I see me with Mike, at lunch, an outdoor, street-side table, within view of the hospital, both cell phones at the ready. And then, shortly after lunch, there was a healthy baby Mika, an exhausted Leesa, and a greatly relieved Matt. We were thrilled with this new granddaughter. Mike didn’t think he could possibly love Mika any more than he loved the other grandchildren, but he allowed as how the “bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh” was an added bonus to his connection with Mika.
In 2006, even though things between us were fraying at the edges, Mike was still at his best with the grandkids.
In the realm of occasional times of love and lightness, season symphony tickets took us to San Francisco on a fairly regular basis. On symphony evenings we usually stayed overnight at Inn at the Opera, a small hotel, quaint and friendly, and an easy walk to Davies Symphony Hall and to favorite restaurants. The morning after the symphony we would make our way to Golden Gate Park. Often we would make use of our membership to visit the de Young Museum. At other times we wandered the gardens, stopping for tea in the Japanese Tea Garden. These were still invariably happy times for us. I worked to remind myself of the good times whenever Mike became distant and inconsiderate. Such work had become more demanding by the end of 2006.
Besides becoming less connected and more disgruntled, Mike had stopped doing any kind of exercise and had developed what might have been labeled a beer belly, except that he didn’t drink beer. I tried to convince him to get back on a workout routine, reminding him that he always felt better when he was exercising and physically active. He gave lip service to the idea, but regular exercise for him seemed to be a thing of the past. Had he become unable to maintain a schedule? To follow an exercise plan? Possibly. He was not yet having any obvious problems keeping appointments or maintaining a choir rehearsal schedule. But a new plan? Was that already beyond him?
I wish I’d not been so caught up in my own unmet needs that I was missing subtle signs of a disintegrating brain. I wish I had been able to talk with Mike without arousing his defenses. I wish I’d not so often responded to Mike out of a sense of being wronged.
December 2012
Dear Mike,
Yesterday I went with a friend to see “Quartet.” I thought so much of you, how you delighted in participating in the quartet that for so many years gathered to sing the high holidays, and in the occasional quartet formed by the soloists at Hollywood Presbyterian for a special program. I thought of you in the Master Chorale, in the concert version of “West Side Story,” and the funny schtick you did with “Mad Dogs & Englishmen” and on and on. I think you would have loved the music, and Maggie Smith, and so much more.
The soundtrack was beautiful. A major theme running through the movie had to do with a performance of “Rigoletto” that the principals had done in their younger years, so there was a lot of la donna è mobile. Also included was Libiamo Ne Lieti from La Traviata and many more that I couldn’t have named but that you could have.
Of course, it stirred up all kinds of dormant memories and emotions for me, hearing such wonderful music that I no longer hear without you to put on the CD or arrange for a trip to the symphony. I vowed to go through the still-packed box of your classical CDs and bring them in to sit beside Willie Nelson, and Johnny Cash, and Dolly Parton, and others from the first box of music I unloaded.
The scenes that brought me to tears, though, were the comic scenes from “The Mikado” of “Tit Willow” and “The Flowers That Bloom in the Spring.” I remembered your San Gabriel High School production of “The Mikado.” Talk about blood, sweat, and tears. But you made it happen. What a great success for the stage crew, the orchestra, and, of course, for you and your singers! Those bits took me back to that long lost time. I do so wish you had been able to live out your life in a manner similar to that depicted in “Quartet.”
I go along day by day in my necessarily reinvented life, with you hovering at the edge of my consciousness. Then something, this time “The Mikado,” brings your vivid memory to life, where I must let you linger for a moment. And then I lose you all over again.
Goddamned FTD. I miss you terribly.
Marilyn
IS THE MUSIC DIRECTOR’S JOB THE PROBLEM?
2007
There were several puzzling incidents during the course of 2007. Looking back over it now, a more obvious pattern of increasing cognitive difficulties emerges, but at the time I attributed such incidents to our growing frustration with one another, and to Mike’s dissatisfaction with his work at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento.
Mike’s undergraduate and graduate degree was in Church Music, and for most of his life, in addition to teaching and singing professionally, he’d held one church job or another, either as Music Director or as tenor soloist. He was Music Director from 1965 to 1972 at Temple City Christian Church, which is where we first met and where we were married in 1967.
As a professional musician, Mike wasn’t particularly concerned with the theology of a church. He’d sung with a very conservative Presbyterian church in Hollywood, a very liberal Episcopal church in Pasadena, and for 10 or more years he sang high holiday services at a Los Angeles synagogue.
When we moved from Southern California to the Sacramento area in 1998, we went church shopping. Our hope was to find a place with a strong music program and with a theology that fit our belief systems. Although Mike had been raised and educated as a Southern Baptist, he’d long ago discarded the rigid literal interpretation of the Bible. I had not been a believer since my teen years.
For a short while in Southern California, when Mike was between church jobs, we’d attended a Unitarian Universalist church in Pasadena. We both appreciated the theology there. The music was good. The building was beautiful. It was a good fit for both of us. But when Mike signed on as tenor soloist with the large Presbyterian church in Hollywood, our days of being in the same space on Sunday mornings were over.
