Author Archives: Radar

It’s been TWENTY…YEARS…Another lifetime ago.

And yet – sometimes – it feels like it was just yesterday…

For those who were here – the people who were living, working, raising children here – we still refer to life in New Orleans with a very definitive line of separation: Before Katrina and After Katrina.

Those words are still spoken today.

I’m calling this “Katrina” but it should actually be referred to as The Failure of the Federal Levees.  I said it back then, and I will continue to do so until my dying day.

I can still see us standing in our friends’ living room in Knoxville, TN watching the news coverage of the storm coming through. Katrina was a monster.  And yet, at some point – based on what we were watching – we were breathing a sigh of relief.  New Orleans had dodged a bullet.

And then – the levees broke.

Suddenly, news stations were reporting water pouring into certain neighborhoods. There were three breaks in the levee system. Before anyone could comprehend what was happening, 80% of the city of New Orleans was under water.

We hadn’t really evacuated – we went to visit our friends in Knoxville because we were considering possibly moving there. We got stranded there for five weeks. Stranded is a very strange way to describe it because our friends suddenly had another family living with them. And they gave us everything they could. Our son was 8 years old and in 3rd grade. Eventually, we realized that we had to enroll him in school there – which he attended for three of those five weeks. News from home was sporadic. We had no idea when – and even if – we were going to be able to return home. That wound up being the beginning of October – a little over a month after the storm.

We came back to a gray and eerily quiet Crescent City.  The house that we were living in at the time did not get any water inside of it, nor did our rental property. Damage was minimal, but we lost our dog Zeus and our cat Raffie. We had left town knowing there was a storm out there, with plans to do whatever we might have to do when we had planned to return on Monday.  We were never given that choice.

When news of the levee failures became abundantly clear, my husband jumped into our car and drove the 10 hours back to New Orleans from Knoxville. He was determined to get to our house and find our pets but also to get his father out of the city. After previously contacting the Louisiana State Police that Saturday before the storm hit, he was told in no uncertain terms by them, “Don’t bother coming back – we’re not going to let you in.”

When the levees broke, everything changed. He leaped into our car to go back for his dad – leaving me and our son in Knoxville.  There wasn’t anything I could have said that was going to stop him.

Communication was basically non-existent. There was no social media at the time. I will never forget being woken up in the middle of the night by my friend Judy and her handing me the phone in a dark room, saying it was a phone call from New Orleans. I immediately thought, “This is someone from New Orleans calling me to tell me that my husband is dead.”

Thankfully, that was not the case. But he had seen horrible, life-changing things after finally being able to enter the city from Gonzales, Louisiana – along with a guy named Todd from Arkansas who “just wanted to help.”

He did get his dad out. Our pets were never found. We, unlike so many others, did not lose everything. But to this day, I would have given back every stick of furniture & every stitch of clothing to have my animals back.

We wound up leaving Knoxville to come back to New Orleans after five weeks to assess the damages and clean out our house.  Why we decided this at the time, I don’t understand, but we wound up moving across the country with all our belongings to where my brother lived in Upstate New York. Our son’s school was destroyed, our house had been sold to our friend James. We could have found a school for our son to attend somewhere in the local metro area that was not underwater. But it was almost impossible to tell when the city of New Orleans would be up & running again in an even remotely normal way. So we left and spent the next eight months living in a small town called Sayre, Pennsylvania, about 10 minutes away from my brother. It was there that our son completed 3rd grade.  His generation will forever be known as “Katrina Kids” – for all the upheaval and turmoil they went through – from grade school babies all the way up to high schools & colleges who were separated from their friends, and Seniors who never got to have their graduations.

We decided to come home and returned to New Orleans at the end of June 2006. We moved into our rental property. It was us and a couple down the street – that was it. There were still refrigerators on the curb, along with hurricane debris & things like mattresses.  Water lines were still visible across the city.  When we eventually got back things like regular mail delivery, and our neighborhood grocery store reopened, it was almost cause for a Mardi Gras parade.

There are SO many other details of this story that I am leaving out. But I just needed to reflect on what happened – and how we survived.

I recall my mother saying to me right after it happened, “Our relatives are asking me if you are okay – what should I tell them?”

“Tell them we’re alive, Ma” I responded.

Tell them we’re alive.

When we left our little temporary home in that little town in Pennsylvania, the locals we had come to know looked at us with genuine fear in their eyes when we told them we were going back to New Orleans.

We get it, totally. We understand your apprehension.

But – it’s home.

I will end this 20-year-old reflection and remembrance with this:  thank you to our friends, Judy & Les, their neighbors, and all the people of Knoxville, including the teachers & kids from my son’s school there, for taking care of us in SO many ways and making us feel loved, comforted, and welcomed. Thanks to the town of Sayre, PA and its local residents for the same – welcoming arms, gentle calming, love and prayers, and all the help they too gave us. To my dear brother, now deceased, and my then sister-in-law, for taking us into their lives and home. If there is an answer now as to why we moved clear across the country with all our stuff – and then back again – it’s the blessing of having been able to be near my brother for those eight months.

