24/7

I wear this turquoise bracelet 24/7. Paul is always with me. The other side of the bracelet gives our local Suicide Prevention Hot Line number at Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services, reminding me how important suicide prevention is.

On this day, his birthday, and what has been our end-of-year custom, we donate to our favorite charities. Among them are those we added to our list after Paul died: Didi Hirsch, The Compassionate Friends, Congregation Tikva Jacob, and the Paul Sharples Memorial Endowment at Crossroads High School to support the jazz music program. The jazz program at Crossroads was such a great influence on Paul and his performance abilities, that I hope the endowment in his name will provide the same kind of inspiration to other young musicians.

So Happy Birthday, Paul. No matter what, you are with us 24/7.

The edge is off

Paul's birthday is tomorrow.


Usually I'm beside myself as I approach this time in December. I'm nervous, I can't concentrate, and I just want the visit to the cemetary on Paul's birthday to be over. This year I'm much more calm. He is still a huge part of my life. But my thoughts about him don't run my life anymore.


We plan to go the cemetery tomorrow as always. But this year it feels like we’re just fitting the visit in between the rest of the events of the day. I'll go to the gym as usual, do my normal morning stuff afterward, go to the cemetery, get a manicure and pedicure, take care of Oscar (maybe), and then go to the movies and dinner with Ben and Marissa. In years past all I could do was think about and dread going to the cemetery. I could hardly do anything else. So definitely the edge is off. I can honestly say I’m moving on. His death doesn’t impede the rest of it. 


Three Cemeteries
On a cool, sunny day in Normandy
the breeze does not disturb
the graves at the American Cemetery.
No matter where you stand,
looking diagonally, horizontally,
or straight back and forth,
each alabaster-white grave marker,
each chiseled engraving
in perfect precision
and symmetry
as far as the eye can see.
The grass covering the graves
mowed just the right height,
a shade of green
from a Technicolor garden.
A rectangular reflection pool,
the curved wall inscribed with the names
of 1,557 Americans missing in action,
the center bronze statue commemorating
the spirit of American youth,
and the Omaha Beach below 
create a restful setting
for the 10,000 allied soldiers
killed in 1943 or 44
during World War II.

On a gray, rainy day
in Prague,
hordes of tourists stroll
through the Jewish cemetery.
Their feet crunch
the brown and yellow leaves

 covering the ground.
Housing 800,000 graves –
some over 12 layers deep –
this cemetery, not functional since 1787,
verges on collapse.
The packed gravestones lean
every which way
in a hodgepodge of rectangular, square,
and triangular shapes
so old, so worn and broken
the Hebrew or Yiddish markings
are hardly readable.
Just like the Jews
who were forced to live
crammed together in
the Prague ghetto,
these gravestones want
to escape the barriers
that keep the visitors and vandals out.

On a stormy day

in Los Angeles

we drive through the gates

of Hillside Cemetery

and curve around the drive

to the back wall

and a small plot

of miniature, flat, rectangular,

gray and black marble gravestones

lying flush

with the closely cropped grass,

marking the cremated remains

of fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles,

and grandparents.

Full sun interrupts the downpour

just long enough

for us to kneel

at our son’s grave

on his December 31^st birthday,

wipe away the raindrops,

leave a smooth black stone

and four yellow roses

and allow our tears to fall.

Happy Birthday, My Madison

Madison is seventeen years old today. We first met when she was eighteen months old. That day she  took my hand and we bonded immediately.

I think of Madison as my granddaughter I love her so much. We spend a lot of time going to lunch and the movies together. She is also known as the Sundance_Kidd, the writer of a wonderful movie review blog.

During the last couple of years of Paul's life when he was living at home, he bonded with Madison too. She would sit beside him on the piano bench as he played for her, he put her up on his lap and showed her how to use the computer, and he played with her out in our yard. He was very sweet with her.

She says she still remembers those days.

Madison, I hope you're having a wonderful birthday. I'm so glad you are in my life.

Oh, baby, baby it's a wild world

Paul loved Cat Stevens, as evidenced by the following poem.

Cat Stevens Then and Now

As I walked up the stairs I heard Cat Stevens singing

the familiar words of his song, “Morning has Broken,”

and there I was back in 1973

in our old gray Chrysler station wagon

with the fake wood trim red-leather seats,

and Paul was sitting in the back,

belting out the words with him. He was only two then,

still clutching his green stuffed turtle for dear life

as we drove along.

His fat cheeks were rosy red, his blonde hair

cut like an upside-down cereal bowl around his face.

Then I return to this day and my table at the

westside mall where the lunch crowd

is beginning to gather not knowing or caring how I grieve

for the chubby little boy sitting in his car seat

when so little made him happy

The sound of one hand

Almost from the time Paul was a baby my husband read Zen parables to him at bedtime. As he grew older he developed an interest in them and especially liked the two books by Paul Reps: Zen Flesh, Zen Bones and Zen Telegrams, and Be Here Now by Ram Dass.

Coincidentally in this month of remembering Paul's birthday, I came across a New York Times article about an exhibit of the art of Zen Master Hakuin (1685-1768) at the Japan Society Gallery in Manhattan until January 9, 2011. And I am elated to know the exhibit will be at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from May 22 to August 17, 2011.

Hakuin, besides being a an artist, was a poet. And he was the Zen Master who came up with the koan "What is the sound of one hand?" It was later popularized with the addition of the word "clapping." My Paul indeed liked that koan.

Here is Zen Master Hakuin's poem that elaborates on the koan.

An ant goes round and round without rest
Like all beings in the six realms of existence,
Born here and dying there without release,
Now becoming a hungry ghost, then an animal.
If you are searching for freedom from this suffering
You must hear the sound of one hand.

Perhaps Paul finally heard the sound of one hand.

Happy Holidays to all

Choices will be off the air until Monday, December 27. In the meantime I want to share one of my "winter solstice" gifts. A nice addition to my Buddha collection.

Ganesh - the Hindu god of success

Here's wishing you all a happy, healthy, and successful new year.

At the piano bar

We sat at a piano bar last night listening to an old master play. Within seconds I was mesmerized back into memories of Paul at the piano. This man played the way Paul had played, and he played the same tunes. All the standards with jazz improvisations that showed real music genius.

Early on Paul was told to get The Book – a compendium of all the songs a musician needs to learn if he/she wanted to be hired to play gigs at a bar. And sure enough Paul got the book and learned the tunes in it. I remember how he meticulously kept a list of the tunes he knew. He was always adding to the list.

Another thing that reminded me of Paul was the way the man sat – close into the keys with his head leaning way down as he played. Maybe that’s the way all jazzmen play.

Last night that old musician played jazz piano to perfection. So perfectly it made me cry.

My Jazzman

My jazzman                                                                       

beat it out

on the mighty eighty-eights,

played those riffs,

tapped his feet

bent his head

down to the keys,

felt those sounds

on his fingertips.

Yeah, he was a hot man

on those eighty-eights.

But all too soon

his bag grew dark.

He went down,

deep down.

My jazzman

played the blues,

lost that spark,

closed the lid.

And, yeah, you got it right,

quit the scene.

laid himself down

in that bone yard

for the big sleep.

Yeah, for the really big sleep.