My Family
Here we are, the living:
Me, the big fathead on the left, Stewart (my mother's maiden name)
My lovely and sweet and smart daughter Mara (by my first marriage to Patti
Rust) next to me
My kind and sweet and smart son Aaron
and my loving companion in marriage, Sue
oh....
Aaron is holding grandson Dion whom Mara gave birth to on Mayday at sunrise
We are at Aaron's graduation from Oakwood, a Quaker private school, summer
2006
Not here are:
Larissa Heinrich, Sue's daughter by her first marriage to Michael Heinrich
(in Australia at the time) and her partner there
Stephen Cardile, my amazing, thoughtful and spiritual son-in-law
>>>> But first...those
who came before and have passed on <<<<
Attend. See these souls. I hope to make them real
in your mind as they are in mine;
for in the realm of matter, they live now only in memory.
(Free paraphrade of the words of Lois McMasters Bujold, from her
Paladin of Souls)
When I look back at my family, what I see is the centrality and endurance
of love.
As teenagers
`
My Parents Together
My parents met at Yale, in graduate school, she in the nursing school,
Dad in the medical school. Here they are at a pool party.
They married in '42. God, they loved each other
fiercely...through all the trials that came, I never saw their absolute
devotion to each other ever faulter.
Then
Dad was off to WWII as an Army doctor in the African and Italian
campaigns, where the image below was taken. When brother Bill
and I took Dad to see MASH, when the movie first came out, he emerged shaking his head and saying, "You know, that's just the way it was...if anything, it was crazier"
Molly visited and charmed her new in-laws
...and bore my older brother Bill in '43. They didn't see Dad until
he came back at the end of '45, war's end. The family moved to Philadelphia
where Dad did further medical study in ophthalmology under Francis Adler.
I came along about a year later. Here are all on at our home in Germantown,
a carriage house apartment, on the "porch". Molly and Dad loved the
milieu...the culture and sharp minds there.
Molly had polio when I was a year old. I
recently found a letter she wrote a year after she had 'recovered'.
She had been a vivacious, atheletic fox of a woman. Much was taken
from her, but her spirit and love never faltered. She was the vital
heart of our family, and has always been my criterion of courage.
Here is a picture taken of the two of them after she had recovered as much
as she ever would of her physical abilities and taken in a way that hid her
paralysis.
Molly and Dad had planned to join a group medical practice in Santa Barbara,
California and have more kids. Polio changed all that: Dad joined his
father's medical practice in Louisville, Kentucky and bought a house a block
from his parents, in the Highlands inurb. That's where I grew up.
Here's Molly and Dad in the back yard.
Also here, of course, is Dubout, the first of a wondrous string of full-sized
poodles
Here's Dad with Yum-Yum and more on the poodles
Here's two images of the way I remember my parents: thoughtful, heartfelt.
engaged..
For all that Molly's partial paralysis trimmed their wings, my parents
made fantastic lemonade from what they had. They hosted parties and
a sort of salon that brought the free thought, spirit and culture they'd
loved so much in Philadelphia to Louisville.
They were legendary, what can I say...a free-wheeling, intellectual,blithe
and independent spirited bunch of people living wide in a time and place that
worshipped conformity and complaisance
What we did, we did at home; we didn't get out much....but that never
cramped Dad's style; he turned his Renaissance man interests to things he
could do there. Among other things, we collected, restored and drove
some wonderful cars, two Bugattis (the Ferraris of the '20s and '30's)
and a Maserati
Ring Down the Curtain on Act I
Molly died of cancer (she smoked, and it killed her, as it had her
older sister Ruth) in the early '70's. Her indomitable courage in facing
cancer's claws was beyond belief. Dad and Bill and I had an enormous
hole in our lives. She had been our warm, fiercely vital and loving
center.
Biddy
But after a few years, some old friends from Philadephia thought
of a woman they knew that Dad had to meet: Helen LeBlond, Biddy. They
struck it off famously; Dad had a second time with love. And finally,
he had a partner he could get out and do with. They were both avid
naturalists, and their honeymoon was a white-water raft trip in British Columbia.
At the left is Dad and Biddy in '81 at our wedding; right is taken the
summer of '98 at the Cape. Here are separate pictures of them that
do them justice.
My father died in the early days of '99; Biddy, ten years later in May,
wrapped
in the toils of Alzeheimer's. She had been a loving, cheerful,
competent, smart and capable woman, but all that was taken away from her
over some 10 years. Her daughter Hannie Bannister wrote
this obituary .
My Brother Bill, the handsome one
Bill's caption: "1976: Me at Mara's christening doing a watch ad."
Alas, Bill is no longer with us; he died on AIDS in October of '84.
He was gay....which he had about as much choice about as he had of the
color of his skin. He was a man of rare wit and taste, well loved
by his friends and respected in international banking. I miss my brother.
Here is is on a mountainside in Montana (at the working ranch of a college
class mate); what a Marlboro stud!
He was dealt a difficult hand of cards, but he played them with grace;
everyone that knew him misses him.
The path to the door
(In a dream,
just before waking
I was reading this story
of a woman's dream)
The eldest daughter
now untimely
head of house,
with her parents' early death
awoke from a dream
Waking
disturbed,
confused,
fearful
she found the wise woman
on the threshold.
Stumblingly,
she spoke:
"I dreamt of our childhood home.
I was outside the gate
and the path long and confusing;
I could not find my way to the door."
"But my dear, that path was short
and straight. Had you gone there to stay?
"No, I only wanted to visit,
to see them again and visit."
"Ah! Well then...
when you come to go in earnest,
the way will be short and straight."
The quick.....
My Wife, Sue, and I
On the left: Getting married back in '81; my nose isn't that red and, yes, Sue is beautiful.
She also has an exceedingly warm heart
On the right, 11/7/2011, 30 years down the road, at our anniversary dinner
Our Children
Click on the highlighted names for more photographs of our children
| Aaron (ours together, now 24, this taken
a few years ago) |
Mara (mine, now 37, from my marriage
to Patti Rogers) |
| Larissa (from Sue's marriage to Michael Heinrich, now 39).
Boy, has she blazed a path: she's not so much ambitious as just thirsty
for life and knowledge. She had a full scholarship to Swarthmore,
went to Harvard (full scholarship) for her M.A., transferred to Berkeley
and changed to a Ph.D. , published and went to China on a Fulbright
before she got her doctorate. Since then she's taught at Reed,
The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia and is now back here as
a tenured Professor at UC San Diego. What a champ!
| Sean (my stepson from my first marriage to Patty Rogers),
here discussing the finer GameBoy points with Aaron |
Goodness, A grandchild!
Baby Dion
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