Julia -- I loved this story. Thank you. ("We should all be on hospice" made me laugh out loud. And I agree, by the way.) I also love the room behind you. Is that a Chris Ware piece over your left shoulder? Just wondering...
"We should all be on hospice"! Yes! I so relate to this idea. And I so love your storytelling. I've helped a few family members to die with dignity over my 70 years, a time that is awe filled, awful, and strangely holy. And you remind me of the time, as a young teen, when I came to believe there had to be a better way to help through these moments. I hope you don't mind me sharing - feel free to delete:
I have thought about how people approach Death and Dying since Elizabeth Kübler-Ross famously brought her insight into this mostly untalked about field - when was that - the late '60's maybe? I was a young teen observing how my parents and their siblings were melting down over the long illness of their mother - my 'Bubbie'. The Matriarch. The 'Balahbusteh' (master of the kitchen). The Ball Buster. And the center of the universe of our family's extended branches. The cosmic center that pulled all forces towards her. The indomitable spirit that, in the depths of the Depression, in severe poverty, in the City of Chicago, she would try to eke out a living, and also help raise money to build a homeland for Jews, not knowing about Hitler's upcoming plan. Ten years after the war, she and Zaydeh took a ship to Israel, to search survivor rolls - to see if any family survived the war and managed to make their way to Israel. Without a strong National phone system, they surveyed various survivor lists, and then took a bus to a town, hoping against hope, until one day, they knocked on a door in a small town, and to the man who answered the door asked "Do you know any of the people in this photograph?" (In Yiddish, of course.) And he replied "What are you doing with a picture of my family?" Long story short - he was an unknown cousin who had emigrated to British-occupied Palestine about the same time Zeydeh escaped the pogroms of Russia to come to America. Instead of Bubbie and Zeydeh staying in Israel four weeks, they ended up living with their cousin, and their new extended family for a year! A whole new wing of the family!
All this is to say that Bubbie was a remarkable woman, and the center of our universe, and when she was dying of cancer in the early '70's, it threw the family into a panic. At the time there was no "Death with Dignity" movement, it was just dignified doctors offering the family difficult choices. Would you like her to live as long as possible, even if that meant extreme and extended suffering? Would you like palliative care, which might extend the length of her dying? Would you like to deny her food? Or water? To hasten her death but possibly relieve the number of days she might suffer? What would SHE want? What does the FAMILY want? Because there was no established procedure or precedent, every choice presented to the family provided anguished family huddles in the hospital trying to face difficult choices about the most important person in their world.
I observed all this and thought - there had to be a better way. And so even though I was quite young (15? 16?) I started reading Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and thinking about how we could one day make this process - that we all face - go more smoothly, with more standardized help for the dying, their families, and the medical staffs. We're still not fully there yet, but having Death Doulas is a wonderful step in the right direction.
I'm sorry to have meandered on like this. But Julia, your stories are thoughtful, deep, funny, and kind, as sad as they may also be. Thank you again for giving us this peek into your life, touching as they do on difficult moments viewed in loving awe at the weird circularity that life can take. Be well. 💕
Julia if you're not going to use the big square cubes in your whiskey I'm not sure I can take your whiskey seriously. Remedying that next time I see you.
I don't watch TV so I never saw you on SNL even though I'm around your age, not even sure how I came across one of your vids on substack a couple of months back. But I *love* your stories, they're poignant & engrossing & make me laugh out loud. Glad I subscribed, that means they're gonna keep coming!
Julia -- I loved this story. Thank you. ("We should all be on hospice" made me laugh out loud. And I agree, by the way.) I also love the room behind you. Is that a Chris Ware piece over your left shoulder? Just wondering...
You are so exceptional. I'm glad I found you on Substack. P.S. I'm from Spokane too.
You are a natural storyteller! Keep them coming. I look forward to them!! I also have read all your books which I enjoyed also.
I used to think Patti Smith's Substack was the best value on the internet, but you just took the top spot with this episode!
So - just curious, did they find the guy who shot the guy in the pool?
"We should all be on hospice"! Yes! I so relate to this idea. And I so love your storytelling. I've helped a few family members to die with dignity over my 70 years, a time that is awe filled, awful, and strangely holy. And you remind me of the time, as a young teen, when I came to believe there had to be a better way to help through these moments. I hope you don't mind me sharing - feel free to delete:
I have thought about how people approach Death and Dying since Elizabeth Kübler-Ross famously brought her insight into this mostly untalked about field - when was that - the late '60's maybe? I was a young teen observing how my parents and their siblings were melting down over the long illness of their mother - my 'Bubbie'. The Matriarch. The 'Balahbusteh' (master of the kitchen). The Ball Buster. And the center of the universe of our family's extended branches. The cosmic center that pulled all forces towards her. The indomitable spirit that, in the depths of the Depression, in severe poverty, in the City of Chicago, she would try to eke out a living, and also help raise money to build a homeland for Jews, not knowing about Hitler's upcoming plan. Ten years after the war, she and Zaydeh took a ship to Israel, to search survivor rolls - to see if any family survived the war and managed to make their way to Israel. Without a strong National phone system, they surveyed various survivor lists, and then took a bus to a town, hoping against hope, until one day, they knocked on a door in a small town, and to the man who answered the door asked "Do you know any of the people in this photograph?" (In Yiddish, of course.) And he replied "What are you doing with a picture of my family?" Long story short - he was an unknown cousin who had emigrated to British-occupied Palestine about the same time Zeydeh escaped the pogroms of Russia to come to America. Instead of Bubbie and Zeydeh staying in Israel four weeks, they ended up living with their cousin, and their new extended family for a year! A whole new wing of the family!
All this is to say that Bubbie was a remarkable woman, and the center of our universe, and when she was dying of cancer in the early '70's, it threw the family into a panic. At the time there was no "Death with Dignity" movement, it was just dignified doctors offering the family difficult choices. Would you like her to live as long as possible, even if that meant extreme and extended suffering? Would you like palliative care, which might extend the length of her dying? Would you like to deny her food? Or water? To hasten her death but possibly relieve the number of days she might suffer? What would SHE want? What does the FAMILY want? Because there was no established procedure or precedent, every choice presented to the family provided anguished family huddles in the hospital trying to face difficult choices about the most important person in their world.
I observed all this and thought - there had to be a better way. And so even though I was quite young (15? 16?) I started reading Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, and thinking about how we could one day make this process - that we all face - go more smoothly, with more standardized help for the dying, their families, and the medical staffs. We're still not fully there yet, but having Death Doulas is a wonderful step in the right direction.
I'm sorry to have meandered on like this. But Julia, your stories are thoughtful, deep, funny, and kind, as sad as they may also be. Thank you again for giving us this peek into your life, touching as they do on difficult moments viewed in loving awe at the weird circularity that life can take. Be well. 💕
Julia if you're not going to use the big square cubes in your whiskey I'm not sure I can take your whiskey seriously. Remedying that next time I see you.
I don't watch TV so I never saw you on SNL even though I'm around your age, not even sure how I came across one of your vids on substack a couple of months back. But I *love* your stories, they're poignant & engrossing & make me laugh out loud. Glad I subscribed, that means they're gonna keep coming!
I loved this so much! Please keep the whisky stories coming. So now I have so many questions about your family. I hope to learn more.