TWENTY…YEARS… This date will always and forever have profound meaning in a multitude of ways. To say that the residents of New Orleans have some PTSD even all these years later is not an understatement. It changed us all.  And I’m proud of every single one of us – for surviving, remembering, and believing – and having the courage to come back here and start all over again.

God please continue to bless the “City That Care Forgot” – our resilience is astounding.

I haven’t posted anything in almost a year. Last thing I wrote on here was for the 40th anniversary last November 2023 of my father’s death.

I’ve been struggling mentally, emotionally, and spiritually for most of 2024. And it only seems to be getting worse.

I have snippets of “happiness” but for the most part, I have been unhappy with my life and the way it’s going and the way I thought it would be for quite awhile now.

I go out and do some things that bring me small moments of happiness, but I have to force myself to do those things a lot of the time. I do the things I enjoy, go to the places that I love, and I am happy while I’m doing it, while I’m there. But when those things are over and I come back home, I retreat back into depression at times – fear, worry, anxiety, hopelessness, lack of faith and trust consume me.

I talk to God on a daily basis. Every day and every night I have conversations with Him. I guess you can call that praying. Sometimes it’s “real praying” – but most of the time, I am just talking to God. Sometimes I plead with Him, sometimes I am begging Him with tears streaming down my face. I do preface each encounter with thankfulness – thanking Him every time I talk to Him for SOMETHING: peace & quiet, which I treasure more and more as I get older; safety; the protection of my family, my house, my cats… It’s funny, but the thing I do thank Him for every night is ELECTRICITY – which, living in Southeast Louisiana in the unbelievably brutal summers (with the potential for hurricanes) is foremost at the top of my list.

I can do ANYTHING – if I just have electricity.

My trust in God and my faithfulness in Him are not 100% true, and He knows that. I am being tested by Him and tortured by the Devil. He is battling me with a fearness that I have never experienced before. I try to read my Bible. I try to not worry. I try to trust in Him, to “let go and let God” – but I am failing miserably.

I don’t know how to completely give it over to Him. Even though I know that’s what He wants me to do. I just can’t seem to learn, to understand how to accomplish that. It’s like it’s physiologically impossible for me. So a lot of the time, I feel like I am losing all hope, and I just want to give up and not care about anything anymore.

What a terrible way to live. Or – NOT live.

I’ve chosen today to post after almost a year of not even opening my blog because of the significance of this date, as referenced by the title. I’ve never put this story in writing before, and I just feel compelled to do so on this anniversary.

So – this will be a long one.

50 years ago today, something happened that affected my family and we were never the same again. Nobody died, nobody killed anyone, nobody went to prison, nobody was addicted to drugs. And yet, it was the worst thing that could have ever happpened to my precious little family.

My brother left home at the age of 18 – and it almost destroyed us.

He did not go off to college. He did not just move out to be on his own. My 18-year-old brother left home to go be with a 30-year-old woman.

In hindsight, at the age I am now (and I’ve understood this for a very long time) I realize what this was. Let’s be frank here: we all know what this was about. I don’t think I have to spell it out. But at the time, I was a 13-year-old kid. I didn’t understand what was going on. It happened so quickly in one evening, and all I knew was that my brother was gone.

My brother had just graduated from high school three months prior. He had been acting very secretive in his comings & goings, prompting my parents to finally confront him.

I don’t remember exactly how it started, but it all came out very quickly and stunned my parents. What I do remember is being in the bathroom when the conversation started between my parents and my brother. And then suddently, things got very heated, and I chose to stay in the bathroom behind the closed door and listen rather than immediately come out.

I remember hearing my brother say, “I love her.” I don’t recall my parents’ exact words, but I remember my mother becoming unglued and starting to yell. My father wasn’t flying off the handle like my mother was, and I don’t remember anything that he said. I seem to recall my mother referencing the fact that my brother was the age he was, that he had literally just graduated from high school, and something to the effect of “what exactly are you doing??”

She was the older sister of my brother’s two friends that he had been hanging out with. And my brother was claiming that he was in love with her.

At the time, it was thought that she was divorced, but we found out later that she was merely just separated. Again, let’s be real here: this was a grown woman, taking an 18-year-old BOY (and we all know what 18-year-old boys are interested in) and molding him into what SHE wanted him to be. I always think about my brother and this woman when I hear the song “Lying Eyes” by the Eagles – specifically the line “he makes her feel the way she used to feel.” I suppose she too was getting from him what she needed at that time in her life.

Regardless, the situation couldn’t have been worse for my Eastern European parents. In all honesty, they handled it the best way they could – which unfortunately wasn’t good. As for me, I was confused listening to what was going on. I didn’t understand what was happpening. All I knew was that, suddently, my brother was walking out of the house with just the clothes on his back.

As my mother was in the kitchen losing her mind over what was occuring, my father was in the living room taking my brother’s pictures off the mantelpiece. SERIOUSLY. It was like the movie of the week in our house. It was literally like somebody had DIED, as far as my parents were concerned.

And as for me? All I knew was that my brother was LEAVING. The living room windows in our apartment faced the street, and we were on the 5th floor. I remember running to the window & sticking my head out – watching, as my brother came out of the building below, walk down the street, turn at the corner, cross 88th Street, and disappear down Second Avenue.

And then he was just – GONE…

That night, my parents went to her apartment to confront this strange woman who had exacted her influence over their son. My mother asked her, “What are you DOING?? He’s EIGHTEEN.” I didn’t get the details of their encounter with her until years later, but my mother told me that Marge (that was her name) made some sort of nasty comment to her, and when my mother took a step towards her (to do what exactly, I don’t know) that my brother stepped between them and blocked my mother’s way.

My mother says that in her mind, my brother died that night.

My brother stayed with Marge at her apartment, which was probably about 10 blocks from ours. My parents were at a loss as to what to do next. Actually, my mother was frantic, trying to figure out how to stop what was happening. My father reacted completely opposite, turning inward, I guess hoping that my brother would come to his senses. My mother called or went to talk to SOMEONE – maybe the police, I’m not sure. Unfortunately for her, when whomever she talked to found out that my brother was 18, she was told, “In the eyes of the law, he’s an adult – there’s nothing we can do.”

I found out from my mother in only recent years that a little while later, she ran into my brother on the street near where he was living with Marge. It was startling and unnerving, and when he suddently revealed to her that they were going to be leaving the city and moving to somewhere in Upstate New York, her only heartbroken response was, “You mean you’re not coming home for Christmas?”

My brother turned 19 that November, left New York City, and went to live in a town Upstate called Waverly where Marge had family.

He never came back to the city he was born and raised in.

What followed was almost 9 years of heartache, trauma, and difficult interaction between my parents. My mother was beside herself – wanting, desperately NEEDING to talk to someone – ANYONE – who would listen to her pain and grief. My father didn’t want to talk about it at all.  Me?  I basically became a recluse for awhile, pretty much until I started high school the following year.  My mother was extremely worried about me, but there wasn’t much she could do.  It would be almost 4 years before we would physically see my brother again after that Fall of ’74 – and he came back for a visit over Memorial Day weekend to announce that he and Marge had gottten married. Definitely NOT the outcome that was expected. I remember my mother taking off her weddng ring and gesturing in my brother’s face with it, saying, “See this? Mine MEANS something.”

My parents encouraged me to stay in touch with my brother in any way possible – which wasn’t easy. Marge had racked up debt on her ex-husband’s credit cards that he took no claim for, so she and my brother were constantly on the run, moving and changing phone numbers – eventually getting rid of their phone altogether. My mother had gotten an extremely vicious letter from Marge soon after she and my brother left the city – telling my mother things like, she would see my parents crawling in the gutter before anything happened to her, and that if anything ever happened to my brother, my parents would never find out. My mother cut off all ties at that point, but told me to try & keep in touch because “some day your father and I will be gone and you’ll only have each other.”

There were a couple of times when I attempted to go see my brother, but I didn’t want to go alone. I tried to set up bringing one of our cousins with me, but that was thwarted by Marge. She then got upset with me because I wouldn’t include her in my letters to my brother, and she threatened to withhold the mail from him. Meanwhile, she sent me two letters – the first one being downright nasty, saying things like “don’t underestimate me, little girl” and telling me to drop dead.  Within a week, she sent a second letter, apologizing for the first.  I suddenly realized that I was dealing with a person who was obviously messed up mentally.  She also claimed some things that my brother was allegedly saying about how he felt about the situation. If my brother felt that way, I wanted to hear it directly from him myself. My response was to send a certified letter to my brother, which had to be hand-delivered to him and him alone and that he had to sign for.

That letter was returned to me – unopened.

My brother did follow up with his own letter, telling me that Marge was his wife and that if I couldn’t include her in communication, then there would be none.  This, after he hadn’t even opened mine.  If he had, he would have seen that I had included copies of the two letters that Marge had sent me.  Honestly, at that point, I don’t know that it would have made any difference anyway.  That was followed by a year-and-a-half of zero communication between my brother and I. The catalyst for me to finally reach out again was the death of one of our cousins. I thought he had the right to know. That was in March of 1983.

In June of ’83, I finally got a letter from my brother, which I read to myself at the kitchen table with my parents nearby. Until I got to the point in his letter where he announced that he was going to be getting a divorce from Marge because he “couldn’t stand the leash around his neck any longer.”

My brother wasn’t that 18-year-old boy anymore…

When I read that part of his letter out loud, I remember my mother clasping her hands together and looking up towards the heavens. All her long-suffering prayers had finally been answered My father, who had held in so much for all those years, gently pounded his fist one time on the kitchen table and said, “Good – maybe he’ll come home now.”

My brother did finally come home that November of 1983. He came home to our father’s wake and funeral.

