Having once been a kid myself, I know what it’s like to want to do something, to cry and clamor for your parents to finance it, and then to lose interest in the aftermath of victory. I’m horrified by how many times I talked my parents into supporting my childhood dreams of grandeur. Come to think of it, Ellen should probably have put her foot down a few times as well. Ah, well. At least I don’t have a hobby that includes yachts or airplanes.

His first guitar became his knockaround camp-guitar 4 years later (2007)

I remember when Jonah, at the age of twelve, came to me asking for a guitar. I knew the gambit and I wasn’t biting. I told him we’d get him a really cheap guitar. Also, Ellen’s dad had done the same with her, purchasing her first guitar from a pawn shop to make sure she was really serious about wanting to play. Jonah could learn from that. And if he enjoyed playing, and he was learning stuff, and showed signs that this was something he was going to continue, then we’d talk about a real guitar.

So I went onto eBay and searched for guitars that would cost less than $25. Actually, I was hoping to buy one that, even with shipping and handling, wouldn’t exceed $25. I bought him a $12 guitar. It had no brand name stamped on the headstock and in the sound hole it read, “Classic Guitar.” What a piece of junk! But from his response, you’d think I’d gotten him Jimi Hendrix’s Stratocaster. Jonah was so grateful and from the minute he started strumming that thing, he never stopped! This was an eye-opener for me. This kid really liked music!

The very first song Jonah wanted to learn was Tom Lehrer’s Irish Ballad, a particularly reprehensible little piece about a young girl with an irrepressible propensity for murder. Both Ellen and I grew up on ample amounts of Tom Lehrer’s music and, while it may cause one to question our fitness as parents, we exuberantly shared his music with our young children and were only too happy to teach it to Jonah as his first “recital” piece.

One morning in a fit of pique,
Sing rickety-tickety-tin.
One morning in a fit of pique,
She drowned her father in the creek.
The water tasted bad for a week,
And we had to make do with gin.

That’s my boy. It wasn’t enough for him to make music; he had to make people laugh too.

Playing the Backpacker in Mississippi (2007)

Jonah didn’t wait around for me to buy him “a real guitar.” When he was thirteen, he spent his own money on a Martin Backpacker. These weren’t great guitars either, but they were portable, really easy to carry around. And that was what Jonah was looking for. The stories we heard after his death would bear this out. So many of Jonah’s friends – from camp, to youth group, and even during college – told us how much Jonah loved music, and how much he loved sharing music. More than a few of them wrote of the joy he got from teaching them how to play the guitar.

I think I got my money’s worth on eBay that day.

19th century physician and author Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., wrote, “Alas for those who cannot sing, but die with all their music in them.” Nineteen years is far too few, but Jonah squeezed immeasurable amounts of spirit and music into them. That little guitar of his did its job well, for he played and played, and sang and sang, until his song was done. The guitar is still around, and when I have occasion to see it, I am reminded just how extraordinary a life my son lived. “Real guitar” or not, he brought real music to us all.

Billy

It’s been five years since March 5, 2009. In some ways, lots of time has passed by. But in other ways, it feels as if no time has passed at all. Grief stands strong while life continues on. Here are a few snapshots that illustrate Jonah’s continuing presence these days:

1) In the first months after Jonah’s death, I struggled with how to remember his face. As a 19-year old, it changed frequently. Long hair, short hair, bearded, clean-shaven – which Jonah do I remember? It really bothered me. Today, I’m comfortable with all “the Jonahs.” This is likely due to the ever-cycling collection of photographs that plays each day on a laptop computer in our living room. I think these pictures have reinforced and helped me to grow comfortable with the reality that there are many versions of Jonah from the years he lived among us. I love remembering them all.

2) I don’t dream about Jonah. I don’t know what psychology is at play here, but I suspect that because I “see” him in the many photographs each day, I don’t have the need to see him at night. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t love to have a nocturnal meet-up. Someday perhaps.

3) In early January, I taught a “Jonah Dreskin Memorial Confirmation Class.” Two months before he died, Jonah had dropped by the 10th grade and led a discussion on the intersection of Judaism and science. The kids loved the class, mostly because they enjoyed spending time with this older college kid. He was cool and they couldn’t get enough of him. Five years later, I brought his session back. And while much of the material is different (and the cool factor was utterly absent), it was his idea and I loved bringing a bit of him to share with my temple kids.

4) The Jonah Maccabee Concert has brought major contemporary Jewish songwriters to my synagogue, Woodlands Woodlands Community Temple. Together (them, us, and you!), we’ve raised substantial dollars to help WCT kids get to Reform Jewish summer programs. Jewish music and camping were so precious to Jonah. That piece of him remains an incredibly powerful presence in our temple, which makes me very happy.

5) The Jonah Maccabee Foundation, founded by my family in Jonah’s memory, is now in its second year of real activity. We make grants to organizations that focus on social justice, the arts, and Jewish life. I treasure the beautiful tributes these projects pay to Jonah’s life and memory.

6) Not as much as I used to but I continue to write about Jonah. It means a lot to me to preserve my favorite memories of him. I share them here at jonahmac.org/jonah, which helps me feel like there will be a place for his nieces and nephews to one day meet and get to know him.

