. Most of the world has publically decried the use of chemical weapons, and considers this a war crime, one that should be punished. Yet, when we have (allegedly) clear evidence that Syria has committed this crime, gassing and killing 1400 of her own people, and when the U.S. threatens to retaliate, everyone backs away and says, “well, let’s talk about this.” I found it interesting to hear former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, opposing the proposed strike on Syria. Largely blamed for mishandling the conflict in Iraq, and stung by bad intelligence on his own watch, perhaps Rumsfeld is gun shy. Of course it is politically opportunistic of him to claim Obama lacks leadership, but what IS the right thing to do? Since there is no international consensus, it puts Obama and Kerry in a precarious position. Back Israel or back down. Politically this is a lose-lose for Obama as most Americans clearly do not want another protracted involvement in an unwinnable Middle East conflict. Most of the Free World does not support this strike, and there is a very real danger is that the powder keg will erupt into a much bigger fight. Russia and Iran back Syria, so this could escalate. Obama will make the case for a “limited action” with no boots on the ground, but if the U.S. is sucked into a bigger conflict – and there is plenty of history to prove this is a distinct possibility – he then becomes the guy who started WWIII. Assad is not Hitler (yet), but perhaps a symbolic gesture should be made to drive home the point that some weapons are off limits. Meanwhile, the Arab Spring is turning to a harsh winter, and Egypt is unstable right now. If you figure out a peaceful solution to all the conflicts in the Middle East, let me know!

 

From the sublime to the ridiculous, the Toronto International Film Festival, or TIFF as most Torontonians call it, was on all last week, and the stargazers were out in the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the hundreds of pampered, overpaid celebrities roaming about. I listened with bemused detachment to the non-stop drivel reporting what red carpet event this star or that would be attending. I just came from the stroke ward where my retired firefighter friend George was rejoicing because he had regained some limited motion in his non-dominant hand, and I’m supposed to be interested in some bonehead bartender earnestly discussing the importance of providing “A List” celebrities with perfectly presented cocktails? What a joke. George was an underpaid hero; movie stars play people like George and get paid millions to do so. Go figure.

 

Did you see Matthew Cordle’s online confession to drunk driving, wherein he basically takes responsibility for his crime (“Because I Said I Would”), insuring he will serve a lengthy jail sentence? One side says he should have thought of that before he recklessly killed a man with his car, but another says that because his message has gone viral, maybe it can change the behavior of some heavy drinkers. Long ago, Shauna’s grandfather was killed by a drunk driver, so that message is relevant to her. I read that NFL has recently anted up $750 Million to compensate NFL players for crippling head injuries. And finally, here are two new expressions that have emerged from our hi tech society: zombie pedestrians: people who don’t pay attention to where they are going as they text, and “Gameboy Back”: an affliction of young video gamers hunched over their Gameboys. Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

 

 

The Oppenheimer Report - 9/2/13

Syd on left with his family

HAPPY LABOUR DAY!!

 

Here in the Veteran’s wing of Sunnybrook the inmates have it pretty good. I’ve been inside a few long term care facilities/ retirement homes/ nursing homes over the past ten years, and from my cursory observations, this one is near the top of the heap. What I like about this veteran’s facility is that there is always something going on to keep the residents occupied. Bingo is a big draw in Warrior’s Hall, the main assembly room for the resident veterans, and several times a week there is a full house for Bingo. One can always tell when another Bingo session is imminent, because the Bingo board and table come out, and the wheelchairs begin to assemble. The stakes are not particularly high – my mother-in-law won two bucks the other day – but that doesn’t seem to matter. I think the aids and companions get more excited about it than the codgers do. There is other entertainment as well. The other day, I watched a bit of a martial arts demonstration, there are old movies, storytelling sessions, and a lot of musical performances.

The first few “concerts” I sat through ranged from really bad to atrocious. I imagine some musicians volunteer their services, which is nice I suppose, but when I can honestly say I could do better, then those performances might be better left unheard. I found myself wondering what goes through the minds of some of those “C List” performers as they gaze out at the sparsely populated audience of wheelchair-bound listeners, half who are asleep, or slumped over in their wheelchairs unresponsive. Do they get discouraged when half of the audience wheels away before the gig is done? Do they think to themselves: “I’m only doing this until I get my big break?” Clearly, this is the foul underbelly of showbiz . The other day, as I was dropping Shauna and her mom off at the door, Shauna heard some music coming out of the hall and told me it sounded pretty good. Shauna is an excellent judge of music, so I parked the car and went in to hear half a set of a really good big band performance. I am quite sure those guys were getting paid. The thing that struck me funny about that gig was that their closing tune was My Way, which seemed a little grim for that crowd.

I suppose what is best about these gatherings is just that; they are social gatherings. However dysfunctional, demented, or damaged that aged population of attendees might be, they are in fact a little community, and in my opinion, any social life is better than none. For some reason, it reminds me of my boarding school days, and while that comparison may seem a little far-fetched, it’s really not. At my boarding school, there was a tight knit little community of sometimes dysfunctional inmates, who had limited freedom, who ate in a community dining room, and who attended many of the same events together – we all enjoyed our bus trips away from the school, as I am sure the elder veterans enjoy getting away from their facility – and we all tolerated each other to a greater or lesser degree. While the elder veterans suffer from varying degrees of senility, by comparison, some of my high school classmates evened out the playing field with their drug abuse (present company included). Some of us got along better than others, but we lived together, different as we were, with the same low base line of respect that is required of any community. The other day I walked in to the community dining room on the floor where my father-in-law now resides, to nuke my dinner, and one of the several women I call “the screamers” was in there, along with some other wheelchair-bound elders. These women made shrill, disturbing, blood-curdling horror film screams. And they scream a lot. As I was putting my congealed Mexican take-out from the supermarket into the microwave, she sucker punched me with a chandelier-shattering “GET OUT OF HEEEEEERE!!!” and it freaked me right out. I was so surprised I practically flung my fajita and rice at the wheelchair-bound gentleman closest to me. He just looked at me with a half-smile and shrugged, as if to say “whattyagonnado?” The people on that floor are so accustomed to her that they don’t even blink an eye. The nurses know she is not violent, which seems to be their benchmark for acceptable behavior. There is I think a tacit tolerance of dysfunction in any community. One of my girlfriends in college had gone to an experimental learning boarding school in Vermont for her high school years, and I’ll never forget one story she told me. All the students had daily chores, and one guy, we’ll call him Pete (not his name), was in charge of milking the cow. Early one morning, one of Pete’s classmates walked in on Pete as he was “having his way” with Elsie, and within an hour the whole school knew about it. The bizarre part about it: Pete lived down his scandalous behavior, and remained on campus. His nickname became “Pete the Cow-F-cker” for the rest of his high school career. Can you imagine living that down?! You have to have lived in a boarding school to know that infamy and scandal are embraced with the same kind of bizarre acceptance that your family accepts weird Uncle Bill at Thanksgiving dinner, the guy who has a collection of miniature medieval torture devices, and has an entire set of living room furniture upholstered in squirrel pelts.

 

You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. Sometimes you can’t even pick the people with whom you reside.  

 

                                             -Written by Jamie Oppenheimer c2013 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED