by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

"The best part of living in San Miguel was not dealing with weather drama," N., my ex-wife wrote last Sunday night from New Orleans where temperatures would go down to 28 degrees. The massive winter storm then blasting the US would drop "measurable" snow as far south as the Rio Grande.

Last Sunday being the birthday of our daughter, S., I had contacted N. to wish her "happy birthday" as well, since it was the anniversary of the day that she had given birth.

S. was born at home on a Sunday evening; N.'s labor starting a few hours after midnight, the night before. The two midwives arrived a few hours later. A few hours after they arrived, our apartment only a stone's throw from West Hartford's kosher supermarket, the three of us were feasting on bagels with cream cheese and lox while N. moaned in the bedroom. Well, you have to eat.

The night before this most recent birthday, Saturday, minutes after midnight, just before going to bed, I thought that since it was technically already Sunday, I could message S. right then and wish her a happy birthday. But not sure if she was out on the town or already asleep, I didn't take the chance of waking her up. Instead, I continued making my bedtime preparations, the last of which is to say my prayers.

No doubt due in great part to a sense of belonging and purpose, traditionally religious people live longer, healthier and happier. I say "traditionally" because religion seems to be an unavoidable human urge, which if not applied in spiritual terms, manifests most notably in political or social extremism, other ways of finding belonging and purpose.

Before my father died, I spoke with him about whether or not I would be able to say for him each day, as traditionally required, the kaddish, the Jewish mourners' prayer, which is traditionally said by a family member each morning and evening at synagogue for eleven months following someone's death. As it turned out, I did very well in fulfilling that obligation. But at the time, absolving me before the fact, Dad replied, "Kaddish is not for the dead. It's for the living."

So it occurs to me regarding my prayer before bed; I don't know if my praying for them helps those whom I mention, but I'm sure that it helps me.

A stickler for details, recently, I realized that I was praying those bedtime prayers incorrectly, again, according to Jewish tradition. I was identifying the people I include on my lists with their name followed by their mother's name. But, it occurred to me that (except when praying for their healing) it should be their father's name. So (and this is the relevant example) when I pray for the welfare of my cousin Larry (Avraham Leiv is his Hebrew name), it should be Avraham Leiv ben [the son of] Yakov Yakov Gershon; Yakov Gershon being his father's, my Uncle Gay's Hebrew name.

My own father, Izzy (Yisroel Yakov ben Avraham Leiv) was well-loved. An older black minister, on learning my last name, asked me "What relation are you to Izzy Fialkoff?" When I told him that Izzy was my father, a very soulful look came into his eyes, and he said reverently, "He got me my first church." Then he paused and continued wistfully, "I just wish I had spent more time with him so that I could have learned what he knew."

I spent a lot of time with my father, as did his brother Gay (My father was first-born and Gay was second.) My father, despite being a tough guy with a caustic wit, was, indeed, well-loved, but Uncle Gay and I loved him best. The Book of Genesis declares, "Adam knew Eve," and true love is dependent on intimate knowledge, sympathetic understanding.

Last Saturday night, just after midnight, invoking Uncle Gay, in praying for cousin Larry (Avraham Leiv ben Yakov Gershon), I finished my prayers, turned out the light, fell asleep and dreamed about him.

My dreams are always short vignettes. In this one Uncle Gay was standing in a rolling, sun-filled meadow. He was at the base of a small grassy hill, which, as I was only 20 feet away, along with the sky behind it, comprised my whole view. Looking up from beneath a baseball cap (such as I never saw him wear while alive), he noticed me and, obviously surprised to see me there, gave me a warm, gentle greeting, "Why, hello," in the reassuring tone of voice with which you might calm a baby deer who had just stumbled across your path in the forest.

I don't remember any conversation except that he told me that his wife, my Aunt Evie (Yocheved in Hebrew) was on the other side of the hill (a configuration which accords with a poem that I wrote about her, which Larry shared with her when she was already close to leaving).

When my father left, also on a Sunday evening, I called Uncle Gay, who informed his other two brothers and their sister, my Aunt Esther. Esther was the baby of the family, nine years younger than my father. My grandfather was not very good with money, so my father, even as a boy, provided for the family, eventually sending Aunt Esther through college.

The day of the burial, Uncle Gay told me that when he broke the news to Esther, "Our brother Izzy has died," she replied, "I know. He came to me in a dream." When I shared this exchange with my sister, she said, "He came to me, also." I believe it. If Dad were going to say goodbye to anyone that way (he had been unconscious for weeks), it would be his sister and mine.

I suppose the dream I had of Uncle Gay was what they call "lucid" in that I was conscious that I was "dreaming." It involved a most un-dreamlike consciousness, as if I were in a parallel, but real world.

Since the government has recently declassified content on the subject, UFO's are getting much more discussion. Given what we know, the great distance that those spaceships would have had to have travelled presents problems. And, if the laws of physics do not apply to extraterrestrials, then why are they appearing in physical spacecraft? In answer to these questions, it has been suggested that these space-beings are merely assuming forms with which we are familiar, showing themselves in forms that we recognize, as if speaking reassuringly to a fawn who crosses your path in the woods. Our culture is technologically-oriented, so they appear to us as technology.

Deer, moose, coyotes and bear crossed my meadow up the mountain in northeast Vermont. And although I had many pristine adventures on snowshoes, with a hot wood stove waiting for me at the end of the hike, I remember Vermont best in summer.

A rolling mountain meadow, just like the one in my dream with Uncle Gay, is my idea of heaven. That's the way heaven would appear to me, and how, I believe, it did, standing there with Uncle Gay

For some months after my father's passing, a photograph of him would appear without warning on my sister's computer, especially when the computer was waking up out of sleep mode. It happened once on her birthday and once on Valentine's Day. A lot of souls, in my traditional view, would like to communicate with the loved ones that they have left behind. Leave it up to Izzy and his brother Gay to figure out how to do it.

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, public internet, building community, strengthening the local economy. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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