I think that my greatest lesson from losing Jonah is that people are amazingly resilient. I came back from this, and I see so many others who are able to rebuild on the ashes of their own tragedies and traumas. I forever miss Jonah. But as in the apocryphal story of Itzhak Perlman breaking a string yet continuing to play and adjust and retune and complete his violin performance, I try each day to respond to the best and the worst in life by affirming that “it is our genius, as well as our hearts, to make music with what remains.”

As always, my family and I are deeply grateful for your continuing friendship and support.

Billy

These words appeared in a slightly different form in Woodlands Community Temple’s monthly Makom (March 2014).

Dear friends,

This is the final piece of writing by one of Jonah’s PGT friends. We hope you’ve enjoyed the series. Thanks to everyone who submitted an essay!

Billy

Alex Wolitzer remembers …

Having graduated from Skidmore College in May of 2012, Alex immediately started teaching in Washington, DC. She has taught students of all levels and ages, and is currently at McKinley Middle School teaching a self-contained class of eight students with intellectual disabilities. They love when she puts on recordings of, and serenades them with, show tunes!

Dear Jonah,

Where I am today, you are always with me. I’m a teacher for adolescent students in inner-city D.C. Imparting my love of the theatre to them and watching them gobble it up reminds me so much of the passion and fervor you and I shared at PGT so many years ago. If only I could play the “uke” as you did, I think I’d have them hooked!

I want to thank you for being a friend. I remember like it was not long ago at all watching you endlessly share your voice, your time, and your heart with those with whom we worked, played, and grew at PGT. Especially for sharing it all with me. There are too many times for me to count where you were an open ear and a shoulder to cry on before rehearsals even started. Whether it was something going on at school or anxiety about our show, you always had something to say, be it realistic and constructive or hysterical enough that I forgot all about it!

But of all of the times that you were there with a kind word or to brush that ever-present chip off of my shoulder, the memory I want to share involved but a few words. Rehearsing for A Man of No Importance, I felt so nervous because it was my first experience with PGT, and I was one of the youngest actors in the cast. Not only were you so warm and welcoming, but you never made me feel as though I was new; it was like we’d been friends forever. So when I bought my first pair of character shoes, I was worried I would look like such a doofus! During our dinner break, you came down to the Asian market with me, and on the way back—on the first floor still—my heel broke! I was absolutely mortified that I’d have to walk through the White Plains Mall, with one shoe only, back to the cast of accomplished actors that I’d just met! You said these words:

“Shut up. Embrace it. Hop on.”

Mason, Alex, Jonah and Will
Hair 2008 (well, a cast party at least)

You bent over and had me climb on your back for a piggy-back ride! You carried me up the stairs, through the White Plains Mall, and all the way back to the PGT studios. And for the first time—maybe even in my life—I actually found security in laughing at myself and feeling secure in my skin. No matter how many words of wisdom or comfort you could have imparted on me, those six made such a dramatic impact on how great I felt about my clumsy bad luck, my kooky personality, and me overall.

As I said, in what I do today, you are always with me. My students just watched Rent for the first time. And watching my adorable class of inner-city kids sing “No Day But Today,” “La Vie Boheme,” and “Seasons of Love” the way you and I once did when we were just singing for no apparent reason whatsoever brings me such joy.

You live on in all of us, Jonah.

Alex (or as you once called me for a week straight, “Shortypants”)

P.S. Your donation at jonahmac.org is always welcome! We are ever grateful for your friendship and support.

In Jonah’s 2001-2002 6th grade year, one part of his life that we knew he enjoyed was singing. Not only was he in Ardsley Middle School’s 6th grade choir (anyone who didn’t play in the instrumental program had to be), Jonah also volunteered to sing with the Madrigals, a smaller chorus of kids who could actually carry a tune and really liked singing. Also, Mr. Squillante directed the Madrigals, a super-plus because kids really like him (to this day).

In June 2002, Mr. Squillante invited the Madrigals to join him at the Clearwater Festival, an annual summer frolic of music, food and social consciousness at Croton Point Park in Westchester, NY, where he had somehow made arrangements for the group to sing back-up to Pete Seeger! Those of us parents and grandparents who’d grown up on a steady diet of Pete’s music and love, well we were beside ourselves.

Jonah (far right) sings with Pete Seeger
Clearwater Festival (Jun 15, 2002)

We packed up the kids, braved the traffic, searched for a parking space, and eventually made our way onto the festival grounds. This was an incredible moment for us, to watch Jonah singing not 10 feet from Pete. We’re not sure he really understood how very special this was but we assumed the experience would grow in stature for him across the years.

In time, Jonah would teach himself to play ukulele and guitar, and would become quite the songleader himself. My 10th grader class was remembering just last week when Jonah had taught them “Father Abraham Had Seven Sons” and, of course, “Jonah and the Whale.” These kids had been in the 5th grade at the time, but the memory reigns as a powerful one for many  of them.

Pete would be proud. I know that Jonah’s songleading parents certainly were.

To both Pete and Jonah, I say: Thank you for your music. Thank you for your goodness. Thank you for creating indelible memories I will cherish forever.

And thank you for the double-billing on June 15, 2002. What a show that was!

Billy