It is obvious that Dad and Mom are the stars, but we have to thank the team at Craig. Dad and Mom hosted a good-bye party before they left and had a chance to personally thank so many of the staff. But, I now know how those who win academy awards feel...there is no way to name names without leaving someone out. Words cannot express our gratitude to everyone, beginning with Dr. Hsu at the helm and going on and on to the entire staff. Below are just a few pictures...
"It isn't what you do, but how you do it."
"It's what you learn after you know it all that counts."
"Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out."
and, finally, a quote from the just as famous coach Trudi Rosenfeld, illustrated by the staff at Iowa Ortho...
Willow Weep No More
They have seventy-one years of marriage between the two of them, although together they just celebrated eighteen.
Mom says, “He is my third marriage but my first husband.”
My parents, Trudi and Marty, met in 1963, when both were involved in the Midwest region of United Synagogue Youth (USY). Mom lived in St. Louis and Dad lived in Des Moines. Over the next two years they saw each other only six times, but they sent letters daily. When Mom arrived at camp the summer of 1965, she saw Marty holding hands with another girl. She cried for two weeks.
In the fall, she started her senior year of high school. In art class she expressed her feelings through painting with a self-portrait entitled “Willow Weep for Me.”
The next summer, Mom and Marty saw each other at camp again. Although they did trade a glance or two, they did not exchange a single word.
Two more years passed, and no letters passed between them. Eventually, Mom accepted an engagement ring from another. Then, on a Thursday night, she received a phone call.
“Don’t get married,” Marty said. “Come to Des Moines and meet my parents.”
She agreed and went to tell her parents.
Her mother’s reaction was quite simple. “We have two-hundred-fifty Cornish hens ordered for your wedding in two days.”
The trip to Des Moines never happened.
After fourteen years of marriage and three daughters (I am the middle one) my mom’s marriage ended. After some time and consideration, she decided to find Marty. Going about things the old-fashioned way, without the luxury of Google, she talked with friends and went to the library for phone books. She took a chance and called the now “Dr. Rosenfeld” at his office. It was a simple conversation.
“Hi. I’m divorced, and I heard you were, too.”
His reaction was not what she had hoped for.
“I remarried, and we just had a baby,” Marty said.
Again, she hung the self-portrait on the wall … and wept.
As things often do, my younger sister, Tiffany, followed in my mother’s footsteps and joined the same region of USY that Mom had been in almost thirty years earlier. She attended the fall conference in Des Moines. One evening during a large group dinner, a gentleman in a light-blue sport jacket walked on stage and, amid the hundreds of teenagers, took the microphone and simply asked, “Does anyone out there know Trudi Lasky?”
My sister, very shy and quite surprised, raised her hand, stood up, and then said hesitantly, “That is my mom.”
Marty introduced himself to Tiffany and explained how he knew Mom (although I am pretty certain he left out many details.) She snapped a few pictures and accepted his phone number, assuring him that she would pass it along to Mom when the weekend conference was over.
But my sister was a little uncertain. Mom was in the middle of her second divorce, and that marriage, like her first, was far from healthy. Tiffany wondered whether she should develop the pictures and give Mom the phone number now or wait until there some semblance of normal returned to our lives? Then again, what was normal? Why not give this a shot and move ahead with a “new normal.”
Tiffany told Mom about her surprise visitor in Des Moines, and the two decided they should develop the film immediately. After all, Mom had not seen Marty in almost three decades. However, by that time, the new puppy had decided the roll of film was a chew toy, so there were no pictures. But on Tiffany’s urging, Mom called the number, and although she had no picture, she finally heard Marty’s voice again.
During their second phone conversation, he proposed and she accepted. The ring arrived in the mail later that week.
Months went by, and just like teenagers, Mom and Marty talked on the phone every night for hours. We all started to notice that this “new normal” could, and did, involve smiles and happiness. The willow tree was no longer weeping. The only problem: he was in Des Moines and she was in St. Louis.
Fall arrived, and it was time for Mom to take me to college at the University of Iowa—coincidentally, only two hours east of Des Moines. After checking into the hotel, Mom and I had just sat down to relax when the front desk called to say there was something wrong with the credit card Mom had used to make the reservation. She let the desk clerk know she was on her way down to straighten things out.
When the elevator doors opened to the lobby, there stood Marty with two dozen red roses. He quickly explained that there was noting wrong with her credit card; it had all been a ploy to get her to the lobby. I will never forget the image of my mom, happier than I had ever seen her, in the arms of her true love. It was kismet, meant to be.
Many years have passed since my Mom and Dad finally got married. (Although not my biological father, Marty has been “Dad” to me in every sense of the word.) Like all marriages, they have gone through some rough spots, but nothing could have prepared them for what was to come.
In December 2009, Dad was involved in an incident that left him a quadriplegic. He was on a ventilator in an intensive care unit for six weeks. Mom rarely left his side. She became his advocate, his voice, his calming presence, his angel. They have since left the hospital and for the last three months (and counting) have been at a remarkable rehabilitation facility.
When Mom feels angry, hopeless, exhausted, helpless, frustrated, or any negative emotion, I simply ask her, “Do you still love him.”
She answers me without hesitating. “I did not think I could love him more than I have my entire life, but I do.”
In Hebrew, the letters of the alphabet also have a numerical value. The Hebrew word for life, chai, has the numerical value of eighteen. In February, at the remarkable rehabilitation facility, my parents celebrated their eighteenth anniversary. For them, life has started again.
Although my mother’s self-portrait is now hanging in my living room, I know the willow is not weeping. It is a constant reminder to me that the power of love can go beyond the past as well as the present to create a beautiful future—such as this “new normal” that has returned my mom to the arms of her true love, her first true husband.
Finally, words cannot express our gratitude to all of you who have sent thoughts, prayers, cards, messages, and especially, love to Dad (and the whole family) throughout this journey. Homecoming marks just one checkpoint met...we have so much further to go. Your love has been amazing!
xxxooo etc.
Suz
