An October Memory. Susan's 50th Birthday.

   Twenty years ago in October 1998, my older sister Susan turned 50. Before 1998 was finished, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and our father died after a stroke. The proverbial shit hit the fan.

   But before that mess, for one epic weekend in October 1998, we celebrated Sue. Being celebrated was not easy for her. Celebrating her was easy for us, her siblings. We had been without her for 20-some years while she lived and worked overseas. It’s not that we never saw her of course. She came for family events when she could coordinate travel with work. We visited her in Paris. Most of us were together on a trip to Dad’s village in Greece in 1988. She returned to New York City with her true love in 1995 and they married. We were so happy to have her back in the states. This is my attempt to celebrate her again, as we near what would be her 70th birthday. 

   

   I’ve written so many words about Sue over the years. I write about her in February because she died in February 2001. I write about her in October in an effort to remember her on her birthday. I wrote about her here in 2013 when I contacted and received a copy of her 1971 masters degree paper from SUNY-Stonybrook. I know I am not alone in thinking about her often; not only in February and October.

   Because this is MY blog, I get to tell this story from my perspective. Luckily however, I also have a letter she wrote to us, her “Dear Sibs” to tell about that epic 1998 50th-birthday-weekend we gave her. I was the lucky local sibling representative. Everyone else was in California.

   I’m not sure how the plan began to form, but in the end, my husband Mike and I went up to New York for her birthday. Mike’s brother lived in NYC. I called him our “activities director” because he provided suggestions for restaurants. Thom joined us for a light pre-show meal at Barrymore’s Restaurant, before we went to see “RENT” at the Nederlander Theatre. Then we had a late dinner at Churrascaria Plataforma. We stayed at a hotel in the city — in a tiny room for 4. And then on Sunday we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. And finally returned to their apartment in Jersey City before returning home to Maryland.

   I made this “Your share of this once in her lifetime priceless event” collage for the siblings, using matchbook covers and the ticket stubs. I thought it was pretty clever.

   One of the remarkable things about Sue’s “Dear Sibs” letter is that it appears she typed it on a computer. Nothing is X’d out, as she would often do in her typewriter-typed letters. She was not a fan of computers, but was finally joining the computer age. She hated email but used it on occasion. I don’t know what happened to my original copy of her letter. The one I have is a copy she sent to our cousin Cathy. This is the other remarkable thing because our Mom made a habit of copying letters and sending them to other family members who might enjoy them. Was Sue upholding that tradition or was it simply her way of avoiding the dreaded “sibling email flurry” that she sometimes got sucked into. I don’t know.

[I have learned that 8.5X11 images don’t fit very well in this blog space so I’ve transcribed her letter and inserted bits of my “priceless” collage.] 

Jersey City

November 23, 1998

Dear Sibs,

(I started this letter three weeks ago, but then you know how it goes.)

   They say there’s a Yiddish proverb which goes: “Only a fool does not grow old”. In other words, you’d have to be stupid not to notice. So I made a sort of Faustian pact with myself early this year. I would agree to notice my 50th birthday, if it was an offer I couldn’t refuse, i.e., so special that I’d be nuts to pass it up. Thanks to you guys and Francois, it worked. 

   (Now I know that fifty isn’t that old. But, indeed, one day it just happened, I was counting the years left, instead of the years gone by, although god knows the women in our family are more long-lived than I even want to think about for myself, so “what’s left” isn’t that short I’m sure. And independently of my will, I found myself thinking things like, “Oh, it’s not worth paying for a German class, I’ll never have time to really use it.” Something had to be sorted out, I couldn’t go on like that.)

   So you guys arranged the perfect thing. I don’t know if you heard our itinerary. We met at the hotel in mid-town. A gorgeous end of October day, nearly crisp, bright sunshine. Joni looked terrific, she had on pink jeans and a black Tshirt, I loved it.

   Mike and Joni and I got dressed up (me and Joni wore black, of course) and, racing to make our reservation, got to Barrymore’s, Tom Sesma’s hangout, where they greeted Mike like he was a regular: “the ‘late’ Mr. Sesma I presume.” Francois met us there. We always have a nice time together, always stuff to talk about. 

Sadly, Barrymores closed in 2006 

   Then we walked over to the theater. Mind you, I do love the theater and I don’t believe I’ve ever actually been to a Broadway show (Tom, our Lenin-Joyce-in-Geneva was off-Broadway, right?) We had orchestra seats. This must be the first time I’ve been to a large theater where I wasn’t sitting “higher than Dad dropped bombs from”. Rent was fun. The music was catchy, the set was compelling, the story was “progressive”. Hard to believe they could make a play out of this, but it’s a series of interlocked love stories about homeless people on the lower East Side, half of whom have AIDS. When you know how Broadway was more than decimated by AIDS, it’s even more poignant. No wonder Gingrich and Pat Robertson hate New York City.

RENT. 5123 performances at the Nederlander Theatre. We saw one of them.

   Then we went to a Brazilian restaurant eight blocks away (we took a cab of course). Well, this was really something else. They had a huge salad bar with a million different things. Mike had ordered a Brazilian wine, which was fruity but not sweet and quite good. Then, they had dozens of waiters, each armed with three-foot meat skewers, who wandered around giving you tasty morsels of ten different meats and fish. You had top sirloin, and pork loin, and lamb and sausage and salmon and everything you could imagine. The next day, I was thinking, I just wish we’d gone there every night for a week after we got back from Moscow, I would have gotten over my deprivation longings immediately!

Churrascaria Plataforma. Still open! Since 1996.

