There were five of us girl cousins who grew up together, my mother’s three daughters, and her sister Daisy’s two. They were my only first cousins, and the only cousins I ever knew. Each of my parents had one sibling, and my father’s sister didn’t have any children. There probably were some second cousins on both sides of the family, but I don’t remember ever meeting any of them. My father was estranged from his family; I’m not sure why we didn’t socialize with my mother’s cousins.

The Featured Image shows the five of us sitting on the back seat of a surrey with fringe on top on Mackinac Island, Michigan, although I have cropped the picture so you can’t see the fringe. We stopped there on the way home from Interlochen, after picking up the other four girls, who were all campers there that summer. (I went to Interlochen later, but was too young at that point.) I’m not sure what year it was, but I would guess that I am six, given the fact that my front teeth are missing. That would mean my sister and my cousin on the left side are both eleven, my other cousin is fourteen, and my sister on the right is thirteen. My parents, aunt and uncle, and grandparents were in the front two rows of seats in the surrey, which is why the kids are all crowded into the back.

Daisy’s daughters were so close in age to my sisters that the four of them played together from way before I was born. I heard stories all my life about how they would act out Peter and the Wolf, with the oldest cousin playing Peter as well as directing. They also all went to a summer camp called Turkey Point for several years, where Daisy was one of the counselors. I was so much younger that I missed out on all of this. By the time I was old enough to go to Turkey Point, the camp had gone out of business! I always used to tell my mother that it wasn’t fair how there was one cousin for each of my sisters, but none for me. I wanted Daisy to have another baby so that I would have a playmate too. Of course, by the time I was old enough to be saying this, a new baby would have been too much younger to be useful. I wanted her to magically have a third child who was my age.

It wasn’t until I was fifteen that I had a one-on-one relationship with either of my cousins. Alice, the younger cousin, was studying Spanish in college, as I was in high school. After my sophomore year of high school, and her sophomore year of college, we went to Cuernavaca, Mexico together, to take courses at the Universidad de Morelos. We were placed with different local families, and took different classes, so we didn’t see that much of each other, but we did take a couple of weekend trips together, and it was especially nice to have someone to travel down and back with. Then senior year, when I was dating a boy who went to Rutgers, I stayed in Alice’s dorm at Douglass (the women’s college of Rutgers) when I went to visit him for a weekend event, much to his dismay, since he assumed I would stay with him illegally in his all-male dorm.

I didn’t spend much time with the older cousin, Betty, until much later in our lives. She is an actress, and was always unconventional, plus she was almost nine years older than I. She graduated from college before I even started high school. She moved to Pittsburgh in about 1967 (surprising for a girl born and raised in New York), and was hired for a brand new show called Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, where she stayed for its entire thirty-three year run. Even after she moved away from Pittsburgh, they would bring her back to film her segments. She became a huge celebrity among small children. I have sometimes been with her when she was mobbed by adoring little kids and their parents, which was strange to see, although cool at the same time. When my own children were little, we always watched the show just to see Betty. If there was an episode that she wasn’t on (which was rare), they would get mad, because she was the reason we were watching. We had videotapes of all the Rogers operas, where Betty played memorable roles like a cow or a giraffe. In 1999 when she was in the movie Dogma, I bought it to watch with the family, but had to turn it off after about five minutes because the language and the violence were not appropriate for children, something that hadn’t occurred to me beforehand. We watched the rest of it after the kids were asleep, but it was pretty weird. For one thing, she was a nun! And the plot is bizarre. I don’t recommend it!

In the last few decades the age gap has become irrelevant, and we have related on an equal footing, sometimes getting along and sometimes not. My immediate family has had annual reunions for more than 30 years, which my parents, my sisters and I, and our kids always attended; many times my aunt would come with one or the other of the cousins, but generally not both of them at the same time. This has more to do with their relationship as sisters than their relationship with us as cousins. I think 1999, the year of Dogma, was the last time everybody was together, when we gathered for my nephew’s bar mitzvah at Thanksgiving in New York.

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Just like we were five first cousins, in the next generation there are also five first cousins, because each of my sisters had one child and I had three. The oldest and youngest are outliers, with nineteen years between them, and eight years to the next closest cousin (very symmetrical!). But the three middle ones are close in age, with my nephew about halfway between my older daughter and my son. My sister and I both thought it was very important to create a connection among those middle cousins when they were young, which was challenging because she lives in New York and I live in California. So in addition to our yearly reunions in the summer, which were generally on the East Coast, she brought her son to visit us every year during the winter holidays. As a result, the three “middles” became very close, and still are. I think the two boys consider each other to be the brother they never had, and even now, at age 31 and 33, they talk and text and visit each other frequently.

Here are the five cousins in 2004, when they were ages 8, 27, 19, 18, and 16. I think they decided to line up in height order. My three are in the first, third, and fifth spots.

