A CHANCE ENCOUNTER - OR MORE?

Have you heard of godwinks? A godwink is an experience where you'd say, "What are the chances of that!" It’s been described by some as a spiritual message of reassurance, especially in times of uncertainty, maybe the impetus for restored faith during difficult times. Some see it as divine intervention, others as pure coincidence.

Although I was not familiar with the term, it reminded me of something that happened to me that I thought was astonishing. In 2005 I lost a very good friend and colleague named Roselle. We had become business partners in 1990. The longtime editors of a popular professional journal decided to step down and asked the two of us, strangers at the time, to become their successors.

Years later we both revealed that we were, at first, wary of each other. After all, we’d never met, and so we had no idea what it would be like working together as co-editors of an esteemed quarterly publication. Roselle was a university professor and I was a frontline mental health practitioner. What we shared in common was that we were both published authors.

After a relatively short period of testing and unease we not only became great collaborators but fast friends. The relationship ended in June of 2005 when I received a call that Roselle had died. It was sudden, unexpected and heartbreaking.

Shortly thereafter, in December 2005, I organized a meeting with two of Roselle’s fellow professors and friends. Together we decided to develop a special publication in Roselle’s honor. We were to meet in Manhattan at their university. Normally, I would have just taken the LIRR into the city the morning of our meeting, but, as luck would have it, at the time there was a transit strike. So I decided to play it safe and get in the night before and stay in a hotel while the trains were still running.

That night I took a walk and stopped in a bar to get a glass of wine. I walked to the end of the bar and there was my cousin Amy whom I had not seen in years. Unbeknownst to me, she lived across the street from the bar and was working as a real estate broker. It was great catching up with her.

Fast forward some months later. I was back in Manhattan to take care of some business regarding my partnership with Roselle at a local university. Having reconnected, I called Amy to see if she was free for lunch. She was and so we got together. She asked me why I was in the city. I told her I had to go to Hunter College School of Social Work to take care of some business related to a partnership I had with a professor there. I explained that she died last June. She asked me, “What was her name?” I told her, “Roselle Kurland.” She gasped and said, “Oh my God, I just sold her apartment!”

Was this a godwink? Was it a tangible signpost giving me hope and faith that someone is watching over me and everything is going to be alright? Or was it pure coincidence, a fluke? I choose to think that it was more than that. During these uncertain times, a source of faith, however unusual, is a welcome reminder that we are not alone and that there is hope.

by Andrew Malekoff

Published in Long Island Weekly, May 2017
https://longislandweekly.com/a-chance-encounter-or-more/

REBIRTH

REBIRTH

Andrew Malekoff © 2011

I was privileged to be at a pre-release screening of the extraordinary feature-length documentary film called Rebirth at Hofstra University in June. In just two months, you can see it too.

Rebirth’s theatrical premiere will be held on August 31, at the IFC Center in New York City and on SHOWTIME on the 10th anniversary commemoration of September 11, 2001.

Rebirth follows the transformation of five people, over the last 10 years, whose lives were forever altered on that day. Aside from some brief footage depicting the day that the towers fell, to set the stage, the focus of the film is almost exclusively on the life trajectory of these five people.

The film-makers, led by director Jim Whitaker, introduce us to Tanya, a young woman who lost her fiancé; Nick, a teenaged boy who lost his mother; Tim, a firefighter who lost all of his friends; Brian, a construction worker who lost his brother; and Ling, a woman who was badly burned in the attack on the Twin Towers.

At the emotional core of the film is Tanya, a young woman who lost her fiancé, Sergio, a New York City firefighter. Tanya bares her grief with such authenticity that viewers are riveted to her every word and expression.

Nick was 15-years old when his mother died. A few years after the tragedy he became estranged from his father, who remarried, adding a complication to Nick’s grief. The openness with which Nick expresses his sadness and anger, offers us a rare window into an adolescent boy’s grieving.

Tim and Brian, offer the perspective of two men who lost, respectively, a best friend and a brother. Complicating Tim’s grief is his forthright feelings of survivor’s guilt, reminiscent of a soldier at war struggling with the loss of his fallen comrades. Brian offers another angle, with his touching reflection on how heartbreaking it is for him when he sees other brothers doing simple things together, like shopping at Home Depot.

