Time

This time last year doesn’t seem so long ago.

We were deep in the winter of mid-February, and I was wearing everything possible: my jacket and scarf, my ear wraps and gloves, my leg warmers and tall winter boots. I had arrived with my suitcase in tow at my daughter’s work show to help her manage some overflow. We worked all day and into the early evening, and then we made our way to meet her other half and my son for dinner.

The cold chased us to the subway and then through the streets of her neighborhood and over to the restaurant. The plan was for her man to arrive at the restaurant earlier that evening and put his name down. Then he’d go home to wait until it was time to come back again. My daughter said he promised to meet us there.  

“He’s always there,” I would tell her on more than one occasion. I liked this about him. When he said he’d be somewhere, he was always there.

We burst through the doors of the restaurant, eager to warm up. It was a full house! People were packed into the space, and a row of patrons lined the bar, huddled with their backs to the door. Servers made their way among the people and between the tables, zigzagging through the conversations that rose as high as the steam from the ramen bowls they were serving.

I didn’t know which way to look first, but my daughter did. As soon as we stepped in, she kept going, straight to the young man with the beard and the beanie at the bar. His back was to us, and I watched him turn around to greet her. Of course he was there, as promised!

My son arrived shortly after, and we all squeezed into a corner table. The three of them came to quick agreement on the menu, and we ordered several plates. I now look back on this dinner as one of the best that we had together. On that cold night, it was warm in every way; we were at ease and easily shared everything.

But since that night, time has gotten away from us. It went missing just a few days later when we lost my daughter’s young man. And now it’s hard to believe that he left a year ago today, when that dinner feels like it was only yesterday.

He was someone to everyone who knew him. He was a soulmate to my daughter; a son to his parents; a brother to my son; an uncle to his brand new niece; a brother to his older sister and her husband; a nephew, a cousin, a colleague; a friend to a host of others, and so much to so many more.

We can’t turn back time, but none of us knows where it went. Four seasons have come and gone, and we’ve braced ourselves against each one in the impossible effort to make time stop. For there’s been the feeling that if time passed, then he would be left in the past, and we’ve not been ready for that.

It’s taken a lot to get through the days and the weeks and the months that have followed. All at once there was so much to do, while at the same time there was never enough that could be done. Our loss has made everything new, and nothing is the way we are used to.

It doesn’t seem like that long ago when my daughter put on her favorite red top to meet him for their first date. Nor does it seem like that long ago when she introduced me to him over dinner with carrot cake for dessert. And when they decided to move in together, it seemed like just the right time. And then in no time he was insisting on my staying with them when I visited there, and he easily made himself at home in my home when they visited here.

It’s just that we never knew how short their time would be. My daughter had no idea that he would miss their third-year anniversary.

“Where did he go?” she begs to know. She’s moved into a new home and fears that he might have disappeared, and that makes her afraid for him. “He’s right here!” She points to his face, smiling from the photographs that she’s put around her place.

He’s on the refrigerator with his arms around her brothers and grinning with their friends. He’s on the windowsill, dressed to the nines and pressing his cheek against hers. He’s on the shelf, tying his shoe after a day of skiing. He’s on the nightstand, snuggling close to her in a photo that he wanted kept at her bedside, in case he was away.

We’re doing our best to grasp what happened. Over the past year we’ve read books and attended classes and met with various spiritual advisers in our efforts to understand. But it’s hard. And now I think it just might be something that we may never understand. I think there are just some things that we don’t get to know, no matter how badly we want to, and this might just be one of them.

Maybe all that we’re supposed to know is our part in it, what he meant to us and the impact of his life and loss on us. In the words of one of his closest friends, “We cannot make sense of it, [we can] only fold the experience into our lives and who we are and obviously help all of us who are suffering to be stronger and live fuller each day.”

My daughter picks up yet another photo and gives his face a kiss and tells me how handsome he is. They’re in bed and he’s sleeping, but she’s looking straight at the camera with such peaceful eyes, as if she knows she’s won the biggest prize.

We talk a lot about where it is that he might be. It’s a short conversation, but we have it often, because it’s been a lot to process, and it takes time. She wants for him to be okay. She wants for herself to be okay.

“He is somewhere,” I tell her. “He is not nowhere.”

This is part of what we’ve learned from all the books and classes and discussions. We’ve learned that we’re all made up of energy, and energy is something that never disappears. And we really want to believe this. We want so badly to have it be part of what we get to know.  

Moreover, we’ve learned that our being here is about more than just the fact that once our parents met. If we’re to believe, then our energy is something that exists long before we are born, and it flows back and forth through many lifetimes, according to a larger plan that we don’t get to understand.

We arrive in this life and put our names down, and after a time we make our leave, and then we wait until it’s time to come back again.

It takes a lot of faith to believe, but we are working hard on it as we grieve. In doing so, we’ve had to expand our minds, along with our concept of time. And there are days when it works and days when it doesn’t, but on the days when it does, it seems to expand the rest of us, too. Somehow it opens us up.

And when that happens, we can embrace the many signs that he seems to send and really believe that they’re from the energy of him. On those days we take refuge in the thought that he is okay, and that how we tell time might not be the only way. 

It's how we have faith that he is indeed somewhere, and that he is still, as before, always there. 

 Anne is the author of  Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself​ and is published on Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. Connect with Anne on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.​​

Goodness

 Baby Jordyn

“In the middle of the night, I go walking in my sleep from the mountains of faith to a river so deep.” ~ River of Dreams, Billy Joel

I’ve had so much energy these days that I don’t know what to do with myself.

And so I’m doing what I know to do when I don’t know what to do. I’m practicing lots of yoga.

Each night I’m on my mat, trying to expend the energy that I’ve captured in my body. It’s not that I’m not happy to have it; it’s just that it needs someplace to go. Who knows how it got there, but I think it happens while I’m sleeping. I seem to wake up with it, sometimes even in the middle of the night!

“I’m here because I need to melt,” I tell the instructor. It’s as good an explanation as any, and I ready myself to practice in 100 degree heat.

I change into my yoga clothes and open the door to the practice room. Rolling out my mat, I look down at my outfit. My top doesn’t really match my bottom, but I don’t care because the fabrics feel good, and I know that makes for a good practice. It also makes for a good memory. I think back to when my son dressed himself for nursery school. He arrived for class one day with stripes going this and that way.

His teacher was gracious. “I see someone dressed himself today!” she had said while nodding her head.

I still don’t know how all this energy found its way inside of me, but I do know that it didn’t happen overnight. In fact, I think it’s been building for a while. The instructor puts us in Down Dog, and I am glad for this pose, because it sends my energy in three different directions. We have to press down into our feet and also press down into our hands, and then we have to hike up our hips. 

There was a time when I had no energy at all. Back then it was everything I could do in order to do everything I needed to do. It was a time when I lost my spirit, when I couldn’t imagine ever finding it again. This doesn’t make for a good memory, but I still think it’s good to remember. It makes me even more grateful for where I am now and for the abundance of energy that’s been gifted to me.

The instructor takes us through a bunch of Sun A’s and Sun B’s, and I move through them seamlessly. And later I take him up on his offer for deeper expressions, because my energy still needs more places to go. And so I stand on my hands and on my forearms, too, and I also balance in Side Crow.

I say that my energy’s been gifted to me, because it truly feels as if it’s been bestowed. These days I’m especially aware of all the blessings surrounding me, and there seem to be so many! And since I’m someone who processes things visually, what I picture is a river of goodness flowing down through me.

I don’t know how this came to be. It’s not as if it’s been smooth sailing. This year, personally, there’s been such great loss, and our days are still sprinkled with tears. And on a global scale for a long time now, and especially more recently, the world seems sprinkled with fears.    

At work, our CEO spoke about the gift of energy and asked us to put ours to good use. The office had just sat down to its early Thanksgiving meal, and he stood up to remind us about how fortunate we are. He spoke about the power of goodness in times that aren’t. 

“People can still do good,” he said, “even in a world where bad things happen.”

The instructor asks us to stand on our knees in the middle of our mats. It’s time for Camel, the first pose of the back bending series. I place my hands at my heart and lean back until I’m so far back that I reach up and land them behind me. I rise into a back bend and stay for a count of five.

I used to hate the heart opening poses, but tonight I can’t seem to get enough of them. We move through another Camel, and then through a few Locusts and Bow poses, back bending on our abdomens. After, we jump through our hands for some back bends on our backs, rising up into a few Bridges and several Wheels, too. This is the peak of the practice, and for me it’s always the hardest part.

The heart opening poses take so much work! But it occurs to me that maybe they're the reason so much energy has found its way inside of me. Maybe after so long my heart is finally more open! Maybe that’s why I’m so energized.

This is why I consider energy as a gift bestowed, because suddenly I can see so much of what’s around me. I see blessings and love and even peace. And, who knows, maybe all of that was always there, even when my energy wasn’t.

If that’s the case, then it’s surely cause for faith, which is sometimes an even harder exercise than a heart opener. But while I would never be one to profess to know the key to an open heart, I would think that faith has got to have something do with it.

How else is it possible to have hope in the face of loss or even joy in the face of pain? Somehow I’ve had both, which I figure is evidence that our energy is capable of flowing in all directions, whether or not we are suffering. At the very least, it explains how goodness is still possible when bad things happen.  

It’s time to go upside down, and I stand on my head in the middle of my mat. I like this part of the practice. I find it relaxing to stand on my head, and I like how it feels to pull up through my core and lift my feet toward the heavens. This upward pull is called celestial energy.  

Just this past year, a little girl was born in the wake of our loss. She was named for the young man whom we are mourning. She is called Jordyn, and at her naming her parents spoke of the River Jordan, a river that flows with goodness, just like the one that I picture when I sense a gift has been bestowed.

With open hearts, they explained that they gave this child her name so that the goodness of this young man would flow down through her. And I think their plan is working, for she shares the same engaging energy, and we can’t help but love her. She is the hope that arrived in the face of loss; she is the joy in the face of pain.

And when we hold her we can feel her celestial energy, and this brings a certain peace.

The practice is over, and I lie back on my mat for Savasana, or final resting pose. The heat has done its job. It’s taken an hour and a half, but I am finally melted. For the moment, my energy has settled, and the instructor allows us to stay like that for a while before closing the practice with three Oms.

The room begins to empty out, but I want to go upside down again. I wait until almost everyone has left, and then I press into my hands and lift one leg and then the other. My hips stack over my shoulders, I pull in my core, and I hoist myself to the ceiling.

I catch the balance on the first try, and so I plant myself there in a meeting with the sky. My hands are rooted into the mat, and I straighten my arms and stretch my body higher, and then still higher. 

And I’m able to stay like this at length, because the energy is making its way back into me. It flows down through my body like a river of goodness, and I float for as long as I can. 

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself and is published on Huffington Post and Elephant Journal. Connect with Anne on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

  

Loss

“Limitless undying love, which shines around me like a million suns, it calls me, on and on, across the universe.” ~ Across the Universe, The Beatles

Last night at yoga we did a few stretches before we were called to the tops of our mats for the start of practice. Once there, the instructor asked us to set an intention.

I used to set an intention by making a wish, like a private prayer. But I’d struggle to come up with something quickly, and I couldn’t always get it done. So I started to simplify things, and now I just conjure up an image, usually one of someone I love, and then I wait to see what comes to mind.

Last night the image was my son, decked out for the swim portion of the New York City Triathlon. He was in his wet suit, wearing goggles and a bathing cap, mid-air in a feet-first jump into the Hudson River!

Only two days earlier I had witnessed this event, supporting him with family and friends as he swam and biked and ran in memory of a loved one whom he considers his brother. This young man had shared a life with my daughter, and when we lost him, so many plans were cut short, including the one he had made with my son to enter the triathlon.

Loss is a complicated thing, and when it takes us by surprise, as this one did, there’s never a plan for it. Yet that’s what loss seems to beg for most. It begs for plans that no one wants to make, plans that no longer include the one we’ve lost but that still remain very much about him. 

For my son the triathlon was one of those plans, so he designed a training regimen.

Since he had never been a big swimmer, he signed himself up for swim classes for triathletes. The only one to show up in board shorts and winded after just a few laps, it would take several months and a Speedo to build up the skills and stamina necessary to swim in open water.

He mapped out routes to run and ride around New York, reporting home with photos and updates from all over the city.

He kept up his yoga schedule and did his circuit training. He ate as clean as he could.

And then he selected a charity in the name of this young man, so that others who wanted to support him could also become part of his plan.

And he respectfully asked the family of the one we lost whether they’d mind if he rode the red bicycle that had belonged to their son, the one that had hung in the home he and my daughter had shared. And the family graciously agreed, because they, too, were part of the plan.

My son did all of this on his own, for that’s the other thing about loss. It’s personal, and so even when it’s shared, it’s yours in a way that’s not anyone else’s. It leaves you on your own to cope in ways that only you can.

And the way for my son proved to be the triathlon. He had set his own intention, and that’s what I think I was witnessing when he jumped into the Hudson.

Each person is on his own in this race of individual endeavors that include swimming, biking and running. These activities are not done holding hands. There are no teammates. Even the training is individualized, and so are the results. Everyone participating would be receiving his own finishing times for each section of the race and also for the transitions in between. 

We cheered him on as he swam steadily for 1500 meters, or nearly 20 blocks in New York City measurements. We hollered as he came out of the water in a sprint toward the transition area, where we then lost sight of him for a few minutes while he readied himself on the bike. Then he came out of the gate and pedaled away, as we cheered him again and held up our signs. And then, while he rode for the next 25 miles, our group made its way to a place he’d earlier scouted out, a spot outside a café where we’d line up to watch him run by.    

And as I stood there waiting for my son, a familiar feeling came over me. It was the one that I have at the end of my yoga classes, when I realize I’ve just done something on my own with others who have done the same. At the end of the practice, my individual effort suddenly feels like a shared effort, and my heart fills with love for everyone in the room, even for those I don’t know.

Maybe this is why the instructor asks us to thank the people practicing next to us when we’re done. It brings home the fact that none of us are in it alone.

And so I found myself clapping and cheering for those I didn’t know, because outside of that café my heart had filled like it does at yoga. I recognized the shared effort among the runners, even though I’m sure they had each set their own intentions when they jumped into the Hudson at the start of the race.

There were almost 3,500 triathletes and just as many or more spectators, and standing there I loved them all! Suddenly, my son ran by, and I reached up with the others to give him his high five. He was grinning and feeling good, and I wondered if maybe he could feel it, too, that feeling that he wasn’t in it alone.   

At the time of our loss and since, I’ve been struck by the overwhelming amount of love and support that’s come our way. In the aloneness of our grief, we’ve been touched by so many others who have generously reached out from every single part of our lives from as far back as I can remember. And this is what stays with me, and it’s what I was reminded of as I watched the race and experienced the shared spirit and universal love that made everyone there a part of the plan.

We saw my son again near the finish line. He sprinted home on his own and brought every one of us along with him. And then we didn’t leave! All of us spent the rest of the day together, sharing food and drink and laughter, and some of us even shed some tears.

Later that evening I asked my son what he had thought about during the race. For me the race had been quick, but for him it had lasted two hours, 47 minutes and 10 seconds! I imagined that was enough time for a triathlete to think. And he told me that, in addition to this and in addition to that, what had come to mind was the one we had lost, and that he had thought about him the whole time.

