Poetry, Life, and Death

 So family friend Marie, after BA from BC, and MFA from UF, and moving to D.C., became a poet and fundraiser for non profits. Like many pulled back by the powerful sun of Miami, she got a great position last year -- Development Director of O Miami, a group that teaches poetry, and teaches teachers HOW to teach poetry, and puts on a great April Festival.

I met with Marie and because I like to support the my friends' kids, joined O Miami -- I am now a member of the Dade Poets Society. Get it? Lots of puns with these folks. Last night I attended an event at UM -- I assumed there'd be a few old ladies from the Gables and Beach. Ha. Over 300 were there -- teachers at the O Miami Teachers' Institute, staying at UM as they learn. They had wine and beer and a full buffet. They featured three poets who gave readings: a Black woman ("I am a true daughter of Miami") who teaches at UM and read poems about growing up in Overtown, with her Vietnam Vet grandpa who kept a scrapbook of the Obamas like they were his own family, an Indian American from Chicago who had hilarious tales of his immigrant family wanting to fit in, even if it meant eating dog -- as sold from hot dog carts in Queens, and finally a former poet laureate from Cali, a Mexican guy from LA, who credited a third grade teacher who told him "You have a beautiful voice" with his entire storied career.

It was delightful -- I truly do love words and their power -- and a night I thought would be a favor to a young friend turned into one of the best in awhile.

And today dawned. It's my dear friend Norman's wife's Deb's birthday -- she's up at her Canada house enjoying cooler weather, hopefully. It's my dear friend Mike's 62nd -- he's up in his rural NC house. I texted that hopefully his wife Loni is dressed like Daisy Dukes, playing out a rural Southern fantasy -- instead of a reprise from what happened in "Deliverance." My advice: if you hear a banjo in the woods -Run!

But for me, it's the 41st anniversary of the worst day in my life: when my beloved father died in my arms in a barber shop on Atlantic Avenue in Delray.

I was recalling the awful events of that day, as I do each year, like a religious Jew recalls the tales of old that led to sadness. I never cried that day. Mom did all of that -- she sort of collapsed into a pile of sadness. When we got home from Bethesday Hospital, where the clumsy social worker brought us into a room and used every euphemism until I finally said "Are you trying to say my Dad died,?" Mom went to bed and wept.

I got to work, as the newly minted man of the family, 4 days before I turned 21 -- calling my sisters in NY and Cali, and helping to arrange travel plans. I shooed away my Mom's annoying aunts, all of whom had strong opinions and provided as much comfort as a bed of nails.

Eric and Barry met me at a fern bar in Plantation, and we drank beer -- too much. When I fetched my NY sister and her family at FLL late that night, I was over the limit and should NOT have driven home -- but I made it. I guess the Big Man figured my Mom had enough grief for one day, and didn't take her grandkids, 2/3 of her kids, and beloved son in law on I-95 in Broward or Palm Beach Counties.

A few days later, my Cali sister and 4 month son came in -- and the 2 bedroom condo was too packed -- until the New Yorkers went home. Comical events ensued -- I got something in my eye, and my sister had to drive me to the ER. Mom stayed home with the crying grandson, and tried everything to console him -- even offering him her 62 year old nipple! It didn't work -- until my sister gave him her working nipple, and soothed the little baby -- 41 years later a very troubled, ill man, currently in the LA County jail getting psych treatment. But that's another story.

Looking back, July 14, 1982 was certainly my life's inflection point. There were others, of course -- Hurricane Andrew, the recent plague of Covid -- but that one was my personal grow up time. One day I was a happy college kid, finding myself intellectually, and the next I was man of the house. It sucked. It was empowering.

I read years ago that no man truly becomes a man until his father dies. Bullshit. I would have happily transitioned to manhood with my best friend there offering counsel and advice. But that wasn't in the cards.

Dad was cremated, and his cremains (still a favorite word to me) were put into the ocean off Pompano Beach. I talk to him whenever I'm at the beach -- I have lunch across from UM with Kenny later -- maybe I'll divert to Matheson Hammock, where we interred Dad's widow's ashes 31 years later.

I'll tell Dad how much I miss him, and the legacy he left. I have two grandsons myself now -- a fact that struck me last night.

The poetry festival was at the new student union, where the old UM Rathskellar was. I bought a book from a seller, telling him it was for "my grandsons." The spot was the same where I stood as a freshman 44 years before. In 1979 I was drinking beer as a freshman, checking out the co-eds. In 2023 I drank white wine, listening to poets and realizing I was a grandfather. How about that?

But one of those grandkids, a hilarious 3.5 year old who is a bundle of energy, laughter, and love, bears Dad's name as his middle name. I will tell him all about his great grandfather as he grows. Ha -- as I write, WDNA is playing jazz, and the bassist is Jaco Pastorius. Funny how coincidences happen.

So four decades and a year later, Dad is in my heart and head. I miss him so. But life goes on, and tomorrow I gather my Ds and their men for an early birthday dinner for myself -- at the Palm. Ah. NY strips and martinis. I'll toast to the past, and the present, and future -- as we hurtle through space, like all the words ever spoken and still to be spoke.

I guess that's what poetry, and life, are about.