Martha Knows Everything...and You Should, Too

Faith no longer sick. I'm sure you're relieved. I used to mock people who talked about their children's illnesses all the time, right down to the bowel movement. Now look at me. I even had to take a stool sample this morning. Then I was sick last night, so no go Julia Sweeney. Sigh.

And here in the NYC area, we are on a state of yellow alert. Copters buzzing overhead. Gorgeous blue sky. Crisp air. Just like a few months ago.

But here's the 9/11 deal, chez Martha, Jeff, and Faith: I was lucky. We were lucky. Jeff lost two friends, a musician/chef who worked at Cantor Fitzgerald, and a former summer housemate. The musician/chef, Jeff Hardy, has been eulogized in a CD produced by Suzanne Vega. Jeff tells me what a strong guy Jeff the chef was, how he imagines what he must have tried to do as the buildings fell. Of his other friend, Jeff speaks of her in flashes of Fire Island, how she would cheerfully do other people's laundry, how she wanted a boyfriend. At the time of her death, she was engaged, and planning to move to Russia. Jeff attended her memorial service in Brooklyn Heights, a terrible night of rain. Jeff said he was grateful, because the original plan was to head to the Promenade and look at what was then a smoking, gaping hole.

When this first happened, Jeff's parents, both Holocaust survivors, said: "We hoped you would be spared this." I still think we're lucky. We don't live in Israel; we aren't Jews in Poland in the 1930s and 1940s. After "we" "won" World War II, Jeff's parents couldn't even go back to Poland, where they were from. Jeff's parents actually met in Germany, of all places, where they were students and refugees. For various reasons, they parted in Germany, and bumped into each other in New York City, which is where they married and had a family. And where they still live.

posted by Martha @ 12:48 PM