Monday 28 October 2024
On Sunday 27 October 2024, I lit a Yahrzeit candle, or Jewish memorial candle for Steve. Yesterday was the first time I ever lit a yahrzeit candle for Steve, let alone for anyone else. Frankly, I didn’t know if I was performing the ceremony correctly; after all, I’m not Jewish. I feel as though I carried out the observance without error. Perhaps yesterday’s observance will start a new tradition, one that can constantly evolve. I imagine that Steve would be chuckling gently, nodding his head approvingly even though he wasn’t an observant, practicing Jew. On the other hand, he did see and call himself as a “New York Jew.”
As I wrote last year in the fourth installment of my Steve Eulogy series, no one knows precisely when Steve died. New York City authorities were summoned to his Upper East Side apartment when his floor neighbors detected death’s scent; that day was 13 November 2020—Friday the 13th! Therefore, Steve’s official date of death is 13 November; however, I refuse to acknowledge that date. He likely expired weeks before that day. Moreover, a New York City Morgue representative called me on Saturday 14 November, informing me that Steve no longer was alive. 14 November is another day I have a hard time accepting. Another date was needed.
You may be wondering why 27 October? I didn’t want to choose 31 October… you know, Halloween. Also, during the last week of October, there are other emotionally important dates for me: for example, a loved one’s birthday.
I needed to designate a date that also would be meaningful, even symbolic for Steve. Hence, I chose 27 October because, as I had written last year in the fourth installment of my Steve Eulogy series, although having been born in the Bronx, Steve was a life-long Dodgers fan, going back to when the Dodgers were playing in Brooklyn. One of the few Dodgers fans in the Yankee neighborhoods of the Bronx! Not only did he get into occasional fistfights because he was Jewish but also because he was a Dodgers fan.
How could you not cheer during the 1950s for Brooklyn Dodgers greats: Jackie Robinson, Duke Snider, Don Drysdale, and the others! Of course, there was Sandy Koufax whom many baseball fans consider to be the greatest pitcher; moreover, Koufax was Jewish.
During the final days of October 2020, the Los Angeles Dodgers were playing against the Tampa Bay Rays, ultimately winning the World Series title on 27 October 2020. I hope that Steve was conscious enough to hear the radio announcer—Steve’s preferred method of following sports games—shout “Dodgers win! Dodgers win!” And I hope, too, that he experienced that celebration, knowing that his beloved Dodgers indeed had won. At that moment, I like to think—yes, I know this is a self-created fantasy on my part could and very well is a self-serving illusion, but it is one that softens the sting of Steve’s passing—that Steve moved on.
If he were alive, Steve would be cheering for the Dodgers right now during the 2024 World Series. No matter how much he loved his Bronx—and yes, he, too, supported the Yankees, nonetheless, I think his loyalty to the L.A. transplants would supersede any local allegiance. Steve always knew how to stand out, even when doing so might get him the wrong attention.
As I’m typing the draft that ultimately became this blog, I turn around to look at the large picture of Steve I have framed, positioned prominently in my study room; the 24-hour long lit yahrzeit candle stands vigil in front of this photograph. I’m hesitant; I’m unsure of what and how to write this blog.
The picture: a photograph of a television screen in which Steve is sitting in a barber’s chair. When his bipolar condition allowed him, he enjoyed traveling to the West Coast. During a visit to his nephew in the Carmel, California region, he frequented a barber who still retained the old-fashioned vibe of a barbershop. This barber loved movies, and he convinced a local television news station to allow him to review the latest films. For one film review recording, Steve was present, and decided to join in. He was an actor for a day, even dressing for the part. He donned a laughably oversized red-haired wig. On the one hand, he looked like someone who needed a haircut; on the other, he looked like someone who was a leftover from the hippie movement and didn’t need a haircut. A deadpan facial expression, he held a lollipop in his hand, staring off into the distance. The ever-serious barber holding his comb and scissors looked into the camera praising or panning the latest film. Throughout the entire sequence, Steve didn’t move, never breaking out of character. Not smirking or chuckling, he gripped that lollipop like a child who was getting his haircut for the first time. When the barber’s review bit ended, the bewildered and gaping television news anchors commented, “Who was that guy?”
When Steve gifted me a smaller version of this photograph, I couldn’t not laugh. He laughed louder, heartier than me. For this reason, I chose to enlarge the photograph, placing it in my study room right above a massive bookshelf—a worthy place to honor him… above books, symbols of the life of the mind he so cherished. Even though the original picture is over twenty years old, I still smile happily. This Steve is the one I like to commemorate. This Steve is the one I honor. And this enlarged portrait is placed right behind me, reminding me that he is always there… that he has my back.
