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Loss

Our Mom & The Bouquet of Peace

April 8, 2022 by Janine Crowley Haynes

After you lose your mother, Mother’s Day becomes a somber day of reflection. Our mother is gone 21 years now. She died from lung cancer at the age of 56–a year younger than I am today. It was strange for me when I realized I’m older than my mother would ever be. Still, I reflexively reach for my phone to call her whenever something good or bad happens. Then, remind myself, with phone in hand, she’s not on the other end.

Her life was brief, but the life lessons she instilled in her three girls come back to us constantly. Sometimes, her lessons come slowly, subtly, and, other times, they slap us right in the face. I cannot express how much I love when that happens. Belonging to an Irish Catholic family, living in the Bronx, my mother was the eldest of six. Her life was filled with a steady stream of laundry–much of it done by hand. So, when she married, she insisted on squeezing a washer and a dryer into our already cramped kitchen. It would finally free her of the laborious chores of her childhood.

When I was 11, our parents separated. My mom, two sisters, and I would spend many years in our kitchen talking over the vibrational whir of the washer and the thunderous tumbling of the dryer. At dinnertime, she’d stop the machines mid-cycle so we could have some quiet conversation. Even after working twelve hours a day, six days a week, our mom always made time to sit at the kitchen table and ask about our day. The image of her reaching over to pull open the dryer door, without getting out of her chair, is forever etched in my memories. 

Right there, in our groovy 70s kitchen with its loud orange and yellow geometric, metallic wallpaper and knock-off Saarinen white-round table with matching bucket chairs, hung a print of Picasso’s Bouquet of Peace. Since I was, as my mom would say, ‘the artistic one,’ I had trouble with the drawing’s simplicity. I mean, I was 12 and could draw a more lifelike image of a bouquet of flowers. It perplexed me as much as it intrigued me. As a teen, I found myself researching Pablo Picasso and the phases of his work. His earlier work was spot-on realistic. So, clearly, he knew how to draw and paint, but the influences of the time, lead him to break free from realism and delve into cubism, and, eventually, he turned to painting in a childlike manner. I also learned he painted The Bouquet of Peace in response to the peace demonstrations taking place in Stockholm in 1958.

Our kitchen table was the roundtable of our world. Under the watchful eye of The Bouquet of Peace, it’s where our single bra-burning, bellbottom-wearing, liberal-leaning mother created a safe space for her three girls to talk about anything and everything. Nothing was off-limits. It’s where she celebrated our rite of passage into womanhood, and, subsequently, where we complained about our cramps and pimples. It’s where we learned to put on makeup. It’s where we cried over boys. It’s where we talked about our mother’s limited paycheck and how, if we wanted a new pair of Jordache jeans or a new pair of Candies, we had to work for it.

The response to a piece of artwork is typically an emotional one–even if it’s no response at all. Picasso’s flowers were always waiting to greet me in the morning. I’d stare at it while eating my Cheerios. My mother loved the cheerful nature of it and how it represented a sweet gesture of one person giving to another. She shared with me how the giving of something as simple as a bouquet of flowers could bring much joy to the recipient. In those moments, my mother was teaching us the art of the giving, the art of simple beauty, and the art of appreciating art. 

So, when I noticed my sister hung that very painting in her laundry room, it bothered me. Why would she choose to hang a significant piece from our childhood in such an obscure place? Then…BAM!!! It hit me. My sister got it right. It was the perfect place, right next to the whoosh of washer and the melodic tumbling of the dryer. Like I said, I love when that happens.

Filed Under: Inside Thoughts Tagged With: Artwork, Bouquet, Essay, journey, kitchen, Life Lessons, Loss, mom, mothers day, Our Mom, painting, reflection, remembrance

When College Ends Abruptly

March 22, 2020 by Julia Bialek

Offering a larger perspective too, Julia Bialek documents the “abrupt goodbye from Yale”–and feelings of loss and longing due to a short-circuited semester caused by COVID-19 campus closures and dismissals.

PHOTO by: Alison Zerbib

In 2012, a Yale student named Marina Keegan wrote an incredible article that gained national attention, titled “The Opposite of Loneliness.” In it, she explored how although there isn’t an exact word for the opposite of loneliness, we can define it through a feeling, writing: “We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I’d say that’s how I feel at Yale.” Keegan sadly lost her life in a car accident only a few days after graduating from Yale, but her words still beautifully describe what makes the school so special. So after Yale’s announcement that it would be joining many universities in closing its campus and conducting classes online in response to the coronavirus pandemic, many of my friends began sharing her article on Facebook as a way to articulate why they felt such sorrow over losing time at school. As I read and re-read her op-ed, I couldn’t help but think about why students, both at Yale and at other universities across the country, were mourning the loss of time at school. And the answer I came up with is that if being at Yale, if being at college, feels like the opposite of loneliness, then not being at school feels like the opposite of memories.

Just over a week ago, Yale bid us adieu and sent us on a generous two-week spring break. As we left campus, there was no official mention of online classes or campus closing. We were sent home during the “in-between phase”: after people began realizing that slowing the spread of the coronavirus may require bold, disruptive action, but before any actions were taken. As I prepared to go home and packed a suitcase, my roommate asked me why I wasn’t taking more of my clothing home with me, why I was leaving my favorite pillow, why I kept my books in my school desk. “It’s only two weeks,” I remember replying. “We’ll be back soon enough.” Thinking back to that moment and how much has rapidly changed since then, I feel a sadness that is hard to describe. There was no way of knowing that it was the abrupt ending to a semester for most, and the abrupt conclusion of their Yale experience for seniors. As I left campus, there was no way of knowing that those last moments were the end to my incredible first year at Yale. And unlike so many students at so many universities, we didn’t get a proper goodbye. We left for spring break fully expecting to return, but for those of us who are lucky enough to have more time there, that return won’t be until August. It’s devastating.

