For those of you who aren’t members
of my tribe (Jews), let me translate. I
don’t think there’s an English word for the relationship between the parents of
a child & the parents of that child’s spouse. In Yiddish, the two sets of parents would be
“machatunim”. In Spanish, it would be "consegueros". And in the case of my
son’s in-laws & us, another word would be “friends”. I am grateful. This doesn’t happen nearly often enough.
I’d like to tell you about Matt’s
father-in-law, John. He used to fly
airplanes in the Navy, taking off from & landing on aircraft carriers. He also worked as a Navy paramedic & he
became a civilian paramedic after his discharge. (I once asked him why a regular fire truck
always accompanies the paramedics. He
said that was in case the victim suddenly catches on fire. He MAY have been kidding.) When that career ended he became a consultant for large corporations, helping them to design buildings that would
keep their workers safe & to help them in case of an emergency. He became very well known in this field. Once, when he was having a problem finding a
solution to a safety problem, he asked me to design a baseball cap for him to
give out to the people working with him.
What he wanted--& got—was a squirrel wearing dark glasses &
swinging a cane, like a golf club, at an acorn on a tee, with the words BLIND
SQUIRREL GOLF & COUNTRY CLUB. (Even
a blind squirrel finds an acorn sometimes.)
Something like this, only more detailed:
Something like this, only more detailed:
More importantly, I’d like to tell
you what he was like, as a MAN. He was
(again, a Yiddish word) a “mensch”. That
translates, literally, to “person” but it is used to describe someone who is
warm, friendly & really cares for his fellow man. John was all that.
He liked to run & ride
bikes. His wife is allergic to dogs, so
they couldn’t own one themselves. John
would “borrow” a neighbor’s dog & take it running with him. He was fun to be with. When our kids got married in a formal
ceremony at an upscale hotel, John & I were going to put a live shark in
the pool. He realized his wife wouldn’t
think it was as funny as we did, so we settled on presenting the newlyweds with
an inflatable one on a silver tray at their reception. He loved to fly. One Christmas I had a neon sign made for his
home office. It had a small plane on it
& said FLYING LESSONS 10 CENTS.
Our kids live in Connecticut & we
both live in California, but we all get together for Christmas every year. On their 25th anniversary (in
December) John & his wife, Jeanne, flew down to Los Angeles a couple of
days before the kids got here so we could celebrate their happy day with
them. Sometimes we would all meet in
another city to spend the holidays. When we were in Phoenix, he talked a pilot
friend into letting me operate a flight simulator. I (virtually) crashed! When we were in San Diego, he rented a plane
& flew the 20 of us around the area, 3 of us non-pilot passengers at a time
in a 4 seater plane. He had caps made
for everyone with our last name, his last name & the words “FLIGHT CREW”.
John died in 2006. His was the only military funeral I’ve ever
been to. I thought I was holding myself
together pretty well, even during the 21 gun salute, but when the bugler played
“Taps”, I lost it. I could almost hear
John whispering in my ear, “Enough of this sad stuff. Let’s go have lunch.”
One added note—do you believe in
Karma? When John died, my daughter-in-law
immediately flew out from Connecticut to California be with her mother. My son & their 2 kids followed in a day
or two. The plane reservations were
obviously last minute & they couldn’t get 3 seats together. They were seated directly behind one another. Matt asked the man sitting next to Brian, who
was 8, to change seats with him. He explained
that Brian was very young & was taking this cross country flight to go his
first funeral—his grandfather’s. The man
refused. During the flight, Brian threw
up on him. When we heard, we all
congratulated him on his excellent aim.
I miss you, John----fishducky