My brother never talked about his life with Marge.  He did tell us that she abused alcohol and drugs and how she would get high or drunk and go around town threatening people and how everyone in the town “knew her number”.  But he never went into detail about the personal side of their relationship.  He eventually slowly came back into the fold of our family and our community here and there.  I remember telling him once that I was there for him if he ever wanted to talk about any of it.  He never did.

He eventually re-married in 2004 and although my mother and I were shocked and somewhat surprised, I think we both were happy that he had found someone he could spend the rest of his life with and not grow old alone.  That relationship lasted maybe around ten years before things started going south.  I don’t think I’ll ever know exactly what went wrong there.

My brother Emery passed away in his sleep on January 18, 2024 at the age of 68.  He had COPD but also a heart condition that we weren’t aware of, that his death certificate listed as the cause.  The last five years of his life had been filled with stress, anger, and some poor decisions that affected him financially.  He had finally reached a point, though, where he was settled on his secluded Upstate property that he had purchased decades ago.  As his friends told me, “it was his little piece of paradise.” 

50 years ago today, a boy left his home in New York City for the last time.  But I guess he did find that the place he went to wound up being exactly where he was always meant to be.  50 years ago today, I was a confused 13-year-old who just wanted to know why her dearest brother was gone and wasn’t coming back.  So, to return to how I began this post, along with everything else I have been struggling with this year especially, I now add to it the fact that my one and only sibling is truly gone now.  50 years ago today, my little 13-year-old life was in turmoil.  50 years later, my brother has left me again, and my life once more feels like it is turbulent at best.  I find some comfort knowing that my brother doesn’t have to worry about any of the bullshit anymore, all the stuff that he was dealing with that was making him miserable.  I find comfort in knowing that he’s with our Lord – and reunited with the father who, although he never voiced it, was always longing to have his little boy back home. 

Monday, November 28, 1983:  The day of my father’s funeral…

I remember being at the funeral home and us sitting in the front row by my father’s casket. I believe the funeral mass was set for 10am at our parish church, St. Stephen of Hungary. That morning’s viewing was typically set for just the immediate family to have one last look at the deceased.

I don’t remember who else was with us. I seem to remember other people being there besides my mother, my brother and I.  It couldn’t have been just the 3 of us, but I can’t remember.

What I do remember is, when it came time to close the coffin, the funeral director asked whoever else was there to come up and pay their final respects. We – Mom, Emery and I – would have the last look, the last goodbye. Anyone else would have been escorted out when that moment came.

And when it did, I remember my mother and brother standing up immediately to walk over to the casket. Me – I couldn’t get out of my seat.  I remember gripping the sides of the chair with both hands and shaking my head.  “No – I can’t do this” – I know I thought it, but I’m pretty sure I said it out loud as well.

I couldn’t. I didn’t want to say goodbye to my daddy.

I think somebody came over to me and helped me stand up, urging me on to do what I had to do. It might have been the funeral director, although I really don’t know.

I walked up to my father’s casket and looked down at his face.  I’m pretty sure I said, “Goodbye, Dad – I love you.”  But I know for a fact that I leaned over and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

His cheek was cold – so cold.

I never in my wildest dreams thought I would do something like that. But – this was my father. I didn’t think about it. I just did it.

I gave my father a kiss goodbye.

I also remember quickly turning away as we walked out so that I didn’t see them closing the casket.

My mother had requested that the limousine and hearse take a one-block detour so that we could drive by our apartment building one last time with my dad.

I honestly don’t remember much of the funeral mass.  My mother had very carefully chosen the music she wanted played and the hymns that were sung, along with just the right person to sing them.  The only one that sticks out in my mind is “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling” – which was utterly heartbreaking.

I don’t remember much from the cemetery either.  I think there might have been a little snow on the ground. My father is buried in St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx, NY.  So many of my family members are laid to rest there as well, including my father’s parents, his brother Frank who passed away in 1978, my mother’s father, my great aunt Margaret…

My father was buried on his  mother-in-law’s birthday – I believe my grandmother turned 76 that day.  After the funeral mass and interment at the cemetery, we went to a place that was tradition for our Eastern European Yorkville community – Castle Harbor Casino Restaurant, also in the Bronx – for the post-funeral meal.

The agonizing long 4-day Thanksgiving weekend was over. My father was dead and buried – gone from my life forever.  Seven years later, when I got married at St. Stephen’s and had my reception at Castle Harbor, he was not there to walk me down the aisle or dance with me to “Daddy’s Little Girl”…

Forty years have passed now.  They say it “gets easier” as time passes, but I don’t know if that’s true.  It changes, I think.  It becomes…different… You go from unimaginable grief to trying to bear the reality that your loved one is never going to walk through the door again – to realizing the pain of knowing everything that person missed out on. In my father’s case, he never got to retire, he never got to grow old with my mother, he never lived to see his namesake – his grandson Andrew.  My father would have been floating on cloud nine, knowing and loving my boy.

