A TREE FOR ALL SEASONS

In a four year span during the mid to late 1990s my now-grown children lost three of their grandparents and their dog. My boys were 10 and 6 when my father died in 1994. Three years later there were three more losses. My mom died in 1997.  A little more than one year later my father-in-law and dog Kirby, a cairn terrier, died on the same day in August 1998. My wife and I were in Quebec City at a music festival, at the time, on our first extended vacation away from our children when we received the news in two heartbreaking telephone calls just six hours apart.

As a mental health professional who has spent time with bereaved children and adults over many years, I had extensive knowledge about how children process death at different ages. Over the years I developed good skills in listening and gently encouraging the expression of feelings through talk and play. But I also knew that addressing the death of strangers was not the same thing as coping with one’s own losses.

Like so much that I have struggled with as a parent, I knew I had to put my credentials aside and simply do the best I could to support my family and take care of myself, as I was bereaved as well.

Soon thereafter my family and I experienced  another death—this time  with an impact I had not expected and effects that linger to this day. In our yard was an old pine tree that had to be felled after it contracted a disease. None of the tree “experts” that I employed could bring it back to health.

It was a splendid tree of great character, oddly shaped, home to a squirrel’s nest and countless birds, and with branches sitting low enough for swinging and climbing. Its trunk was thick enough to run around to evade contact during games of tag. It was free enough of branches in one high spot to support a backboard and hoop.

It wasn’t easy to dribble on the grass but it was just perfect for endless games of H-O-R-S-E. On the warmest summer days its shade offered respite from the oppressive sun. Each fall I was left with the unpleasant task of raking pine needles. But our tree also bore pine cones that I threw into the winter fireplace for extra snap, crackle and pop that rivaled Rice Krispies.

It was our family tree, a tree for all seasons.

Today, when I look outside or sit in the yard I am flooded with memories of my old friend and the times we had together. We’ve planted a few new trees around the perimeter of the yard in the intervening years, but the hole in the center remains.

Henry David Thoreau wrote, “I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.”

Life is full of surprises, and it came as a surprise to me to think that I would one day be thinking about how much I really loved that old tree.

by Andrew Malekoff

Published in Long Island Weekly, July 2017

https://longislandweekly.com/a-tree-for-all-seasons/

PARADE OF BROKEN HEARTS

There were many reflections about the 2001 terrorist attack on America leading up to the 15^th anniversary just a few weeks ago. Following is my reflection on the memorial service at the World Trade Center on October 28, 2001. I attended the service with a group of mental health workers who offered their support for the bereaved.

As I recall, at the end of the service there was a chill in the air as the sun disappeared behind the ruins of the World Trade Center. Renee Fleming, accompanied by the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, sang God Bless America.

Moments earlier I said goodbye to the family I stood beside during the memorial service. They sat in the back row of our section, one of scores of sections filled with thousands of folding chairs, each chair occupied by a grieving family member. I stood with my back against an iron gate so I would not block anyone’s view. The family had lost its father and husband, a decorated firefighter. The widow was a slight woman of Italian descent, probably in her late sixties.

Photos of her husband were pinned to her wool coat, and to the coats of her three children. He was handsome. He had a white moustache and a full head of silvery hair, combed straight back. When the memorial service started an hour earlier one of her sons, an off-duty police officer, asked if I would make sure that no one obstructed his mother’s view. He said, “You can see how short she is.”

The service began with a processional that included His Eminence Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop of New York. Then, police officer Daniel Rodriguez of the NYPD sang The Star Spangled Banner. He had become a national presence by appearing in his dress blues and singing the national anthem at Yankee Stadium before the 97^th World Series that pitted the Yankees against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Everyone was on his or her feet. A massive wall of mourners rose around the tiny figure to my right. When I saw her struggling to climb, I took her arm and helped her up onto a folding chair. I told her that she could grab on to me. “Hold on to my shoulders,” I said. She hesitated. I told her, “Don’t worry you won’t knock me over.”

