Now I can live.

2023 - The year of "I didn't see that coming!"

I was at a Torah study group at the synagogue I have been attending yesterday. We were studying Genesis 44:18 - 46:30. I won’t go through the whole story, but at the end, Jacob says, “Now I can die,” having seen that his son Joseph is alive.

The Rabbi asked us to reflect on what might be complete in our lives so that we could say, “Now I can die.”

People had various, meaningful reflections.

My reflection, the only remark I made and the last one of the meeting, was this:

“Last night, I was very glad to be here with all of you (at Shabbat services) because it was the one year anniversary of the death of a friend of mine who died at the age of 24 by suicide. It was so good to be with all of you instead of alone in my apartment crying. It’s been a hard year… a lot of people dismiss the grief, ask why I can’t ‘get over it.’ Here I felt like people understood and cared. Though many of the things that have brought me here have been hard, I feel like now I can say, not so much ‘Now I can die,’ but ‘Now I can live.’”

Those of you who have been with me awhile or know me know how hard the grief over a young woman I’ll call Marilyn has been. I’ve asked myself the questions we all ask ourselves when someone dies by suicide. Was there something I could have done? How can this happen? How do I go on?

It was further complicated because I believe a series of medical errors really caused her death in the end. I know the circumstances and the kind of medicine well enough to have a good guess as to what happened. She could have lived, I believe. But she did not.

She and I were a lot alike: stubborn, friendly, charismatic at times, loving, angry, into food and nutrition and fitness, passionate, love cats. I had all these ideas for what we would do together. When she died I cried for days and days, off and on.

It’s been a year of twists and turns, of “I didn’t see that one coming!” It seems that out of everything painful, something new and powerful has happened. Nothing will ever make her death okay, or right, and I don’t believe God called her home or somehow wills this kind of tragedy. I hope she is at peace, and sometimes I think she is.

Not that long after her death, on her birthday, I had a parting of the ways with the job where we had met. I went out on my own as a freelancer, and an unlikely friendship with journalist Mark Judge gave me the courage to go out on my own. I didn’t see that coming.

I started to publish on gender politics, and got readers from all sides of the political spectrum. We don’t agree on a lot of things, but we find common ground on some very important issues. I didn’t see that coming.

I met the Infamous Mike Hoffman, responsible for expunging the criminal records of how many now Mike? A true hero, he’s changed the lives of people in New Jersey in concrete, amazing ways. Getting rid of a criminal record means that a person can get a job, rent an apartment, and start a normal life again, instead of being forever punished by a crime for which they have already served their time or paid the price. I didn’t see that coming.

Mike introduced me to the fascinating, trailblazing group of New Jersey cannabis attorneys, who have both great minds and great shoes, and I got to learn more about the law surrounding cannabis legalization than I ever thought I would. I didn’t see that coming.

I got to do meaningful work for ghostwriting clients from law firms to advocacy organizations to healthcare professionals to individuals. I’m the ghost so I can’t reveal their names, but I’m proud of the work I did for all of these clients. I always loved ghostwriting, but I didn’t realize how much I would really enjoy bringing my clients’ ideas to life. I didn’t see that coming.

I reconnected with some college friends who I hadn’t heard from in years. That got me to thinking a lot of things… from how much I miss hanging out with smart, driven people to how much I need community. I am an extremely social person, and while I have loved the flexibility of freelancing, I need to be with people more. And not just any people. The kind of people like those I’ve reconnected with.

One of the most important reconnections has been with my friend Paul Mange Johansen, who invited me to join the Elis for Rachael team. Elis for Rachael is an organization that has successfully pressured Yale for serious changes in how it treats students with mental health issues. Rachael was a first year at Yale who died by suicide. We fight so there will be no more suicides. And we win. I helped organize our celebration and fundraiser the night before the Yale Harvard Game in November, and got Sally’s famous pizza to donate fifteen pies and fifteen sodas! It was one of the most wonderful nights of the year, and I am so proud to be a member of that group.

