Taking it all on faith.

This is one of those years where the juxtaposition of two major faiths come together in the celebrations of Easter and Passover. Tradition tells us that the Last Supper was actually the Passover seder, and it is interesting that this year, the second seder fell on Thursday night, which would fall in line with the Christian telling of the final week of Jesus' life.

As I was raised Jewish, we would traditionally have seder's most often at my aunt's house in Brooklyn. Well, they weren't always full seder's, mind you. We were adherents to the ideal that every Jewish holiday was based on one underlying precept: "They tried to kill us, we survived, let's eat." I mean, you really can't argue with that, can you? It's pretty precise when you stop to think about it.

Let's look at Passover. If there was ever a template for this idea, this is it. I mean it has everything: A hero (Moses), a villain (Pharaoh), a quest (free the people), and assorted other characters that complete the hero myth very nicely. In the end, the villain, try as he may to wipe out his workforce, wound up getting screwed over. Pharaoh was not exactly the brightest torch in Egypt, and he wound up being a bronze age version of Gordon Gekko.

Moses: Why are you trying to wreck our lives?

Pharaoh: Because they're wreckable!

Then, there's God. Ok, so you basically have Ben Kenobi and Yoda wrapped up in one Supreme Being with a generally unpleasant temperament, who likes to appear incognito (i.e. the burning bush), prefers staffs of wood to lightsabers, and then writes down instructions in stone. C'mon, you just defeated the ruler of Egypt, you couldn't have borrowed some papyrus? Whatever happened to the idea that "to the victor, belongs the spoils?"

The only thing about Passover that makes life difficult is the "no leavening" requirement. For the gentile readers, this means bread with no yeast, or for that matter any baked goods you want to eat. This has translated into matzoh, which translates into cardboard that you can consume. While today there are actually many different types of matzoh that are quite good (onion, egg, other varieties), you had better have some salad or other type of food that can provide roughage, as your intestines will rebel if you don't.

I can certainly appreciate the ideals presented in the Passover story (perseverance, community, overcoming oppression, ), I have moved away from celebrating them in a yearly ritual. Everyday life in the modern age can be a struggle into itself, so I don't need to be reminded yet again of what it is to survive adversity, and come through it with a new beginning, a fresh start. I also think that these stories are, more than anything else, metaphors that were written at a time to provide a framework for a society to find a common heritage and belief. Did Moses exist? I suspect not. Did Jesus exist? We just don't know with absolute certainty. It requires something that I don't have: faith.

"I don't need to have faith, I have experience." wrote Joseph Campbell. He spoke of the idea that all the gods, all the demons, all the heaven and hells of the world were projections of psychological states of being. This was not new, as people like Jung and others had suggested the very same thing. I think that my own life experiences have born this out time and time again to me.

So, at this time of the year, I choose to look at my own trials, my own crosses that I bear, my own efforts to free myself from any psychological slavery that might be encumbering me, and try to break free from them, and resurrect myself.

Phew, that was a lot. Let's go eat.

Bittersweet.

Under normal circumstances, the title of this post would refer to chocolate, today being Valentine's Day. For the pessimistic amongst us, they view this holiday as a contrivance, something made up so that certain corporations, the greeting card industry amongst them, can increase their profit margin. For the romantics of the world, this is their day to celebrate. For me, it is a day that results in an emotional rollercoaster. On this day, in 1988, my dad died.

In 1984, I was in my junior year at college. I was living off campus at the time, right outside downtown Buffalo. It was a great apartment, though far removed from campus life. It was a Saturday morning in April, and I got an early morning phone call from my mom. Dad had a heart attack. I still remember very vividly slumping to the floor, overcome with emotion. I was working as a paramedic part time while away at school. They say too much knowledge can be a bad thing. In my case, it turned my life at that moment into a horror show.

My first reaction was to hop in my car and run down home, but my dad was not having any of it. He told me, through my mom, that he didn't want me coming. He said he was okay, and didn't want me to lose any time in school. I was extremely conflicted, but acquiesced to his wishes. However about four days later , though he was stable, it was determined that he would need double-bypass cardiac surgery. This time, I was the one not having any of it, and I told my mom I was coming down. "Don't tell him I'm coming if it is going to upset him." I said.

Driving down, as it turns out wasn't an option, so I quickly arranged to fly out of Buffalo into Newark. My brother picked me up, and we went to the hospital the day of the surgery. It went well, and he came out of it with flying colors. During the surgery however, he did need to have a unit of blood transfused. Not unusual for this surgery. Unfortunately, this was 1984, and in 1984, having a blood transfusion was anything but normal.

The signs of it should have been obvious to me. Denial is a powerful tool, and I probably was using it far more unconsciously that I would have cared to admit. It wasn't until a short time before he died that reality came crashing down.

Dad had AIDS. He contracted it in the transfusion. It was six months before the screen had come out. It was now 1988, and he was laying in a hospital bed, on a ventilator after going into cardiac arrest while undergoing a bronchoscopy. They revived his body, but his mind was gone. On February 13th, I kissed him good-bye for the last time. I went home, (I had graduated and was working in Brooklyn at this point.) crawled into bed, and was awakened by my brother the following morning. Dad died around 6 am, Valentine's Day, 1988.

It would forever alter what should be, under normal circumstances, a pretty happy day.

Last year was the worst it had been in a very long time. Twenty years was a bit of a milestone. This year was was better. Mrs. Nighttime and I went to dinner at a great Italian place near our home last night, and tonight we went to an improv comedy show that had a couple of friends performing in it. It was a good way to keep my mind off of it, not that I was forgetting about dad, but trying to counteract the sadness that in the past has overtaken me. Dad loved a good laugh, gave me some of my best jokes, so I think it was a rather appropriate thing to do.

So, the bittersweet feeling may not be from the chocolate that is consumed today, but it does have the same effect. In the end, you accept it for what it is, and try to enjoy the good parts, the parts that satisfy.

Happy Labor Day.....

....to all those here in the States that have this weekend off....Going to a bbq tonight, tomorrow another one in Buffalo, and as for Monday, who knows? Enjoy the good weather, if you are having it.