Drafting this blog yesterday while Steve’s Yahrzeit candle was burning, I wondered what next to do. Should I recite a kaddish, a Jewish prayer in memory of the dead? I searched for rabbis and musical performers chanting this ritual. I found Leonard Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3 “Kaddish.” I listened to it, not at all impressed or moved by Bernstein’s music. It didn’t bring peace or comfort. Its lyrics are accusatory, charging God for his apparent betrayal of his humans; although there is an apparent reconciliation between the artist and his aloof Creator father figure, Bernstein’s “Kaddish” fails the occasion.
Moreover, the music is jarring; the modern-esque, atonal dissonant sounds weren’t what I was expecting to hear. This style of music is representative of Bernstein’s other musical works, which I do appreciate; however, I didn’t need further cacophonic noise surrounding Steve’s tragic passing to remember him on 27 October.
I searched and found Maurice Ravel’s Deux mélodies hébraïques (“Two Hebrew Songs”). The first Hebrew song is a kaddish, and the second is “L’énigme éternelle” (“The Eternal Enigma”). I found Ravel to be more of what I was hoping to hear; nonetheless, these two songs didn’t satisfy my spirit or my ceremonial need to remember Steve.
I searched on, and thought I heard Steve’s voice say: “Enough,” and I turned on some Mozart music. Starting with Mozart’s unfinished Requiem and then on to his Piano Sonatas, I transitioned from the traditional grieving music to more life-affirming, joyous music. More in Steve’s taste. Later last night, an insight hit me: for next year’s lighting of Steve’s Yahrzeit Ceremony, I will play cheerful (one of Steve’s favorite words) Mozart compositions instead of the gloomy and mournful kaddishes. Creating my own tradition of Steve’s Yahrzeit ceremony would be something that not only would Steve approve but appreciate.
During my impromptu, first-ever Yahrzeit ceremony, I decided to respond to one of Steve’s friends who had reached out to me, asking whether I would “light a candle for Steve.” I debated myself if I should even respond to Steve’s friend because in the past, he didn’t mince words that Steve’s death was a suicide—which was true—but that Steve’s suicide was an act of revenge against certain people. I felt accused.
Years before Steve’s death, he broke ties with this embittered, cynical man. Even after Steve’s death, this misanthrope doesn’t know when to stop.
The wise counselor and first-rate manuscript editor, King Arthur praised my candle ceremony but advised me to cut permanently all ties with this derisive life-negator. King Arthur also suggested that I “’formalize’ my vision/image of Steve going forward. No more bad feelings about that either…. [that] perhaps [I should] think of him as a friendly ghost looking down on [me] fondly and wishing [me] well.” King Arthur spoke words I already heard in my mind; however, I needed to hear them in the air.
I think this year’s commemoration of Steve’s passing isn’t as painful or mournful as the last three years have been. Steve’s “friendly ghost” does appear in my Katyn manuscript as a vital character. Given this past summer’s revision of the manuscript, in many ways, I have indeed gained a new understanding, and dare I say, a new approach to living without Steve as a physically present friend. Given that the manuscript is more or less ready to seek a home at a publisher more than suggests that a new sequence in my life is about to begin.
I also think this year’s remembrance of Steve’s life isn’t as melancholy or emotional as the last three years have been. Writing, editing, and revising my Katyn manuscript is in part a homage to Steve. And now that the reality of that writing process is nearly complete, the next stage of my intellectual’s journey and, yes, my artist’s career, is calling out to me.
I think daily of my June 2023 conversation with King Arthur when he asked, “Now that the Katyn project is drawing to a close, what’s next?” I jokingly replied, “A children’s book,” and while laughing, I added, “No. Better yet… a children’s coloring book.” I expected King Arthur to join in laughing. He didn’t. He looked serious. “You’re kidding,” I blurted. His look of resolve peered into me. “No,” I confessed, “doom and gloom Dan write a children’s book?” King Arthur simply nodded.
Steve always said I picked the most formidable and difficult existential teaching and book-writing topics. “Children’s books, you say?” I mused back in June 2023, and now… as I finish this blog on 28 October 2024 and as I am about to extinguish Steve’s 24-hour long memorial candle… I say, “Children’s books, you say!”