Now I’m not just a member, I’m a leader. I was recently elected to the Board of Elis for Rachael. I didn’t see that coming. And I am so grateful and honored. We will fight. Rachael never would have stopped.

I wasn’t particularly thinking about Israel before October 7, though I have always, for as long as I can remember, been a solid supporter of Israel. Ever since I got to high school and met Jewish kids (where I grew up in North Carolina I didn’t know any, though I am told there were communities I was just not aware of), most of my close friends and almost all of the guys I’ve dated have been Jewish. (Their mothers either didn’t know or didn’t mind.) As soon as I found out I checked on my Jewish friends to see how they were doing and the answer was: not well. It is extremely scary to be Jewish in this country right now. I wrote this piece and was shocked at the response. People from all over the country and indeed all over the world wrote to thank me. I thought I was just being a human being and that a few friends would appreciate the solidarity but that would be that. I didn’t see the overwhelming response coming. Most of it was good. Some of it, unsurprisingly, has been hate mail and people who used to be friends cutting off contact because they hate Israel or Jews or some combination thereof. For every “friend” I’ve lost, I’ve gained many more. Many of you are among my new friends. I feel like you are my new family.

I didn’t know a single person in Israel before I published that article, and I made my first Israeli friend through it. Though I cried through many, many nights thinking about the horrors, and especially about the hostages, I also started to feel like part of something again for the first time in a long time. I didn’t see that coming.

My neighborhood is not friendly to Israel to say the least, and many times I have not felt safe here. Well, most of the time. A Jewish friend and I were brainstorming ways that I could meet people who a) don’t want to kill Jews (really scary that it’s gotten that bad!) and b) might become local friends. While I have amazing Jewish friends everywhere from New York to Boston to Oregon to Jerusalem (did I spell it right this time?), I have very few friends who live nearby, and this current crisis has highlighted my feelings of being alone. I need community, and I wanted to find some nice Jewish people, so my friend and I thought, “AHA! I’ll go visit a synagogue! What a clever idea!”

I was as warmly welcomed there as I have been by our worldwide community of people who follow Eve Barlow or Bari Weiss or many others. I link to Eve’s most recent post, Lighthouse, because she has been a lighthouse to me. She is so brave, and writes the truth at any cost. She will land in Israel tomorrow. You go girl.

I didn’t see that coming.

So on the anniversary of Marilyn’s death I found myself grateful to be at one of Philadelphia’s beautiful historic synagogues, surrounded by people I barely know who were full of love and support. I was not alone.

I am not alone. Not anymore.

Tomorrow I look forward to celebrating Christmas with my mom and my close friend, co-author, fellow runner of HAMS (Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation Support) and my cat’s fiance Ken Anderson. We will be eating Chinese. This is not some attempt to be a cliche of Jewish, it’s that we don’t feel like cooking.

It’s been a hard year, but I would not take it back. I can’t believe the amazing people I’ve met, the support of my parents and long term friends, the seeming miracles following right after the horrors.

I still cry most nights. I will not forget Marilyn. I do not want to forget her. I will not forget the women in the tunnels of hell. I feel like I am with them sometimes. This did not have to happen. Those who blame Israel should probably ask to be unsubscribed right now.

If the UN had come out on October 8, unequivocally condemned Hamas and demanded it cease operations and release all the hostages, things would have been completely different. But that didn’t happen. The world continues to blame Jews everywhere, even those who have nothing to do with any of this.

I think I will spend a lot of the next year and more working against antisemitism.

I didn’t see that coming. But if I think about it, it’s a logical conclusion of an entire life. I imagine many of my old friends are not all that surprised.

I used to try to control everything. I had lists, plans, minute by minute schedules. Now I start every day with a meditation on being open to what the day will bring. The God that brought my old friends back into my life, my new friends into my life, and me to a Torah study, will not disappoint in the surprises department.

I will never forget Marilyn. But now I can live.

Thanks be to God.