Forty years without you, Dad.  So much time…so much missed… You would have turned 96 this year, if you had made it this long.  The pain of remembering that now long-ago Thanksgiving Day has morphed as well.  I can enjoy the holiday again, but it has and never ever will be the same. But I think of my father every year, every day, and still muse over what might have been. I wish I could see you in my dreams – see your face, hear your voice… I loved you so, so much. I still miss you terribly. I cannot wait to see you again in Paradise. You were my everything. Love you, Dad.

Saturday and Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend 1983 – my father’s wake was held at Charles Peter Nagel Funeral Home on East 87th Street in Manhattan…

This funeral home had served our family and friends for generations. Unfortunately, I can remember many, many beloved family members who had been laid out at this location, and my last memories of all of them were the sight of them lying in their caskets. I couldn’t bear the thought of seeing my father that way, and relayed as much to my mother. I even suggested that the coffin be closed. My mother, astute as ever even in her unimaginable grief, said “We can’t do that. There are too many people who want to see your father one last time, even if it’s like this.”

My brother, who had just become separated and was living alone, had left his former place of residence with basically almost nothing but the clothes on his back.  He was making his way down to the city from the town he lived in, four hours away.  He had no clothes suitable for a wake and funeral.  He was traveling by bus, and somehow we connected with our cousin Patricia who picked him up from the bus station and brought him to her apartment in Queens.  Tricia had recently become separated from her husband and was in the process of getting divorced as well.  Some of her husband’s clothes were still in the closet at the apartment, including a suit that she thought my brother could fit into.

My brother had been estranged from our family for almost 9 years, and he hadn’t seen any of his cousins, aunts and uncles or neighborhood friends of our family in many years. And now – he was coming home to his father’s funeral.

It was like a scene out of a movie when my brother arrived at the funeral home. Tricia had driven in with him in her car, and when they got there, I met them outside. I remember taking my brother’s arm and leading him inside.  You could hear a pin drop as we walked down the middle aisle between the dozens of friends and family members who were seated there. We made our way to the front where our mother was, and – as has been told to us over the years by various people who were in attendance – there wasn’t a dry eye in the house as my mother, brother and I embraced and walked up to my father’s casket.

If I am remembering correctly, the last time we had seen my brother was Memorial Day weekend 1978 – five years prior.  There was about a year and a half between that time and the funeral when my brother and I were not communicating. I had gotten a nasty letter from his wife whom he was now in the process of divorcing, and I reached out to my brother separately asking if what she was telling me was true – that he no longer wanted to be in touch with me, because I wasn’t including her in my correspondence with him.  If this was true, I wanted to hear it from his own mouth.  When she indicated that she would get the mail and not give it to him, I sent him a certified letter, which he had to sign for.  That letter was returned to me – unopened.

Without going into too much detail, the situation involving her had been tenuous from the start.  Our parents did not want to see her or speak to her. She had been belligerent and threatening with us as soon as she found out that our parents did not approve of the relationship – which had been secretive at best – and mainly because my brother was just 18 years old at the time, and literally just fresh out of high school.

It took the death of one of our other older cousins earlier that year, in March of 1983, to prompt me to finally reach out again.  It was his cousin too, and I thought he had the right to know.  It was after that, three months later in June, when I got the letter from my brother, saying he would come to see us as soon as he could.

And now, standing in front of our father’s coffin at his wake – with my mother and I on either side with our arms around him – my brother looked down at him and said simply, “I’m sorry Dad”…

I cannot comprehend how incredibly difficult and painful that must have been for him.  I remember telling him later after our farher was buried that I was there for him any time he might be ready to talk about it. We never discussed it.

There was one other observation and recollection from that weekend of our father’s wake that certain people will talk about to this day.  My best friend’s sister-in-law swore that my father’s face showed the slightest indication of a small smile that wasn’t there before my brother arrived.  She had been by the casket prior to my brother getting there and then went back up after the three of us walked away and sat down.  “Andy’s smiling,” she said, with as much conviction as anyone could muster.  She swore to the last that my father had a smile on his face that hadn’t been there before. And she believed it with her whole heart, mind, and soul.

My father was happy in Heaven – because his son had finally, indeed, come home…

A Tale of Two Sons and Their Fathers…

Monday, November 25, 1963:  President John Fitzgerald Kennedy was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery, after a nationally-televised funeral procession, modeled after the funeral of Abraham Lincoln, which Jackie orchestrated. The stoic First Lady wore another pillbox hat, with a veil over her face, in conjunction with her black funeral outfit. The Kennedy children were dressed in identical light blue coats, white socks, and red shoes.  Caroline would turn 6 years old in two days, and John Jr. – or “John-John” as he was affectionately known – turned 3 years old on the day of his father’s funeral.  The iconic image of the little boy saluting his daddy’s coffin broke the hearts of everyone in attendance and the millions watching at home. 