Jeff Bart and Ben Samit planned to do the New York City Triathlon together. To make a donation in Jeff’s memory, please visit Ben's link here. All donations go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital. 

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook and Twitter.

Hunger

Ben Samit completing a triathlon swim.

“Bring all the lovers to the fold, ‘cause no one is gonna lose their soul.” ~ Love Is My Religion, Ziggy Marley

We’ve been studying the soul.

We’ve been reading books and taking classes and looking for one soul, in particular. He belonged to my daughter and left without warning, leaving us all at a loss. He was the one who fed her soul, so that she was never hungry, and now her plate is empty, and she has no appetite.

He was a loving young man who knew that his body could feed his soul. He was a runner and a biker who had completed marathons and bike races. He loved to dance and had just started practicing yoga. He often worked out with my son, and together they had talked about entering a triathlon.

From the books and our classes, we are learning that certain souls are tied together in what are called “soul contracts”. Supposedly, we make these contracts before we are born. So the people in our lives, those we love and even those we don’t, are here with us because we’ve previously agreed upon it. It’s not anything we may ever remember, but it may be something we already know.

This is why we regard the soul of the one who left us as a brother to my son. His name was Jeffrey Paul Bart.

After he left, my son called me.

“Hey, Ma,” he said. “I’m going to enter the New York City Triathlon!”

I should not have been surprised. My son had once thought it would be a good idea to run up the steps of the Empire State Building! It was a vertical race. I never knew there were such things, but I’ve since learned that they happen all around the world. They’re called run-ups. The sign-up for the run-up was closed, but my son had entered a lottery and somehow gotten himself a late spot. He called to let me know.

“Hey, Ma,” he said over the phone. “I’m going to run up the Empire State Building!”

We hung up, and I looked it up. I’d never even taken the elevator up, much less the steps, but apparently the Empire State building had a lot. There were 86 floors and 1,576 steps!

He started to watch online videos. Apparently, a champion vertical racer had posted videos on how best to run up the steps. There were instructions on how to grab the railings and how to swing around to the next flight. My son gave me his own instructions. I was to watch the videos, too, so that I could listen intelligently as he mapped out his strategies.

He picked a charity for those who wanted to support him and ran up the stairwells of his apartment building as practice. His doorman was in charge of the stopwatch. He conditioned further with lots of yoga.

A few short months later, he ran to the top of the Empire State Building! 

Really, I don’t know what made him decide to do that. I don’t even know if he knows. I just think he knew that he had to do it, and so he did. If I think hard enough about it, I would say that, on some level, he knew that his body, too, had the ability to feed his soul, and that his soul was hungry.

Swimming is a big part of a triathlon. In fact, it’s the very first part, and my son was never really a big swimmer. When he was little, he was so little that it took some time before he had the strength to hold his chest high enough to keep his head above water. And so it was a while before he could, and then it was never really an activity he actively pursued.  

My son began to put his plans in place for the race. He registered for the NYC TRI and signed up for a swim class. Then he chose a charity in memory of his brother Bart and bought a bike map of the city, so he would know where to go. He started running, too, and he further conditioned with lots of yoga.

I listened as he mapped out his strategies, and for months I watched as he fed his soul in the way that he knows how. He met with a run coach and sent me videos from his swim coach. He worked out his workout on either end of his work day, in the mornings and in the evenings and on the weekends, too.

The training provided my son with a purpose at a time when he was looking for his. The loss of a loved one can leave us questioning ours, and that’s why we want so badly to believe in our souls. We want to believe there’s a reason we’re here and a purpose in the company we keep. We want to know that it matters when we love someone and that our contracts with them are for keeps.

There was so much more to be done. My son acquired a wet suit and goggles and a bathing cap, and then he arranged for the bike and the shorts and the shoes. He actually borrowed the bike that inspired him to enter the race, the red one that hung in his soul brother’s place, in the home that my daughter had shared. He learned the gears and met with the guys at the shop to learn even more, and he spoke with his brother as he rode through the city of New York.  