Last but not least is Ling, who experienced a different kind of loss. She was badly burned over her right arm and the right side of her face and endured 40 surgeries over the intervening years. Ling offers us a multi-layered perspective of her pain, despair, resignation, hope and resilience. I found Ling to be a heroic figure who handled herself with grace, dignity and humor throughout her ordeal.

The sixth “character” in the film is Ground Zero itself. The film-makers, via multi-camera time-lapse photography, artfully tracked the evolution of the space where the Twin Towers once stood over lower Manhattan. Film-goers will be treated to this visual marvel and signs of rebirth and growth in segments that are interspersed throughout the interviews.

Rebirth is not a political movie, although some reviewers criticized the absence of a political voice in the film. I strongly disagree. The film was made to tell the story of loss, healing, hope, growth and resiliency in the context of one of the most horrifying chapters in American history. The film does that and much more. The lessons about complicated grief presented to us by Tim, Tanya, Brian, Ling and Nick transcend 9/11.

The film has an afterlife – it stays with you for weeks and you want to talk about it. Rebirth is a film best viewed with others. I would not recommend it for children under 13 years of age. If you have older adolescents in your life, watch it together and talk about it with them.

See Rebirth! You won’t regret it and you won’t forget it.

To be published in Anton Newspapers, Long Island New York, August 18, 2011

WORKS IN PROGRESS

WORKS IN PROGRESS

By Andrew Malekoff©2007

In 1964 movie producer Michael Apted conducted and filmed interviews with fourteen seven-year-old children from diverse backgrounds living all across the United Kingdom. Seven Up is the first in a series of films that have been produced in seven year intervals over the past four decades. I recently watched the latest installment - 49 Up.

Imagine having your life portrayed on film for public consumption at regular intervals for as long as you live; facing questions about your work and family, your successes and failures, your joys and disappointments. Imagine having to dig deep to consider and then share with the world whether or not your hopes and dreams have been fulfilled.

In the beginning of the early episodes the film presents viewers with a maxim attributed to Jesuit missionary Saint Francis Xavier, “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” In an interview Apted says that he believes that there is a core personality at seven years old that doesn't dissapear. Some of the children he interviewed were raised in privileged surroundings and boarding schools and others in poverty and group care. Yet their early socioeconomic status did not necessarily predict stability or happiness in later life.

Following Seven Up, each successive film includes interspersed clips from previous ones, enabling viewers to see the individuals mature from childhood to adolescence to young adulthood and beyond. Many, but not all, get married and become parents. Some separate, some divorce and some remarry. Many speak to the challenges of marriage. Their physical maturation is presented before our eyes in a sort of time-lapse photography style, accompanied by the music of childhood dreams, adolescent angst and adult realities. Older age awaits them (and us) and is only a few multiples of seven ahead. Having lost contemporaries of my own by their age, I found it remarkable that this random sample of fourteen people were all still living at 49, although we are just now beginning to see signs and symptoms of ailing health among the group.

I was also surprised to learn that only one person dropped out (after 21 Up) and especially after hearing several reflect on how painful it is to be a part of the series. They talked about the difficulty of having their lives (and families) intruded upon, being placed under a public microscope and, to add insult to injury, being subjected to random (mis)interpretations and judgments by strangers based on edited celluloid snippets of their lives.

Some of them recognize the contribution and importance of their ongoing participation in the project. I think that their sacrifice is a gift to the rest of us. Their lives portrayed at seven year intervals over forty-two years and counting, offer us a message of hope. By laying their lives on the line they demonstrate, in graphic terms, just how resilient human beings are and how powerful family life is.

What about Saint Francis Xavier? Is his contention correct? : “Give me the child until he is seven and I will give you the man [or woman].” At first glance, when I look back at myself at seven, I find little to predict what has become of me today. I cannot quite remember myself at seven. There is no filmed documentary available of anyone asking me questions about my life and my future in 1958. The best I could do was to dig up old report cards. In one of them my first grade teacher Mrs. Finkel wrote, “Andrew tends to go to extremes lately. He is either the best boy in the class, or he creates mischief by loud laughter.” In her next report she upgraded me and wrote, “Splendid worker.”

If I look closely at myself at seven and fourteen and twenty-one I can find some clues that lead me to where I am today. But the clues don’t appear to me in a straight line. The path is a crooked one with many twists and turns and detours. When I look at my own sons, now 18 and 22, it is good for me to remember this, to remember that like me and the Seven Up kids they are and will continue to be forever works in progress.

This article was originally published in the Anton Community Newspapers, Long Island, NY.