The global situation pertaining to the coronavirus pandemic is evolving rapidly, and it’s scary. People are losing loved ones and losing businesses. People are struggling to support their families as social distancing requires many to stay home from work. The health care system is preparing to be overwhelmed as the United States fails to heed the warnings of history, a history that took place only two weeks ago in nations like South Korea, China, and Italy. The economy is bracing for a massive recession. And – without a doubt less severe, but most pertinent to my situation – hundreds of thousands of college students were sent home to complete the remainder of the semester online. I fully acknowledge that in the grand scheme of this pandemic, having a semester at college cut short doesn’t even come close to the worst of its effects on society. Right now, people are dying and suffering, and the majority of college students will return to our campuses in the fall like we never left. However, the loss of time at school amid this uncertainty just adds to the unsettling nature of this new reality.

PHOTO by: Alison Zerbib

For many college students, their university is more than just a place of learning. Perhaps it’s the place where they finally became comfortable with who they were, or found their first love, or understood what it was like to feel safe, understood, and valued. “Going to college” implies more than just going to a physical campus to acquire knowledge; rather, going to college refers to a defined period in our lives – our ‘college years’– full of learning about the world and learning about ourselves, full of friendships and growth, full of moments and memories. We lament the loss of time at school because we lament the loss of all the memories that may have been. The season that the student athletes trained so hard for, but never got to see through. The relationships that perhaps only needed another few weeks of nurturing to become something more. The treasured time for seniors after they finish their exams but before they walk across the stage with their diplomas. The feeling of campus in the spring, when the sadness of goodbyes is balanced by the promise of possibility radiating from the rebirth of the natural world. The big events that form the unique traditions of each campus. The small moments that stay with us, that make our universities feel like home. It is the opposite of memories – those moments that were supposed to be ours but never materialized, now only existing as abstract ideas in our minds of what may have been – that we lament the most.

But we’re home now. Our college quads have been replaced by our backyards. Our lecture halls have been replaced by our living rooms (or our beds for those of us who still need to virtually attend 9 a.m. classes on Zoom). Our roommates and suitemates have been replaced by our family and pets. All of a sudden, nearly overnight, everything is different. We are living in unprecedented times, and there is no playbook for how to proceed. These next couple of months are certainly going to be strange. And for many college students, being away from school means being confronted by challenges regarding their family situation, their health, and their ability to devote time to their schoolwork and access the necessary resources to do so. But despite social distancing and being away from school, no one should feel isolated, and no one should feel alone. Now more than ever, it is all of our jobs to look after ourselves and each other, to check in with and support the people that matter to us, to make the best of these uncertain times.

So now we have a choice. We can spend these next few months contemplating what may have been and feeling sorrow over the moments that never were, or we can take this day by day, feeling grateful for the memories we’ve already made and looking forward to the ones to come. Because for those of us who are lucky enough to have found a place and a group of people who make being away from college so heartbreaking, we have a lot to be grateful for. It’s inevitable, this pandemic will take things from us – all of us. And while we cannot control the loss of what may have been, we can take this time to cherish all the wonderful things that are already ours.

Filed Under: Inside Thoughts, Surviving COVID-19 Tagged With: College Closures, College Dismissals, COVID-19, Goodbyes, Impact of COVID-19, Loneliness, Loss, memories, Yale University

A First Father’s Day…

May 28, 2019 by Grace Bennett

I love being a publisher and editor and proudly covering a wide swath of Northern Westchester! But like most people, sometimes I do experience a bout of the blues, for any number of reasons. I also recognize that the reasons are circumstantial. In the last month or so, I lost my father, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, and grandfather of four. I simply miss him to pieces, especially as I approach a First Father’s Day with him gone. Nonetheless, I know the blues are not a medical diagnosis. They are a state of mind that can be helped whether by say, leaning on friends and family, keeping a journal or maybe taking long meditative walks. The more ‘serious’ depression and all its potential consequences continues to challenge scientists around the world. So I was glad to attend an event by the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation who make it their mission to support advances in this area; my report: https://www.theinsidepress.com/tipper-gore-breaking-the-silence-about-mental-illness/

But back to my dad. As I consider that he’s gone, I also understand that his legacy will never leave me, and I intend for it not to leave this world either. The dangers of silence are all too clear. I attended a May screening of the movie Complicit at the Chappaqua Performing Arts Center. It was stunning in its revelations of what led to 937 terrified Jewish passengers aboard the SS St. Louis being sent back to Nazi controlled Europe–first by Cuba and then so sadly by orders of the state Dept. and President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Over 250 of the passengers aboard were later killed–but it was the ramifications which were far worse: The horrific rejection gave Hitler exactly what he wanted: a perfect opportunity to “prove” to the world that Jews were expendable. #NeverAgain

Everyone knows a survivor’s best revenge is a long and fulfilling life. I’m thankful that my dad with a life well lived offering inspiration to many. Please be sure to read our entire edition and all its amazing stories! I’m grateful for our team and contributors who ‘share the heart of your community.’ Wishing you all peaceful and love-filled graduation ceremonies, if there are any in your household, and of course, a Happy Father’s Day.

Filed Under: Just Between Us Tagged With: Brain & Behavior Research Foundation, Chappaqua Performing Arts Center, Complicit, Father, Franklin D. Roosevelt, grace, Loss, SS St. Louis, survivor, Tipper Gore

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