When Calanit was born, my mother said to Tamar and me, "the days are long, but the years are short."
[Note: You can read this entire email (and many other thoughts) online at my Blog
http://jer979.blogspot.com/ Plus, you can add your comments there as well.]
Now, on with it…
You know how when you are at weddings or other lifecycle events and the parents inevitably say something along the lines of "I don’t know where all of the years went." Well, the other day, I had to adjust the straps on the car seat because Calanit has become too big for the smallest size and I started to get pretty emotional. OK, I admit it, I had tears in my eyes and crazy as it may sound, I said to Tamar, "our little girl is growing up."
She doesn’t fit into her first set of clothes anymore; She’s double her birth weight; and she’s more alert now, recognizes people (at least us), and is doing a pretty good job standing up. (Pictures available, of course.) Every day, it seems to us, she gets more and more cute and we work to savor and cherish each moment since we see that, though there are times when it is challenging being a parent (I had to change her on the floor of a Starbucks in Manhattan after she peed and pooped all over herself and there was-gasp-no changing station, now that I care about such things), it is oh so worth it and it’s going to fly by in ways that we can’t even imagine.
It’s weird, since I want her to grow up and I want to see what kind of person she is going to be, but at the same time, I don’t want to wish away any of the time, since it is becoming more and more clear how precious that time is. What’s more, in a cosmic sense, as she ages and moves towards adulthood, that is also a symbolic passing of the torch to her generation and Tamar and I move on towards the end of our lives. Yes, it’s easy to say that that is far away and hopefully, it is, but in the great span of history, it’s really not.
Not to be morbid, but mortality is something that is on my mind. It comes at me as a result of one key word: RESPONSBILITY.
You hear the word a lot as a kid and it’s part of your maturation process, but man, until you have someone whose entire existence relies upon you (and your teammate, of course, lest you think I do most of the work, when it is really Tamar), you don’t know nothin’.
Not only that tremendous daunting feeling of having to provide for a child financially, but beyond that to instill the values you hold dear, to educate, to teach her how to think, to challenge assumptions, to ask questions, to be kind and considerate. That’s intense.
But it is even beyond that. It’s how every aspect of your life now carries that weight with you. For example, I was walking home the other night from a social event and I got caught in a MASSIVE thunderstorm. We’re talking major thunder and lightning. I had no cover. I had no choice but to make a mad dash for home and I realized, that for the first time in a long time, I was really afraid of dying. I know the chances of getting struck by lightning aren’t too high, but they sure are higher when you are outside, soaking wet, with no cover, running in an open parking lot. I kept thinking about Team Epstein at home and how they depended on me.
Then, I thought about the reverse. What would I do if something terrible happened to them? These thoughts also plague me on a day-to-day basis. I used to see news stories about random, freak accidents that took the lives of parts of families and kind of say, "yes, that’s a tragedy," but it is only within the past 6 months that I have started to feel the pain of other people in this respect.
Tamar and I have made a large investment of time and energy to put together an infrastructure that will support each other or Calanit in the event of the unthinkable (well, not really, since we have thought about it) in terms of Wills, Life Insurance, Guardians, etc., since to not do so would be the height of irresponsibility in my book, but after all that is said and done, there’s no amount of planning or money that could possibly prepare you for that type of loss.
I remember when I first started dating Tamar and we were moving up the scale of seriousness, we talked about how when you open yourself up to feel love, you simultaneously open yourself up to tremendous pain.
My brother-in-law, Akiva, said to me during Tamar’s pregnancy. "You can’t imagine the love you are going to feel for your child. Yes, you love your spouse, but your own child, that’s something entirely different."
I used that as a basis for my comment to Tamar before my first multi-day business trip after Calanit’s birth, when I said to Tamar, "I’m going to miss you, but I’m REALLY going to miss the Pook."
(Note: my current nickname for her is "the Pooka." Common usage is: 'can you check on the Pook?" or "Hey, Pooka, how are you doing today?")
So, yes, I do drive a bit slower now, don’t rush through every yellow light, and start seeing household hazards well before they materialized (maybe a bit neurotic, but not too much) and in some ways, I’m turning into my dad, which is a topic for another time and another email.
But in spite of all of that pressure and concern that responsibility brings with it and no matter how rough my day has been, when I come home and she sees me and gives me a billion dollar smile, it’s impossible not to feel good. When I make a silly face and she breaks out laughing, that is the "priceless" feeling of parenting. I love seeing how she tries to fight off sleep and keep her eyes open (what a contrast to later in Life, right?) and those quiet moments when she's preoccupied with a book or something and I'm just holding her, feeling her little body expand and contract with each breath. And watching this little human experiment of mine (my dad says that for Tamar, Calanit is a baby, for me, Calanit is a prop) unfold with each passing day and the slow changes to her body and personality, that's a miracle in progress.
We're also blessed because the Pook is incredibly low maintenance. She's been sleeping through the night since she was 6 weeks old, only cries for the absolute basics, and in general, doesn't ask for too much. I've said that she's going to "con us into another one" (no announcement) and the downside is that other parents hate us for it J
But, when she does cry for something (for example she's been a bit sick this week) and we don't know what's bothering her, it's just the worst. I hate it. There's a beautiful, but helpless girl here and all I want to do is make things better for her, but I don't know what to do. That's the toughest. Well, that and trying to balance between wanting to spend all of the time I can possibly with her and recognizing that the business of life needs to continue, such as earning a living.
And now for a few other interesting pieces of information.
- My phone bill is going down
Over the past year, I've received an email from my phone company on two different occasions telling me that my monthly bill was going down. I use www.vonage.com which, if you have high-speed Internet at home, is a very appealing way to get UNLIMITED LOCAL AND LONG DISTANCE plus all of the features for about $30/month.
PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU ARE INTERESTED, AS A REFERRAL FROM ME WILL GET EACH OF US 1 FREE MONTH.
- How well does your favorite charity do?
If you are in the habit of giving charitable donations, I'd recommend a visit to www.charitynavigator.com It's a great site with rankings for how effectively each charity makes use of the money it solicits (versus how much goes to overhead). If a charity solicits me and it is in the bottom 50% of its peer group, I will email them and tell them that I won't donate until their rating goes up. I want more of my money going to the cause.
- My mother's business got a nice mention in the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45776-2004Mar10?language=printer
4. Try this Left brain, right brain trick. It's pretty neat.
While sitting at your desk, lift your right foot off the floor and make clockwise circles. Now, while doing this, draw the number "6" in the air with your right hand. Your foot will change direction and there's nothing you can do about it.
- I've been taking an online course at Capella University, www.capella.edu
It's amazing to think how the delivery of education has changed so rapidly and will continue to do so. I've never spoken to or met my classmates, but we're reading the same texts, having discussions about them, and learning, all on our own time and from anywhere there's a computer and Internet connection.
Until next time,
Jer (on behalf of Tamar and Calanit)
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