   Tom Sesma came in, all dressed up in a tuxedo from a wedding, about midnight, so we got another bottle of wine and chatted and laughed til we were nearly the last ones leaving. It was good to see him, he’s in form, leaving for a tour in St. Louis, seems happy with his life. He’s looking for a new apartment, not an easy task in Manhattan.

   Next morning I got up … after Joni but before the guys … and went to the corner deli to get 8 cups of coffee in those Greek-motif paper cups. You do know that there are people in Manhattan who think that coffee originates in those cardboard cups. We got going around ten or so, cabbed it past Central Park up to the Guggenheim. It would have cost us another $50 to get in to the the exhibit, when in fact all we wanted to see was the spiraling architecture from the inside (if the picture turns out I’ll send you all a copy). So after eating our breakfast (eggs and bacon on a roll or bagel and cream cheese) at one of the entrances to Central Park, and wondering out loud why all the walkers (not joggers) doing their stretches and organizing themselves on a clipboard, why they all looked alike, went on back down to the Met.

A 1998 "selfie". We put the camera on the floor & set the timer. 

   Now the Met is genuinely wonderful, not least of the reasons being because you pay as you can to get in, but that’s only part of it. It manages to be the most spectacular displays of cultural achievements, without feeling as snooty as the Modern Art Museum or the Guggenheim. More just regular people checking things out. We went first to the the Mary Cassals. You know, it’s still considered fairly bold to present American painters (before the abomination of abstract expressionism) as something interesting. But she was in Paris and worked with the Impressionists and did some really lovely things about women, most of which were based on Japanese prints. We went next to the Netherlands special exhibit, interesting. For example the first painting where the craftsman, a goldsmith, was more prominent and individualized than his wealthy patrons. Learned something about the sixteenth century exchanges between merchant Italy and merchant Holland. But not enough Breughels, so ultimately disappointing.

   Then, Francois and I lured Mike and Joni back to Jersey City for soup and coffee before they embarked on their trip back to Washington.

   It was a great weekend, guys. Thanks a lot. To top it all off, Francois bought me some presents and one was a painting by a friend of ours. It’s a thrill to have a real work of art in the apartment (remember how we got such a kick out of having something by Bill Newmeyer in the house). Otherwise, to create the same feeling, I advertise for Jennifer and her talent, with a xerox of her self portrait (hey, Jenn, what do you think of Jersey city for your first big showing?).

   So, I think it’s weird to not be 25 anymore. But I’m beginning to get it. Next stop, Mark in two years. And before that, we’ll be celebrating Mar and her partnership.

   So, the good news is … the week I turned fifty they discovered that brain cells really do regenerate, split and multiply. At least that’s what the front page of the New York Times says. In case your memory isn’t fresh on this one, ever since the sixties when “sex, drugs and rock and roll” were center stage, they’ve been implying that you have a finite number of brain cells and if you’re smoking or drinking or in general doing other deviant things, you might as well just imagine those brain cells drying up and sloughing off, sort of like peeling after a sunburn. So there’s hope yet for that German class, and why not get my Russian really up to speed, right? Hey, Mar, you really must come in and teach me something about opera.

   Love you all, Susan 

Another selfie! Mike put the camera on the car, set the timer & ran to get in position.

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   In December 1998 my younger brother called me from California with the news we had feared for years; that our father had a stroke. He asked me to call Sue because she and I were in the same East coast time zone. She told me she couldn’t come right away. I was shocked and wondered what was so important that she couldn’t get to California. I said OK and hung up so I could go pack. About an hour later, she called me back to say the reason she couldn’t come right away was because she was starting chemotherapy the next day. She had breast cancer. Then she asked me not to tell anyone when I got out to California. She didn’t want to upset Mom.

   Susan had her first chemo session and then she did fly to California. And then, telling Mom she had to be back in New York for work, flew back and forth for appointments, until Dad died on December 23. The death of our father and its aftermath is a long story for some other day. I mention it here because it changed everything for all of us. He had cardiac issues for years so a stroke wasn’t all that shocking by itself. But his death was shocking. He was 77. Sue having cancer was shocking. Later, we found out that our mother had breast cancer at the same time, but thought it best to keep that news to herself so as not to worry any of us. It was too late. The proverbial shit already hit the fan and we’ve spent all these years cleaning up the mess. The list of family secrets is very long. 

   In between chemo sessions and remission periods during 1999 and 2000, we continued with typical family events; graduations, holiday celebrations, birthdays. Sue and Francois traveled here to Maryland, to California, to France to visit his family. It looked like cancer would just be another chronic disease like diabetes — what we now think of as “pre-existing conditions.” And then, on February 6, 2001, 27 months after diagnosis, the cancer finished its job and Susan left on her final overseas trip.

   As I said before about Sue, here on this blog, she didn’t believe in an after-life, but every now and then something comes along and we get to feel our older sister with us again. We can remember the story of her epic, “priceless” 50th birthday weekend. We can remember how proud we were, as her siblings, about organizing ourselves to celebrate her. We can read her own words, typed by her own fingers, as she thanked us for celebrating her and her 50th birthday. 

HAPPY 70TH BIRTHDAY, SUSAN!

   In the end, your “Dear Sibs” letter was your gift back to us. I’ve complained that you didn’t leave us instructions for how to carry on, but truth is, you did. Your instructions are in all your letters and postcards, and in the books you thought we should read that you gave as gifts, and in the inscriptions you wrote in those books. You left us little bits of yourself so we could check in from time to time. This blog post is my shout-out to you — out there in the universe. We know you’re out there somewhere.

Time zones to infinity