Friday, November 25, 1983:  There were many phone calls made and received this day as word continued to spread quickly about my father’s sudden and unexpected death.  Friends and family were stunned.  “Andy’s DEAD??  What do you mean, Andy Yurasits is dead??  I just saw him last week!  But he wasn’t even sick!”  No one could believe it. My father was literally here one day and gone the next.

Not knowing what else to do, I finally placed a phone call to the New York State Sheriff’s office in an attempt to locate my brother.  I don’t recall exactly who I spoke to, but I told them I didn’t have a phone number for my brother and needed to get in touch with him as quickly as possible due to a “family emergency”.

When my brother finally called, I really didn’t want to tell him the news over the phone, but I had no choice.  After letting him know that our father was dead, I told him, “Emery, please come home – Mom needs you.”

My brother had left home at the age of 18 under very upsetting circumstances to our family. He had been estranged for almost nine years prior, although our parents always encouraged me to keep in touch with him.  In June of ’83, I received a letter from my brother, which I read aloud to our parents at the kitchen table, once I saw the specific reason for his latest communication.  My brother relayed in his letter that he was removing himself from his personal living situation that he had been in for all these years.  He added that he would be coming to see us as soon as he was able.  Upon hearing this news, I remember my father somewhat firmly pounding his fist on the table in front of him and saying, “Good – maybe he’ll come home now…”

On this day, my mother and I made the excruciating visit to the neighborhood funeral home to pick out my father’s casket and make his arrangements. I will never forget sitting at a table there, talking to the funeral director, while he had us flipping through a binder containing photos of the different coffins available so we could pick one out.  It was the most disturbing, morbid thing I had ever done in my life. As far as I was concerned, my dad could be placed in a simple plain wooden box like they used to do in Europe. I remember thinking, what’s the point of spending all this money for something that’s just gonna be put in the ground?  I might have even said it aloud.  But, I had to defer to my mother and what she wanted. He was my father, but she was burying the love of her life…

Sunday, November 24, 1963:  At 11:21am CST, as live television cameras covered Lee Harvey Oswald being moved through the basement of Dallas Police Headquarters, after he had been charged with the assassination of President Kennedy, Oswald was shot by Dallas nightclub operator Jack Ruby. Like Kennedy, Oswald was taken to Parkland Memorial Hospital, where he soon died… Housewives watching their afternoon soap operas saw the shooting happen on live TV when the networks cut to Dallas as the news of the transfer came across…

Thursday, November 24, 1983:  Thanksgiving Day – We received a phone call from the hospital that morning. The doctor was telling my mother that they were taking my dad into emergency surgery.  We knew it had to be very serious for them to be performing surgery on Thanksgiving Day. The doctor said he would call us once my dad came out.

I cannot tell you why we weren’t at the hospital waiting. He was at Doctors Hospital just down the street from where we lived – just over a 3-block walk.  I guess we felt that, because it was so close, we could wait at home just as easily as we could have waited there.

I don’t recall exactly what time it was – 10:30? 11-11:30?  The phone rang, and my mother answered it. Obviously, I could only hear her side of the conversation as I stood next to her between my dad’s chair and where she was talking on the old rotary dial wall phone.

It was the doctor calling, as he had promised. I watched my mother’s face as she listened to his words.  Suddenly, my mother said into the phone, “What’s that? Say that again?”  The doctor repeated what he had just told her.

“We lost him. He expired.”

My father’s appendix had torn, not ruptured or fully burst – hence the oddness of the symptoms he had been having and his pains. He wasn’t even feeling them on the side where the appendix is located. It was not classic appendicitis.  The doctor explained to my mother that they removed it and “cleaned him out” as some of the contents had already entered his system and could have caused peritonitis.  They had given him general anesthesia, all the while knowing that he had a slight respiratory issue.  However, the doctor told my mother that my dad came out of the anesthesia and was in the recovery room “joking and laughing with the nurses”.

But then, he added, “Something went very wrong inside him.”  His temperature rose and his blood pressure dropped, and his lungs were no longer expanding.

Once my mother reacted to what the doctor told her, obviously she lost it. I don’t even remember her hanging up the phone, but she somehow struggled to get the words out that my father had died.

I remember grabbing her arm and screaming “No!”  And then saying to myself over and over again, “It can’t be true – no, it can’t be true.”  I remember sinking to my knees in front of his chair, grasping the sides of it with my hands. No – this can’t be true. He can’t be gone.

I heard my mother saying repeatedly, “Carol, what am I going to do?  What am I going to do??”  At some point, I arose from my father’s chair and walked into my room. There was a crucifix hanging above the doorway between my room and my parents’ room. I am not proud of this recollection, but I looked up at that crucifix and screamed out, “damn you”…

Somehow, my mother and I made our way out of the house and down those few blocks to the hospital in a misty rain.  We met with the doctor, as well as the anesthesiologist – who was crying.  They were devastated that they had lost such a young man.  My dad was just 56 years old…

I remember them handing my mother a large manila envelope containing my father’s personal effects:  his wallet, reading glasses, wedding ring…

Forty years ago – FORTY YEARS – Thanksgiving Day 1983 and my father was gone from my life.  I was just 22 years old.  My mother was a widow, just about a month away from her 51st birthday…

I remember my mother’s brother and his wife, my Uncle Steve and Aunt Margaret, rushing over that night from their house in the Bronx after getting our phone call.  I don’t remember who else we called that evening, but word spread quickly throughout our church community. Suddenly our parish priest, Father Emeric, was at our apartment building, ringing the downstairs bell. I buzzed him in and vividly remember watching him through our 5th floor landing, bounding up the four flights of stairs, almost two by two – his young aide right behind him, trying to keep up.