I could feel her trembling as she removed her right hand from my shoulder and fumbled for a tissue inside her coat pocket. I reached into my pocket and handed her a handkerchief.

When I was picking out my clothes earlier in the morning I had come across several unopened packets of white handkerchiefs. They belonged to my father who died seven years earlier. As I got dressed, I thought that today my father would want somebody who needed it to have one of his handkerchiefs. At first she refused my offer, not wanting to impose. I urged her, “Please, take it. It’s okay.”

Fifteen years later, my father’s handkerchiefs remain tucked into my dresser drawer - a daily reminder of when I joined a parade of broken hearts. Sometimes I close my eyes, think back and try to recall what things felt like before that sunny fall morning at ground zero.

https://longislandweekly.com/parade-broken-hearts/

Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org. 

PROJECT REBIRTH

PROJECT REBIRTH

By Andrew Malekoff©

In the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on America, several artists joined together to produce a soft cover book entitled 9/11: Artists Respond. The book of graphic art showcases the artists’ responses to the terror that befell the world. One nine-frame piece by Jeph Loeb and Scott Campbell entitled “Please Stand By…” features a girl of about eight years of age watching cartoons on television. By the third and fourth frames, the image on the screen changes to a live feed of the Twin Towers ablaze. As the little girl stands transfixed, stuffed animal in hand and her face less than 12 inches from the screen, the commentator announces, “We interrupt this program to take you live…” the little girl turns away and calls, “Mommy…” The next three frames show her mother dropping a basket of laundry. Then, with her face contorted in anguish, the mother embraces her daughter to shield her from the unrelenting images. The final frame is a close-up of the little girl asking, “Mommy, when are the cartoons gonna come back on?”

Recently I had the opportunity of viewing another set of images in the form of a moving 30-minute preview of a feature-length documentary film by filmmaker Jim Whitaker that captures rebuilding of the World Trade Center (WTC) and nine people coping with 9/11. Whitaker, who was visiting New York City to attend a wedding at the time of the terrorist attack, is the founder of Project Rebirth, a non-profit initiative aiming to chronicle living history and honor 9/11 victims and first responders.

The film introduces us to a diverse group of nine people, all of whom were impacted by 9 / 11 and agreed to participate in a series of interviews conducted by Whitaker during following years. These individuals include:

• A survivor from an impact floor on the South Tower
• A NYPD officer who oversaw recovery efforts at the Fresh Kills Landfill
• A fireman that survived the collapse of the Towers, but lost his best friend in addition to 343 fellow firefighters
• A teenage boy who lost his mother
• A young woman who lost her fiancé
• A construction worker who lost his brother and assisted with recovery efforts
• A Muslim American woman who became an advocate for religious tolerance
• A volunteer in the recovery effort who later assisted hurricane Katrina survivors
• A man who lost his domestic partner of 14 years and then moved to the West Coast

They generously offer us, and future generations no doubt, the intimate gift of their unfolding grief and resiliency in the face of disaster.

The film is scheduled for release in 2010. In addition to preserving history through this personal record of the long-term grieving process, it is the aim of this film to capture the rebuilding of the World Trade Center. This is accomplished through the use of 12 time-lapse cameras recording 24/7 at the WTC site.

It is the mission of Project Rebirth, beyond creating the documentary, to educate and inform students and future generations, and to help support victims of and first responders to major disasters. A Project Rebirth Center will be developed to integrate and improve on therapeutic, educational and training resources focused on grief and trauma suffered by victims and first responders to major disasters.

I am not sure whether Project Rebirth answers the little girl’s question of, “when are the cartoons gonna come back on?” But I am certain that this astounding work of art will go a long way toward helping survivors and responders of disasters to find their ways out of the darkness.

For more information visit the Project Rebirth website at www.projectrebirth.org.

Originally printed in the Anton Newspapers on Long Island on August 27, 2009.