Forgiveness

Dear Larry,

This week marks the fourth anniversary of your death. Though you stopped physically speaking to me over the past 14 years, you continuously communicate to me through your spirit.. rather than lawyers.  I never thought it was coincidental that you died the day after Rosh Hashanna and during the holiest week of the jewish calendar when we repent and ask for forgiveness from all those we have wronged. When we soberly submit to divine justice and realize that we are everything and nothing. Capable of the greatest and the worst and that our bodies are just temporary and disposable containers that disappear, seamlessly, into the soil.  We used to philosophically ruminate over the ironic fact that even Tupperware lasts longer and leaves a bigger carbon footprint than the human form and when  our kids got up from shiva on the eve of Yom Kippur, Yossi, Zevi and I truly felt every word in the Kol Nidre  and  Nesana tokef prayers of the Holiest day of the year.  I felt fear and ,for the first time in my life, anger at hashem for the excruciating and  immensely heartrending grief caused to my beautiful boys by your sudden demise. Not only for your physical loss, but for the death of any chance of having a reparative healing relationship with you after many years of estrangement.  How were they to mourn a man who they were confused, frightened and resentful about?  It was the worst day of all of our lives which had been pummeled by years of court battles, silences, frustration and poverty.  In the last few years, our young men finally spent some time with you and were scheduled to go with you to Israel the very next day for the holidays.  Instead they flew to Israel and buried you on Har Hamenuchot.  I never was so heartbroken and proud at the same time, for they were there for you, unconditionally, in death when you struggled with being, unconditionally, present for them throughout their lives.  In some weird way, YOU were asking for forgiveness at the same time we were asking for yours, as it is the custom of family members to ask of the Soul that has passed during it's religious funeral. For death is the ultimate “kaparah”- Atonement and you gave the ultimate one that day.

Larry, I know you thought I wished you ill or dead, but I didn’t. I wanted you to be something that you were incapable of being. Rational, Honest and able to let go. I tried and failed and for that I am so sorry.

I’m sorry that you never saw our sons meet beautiful, kind and spectacular girls.

I am sorry that you didn’t get to walk them down the aisle and see the joy in their eyes that were lacking before. 

I’m sorry that you didn’t see  our sons graduate college, become fathers and young men who are pure, spiritual and loving. 

I’m sorry you were so mentally troubled your whole life and that you struggled, even though you never complained to anyone.. 

I’m sorry that I didn’t remember the “good” enough. Your buoyant optimism, intelligence, creativity, sheer brilliance and talent in so many areas.  Your dedication to your mother, your love of Israel and of our people and most of all your magnetic and magnanimous persona that compelled people to ask if you were “Alec Baldwin”.

 Your generosity was world-renowned and as a mutual friend told me at your funeral. “Larry had a beautiful heart, but a sick brain”.  Yes, you were a puzzle we never solved, an enigma that we could not even attempt to unravel and a true paradox.  I guess that’s what originally attracted my adolescent self to you, but I failed to help you and for that I apologize. For you DID love me and that was the reason you couldn’t move forward and continue an amicable relationship and be a father to your sons   They always loved you and so did I.  We still do.

Immediately after your death, I began to have lucid dreams where you appeared young, healthy and happy.  You showed off your physique (because in recent years, you had become obese) and were so excited to show me how great you looked and felt) I felt your presence around me and had a desire to visit your gravesite, even though I didn’t know how I could accumulate the time and money to do so, but you told me I would and instead of seeking professional psychiatric help, I prayed at the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s grave and it was there that I felt certain I would go.  Two days later, my brother called to invite me to his son’s bar mitzvah in Israel and asked if I would allow him to pay for the trip.  When I got there, I met your driver of many years in front of the King david and he drove me to your “kever”.  I touched the cold stone, said tehillim and wrote  “I forgive you” on a piece of paper, read it out loud and tore it up. It was at that moment that I felt a great weight lifted from my heart and soul.  It was the pain I was causing to myself by not truly forgiving and as Mark twain said “Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it. " It wasn’t only the fragrance of the sharp Jerusalem Pines that were filling the air, but it was the fragrance of forgiveness.