I don’t remember what other phone calls were made that night, but there was one person that we desperately needed to get in touch with, and I had no idea how I was going to accomplish that. It was my one and only sibling, my older brother Emery. He had been estranged from our family for just over 9 years, and at that point in time, I had no phone number for him…

It was Thanksgiving night, 1983.  And my world had been turned asunder and would never ever be the same…

Saturday, November 23, 1963:  The 35th President of the United States of America, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, was dead. On this Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, his body lies in repose in the East Room of the White House. The day before, Dallas police had searched a building known as the Texas School Book Depository because witnesses said they saw a gun protruding from a 6th floor window there.  Later that afternoon, police took 24-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald into custody after he allegedly shot & killed a police officer outside a theater in the city.  The President’s body had been removed from Parkland Memorial Hospital in a casket, which was loaded onto Air Force One and brought back to Washington D.C. within hours of the assassination – after Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President.  Jackie was asked if she wanted to change out of her blood-stained pink suit.  She refused, saying, “I want them to see what they have done to Jack.”

Wednesday, November 23, 1983:  It was the last day of work before the big Thanksgiving holiday weekend.  I was three years into my first “real” job at an ad agency, and the offices were closing early at 1pm that day in anticipation of the long weekend.

I knew before I left home that morning that my father had gone into work before I did.  I thought, well that extra rest last night must have done him good.  So imagine my shock when I got home to find my father laying down on his bed.  Something had to really be wrong for my dad to be home from work in the middle of the afternoon.

When my mother got home from her own job shortly afterward and saw that my father was home, she laid down the law to him:  “Get dressed,” she said. “We’re going to the doctor.”

A few hours later (I had stayed home) our apartment doorbell rang. I answered it and found my mother standing there – alone.  “Where’s Dad?” I asked incredulously.  She answered, “You’re not gonna believe this – they’re admitting him to the hospital.”  She had just come home to grab an overnight bag for him.  I was stunned – “What’s going on?” I said.  She told me that the doctor said my dad was going into shock and he was calling the hospital, adding, “I just hope they have a bed for him…”

We went back to the hospital, and the doctors were saying that they were doing quite a few tests.  Standing in the doorway of his room, I watched as my dad moved around quite uncomfortably in the bed, not being able to settle in.  My mother asked why they weren’t doing more – why didn’t they know what it was, if they needed to operate?  We were told, “It would be like playing Russian roulette on him right now, not knowing exactly what’s wrong.  It could be his gall bladder, it could be his kidneys…”

I remember seeing the nurse come in to give my father a shot. I remember turning away in the doorway because I didn’t want to watch the needle go into his arm.  Visiting hours were ending shortly, so we decided to go home so my dad could hopefully get some rest.

I remember walking up to my father’s hospital bed, giving him a hug and a kiss goodbye, and saying “See you tomorrow, Dad…”

Tuesday, November 23, 1999: 

I won’t tell the detailed story of what happened on this date 24 years ago now, because I know I’ve shared it here before.  What I will say is this:  Recently, someone asked me how many kids I have.  I replied, “I have one son.”  A few moments after those words came out of my mouth, I felt such a sense of shame.  Betrayal, almost.  Because what I said was a lie.

I have TWO sons.  As my husband says, “One is here, and one is with the Lord.”  Just because he’s not on this Earth with me, doesn’t mean I don’t have him.  He was here.  Born and died on the same day, within a matter of moments. But he saved my life with his.  And forever changed it…me…and the way I thought.

For that, I should shout his name from the rooftops!  My son – Eleazar Alexander Blakesley – Thank you for saving my eternal soul – and for giving me truth.

Tuesday, November 22, 1983:  My father went to work again all day.  He must have felt better after his remedy and sleep the night before.  Honestly, I cannot remember a single day growing up as a kid when my father missed work.  Whether he just wasn’t feeling up to par, or if he had a few too many drinks the night before, he ALWAYS went to work.

That night, however, I remember him going to bed earlier than he usually did, saying that his body felt achy. Again, the picture of our large kitchen comes to mind, and I can see my mother and I there, up late.  Mom was ironing, as she did quite often at night, while I sat at the kitchen table, and we were chatting.

Suddenly, there was my dad, standing at the doorway of the kitchen, in the tiny hallway off the bathroom.  He looked slightly pale, and he was sweating a little, rubbing his left hand around to his back from his left side and then to the front again while leaning on the door jamb with his other arm.