“Bart and I rode the streets hard,” he reported one day. “We cursed up a storm,” he said of the cars and the people who got in the way.     

And then it was time for a practice race, and his sister and I were invited along. He had signed up for a nearby triathlon in a town outside the city. He packed up his car with the bike and his things, and we booked a hotel overnight. The next morning, we were up before dawn, and we drove to the beach where he put his wet suit on.

He entered the water and swam out with the others until they became dots in the distance, blue like the color of their caps. We watched the blue dots move along the horizon and then turn toward the shore before they rose up to become people again. And we clapped for him as he came out of the sea and ran by on the beach and transitioned to the ride on his bike.

But then another rider collided with him, and he and the bike were down before they could even begin! And I have to admit that I heard him curse as he got up from the ground and fixed up the bike and then pedaled off, as if it had never happened. And we cheered him on then and did the same again as he rounded the bend in a second and final loop.   

And then it was time for the run. He stashed his bike and put on his watch as he ran, and then he was gone again. And that’s when my daughter and I walked to the finish line, so that we could greet him when he came in. And it was not too much longer before we saw him appear, a dot in the distance again. And then we heard his name in the air as he drew near, and we clapped and hollered and cheered.

“Here comes a runner with some real grit!” the announcer announced over the loud speaker. “There’s no one behind him right now. There he is! Ben Samit from New York, New York, New York!”

      

He blew by the finish line, and suddenly he was with us, catching his breath, elated, a little bloody from the spill on his bike. He gave us big, sweaty hugs, and we took celebratory pictures in the rising sun, and then we listened as he told us what it was like.

He said the bike ride was good, and that he still had gas in the tank after the run. But the swim, he said, was not good at all.

Although I hadn’t noticed, he told us he had entered the water but was unable to exhale his air. He wasn’t prepared for the cold temperatures and lack of visibility, and he froze right there on the spot. He almost turned back but made the decision instead to move on ahead and swim with his eyes above water. It wasn’t until the end when he headed to shore that he finally put his head in for the rest of the swim.

“Bart was definitely with me in the water,” he said.

We took so many photos of that day, but they don’t do justice to the image that remains in my mind. In the mental picture I keep, I see my son from behind. He’s in his wet suit and goggles and cap, and he’s moving into the water at the start of the race.

The day has dawned, and it freezes this moment in time. He’s hungry and ready to feed his soul.

Next up: The NYC TRI.

Jeff Bart and Ben Samit planned to do the New York City Triathlon together. To support Ben’s race in Jeff’s memory, click here. All donations go to St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Anne is the author of Unfold Your Mat, Unfold Yourself. Connect with her on her blog, Facebook.and Twitter.

Protect Your Heart

Baby if you hold me, then all of this will go away.” ~ Budapest, George Ezra

I looked at my social media the other day and scrolled through more slogans than I could count. My feeds were overflowing with advice on everything from how to be happy to how to find love to how to be loved.

I even walked through Brooklyn on my visit last week and stepped on some sidewalk art that told me to protect my heart.

It seems in every direction, people are looking for the right direction.

Some of us are lucky enough to give up the search. I think Jeff was one of these lucky ones. I think by the time he met Alexandra, this young man had already grown into himself, and I think in her he found what he was searching for.

After their first date, Alexandra called me with her report. It was to the point, and it was short.

"Mom, he is just so alive,” she said.

And she proceeded to fall in love with the life force that was Jeff, and I continued to receive from Alexandra her reports. I heard how happy and energetic he always was. I heard how handsome he was. I heard how he cared for her.

And I heard how he loved her. This report came by text.

“We were running on the West Side Highway,” she said. “And he said, ‘I’m happy I have you’. And I said, ‘I’m happy I have you, too.’ And then he said, ‘I love you.’ And I said, ‘I love you, too!’”