Now, starting fresh in a new area, it made sense to seek out the one denomination that had resonated with both of us. The Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento (UUSS) fit that criteria and within a year or so of moving we became members.
We respected people and organizations that were Christ centered. As the adapted cliché goes, some of our best friends were Christians. But we were definitely more at home with the UU’s affirmation of “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning” than we were with the prescribed belief system that was a part of our earlier religious experiences.
At UUSS we’d found a fit. We formed friendships, hosted gatherings, participated in small group activities and, for the first time in 30-plus years, we were involved together in a church community.
The theology worked. The music less so. Although we basked in the freedom of unencumbered Sundays, Mike’s frustration with what he perceived as sloppy music led him to sign on as UUSS Music Director when that job opened.
Musicians loved working with Mike. Within months of his start as Music Director, the choir had tripled in size. The congregation heaped praise on the enlivened music offerings. One of the UUSS choir members told me recently that Mike was the best director he’d ever sung with.
There were a number of accomplished musicians who were UUSS members, but they had not been involved with the music of the church. Mike found them, or they found him, and soon they were participating as soloists, or in special programs. Musicians from the broader community also took part in some of the more demanding works presented as part of the annual music festival.
Although the music program was thriving, by 2007 Mike was complaining often and loudly to me about all that was wrong at the church. The building was more of a multipurpose room than a sanctuary. There was no defined space for the choir. When there were only 10 singers that wasn’t a problem. But finding a place for 30 singers was more complicated. The natural place was front and center, but that crowded the minister. The choir was sometimes in front, off to one side or the other, but
that was not acoustically satisfying. Mike’s opinion was that it was a more effective arrangement for the choir to sing from the center and for the minister to move to the side. The minister didn’t agree.
They tried being on the stage. That had its own problems as singers became less attentive during the course of the sermon, as their posture became less than upright or, worse still, they nodded off. The choir was not happy with that arrangement, and Mike hated having them on display on stage. “This is a worship service, not a show!” he’d complain.
As was his habit, Mike maintained good spirits with his fellow musicians, but his private complaints to me were gaining force.
Mike hated meetings, hated being required to attend them. That was nothing new. He’d hated meetings as long as I’d known him. As a teacher he’d hated faculty meetings, department meetings, and budget meetings. As a choral conductor or professional singer in any number of churches throughout the years, he saw meetings as a waste of his time. What was new was not his attitude toward meetings, but the intensity of his indignation over being expected to attend.
Although I was the major recipient of his rants, there were one or two other UUSS workers with whom Mike shared some of his frustration. I realized that I was not the only one who was tiring of complaints when I stopped by the music office and saw that the custodian had taped a sign over Mike’s desk:
I considered such a sign for our family room but doubted it would be met with the same good humor as the music office sign had been.
After upwards of a year of wrestling with the possibility of leaving his post, Mike sent a letter to the board, stating his intent to resign effective January 31, 2007. In spite of being concerned about the loss of $18,000 to our yearly income, I encouraged Mike’s resignation. Perhaps, without the frustrations of the church job, the cloud would lift.
In his resignation letter Mike expressed his appreciation for the choir and for other musicians of the congregation. He said, “It has been my great pleasure to work with the Music Committee,” and named the two chairs he’d worked with during his time at UUSS. This was the same committee whose meetings he ranted on and on about having to attend. I expect there was truth in both of these responses, parts he loved, parts he hated. But I was only getting the hate side of things, and I had grown weary of the tirades.
IS IT HOT IN HERE?
2006–2007
In the spring of 2006, a grandmother in Texas had skimmed through the book her granddaughter was reading and was so shocked by what she read that she marched into the girl’s middle school library and demanded that the book be permanently removed from circulation. The offending book was Detour for Emmy, a teen pregnancy story that is part of my “True-to-Life Series From Hamilton High.” She also demanded that all of my other books be taken out of circulation. Of course, the grandmother had every right to monitor her granddaughter’s reading, at least if the granddaughter’s parents agreed. But it was outrageous to think she could ban certain books from the whole student body.
The middle school librarian had a comprehensive challenge policy in place and also had the support of the school’s principal. As per policy, the book was read by members of the community, a minister, parents, business people and other educators. They ultimately decided, unanimously, that the book was appropriate for middle school readers and it stayed on the shelves. But this was not before an enormous brouhaha that had made the Dallas/Fort Worth 7 o’clock news for a full week.
In addition to the Texas challenge, there had been several other Detour for Emmy challenges during 2006. There are always a few. Over the years there’ve been challenges in Tennessee, South Carolina, Arizona, Illinois, and California, and probably many more that I don’t know about. On the cover of each of my teen fiction books is the statement “True-to-Life Series from Hamilton High.” So, teen pregnancy? Realistic? Yes, Emmy and her boyfriend had sex.