And here they are again nine years later in 2013, at ages 36, 28, 27, 25, and 17, in almost the same order, except the youngest has moved from the left end to the right end, so now they are in age order.

Finally, we come to the Patty Duke moment in the story. Since my youngest daughter’s father is an identical twin, and his twin’s wife was pregnant at the same time I was, we were hoping that we would end up with identical cousins. It could have happened. Genetically, my daughter is as closely related to the children of that uncle as she is to her siblings, since her father and uncle have the same DNA. However, my niece looks like her mother instead of her father, so as you can see in the pictures below, they are far from identical.

Here are the two girls in 2001, when they were five years old, reading a favorite book with my sister-in-law.

Even though they didn’t look alike, we thought these cousins would grow up together, because the twin and his wife were living in Sacramento when the girls were born, only four months apart. They would have been in the same grade in school, and could have done everything together. But for various reasons too complicated to include in this story, the three of them moved from Sacramento to Luxembourg, and then to England, where they still live.

Here are the girls in 2011 at age 15, the last time we got together, when we visited with them in England. Not only do they not look alike, the cousin speaks with a British accent. And they are not interested in any of the same things. Of course, that part sounds a lot like Patty and Cathy Lane on the Patty Duke Show!

Maybe we have the makings of a new television show! And my son, the comedy writer, could write it.

Annette was more like the sister I always wished for than a cousin.
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We are the world,
We are the children,
We are the ones who make a brighter day, so let’s start giving.
Oh, there’s a choice we’re making,
We’re saving our own lives,
It’s true we’ll make a better day, just you and me.

This song, written by Michael Jackson and sung by an ad hoc group of prominent musicians calling themselves USA for Africa, was released in March 1985 to raise money for famine relief in Africa. This was probably the beginning of celebrities using their clout to support important causes. It was also one month after my first child was born, a time when I started worrying about what kind of world she would grow up to live in.

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Thinking back to my childhood, I don’t know for sure whether my parents gave money to charity. I assume they did, but money was something that was never talked about in our house. I didn’t know anything about how much money came in or went out. I did know that a lot of my father’s patients paid him in ways other than money. There was one man who paid in steaks, so we sometimes had a freezer full of them. A woman crocheted blankets for us, one for every member of the family (I still have mine). Another woman cleaned our house on a regular basis. I knew that my father never turned anyone away because they couldn’t pay. So I was very familiar with that form of charity, giving services to people even when they couldn’t pay for them.

I also knew that my mother belonged to two Jewish philanthropic groups, Hadassah, which raised money for Israel, and the Brandeis Women’s Group, which raised money for Brandeis University. Brandeis, having been founded only a short time before, in 1948, was too new to have the wealthy alumni/ae to make donations the way older universities did, and formed these women’s groups all over the country to support it.

However, I would have to say that I don’t remember ever being taught anything specifically about the importance of charity.

When I was in my twenties, the women’s movement was the most important element in my life. After law school I started volunteering at two local women’s organizations, the Sacramento Women’s Center and Women’s Stress Alternatives. Eventually I was asked to be on the board of directors of both of them. I provided legal services to women who needed them, although as a brand new lawyer, I’m not sure how valuable that was. But at least it was free. I actually went to court twice representing Women’s Center clients, one who was having a custody battle, and one who was fighting with her ex over a car that he had given her. I honestly can’t remember the outcome of either case, and after I was hired by the Attorney General’s Office, I was no longer allowed to represent private clients. I was sorry I couldn’t do that any more, because it felt good to help people who couldn’t afford to pay, just like my father had done.

As far as giving money to charity, I sheepishly admit that it was only when I started paying my own taxes, and learned about charitable donations as a way to decrease tax liability, that I started writing checks to various organizations, beginning with the two on whose boards I served. However, I now make donations regardless of whether they are deductible or not, if they are causes that I care about. Over the years I have found many worthwhile organizations that I wanted to support financially. When my children were younger, we tried to involve them in deciding what organizations to contribute to when we made our end-of-the-year donations. There would be dozens of solicitations that came in the mail, and we asked them to go through and pick one that they wanted to support.

The synagogue I belong to now is very active in social action, following the Jewish precept of tikkun olam, repairing the world. I never learned about this when I was growing up, probably because my parents allowed me to drop out of religious school after one year. As an adult, I only decided to join a synagogue when I had children whom I wanted to send to religious school (ironic, I know, but there it is). I am so grateful for my wonderful rabbi, who embraces social action and often gives sermons about what we can do. I have learned so much from her, and from others in the congregation. In recent years I have gotten involved in temple projects to collect clothing and household goods for refugees, give blankets to the homeless, sing and visit with the elderly at a senior center, create and support a summer daycamp for refugee children, and many other activities.

With the current political climate, it seems more important then ever to get involved in repairing the world. As it is stated in the Talmud, “It is not your responsibility to complete the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.”