And in revealing his heart to her like this, Jeff made it okay for Alexandra to reveal her own heart, too. It was a first for Alexandra to let anyone that close. This young man that was Jeff earned a tremendous amount of trust from Alexandra, and he did it by being consistent, dependable and honest. But, really, I don’t think he could have been anything else, because I think this was actually his true nature. He made it safe for Alexandra to let herself be known and to see that she was still loved, and this was his most precious gift to her.

Jeff’s devotion and enormous love fostered in my daughter a peace and contentment for which only a mother could pray. I can’t really explain what I saw in my daughter during her years with him except to say that he enabled her to grow into herself, too. The brightness in Jeff illuminated Alexandra, and I watched her become her best self by his side.

Most people think that Alexandra and Jeff met on a dating App, but she and her brother and I know different. I’ve often asked her whether this young man whom she found so alive was aware that she ordered him at the time she was five. There’s no question that G-d sent this man with the curly hair and big heart, a man she would call Jeff Paul Bart.

Alexandra and Jeff not only found each other, but they also found Brooklyn. And there they set up a home. For whatever reason, their apartment building always reminded me of the television show, I Dream of Jeannie. I think it was the building’s decor, but now I think it was so much more. To me, their apartment was a genie’s bottle, cozy and with lots of magic inside, a home the two of them created with pride.

And together they lived on hope and faith and trust, with plans for a future that weren’t supposed to combust.

And now my heart breaks at my daughter’s new report. “He was so happy, Mom," she said. “He’d be so upset if he knew what happened. He wouldn’t like this at all. He had so much he wanted to do. He wanted a family. He wanted children. He wanted me. We were not supposed to grow old separately.”

I am very grateful that Jeff was so expressive. He was able to tell Alexandra how he felt about her. In fact, he was able to tell us all how he felt about us. He professed his love openly. There are no words left unsaid because he was able to say them all, and so those of us around him were able to say them, too. This was the generous gift that was Jeff.

And I’m also very grateful that Jeff was so demonstrative. He was able to show Alexandra how he felt about her. In fact, he was able to show us all how he felt about us. He was uninhibited in his affection, and that made it easy for us to give that back to him. This was the other generous gift that was Jeff.

And how can I discuss Jeff without mentioning how much he meant to my son, Benjamin? I watched them form a quick and easy bond that wasn’t supposed to end. And now in losing Jeff, my son has lost his brother.

I stayed at Alexandra and Jeff’s happy home just this past weekend. Before leaving, he made us breakfast and then served himself. I watched as he carefully spread avocado on his rice cake. Then he added just cut pieces of lox on top and then sprinkled some of the chives he’d just chopped. And as I watched him add the eggs, I couldn’t help but think how incredible it was that Alexandra had found this young man, a man who only wanted to be there with her and build their life in the same careful way he was building his breakfast.

Then I looked at him again and saw he had a slogan on his shirt, and maybe the words explained my joy. There across his chest was the sentence, “Everyone loves a Jewish boy”.

After breakfast it was time for Alexandra and me to leave. Jeff would leave later in the day. I watched him wrap his arms around her, and I watched her step into his safe embrace. They kissed. She held him. He patted the back of her head and said, “Goodbye, Sweetie.”

It was a few days later when I returned because he did not. I was back in Brooklyn and walking with my son. And I pointed out the sidewalk art, the one with the slogan that read, “Protect Your Heart”.

But we just kept on walking and passed it by, because it only made me wonder why. For how in the world could any of us ever have protected our hearts when it came to loving Jeff? How could we have loved him in any other way but in the big way that he loved us all, and in the even bigger way that he loved Alexandra.

There is just no slogan that can protect our hearts from being broken.

There is only hope for the pain to cease. I know that Jeff would wish us peace.

In memory of Jeffrey Paul Bart, contributions may be made to Jewish Social Services Agency or The Make-A-Wish Foundation.