MICHAEL'S YAHRTZEIT, MOTHER'S DAY, BARRY'S BIRTHDAY

INTENSE PSYCHO-DRAMA AKA GRIEF + LOSS

PENSACOLA, AT THE BEACH, 1998

Today is Michael's yahrtzeit, five years have passed. During this time of social isolation, I miss him and think about him more than ever. He was always supportive and encouraging to me and my endeavors, more than anyone else. ("You don't know what you got till it's gone." Joni Mitchell.) I talked to Michael two weeks before he unexpectedly passed away. He told me he was moving into the house he built. I asked him how he could do that without an Occupancy Permit. He said his father was helping him get the Permit and then he and his father would move in. I missed him so much at that point, I said, can I please move in too ? Without missing a beat, "he said, sure, come ahead. How many cubes do you have, count them and let me know so I can figure out where to put them."

RAILING AT THE UNIVERSE, REVERE BEACH

Today is Mother's Day, always a difficult day. Now that I am approaching the big 7 0 , I have a different perspective.  I treasure the memory of her offering to buy me ballet shoes shortly before she was gone. She reached back 50 years for that reference to The Dorchester Years. That came out of left field.

Her headstone was installed at the Baker Street cemetery but not in the space it was designed to be in. I went to the cemetery back in October to see it. I got the second shock of my life to see an empty space ! The stone was designed for placement between SANDERMAN and GEHR.

I went to the cemetery to measure the space between SANDERMAN and GEHR in the summer of 2018. I met Judith Kaplan from the Jewish Cemetery Association at the cemetery. She saw me measuring the width and height of SANDERMAN and GEHR.

Instead, in October, 2019, I discovered it in another space, 'shoehorned' in between two stones with barely an inch to the right and left.Whoever saw anything like that ?!?!This is unacceptable. Newton Memorial Arts did not get their final payment. Instead they got litigation.

I filed a Complaint with the Attorney General's office in Massachusetts against the monument company, Newton Memorial Arts and the Jewish Cemetery Association. They did not do their jobs. I planned to go, in person, to the Attorney General's office in Boston  with all my supporting documentation for the Complaint. The coronavirus and lockdown orders prevented me from going. Depending on when Massachusetts opens for business, that's the next step.

May 12th is Barry's birthday. The last time I spoke to him was back in October. He told me he sold his house in Canton and bought a ranch in Saugus and got back together with his girlfriend Carol.  I do not know the 'adult' Barry, only the little boy. I was a second mother to him. Michael was always very good to Barry and they talked on the phone quite a bit. It was while talking to Michael in 2012 that he mentioned my mother was in the hospital. I asked him how he knew that - "I was talking to Barry." Then I had to call Barry and find out where she was. Three weeks later she was gone.

I asked Barry to contact his attorney regarding the Headstone issue. He said he would. I never heard from him.

Maybe now's the time to write about The Malden Years. Shirley walked into that marriage, upright, walking and vertical, a single-working mother before it was 'popular to be one' as she put it during the Gloria Steinhem years. That is not how she came out of it. Enter Julius Silverman, stage left.

Childhood drawing, Barry Marc Silverman, Malden, MA