“I don’t know…” he said… “I don’t know what’s going on… now I feel it in my back too…”

I’m sure there was the brief suggestion of maybe going to the hospital emergency room, although I cannot confirm that memory for sure.  But I do know that my dad would have put a stop to that at once – no, that is so totally not necessary, I’ll be okay, I just need to go back to bed.  Which he did. I do recall my mother telling him, “If you’re still not feeling well tomorrow, I’m calling the doctor…”

60 years ago today – on Friday, November 22, 1963 – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his wife attended a Chamber of Commerce breakfast in Fort Worth, Texas at 8am.  It was a lighthearted event, with the President being gifted a Stetson hat to offer “some protection against the rain” and all the women in attendance excitedly awaiting the appearance of the First Lady, and to see what Jackie was wearing.  After arriving a few moments later, Jackie appeared wearing a pink Chanel suit, along with her signature “pillbox” hat.

The breakfast ended at 10:30am and, after a short rest, the President and First Lady boarded Air Force One for the 13-minute flight to Love Field in Dallas.  After landing and briefly greeting the crowds, they climbed into an open car with Texas Governor John Connally and his wife.  Along the route, Mrs. Connally commented to the President that “you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.”

Triumph would turn to ultimate tragedy mere moments later when shots rang out and JFK was struck down.  Jackie’s pink Chanel suit, the hit of the breakfast just a few hours earlier, was now stained with her husband’s blood.

I was just under 3 years old when JFK was assassinated, so I obviously don’t remember it.  My parents had a book they bought, which commemorated the tragedy of his death, entitled “Four Days”.  It was a full-color, hardcover book, and I remember looking through it all the time as soon as I became old enough, fascinated by the story and the color photographs. To this day, when I watch film about that day and see the smiling President and his pink suit-clad wife, I want to scream out to them, “Don’t go to Dallas, don’t get in that car…” 

I will always remember my mother declaring about that weekend in 1963 “it was like the end of the world…” 

Almost 20 years to the day later, we would be shocked by our own unexpected loss and endure our own “Four Days”…

77 years ago – Thursday, November 21, 1946:  An almost 14-year-old girl from a tiny village in Eastern Hungary arrived on a huge ship into the harbor of New York City.  She was to be reunited with the mother she hadn’t seen since she was 3 years old and would meet her little brother and the father who left before she was born to come to America.  She had left behind everything she had ever known, including her beloved paternal grandparents whom she was raised by, and her pet cat Matan.  She didn’t speak a word of English and felt like a stranger in a strange land, including with her family.  It would be at least a couple of years before she would feel like she belonged in her new adopted homeland.  She still resides within the same 10-block radius that she came to in the Upper Eastside neighborhood of Yorkville.  That young girl’s name was Rose Timar, and she is my amazing mother.

60 years ago – Thursday, November 21, 1963:  President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his wife, First Lady Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy, departed Washington D.C. on Air Force One for a 2-day, five-city tour of Texas.  Just 3-1/2 months prior, the couple had suffered the loss of their 2-day old son Patrick, and Jackie was still deep in the grieving process.  She had thought about changing her mind and not going on the trip, as she had been largely out of the public eye since the baby’s death, but the President insisted, as he wanted her with him…

40 years ago – Monday, November 21, 1983:  What I recall about this day was that my father went to work all day but came home not feeling quite right. He thought he was coming down with a bad cold or the flu and prepared his typical self-care regimen:  a cup of hot tea with honey, lemon – and a hefty shot of whiskey.  He drank that and went to bed to “sweat it out” as was his wont.  Dad never took over-the-counter medication.

I had a little less than 3 days left with him in my life…

I still had my daddy…

My father was going to be in my life for only four more days, yet I had no idea.

November 20th forty years ago was a Sunday.  Although I typically have a pretty good memory with some things, my almost 91-year-old mother could still tell you exactly what happened on that day – and every day.  What I do recall is that was the date the TV movie “The Day After” aired, and my father & I were eager to watch it.  A film depicting the devastation and horrors of a nuclear holocaust, it was not something my mother was interested in seeing at all.  She left the house and I believe maybe went to go play bingo at church.

I can still see my father and I in the big kitchen of the apartment where I grew up in New York City – he, sitting at the table in “his” chair, by the built-in kitchen wall cabinet, and me sitting on the opposite side of the table. We were hunkered down, excited to view this monumental movie event.

What I distinctly remember is my father – for all intents and purposes – was not sick, but healthy as an ox, as he usually was.  There was the issue of how his years of smoking were starting to affect him.  But that night, sitting at our kitchen table, watching a movie with my dad, my 22-year-old self could not imagine in my wildest dreams what the next few days would bring.

Side Note:  Sixty years ago – on Wednesday, November 20, 1963 – President John Fitzgerald Kennedy attended a Democratic Congressional leaders breakfast.  Some of them were concerned about his upcoming trip to Dallas, Texas…