Suzie Hirsch
b. 1931 - d. august 18 2000

she looked pretty good the last time i saw her. actually, very good. she was shining, radiant. which is odd, because i rarely use the words shining or radiant, but there she was. granted she was in a hospital gown in a hospital that echoed sadness, but she was an aura of peace and serenity that my hectic life so rarely finds.

the family was a blur of warmth, tragedy and chaos. jim, to his credit, was completely and utterly focused on her hands...holding them stroking them, stimulating them, with the hope that he could transfer his energy into her. seated in his electric cart, jim faced the wall and his wife, silent. i wondered what he was thinking - was it a prayer?  did he want this to be over or for it to continue? was he wishing her better or praying for a final comfort? his resolve and purity was beautiful.

cousin billy seemed tired....tired and scared. tired of not knowing what to do - screaming didn't seem to help, compassion wasn't changing fate - and scared that this was a situation just slightly beyond the grasp of things he had thus experienced in life. despite all this, in my eyes billy looked good - he really seemed to have found his sweet spot in life since the last time i had seen him. in one brief glance, it appeared as if he had outgrown his traditional role as the youngest. he now seemed to represent the closest emotional connection to the patient, as if her very soul was transferring to him in this slow process. this despite the fact that shelley, the only girl, was the closest day-to-day caretaker and relation. but shelley had already taken her mom's role like an oversized dress and she was running about trying to establish order in an orderless moment. being a leader, especially of a family, is a learned trait, something that shelley had but a few weeks to grasp. ricky, the oldest, was also the most distant, but in a remarkably sad way. it was as if he was the only one who had foreseen the inevitable ending, and he was even and solid in his emotion and tempo.

the room only had enough space for about 4 people, and emotions kept running into one another.

she made it through that day.

two weeks later she stopped. the woman who was the family's soul departed for somewhere else.

my memories of her are scattered snapshots from the last three decades. we didn't live all that close to each other and the distance between suburban new york and southern jersey always seemed longer than it really was. we were from different worlds, and yet we shared the same name - that always confused me and yet inspired me that my tiny family extended in such far and diverse directions.

i remember billy's wedding, where a pony keg and a margarita fountain were the target of my 15-year old plans. i remember being oddly scared and yet comforted in billy's room one night, as he told me stories or i slept over or something. i remember the smell of that oil-refining town on the way to their house, then i remember take-a-boost, a very bizarre southern jersey drink that is essentially the same thing as drinking two-week old cola that has lost it's fizz. i remember holiday dinners...and i remember wanting to leave this strange place where people acted and dressed differently from me. i remember playing trumpet (poorly, i might add) at shelley's wedding while my sister played flute.

all these memories are anchored by this one person, my dad's sister, who was the magician who presided over this fantastic world to which i was but an onlooker.

at the end of our trips down there, i'd always get back in the car and head back home, thinking how fascinating and different these experiences were from my normal life.

now i understand that i was home and those folks, they are simply a family. my family. a wonderful family at that.