 

My grandfather was born in December in Russia. He didn’t know his actual birth date (no records were kept), so chose Christmas as his birthday. Why not. The world came to a halt and the family would always come to Toledo to celebrate with him. We gathered at a nice hotel and aunts, uncles and cousins would enjoy a lovely meal. Lots of photos and film (my dad was the photographer and I have the now-on-video recordings) of people being kissed by Grandpa in front of a beautifully decorated Christmas tree. As I reflect on this, it reeks of irony, since my grandparents with two babies, had to flee Russia after the horrific pogroms, seeking to kill all the Jews, in 1906. Nevertheless, in Toledo, OH, my grandfather was safe and prosperous.

I, too, am a December baby…the 10th to be exact. But that date, coming as it does so close to Hanukkah, meant that I frequently got one big, combined gift, rather than a birthday gift, followed by Hanukkah gifts (when I was young there would be small Hanukkah presents). I always felt sort of cheated by the proximity of my birthday falling on or close to the holiday.

Here you see me on my 6th birthday in my father’s favorite photo spot and can see the Happy Hanukkah sign hung above the mantel, as it was year after year, in every birthday photo. I am sure my dress was pink and was a gift from my Aunt Stella, who provided many such birthday dresses. The events were co-mingled.

Once I had children, Hanukkah, again, took on greater meaning. It is actually a fairly minor holiday that has only taken on greater significance due to its proximity to Christmas on the calendar. We lit the candles every night, decorated the house (yes, there was a sign like the one from my childhood, but it was strung up in the kitchen where we could see it all the time). And presents for each child on all eight nights of Hanukkah. This all fell to me, as my husband traveled a great deal for business. One night he came home late and found me on the floor of the den, surrounded by wrapping paper, tape, presents and other stuff, barely visible. As he walked by, I uttered a little, “Help me!” He laughed, walked to the bedroom to unpack from his travels.

Here are David and Jeffrey in 1991, as youngsters, enjoying blessing the candles and a holiday gift of “Goofy” slippers.

The summer before my 50th birthday, knowing that the movie would premiere the night before the actual date, and knowing that I am a Daniel Day-Lewis freak, Dan bought tickets at a summer charity auction for the premiere of “Gangs of New York”. My dear friend Christie decided to join us and here we are before going next door to the theater. You can see the Christmas tree in the background. ‘Tis the season. Always. The party following the screening was at the New York Public Library, which was beautifully festooned in holiday decorations. It was a glorious time to be in the city, though none of us much cared for the movie (Christie hated it, I decided it was like grand opera…the plot was messy and made no sense, but it looked good).

Since the time I was a kid at summer camp, I wrote holiday cards to all the girls in my cabin, plus all my friends. I wrote a personal note to everyone. It took a lot of time and effort to get them all out. I discontinued that project after I married, but started up again with David’s arrival, some 34 years ago. I have a copy of every photo card since that beginning, and wrote a personal note to everyone. I wrote to each of my cousins, friends through the ages, other relatives, parents’ friends…a long list. About 20 years ago, I added the dreaded “year in review” letter and standardized my list. I mail to about 200 people at this point. My husband mocks me for it, but I’ve done an informal survey and I do believe that my friends and relatives would miss my annual missive if they didn’t hear from me. It does take quite a bit of time and effort at the beginning of December to get everything done (make sure I have a good photo, write the letter, update the mailing list, etc). Some, inevitably, get returned; wrong address with no forwarding information, a few deaths each year. It is rare for me to drop someone from my list. I will never drop a relative, but if I haven’t heard from a friend for years, I may give warning, then after several years, I may finally give up and take them off the list. I hate to lose people. I set up in my study and run a production for weeks before the project is finished. Some people I just email to (my husband thinks more should just get emails), but I think getting something in the mail remains special. I used to hang large ribbons in my front hall and hang all the cards from them. Now they are set up on my piano. That is part of the season.

 

When my youngest was in kindergarten, I discovered that his friend’s mother and I not only share a birthday, we are exactly the same age. I am 45 minutes older, so we call ourselves the “birthday twins” and celebrate together every year. Last year’s celebration (our 66th birthday) is the Featured photo. If our birthday is a weekday, we may go to lunch together, as we will this year. When it falls on a weekend, we include our husbands and go out for a fancy dinner, as we have the past few years.

I have another friend, though many years younger, who also has a December birthday and we always have a birthday lunch a bit later in the month too. I have two other lunches planned the week of my birthday and always have a rich chocolate cake on the evening of my birthday with a good friend.

Well, last year, my birthday fell on a Monday when I had choir practice. Of course they sang “Happy birthday” to me in 4-part harmony, and my best Soprano buddy made a scrumptious cake with butter cream frosting for the snack that night. Yummy! I believe in celebrating. As someone once said, call it the “Month of Betsy”!