So two thousand and fifty something years ago, in what is today Israel, a guy was born who became a really big deal. His mother was Mary, and his father was supposedly the Big Man, and this was the only time the Big Man had fathered a child, immaculately, of course, like Franco Harris's famous TD reception 50 years ago. RIP Franco.
But in our family, we celebrate a more modern birth in what WAS Israel, Haifa to be precise, where to two damaged but somehow optimistic Holocaust Survivors, a precious blue eyed baby girl was born, who would, just over 30 years later, become known as Wifey.
And so we celebrate Wifeymas -- the birth of, as my friend Jeff noted, our personal lord and savior.
I met Wifey in September of 1983, as I was starting law school. I was living with Eric, who was starting med school, and she was the girl upstairs. It's funny -- I met Mike and Jeff and Norman the same month and year -- all three remain very dear friends. Must have been something astrological.
We started dating, and I recall her birthday of December 25, 1983 for her absence. A week or so before, we went to dinner at the Chart House in the Grove, and I told her excitedly that during our upcoming break -- early January, I was going to Wisconsin. Back then, UM Law had a strange schedule -- exams after Christmas, and THEN a week long break. This was because the Dean before we started, Soia Mentshcikoff, wanted to separate the law school from the rest of what was then known as SunTan U, and I guess she figured giving the school a weird schedule would help. Ironically, the academic reputation of the rest of UM has soared since then, while the law school's has stumbled. The best laid plans..
Anyway, Mike had invited me to go with him and another friend Dave to Northern Wisconsin, where his family had a vacation home, to go snowmobiling. I had never been, and was very excited. But Wifey had assumed I would finally have time to spend with her, and when I told her I was fleeing, she wrote me the first of two Dear Dave letters and broke up with me.
Happily, by her next birthday, December 25, 1984, we were a couple, and have celebrated her day together ever since. Wow -- that's creeping close to 4 decades.
When I asked her to marry me, in the Spring of 1986, I told her I wished us to build a foundation together of a life. Boy -- did we! Our precious Ds, and later their wonderful men, 2 grandsons, and a variety of dogs of all shapes and sizes. We have been blessed in so many ways, beyond and dreams we would have dared dream back in the 80s.
A lot of it has to do with our shared values, and yet diverging beliefs. We're both solidly proud Ashkenazi Jews, with roots in Eastern Europe, and yet over the years my belief in the Big Man has strengthened greatly while Wifey's has waned. She calls herself a terrified agnostic, but as Kenny pointed out during our recent trip to France -- that's not really a belief -- pick a team -- either believe, or not.
It's funny -- there's been a divergence with the Ds, too -- D1 has become a more observant Jew, while D2 tends to the Secular Humanist thing. I wonder if that will change should she and Jonathan be blessed with human child or children to go along with their beloved enormous dog Betsy.
Either way -- I hope to experience it with Wifey.
It's funny, though -- she put on a PBS special the other night -- all about "Fiddler on the Roof." I already knew all about that play -- from early memories of my Dad singing "If I Were a Rich Man" in our living room on Long Island, through scholarly writings about it.
And still, it resonates. We like to think we stand on solid ground, and yet our lives are indeed precarious -- like a fiddler trying to keep his footing on a roof.
January 15 will mark an anniversary far less festive than Wifey's birthday -- it was the day she suffered a stroke. I was in total fear that day -- of losing her, of losing the life we had together, of her being awfully incapacitated.
I dealt with it by acting the way I do -- circling the wagons, with Team Wifey, with my three brilliant doctor friends Eric, Barry, and Kenny -- leaning on them about all of the medical decisions, as well as the emotional support of brothers.
And although I always dug Kenny's wife Joelle, the weeks where Wifey was away in rehab, I saw a side of Joelle I hadn't before. All of my friends offered their company -- Joelle DEMANDED it. I didn't even realize I was lonely -- and Joelle would say, in her scary law professor way, "You WILL join us for dinner tonight at 6." And I did, and it hit me again that one can go through this life without friends, but I don't truly see how.
We're spending NYE with Kenny and Joelle and their visiting grad school son Adam. I have no doubt I'll get teary eyed after a few drinks and thank her again.
Anyway, after Wifey was discharged from the gorgeous new JMH rehab, after daily visits from too busy Dr. Barry, and the Ds there every day, I realized she would indeed recover -- nearly completely. And she has.
I'm reminded of the lyrics of Greg Allman, in "Ain't Wasting Time No More," in which he sings that with the help of "G-d, and two friends," he can do it all. In my case, it was, I am confident, the help of the Big Man and more than two friends.
But anyway -- back to Wifeymas. She's picked as her birthday venue Gianni's -- the restaurant in the Versace Mansion, a place she always wanted to visit. Jonathan, who shares my sense of humor, says he plans to order a bloody Mary, to commemorate what happened to Versace on the steps there 25 years ago. Hopefully there are no untoward experiences for us.
South Beach is a bear of a place to visit, especially during Xmas week, but the place is truly special to us. On the beach across from where we'll be, I asked Wifey to marry me, before we walked to the Cardozo for a shared drink -- probably a Kuhlua and Cream -- what we drank in those days.
For our 10th anniversary, in January of 1997, we left my nephew of another brother Scott's bris, dropped the Ds at Century Village, and drove to the Betsy Ross Hotel for our anniversary weekend.
And in February of 2020, right before the Plague hit, D2 and Jonathan were married at the now named Betsy Hotel, in a ceremony surrealistically beautiful.
Also, my Dad LOVED South Beach -- some of my happiest memories with him were of Winter and Spring Breaks where we would come for a week or so, staying in either the Ocean Haven or Seacrest Hotels, in an area now called SoFi (South of Fifth Street). He would check in to the room, put on his bathing suit, and head right towards the ocean, breathing in a huge breath of what he called the best air in the world.
So we're headed later to a venue DRIPPING with spirit of place.
And we shall celebrate a birthday whose number cannot be named, not even in references to a song and show about a highway that connects Chicago to LA and how one gets their kicks there.
Happy birthday, Wifey. Here's to a whole bunch more!
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