The other books in the series are also sometimes challenged. Nearly always they meet the challenge and stay on the shelves, and the news media are not involved. But between the Texas grandmother and other challenges, Detour for Emmy ended up in the No. 6 slot on the 2006 American Library Association’s Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books list.
Mike couldn’t have been more amused and proud of my growing reputation among certain circles as a writer of dirty books, a writer who was leading the youth of our nation astray. He happily spread the word to friends and colleagues that I had joined the ranks of others whose books had been banned—Mark Twain, Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, Dr. Seuss, Maurice Sendak, Judy Blume, and on and on. What good company I was keeping! Hosted by the American Library Association, Mike accompanied me to Chicago where I, along with many others, spoke at the 2007 annual ALA Banned Books Week event. Mike was charming, totally engaged.
In addition to attending ALA events, we spent an afternoon at The Field Museum of Natural History. We marveled at the huge Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park. We enjoyed dinner at some famous but now forgotten restaurant. But within a day of returning home, Mike was again dissatisfied and unhappy. It was beginning to seem as if it took a getaway for Mike to find any pleasure in life.
At home, what I was hearing from Mike was depression and discouragement. Try as I might, I couldn’t get past my own take on life to have total empathy for him. I couldn’t help feeling that his constant repetition of all that was wrong in his life, and his near total neglect of whatever was right, was partly to blame for his state of mind. Plus, I was tired of hearing it. One day, after a litany of complaints, I asked, “Is there anything, ever, you can enjoy or feel good about?”
“Of course,” he said.
I asked that we spend just 15 minutes each day telling each other about whatever good had occurred during the previous 24 hours. We could do it when we had our pre-dinner glass of wine, I suggested. He agreed.
The first evening of our new ritual I expressed several things for which I was grateful. When it was Mike’s turn he managed to comment that Sunny looked nice when he picked her up from the groomers, that he’d liked that I’d gone to breakfast with him that morning, and he was looking forward to the symphony. Our combined “goods of the day” lasted about five minutes before Mike shifted into complaining about a neighbor.
“Our 15 minutes isn’t up yet,” I told him, laughing. “No complaining for another 10 minutes!” I pointed out the window to the flowering plum tree. “Look how beautiful that is.”
We somehow managed another 10 minutes. I thanked Mike, telling him how much I needed to hear some of the good stuff. We kept to the ritual a total of three nights. On the fourth night he said, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“I do,” I said.
“It feels phony to me. I’m not playing that game,” he said, and that was the end of it.
How could I stay with a man who was either incapable or unwilling to offer me even 15 minutes a day of positive conversation? On the other hand, maybe he needed an adjustment in meds? Maybe we should take a trip? Maybe if he could get a long-talked-about solo show going?
Looking back, it seems I was already the frog in the warming pot of water, not registering the gradually increasing heat, in danger of waiting until it was too late to jump, already bound for the soup factory.
YIP HARBURG?
2007
Mike had often performed songs with lyrics by Yip Harburg and, in doing so, became intrigued by the man and his works. This prolific lyricist was mostly unknown to the general public. Mike would tell audiences that whether or not they knew his name, most of them were certainly familiar with dozens of Yip Harburg’s songs. Besides having written the lyrics to all of the “Wizard of Oz” songs, he was also the lyricist for “Paper Moon,” “April in Paris,” “Happiness Is Just a Thing Called Joe,” “How Are Things in Glocca Morra,” “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime,” and hundreds more.
Once free of his UUSS music director responsibilities, Mike started work on a show that would focus
solely on the music and life of Yip Harburg. He delved more and more deeply into Harburg’s music and history with a zeal befitting a potential biographer. He told friends, fellow musicians, family, neighbors, and the clerk at our local dry cleaners how Yip Harburg had grown up on New York’s Lower East Side, a community made up mostly of Russian Jewish immigrants. Yip had sat next to Ira Gershwin in school, and they discovered a shared interest in Gilbert and Sullivan. Gershwin took him home to his “swank” apartment and played “H.M.S. Pinafore” for him on the Victrola. This was around 1911 when Yip was only 15 years old. He later wrote that from that time forward he was tied to Ira Gershwin.
Mike also often told of Harburg’s social activism, much of which came through in his lyrics. His “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime” had become a touchstone for the downtrodden during the Depression. Besides his music, Harburg was also active in progressive political organizations—active enough to be blacklisted during the McCarthy era.
As much as I, too, loved the work of Yip Harburg, I sometimes felt that Mike was monopolizing too much of the conversation when we were with friends. But he was a good storyteller and brought plenty of energy to whatever he was saying. I hoped it was only my imagination that eyes sometimes became glazed with yet one more story, or one more repetition of a Yip Harburg story. I was aware that it was not only me with whom he was listening less and talking more.
At first Mike’s plan was for a one man show in which he would portray Harburg. Then he thought it might be good to bring in a soprano to add vocal interest. Soon he was collaborating with a director, pianist, eight or more singers and a few local actors.
'til Death or Dementia Do Us Part Page 4