Making Up Numbers: holidays 2024

Dear Everyone,

After last year’s heavy year-end letter, I vowed to write a letter this year which would be lighter. Then 2024 happened. So instead of lighthearted, you’ll have to settle for sardonic and candid. If you wish to stop reading now, that’s ok. Know I wish you and yours as good a 2025 as possible. Otherwise…you’ve been warned. 😉

For me, personally, it’s been a good year. With the help of a persistent yet flexible coach (shout out to Daniel) I’ve lost a few pounds, my clothes fit a bit better, and my heartburn has subsided. I still have a few more pounds to lose. Among other travel, I rang in the New Year listening to jazz in Paris, fawned over iguanas in Puerto Rico in March, played jazz (shout out to Nate) and classical piano in Maine in July, and ate food from street carts and Michelin star restaurants with my friend Robin in Mexico City this past November. (We gawked at pyramids in Teotihuacan, too. Native Americans built pyramids two thousand years ago; today, we make apps. 😖)

After over four years of working from home, my colleagues and I started returning to the office on a limited basis, and it’s been good for my mental health to have more than the company of sparrows outside my window every workday.

Friends and colleagues have had their share of joys – newborns, grandchildren, marriages, and new jobs among them – yet there has been at least as much sorrow. Several friends lost their parents this past year. Some lost other relatives, including children, especially heartbreaking. Others dealt with fractured relationships. Friends had pets pass away, or they dealt with sick pets. Having grown up with cats and fish, and ~~preferring~~ loving other animals generally, I know those losses are their own kind of devastation.

Various friends struggled with health problems, or health problems of loved ones, and challenging surgeries. Some struggled to find housing, others to sell their housing in a still-troubled market. Some friends chose retirement, while others found retirement thrust upon them; either way, such milestones underscore the passing of responsibility to younger generations, and the relentless march of time.

Friends, particularly those around my age, struggle with dealing with aging parents. For every story I tell (or begin to tell) about my parents, I am repaid with tales of turmoil about theirs.

My father, 92, and my mother, soon to be 88, are surviving, yet far from thriving, even as they realized a long time ago a bad attitude will add years to your life. (F*** positive thinking. Seriously.) An overdue test revealed, as Momma and I had suspected, Dad has hearing loss; yet, ever in denial, he refuses to get hearing aids. Alas, his hearing loss has only exacerbated his dementia. Momma has various issues – vasculitis in her legs, arthritis throughout – which limit her movement. She’s made choices – installing a stairlift, using a walker – which make her more comfortable, yet I fear afford her fewer opportunities for maintaining strength. These days she can barely walk a few feet without discomfort, and it's a struggle for her even to stand up from a couch.

Over the past two years, my brother-in-law, whose health had already been poor, took a turn for the worse. He has a family history of thyroid cancer, and tests this year revealed he has it, too. He’s had surgery and radiotherapy to address, while also dealing with diabetes and kidney problems. His sister helps him, yet he does not have the level of social support I think he needs. He’s a decent man, yet I find it difficult to relate to him.

Grief over having lost my sister last year continues to impact all of us. The grief does not go away, it merely changes over time. Whenever we’re together, Emily's absence is felt. My thoughts are with all of you who are in varying stages of grief.

I am often left feeling frustrated by my parents’ choices, and it is maddening they rarely take any advice or offer to help from me. Their existence of shopping for groceries, visiting doctors, watching tv, occasionally attending services at the local synagogue, punctuated by visits from me every six weeks or so, does not seem like much of a life at all. Yet, when I asked her recently how she felt about life, my mother said she was not unhappy. And I am glad, for now, we continue to stay in touch every day by phone or email.

I’ve found it hard to manage the myriad people in my life in need, and I feel like I have not been able to give as much to others as I would like. And frankly, I decided this year I wasn’t going to help anyone by not enjoying my own life and taking advantage of opportunities, for travelling or otherwise.

Still, I apologize to those for whom I have fallen short. Just know I think of my friends and family often, and if you need something, don’t hesitate to ask. If I can, I’ll help. If I can’t, I’ll let you know that, too. I appreciate it whenever my friends ask how my parents are doing. Especially my momma.

On top of the sadness around my friends’ and families’ difficulties, the escalation of conflict in the Middle East and the recent election results have cast shadows in the background. I have hardly commented on the Middle East turmoil on social media or elsewhere, and that’s not by accident.

It’s been difficult to navigate my friends’ myriad and strongly-held views. Some focus solely on Israel’s actions; others solely on those of Hamas and the Palestinians. Some, like me, see both sides as having contributed to the current conflict in different ways. The situation is so complex, with hurts piled upon hurts over decades and centuries, that I find it hard to see one side as all good and the other as all bad.

Even with research, I find it difficult to get a handle on the situation, period. This past year I’ve had some challenging discussions and learned more about the history of the Middle East, some of which has been tough to swallow.

As a Jew, I am an involuntary party to one of the sides of the conflict. It has been painful and scary to see some protests veer into anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim sentiment, even as I support people’s right to peaceful expression of opinion.

It’s also been telling that only certain injustices seem to merit protests: Human rights violations in, say, Syria (with conflict recently reanimated), Qatar, and Sudan (not to mention the United States) do not seem to inspire the same levels of outrage as those involving Israel. This relative lack of concern doesn’t excuse either Israel or Hamas for the hurt they have inflicted. Still, the world’s focus on this particular conflict has me thinking, with the backdrop of millennia of anti-Semitism, “Here we go again.”

I wish we humans would just stop fighting and hurting each other. Attention to these conflicts divert attention from problems which are so much broader and existentially threatening. I wish we cared as much about, say, the extinction of other life on earth, as we seem to care about the tribal conflicts in the Middle East or what people choose to do with their own bodies. According to the World Wildlife Fund (corroborated by other sources), “Globally, [populations] of mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians have declined an average of 68% between 1970 and 2016.” I notice fewer birds than when I was growing up. Mismanagement of the impacts of human population growth, particularly land use, hurts other living creatures and threatens the survival of our own species, too. Maybe the coral reefs should hire Sterling Cooper for snappier media coverage.

A piece in The New York Times about Senator Chris Murphy discussed a spiritual crisis around the issues I cite above, and others, underlying what seems to be behind our more surface discontent around issues like inflation -- a valid concern, yet perhaps not a root cause of our current collective unhappiness. Americans have a talent for both marketing and denial.

This past election day, the American people collectively chose, narrowly, a president that the rest of us highly doubt will help address these issues. So, we start 2025 with some trepidation of what next year, let alone the next four, will bring us.

In addition to the links above, I list below some of my preferred charities, contact info for elected officials, and some resources of interest. They may be of interest to you, too. Rest assured President Trump and other elected officials will be hearing from me next year as applicable.

Wishing you and yours a satisfying holiday season, and fortitude for the year ahead.

Love,

Rich

Charities:

· Carbon Foundation

· Compassion in World Farming

· Extinction Rebellion

· Population Matters

· Save the Manatee Club

· Turgwe Hippo Trust

· Women Wage Peace

Elected officials: