Dear Katie and Aiden,

I suspect that lots of parents are easily won over by their children. Not so much because kids demonstrate any particular talent or ability (although certainly those may be there) but rather, pretty much just because we love you and find joy in most anything you yourself like doing.

That’s why I think I was always so entertained by Jonah’s t-shirts. Not the white Hanes ones he wore under something else (I’m not that weird) but the shirts that had something to say. I don’t know, they kept me endlessly entertained and I like to think they said something about the kid who pulled them out of his drawer in the morning.

“Batman Animated” wrapped around Jonah.
Jonah wrapped around buddy Ryan. Cleveland, circa 1995.

From Jonah’s earliest years, he showed a distinct preference for designs that took over his entire t-shirt. Can you remember his Scooby Doo shirt, Batman Animated, and the Coca-Cola Polar Bear? These were probably a hint that all nineteen of his years would contain shirts worth looking at. It’s hard to remember when he switched from us buying him his shirts to him buying his own, except when I see one he’s wearing in a photograph and I think, “I have no idea where he got that one.” For example, I can’t imagine Mom or me getting him his Dane Cook “Suck My Back” t-shirt. It wouldn’t have been worth my even noting he had that one, except (in Feb 2007) he wore it while fixing up Katrina-ravaged homes in Ocean Springs, Mississippi, making his statement on that particular day something along the lines of, “Screw you, how can I help?” As you well know, Jonah was not the kind of guy who blew people off. He may have loved looking (and walking!) like he didn’t care, but his actions betrayed him. Jonah was a good guy.

Jonah, Amanda, and Pink Floyd
March 2008

Your brother’s trip to Mississippi brought a few other t-shirts of note into his life. While I think he really enjoyed superior barbecue at The Shed, it’s a bit more likely that their motto, “Eat Shed,” emblazoned on the front of their bright red t-shirt is what earned its place in Jonah’s frequent wearer club. He picked up another t-shirt at Mardi Gras in Biloxi that read, “Don’t Worry … Bead Happy.” It bore no profound (or even outrageous) message, perhaps because it represented nothing more than the good time he had (and the strings of beads he caught) there. When you think about it, getting to attend America’s favorite annual street party at age seventeen was probably a peak event for this kid. That he wouldn’t be getting a later opportunity to go to Mardi Gras in New Orleans itself, well, let’s just say his Dad’s extra-grateful for that trip south to help hurricane victims.

Many of Jonah’s t-shirts reflected his love of music, especially guitar. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, and Jimi Hendrix were certainly among his most colorful ones, and were consistent with the decor on the walls of his room back home (where he had the Pink Floyd “Back Catalogue” poster, Led Zeppelin’s “Swan Song” and a framed LP/album cover of Jimi Hendrix’s “Are You Experienced?” that he and I picked up at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland) and the wall above his bed at UB (which displayed two enormous posters of Jimi Hendrix’s “Axis: Bold as Love” and Pink Floyd’s “Animals” recordings).

December 2006

But Jonah’s heart (I think) was with two other shirts. First, a simple white t-shirt bearing the words, “Toys from the Attic.” It’s a guitar shop in White Plains, NY, where Jonah purchased his red Dean acoustic and his black Gibson L6-S electric. The folks at “Toys” were always warm and welcoming to this young, unpracticed player. They seemed to have all the time in the world for him, explaining the differences between the many guitars on their walls and giving him hours to sit and play until he was ready to choose. That’s probably why he shopped there and not at Sam Ash across the street. I think Jonah was honoring this small but influential music center by wearing their shirt.

Katie, Ellen, Jonah & Les Paul
Cleveland, August 2007

But the t-shirt I think Jonah loved best was the one he picked up on Monday evening, May 21, 2007. He and I had played hooky that night from temple high school and spent the evening at the Iridium Jazz Club (along with my buddy, Jim Dowdle) listening to the classic riffs of Lester William Polsfuss, known professionally as Les Paul. Jonah understood he was sitting in the presence of music royalty that evening. Besides being a phenomenal guitarist, Les Paul had helped create the solid-body electric guitar, as well as sound-on-sound and multitrack recording. The music that Jonah loved, both in its live and studio formats, owed an everlasting debt to Les Paul. Jonah knew that time was running out for this elder statesman of jazz, and he was so pleased and honored to watch Les Paul play before his nearly ten decades came to a close (which happened only a few weeks ago on August 13, 2009). Jonah did not, of course, know what his own future held and, once again, it’s Jonah’s dad who’s extra grateful for this incredibly memorable evening I was able to share with your brother. Jonah left the Iridium Jazz Club that evening with a black t-shirt that bore the face of Les Paul framed inside the outline of an electric guitar. It quickly became one of his favorites.

Darn Good Lookin’ … all 3 of them!
Graduation, June 2008

Jonah — who learned to play guitar really well, had a fine, strong singing voice, and was at ease in front of crowds — chose never to become a songleader. He did train to be one, though. Jonah spent two years (04-06) apprenticing with master songleader and goofball Kenny Green at Woodlands Community Temple, and the summer of 2005 in the Songleading Major at Kutz Camp learning at the fingertips of Chana Rothman, Jenn Gubitz and Zoe Jacobs. And he got the shirt. And he wore the shirt. A lot. Was it because (as the back of it said) he was proud to have been part of “Kutz Songleading 2005”? Or was it the front of the t-shirt, “Darn Good Lookin’,” that he simply couldn’t resist? Either way, this may just be the shirt that got the most body-time from my boy.

By the way, I don’t know what anybody else thought, but in my completely biased and not-at-all-humble opinion, your brother was most definitely “Darn Good Lookin’”! But remember what I told you at the beginning of this little essay: we love you and find joy in most anything you yourself like doing. There’s always something “darn good lookin’” for your mom and me to see when one of you is around.

In the end, Jonah’s life was about being true to himself. He had a shirt that said, “Rock and roll is all about self-expression.” Jonah deeply valued the idea of becoming the person he would be proud to be, and not compromising on the results of his hard work. We could see this in his music, and in pretty much everything he cared about. He knew the importance of self-respect and personal honesty from very early on. His difficulty back then lay in figuring out how to be that person. It must have been confusing to him that his friends didn’t always start out as friends; it could take a while for people to understand what Jonah was all about. “I’m a second impression kind of guy,” he would tell you. And Jonah was right. If you stuck around long enough to get to know him, you’d find out that Jonah Maccabee Dreskin, your brother, was one of the most decent, giving, understanding people around.

His t-shirts comprised only the thinnest of layers at the very top of his being. Like most of us, that thin, seemingly superficial layer served as a gateway to Jonah’s spirit. And gathered together, those shirts paint a pretty decent picture of a very decent guy. The t-shirts tell some really nice chapters of his story. We’re blessed to have been his family for the entire book.

Love,
Dad

Ellen and I got to the Pacific coastline in California this past month. I’d thought, “Don’t take anything with you but a book to read and a swim suit. Put a little distance between you and Jonah for just a few days. Rest your spirit.” It was a wonderful week. Long walks on the beach, hours of play in the ocean surf, music and friends aplenty.

So often playful as a puppy, Jonah’s sweetness acclimated easily to the water. Wildwood, Sep 2004.

And Jonah was everywhere. On the beach, in the water, inside the melodies, and alongside the friends. I should have known. You don’t spend nineteen years loving someone and then put their memory on a shelf while you go out and hit the road.

Besides, Jonah loved the ocean. And no matter how big it is – the Pacific’s about 60,000,000 square miles, covering a third of the earth’s surface (stats which Jonah would have liked) – every drop contains a little bit of him. I know because each time I touched it, anywhere, Jonah came to mind. Here’s why.

Once upon a time (for the five summers of 2000-2004), the end of August meant “Road Trip” for me and the kids. For the first three of these adventures, Ellen wasn’t available at summer’s end to drive aimlessly through faraway towns and villages, so it was just me and the three kids. I’ll leave some of those stories for another time. The important detail here is that, one summer (2002), we decided to go find a beach. And that’s how Wildwood, New Jersey, entered Dreskin legend and lore. Almost at the southern tip of the state, Wildwood was (in those days) a pretty wonderful family vacation spot. That first summer, we stayed in a Best Value motel called the “Sea Foam,” four of us crammed into one room and two beds. We had the time of our lives — hanging out on the balcony, walking the two blocks to the beach, riding boogie boards in the water, building sand castles, buying ice cream from the guy with the pushcart on the sand, and happily consuming far too many pizza dinners.

They were so proud of their engineering feat.
Wildwood, Aug 2002.

We took this trip to Wildwood for three summers in a row (Ellen joining us for the second and third). By far, the happiest moments for Jonah were in or near the water. He spent hours and hours there – in the morning, the late afternoon, and even late at night (not swimming, but just watching and listening to the surf). With whomever was up for the experience, Jonah just seemed drawn to it. With Aiden, there were sand castles (sand kingdoms!) to be constructed, the pinnacle of which was a series of bridges beneath which the two boys would gleefully thrust their hands to demonstrate their success in building a sand-structure that was actually suspended over open air.

I loved meeting Jonah about 100 yards into the surf where we turned ourselves over to the ocean’s slopping waves as they came crashing down on us. Katie and Aiden loved to join us for this, Ellen frequently keeping a watchful eye from the shoreline. With or without boogie boards, we’d stay out until we were either fully waterlogged or freezing. And for three very happy summers, Wildwood’s restless surf and sun-swept beach kept all three of my kids happily engaged at summer’s end.

Maui sunset
April 2005

We didn’t return to Wildwood in 2005 because I’d been on sabbatical that year and had returned to work by August. That didn’t keep us from the water, however. In April, we abandoned the Atlantic coastline and set out to learn how the waters of the Pacific Ocean might inspire our sand-and-surf carousing. Maui was our destination, and Jonah couldn’t have been more pleased (he was planning to purchase an authentic Hawaiian ukulele, which excited him greatly). The weather’s amazing in Hawaii, so time on the beach is more like outdoor prayer. Every moment is accompanied by this powerful sense of gratefulness for being lucky enough to experience the beauty and grandeur of this consecrated meeting of earth, air and water. Playing in the ocean’s waves was now accompanied by making sure we were there to watch the evening’s sunset in the west. Jonah, sometimes lounging in a chair and sometimes just standing up to his knees in the water, never took his eyes off the way the descending sun transformed the “wild blue yonder” into a multi-colored, and rather mind-blowing, light show. And the second the last ray of sun dropped below the horizon, we would see a peace descend over Jonah as well. On Friday evening, we welcomed Shabbat as we’d never done before, singing Lekha Dodi and greeting the Sabbath Bride as she skimmed across the ocean’s surface from wherever Shabbat comes, enroute to the holy temple that is Hawaii.

After Maui, we never returned to Wildwood. Not because it no longer fit us, but because in 2006 Katie graduated from high school and the end of August became our annual drive northward to the anthesis of Maui — Buffalo, New York — where Katie and Jonah attended college. But water continued to draw us in, Niagara Falls now becoming our maritime pilgrimage, this time mesmerizing us with the awesome and exhilarating power of its waters’ relentless flow.

Who could tire of this?
Sesame Place, June 2004

It seems that water played important roles in our family’s life at other times, as well. In December 2006, we crossed the border into Mexico and spent a delightful, water-filled week in Cozumel. More importantly, though (and more humbly, too), my family kidnapped me each Father’s Day (from 1997-2004) for a drive to Langhorne, Pennsylvania, where we’d spend a day splashing around with Elmo and The Count at their home on Sesame Place. Amazingly, the kids didn’t outgrow this for a long, long time. Jonah was 14 years old when we spent our final Dad’s Day there. That’s how much he and his brother and sister loved the place. Toward the end, we might still pose for a picture or two with Cookie Monster or Oscar the Grouch, but it was the water that drew us back again and again. Jonah and Aiden would simply disappear into the park, occasionally resurfacing to drag one or more of us on Sky Splash or into Big Bird’s Rambling River.

So yes, Jonah was very much with me in California. He and I had always shared our wonder at the beauty and the power of water. Everywhere we had encountered it, we’d both witness its strength, its charm, and its perpetual invitation to jump in and just have fun. It will always be, I imagine, an elemental reminder of the life we shared and of the times we loved.

Oh, and one more reminder of Jonah fell in my lap while I was in California. Window-shopping, I came across a t-shirt that Jonah would have loved. In fact, it was Jonah’s voice in my head while I read it: “I can’t hear you over the sound of how EPIC I am.” Classic Jonah.

The ocean may be big, and it may be powerful. But it pales in comparison to the gigantic, unforgettable and life-shaping impact that Jonah Maccabee Dreskin had on me.

Billy

Shabbat Eve included candles, wine, challah, tzedakah boxes and my beautiful family. Nov 2006

One of my very favorite Jewish customs is when, just before lighting Shabbat candles on Friday eve, a few coins are placed in a tzedakah box (a pushke, in the old world). I love this custom because it’s such a tangible reminder (especially on Shabbat … when we attend to our own joy and restfulness) that we all share in taking responsibility for the needs of others, whether down the street or across the globe.

In the Dreskin home, Friday night tzedakah (from the Hebrew, meaning something akin to “doing the right thing”) is a big deal. Ellen and I have always tried to teach our kids the importance of looking out for others. Volunteering, charitable donations, and legislative lobbying all became outlets for that growing value in their lives. Jonah enjoyed them all – depositing cash into pushkes before Shabbat, driving to New York City to feed the homeless, flying to Mississippi to rebuild Katrina-ravaged homes, and riding a bus to Washington to help move forward legislation that could help millions.

In 1987, our friends, Susan and Jeffrey Sirkman, gave us our first tzedakah box. It was a lovely, contemporary riff on the traditional container — in this case, a family of lions perched atop the pushke, labeled with the Hebrew letters that spelled out tzedakah. For several years after that, Ellen and I sought out similar variations on that theme – some sort of beautiful rendering of the classic form which we could use for Sabbath pennies. That is, until Grandpa Jake (Ellen’s dad) presented his grandchildren with what he’d thought was “a bank.” What it quickly became was the very first in our family’s collection of eclectic tzedakah boxes. Grandpa Jake’s gift had been one of those black rectangular banks out of which a hand emerges and snatches your coin. The kids adored it and, for a long time after, Grandpa Jake’s “bank” became the preferred repository for our Friday evening tzedakah.

Part of our tzedakah box collection.

In the years that followed, I embarked upon a quest to find for my kids the most entertaining tzedakah boxes in the world. Jonah embraced the fun, quickly adopting as his favorites: the Borg (from Star Trek – it “assimilates” your quarter as it sucks in the Starship Enterprise), the Chef (who cooks your coin before moving it from frying pan to plate), Scooby Doo’s Mystery Machine (which doesn’t do anything, but Jonah loved Scooby Doo), a football field where your tzedakah is deposited by kicking a field goal, and (perhaps his favorite of them all) Jonah and the Whale (one of those old-time cast-iron numbers where, in this case, the challenge is to shoot “Jonah” – your coin – into the mouth of the whale).

Maybe Jonah was right: “With duct tape, you can save the world.”

As far as I’m concerned, this practice reached its pinnacle just a few years ago when Jonah made me my own tzedakah box (my kids all know that my favorite birthday and Hanukkah gifts are the ones they make themselves – and Jonah consistently took that invitation to heart). Using a depleted cardboard dispenser of Ziploc freezer bags and a whole lot of duct tape (Jonah believed a person could rule the world with a roll of duct tape), he presented me with my most current “favorite pushke ever.” Designed (I guess) as some sort of “tzedakah monster,” it’s got two eyes on top and warns, DO NOT FEED. But when you open it, the words FEED ME appear (an homage perhaps to one of his favorite childhood musicals, “Little Shop of Horrors”). Needless to say, it won (and continues to win) my heart.

Dec 2004 … shopping to give away the year’s tzedakah collection.

As the years advanced, our collection of tzedakah boxes has grown. We try to fill them throughout the year and, when Hanukkah arrives, choose one night on which, instead of receiving gifts, we carefully count our coins and bills, go shopping for books or toys or food or clothing, and make it a night of Hanukkah giving. We’ve dropped off gifts at the Blythedale Children’s Hospital, the Midnight Run, and Toys for Tots. We’ve sent donations to Save Darfur, Katrina Relief and the victims of the 2004 tsunami.

I’m not sure I really fully appreciated this while Jonah was alive (after all, who stops to appreciate much when you think it’ll be around forever), but he cared very deeply about the welfare of others. Thinking back, I saw this in how Jonah adored his mom (which, after all, is where the value of caring truly begins). I saw this in how he stepped forward to be part of temple social action projects for teens. I saw this in how he embraced being part of the PGT theatre community. And I saw this in how he engaged in our little Shabbat pushke project. Just a few days ago, I came across Jonah’s handwritten arithmetic which tracked the counting of our tzedakah coins and bills this past Hanukkah. When, later that evening, we went shopping for hats and gloves and scarves to be distributed during the temple’s Christmas Eve Midnight Run, Jonah was all over that store eagerly scooping up the items to be handed out. And when we went together into New York City to actually disburse help to the needy, I saw Jonah at his very best … doing what he could to bring a little warmth and goodness into the lives of society’s castaways.

August 2007

This seems to have been what Jonah loved … showing up and being present when others were not at their best. Whether it was to feed a hungry homeless person or to welcome a nervous first-timer to a NFTY event, Jonah brought to life on most days what we’d been trying to model for our family on Sabbath eves. So it turns out, Jonah made tzedakah boxes many, many times in his nineteen years. Only one of them came from a Ziploc container. All of them came from his very beautiful, very loving heart.

How I wish that Jonah could have carried on this tradition with his own kids. How delightful would it have been to watch little Maccabees emulating their dad’s kindness? How incredible would it have been to see them grow up with caring hearts of their own that offered helping hands and warming smiles to so many they would have met? Maybe … and I cautiously place this thought here … maybe some of us who loved Jonah Maccabee will place a silly little “bank” somewhere in our own homes, and dedicate the collecting of those coins, and the using of them for some kind purpose, to the memory of Jonah Maccabee Dreskin. In an unexpected but quite tangible form, there would then be a whole lot of Maccabees running around this crazy world of ours, bringing helping hands and warming smiles to some of the places they’re needed most.

Billy

Jonah fascinated me.

I always worried about him, of course, because he frequently refused to walk the well-trodden path. You know which one I mean — the path that would have led him to conventional purpose and dependable security. The one every parent wants for their child. Here’s an example. Jonah Maccabee certainly was bright enough to have kept pace with every class and every assignment he encountered in school. But it simply was not his way. If he was going to make his mark on the world, it would have to be measured in something other than “Number of Homeworks Completed.”

That worried me. Would he, in fact, ever find for himself a purposeful, secure path?

At the same time, though, I couldn’t take my eyes off the kid. I was just so curious about the choices he did make, the places he did go. Mind you, when I worried it rarely reached a critical level because, frankly, I trusted Jonah. During his senior year of high school, when he’d not sleep until noon on a given Saturday, and he’d catch a morning train into Manhattan, disappearing there until nighttime, not telling us what he was doing, I didn’t worry. Much. I was more puzzled than anything else. When it turned out he’d been participating in clandestine protests against what he understood to be violations of human rights by the Church of Scientology, I was flabbergasted, and relieved, and I applauded his willingness to take a stand for something he believed in.

And I kept wondering where that would lead him.

When Jonah was in the sixth grade, and hadn’t yet made up his mind to never do homework ever again, he asked Ellen if she’d help him with a project by giving him, in place of his weekly allowance, a penny a day for a month, just doubling that penny once daily. I’m fairly confident she didn’t agree to his proposal because I still have money in my bank account. It turns out that this formula — (2 to the (n-1))/100, where n equals the number of days — would have yielded him, in one month’s time, $10,737,418.23.

I love this photo. It’s a little fuzzy because I had to snap it quickly. It’s an extremely rare picture of Jonah … doing homework! Something about wanting to graduate from high school. June 2008

Ellen, also wondering where time and chance would lead our boy, grew eager to engage Jonah’s heart in the events of his life. On this occasion, she observed to Jonah that the generations of our family (the number of people responsible for his having been born) doubled as he moved to each of his preceding ancestors. Thus, Jonah had two parents, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, and sixteen great-great grandparents. Building on the allowance scenario, in ten generations 2046 people would have contributed to setting the stage for him to be born. For you math geeks out there, the formula they derived is this: (2 to the (x+1)) – 2 = the number of people who (over x generations) play a role in any one person’s birth.

Jonah loved this stuff. Throughout his childhood, he was always collecting books on the wonders of math and science. Yes, of course his dad encouraged him. But not to worry, Jonah rarely let on that he was drawn to anything his old man liked. Or anything his teachers were trying to share with him. That would have been something for the well-trodden path. He probably figured, “Better my folks should think I’m headed for a life of crime. Then when I become a physicist, Dad’ll get me a car.”

My aspiring criminal headed off to college with a personal library that included Eric Clapton’s autobiography and a copy of the Kama Sutra. Also with him, however, was a book he’d fallen in love with during high school, Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea (by Charles Seife). Jonah thrilled at sharing with friends the author’s mathematical proof that Winston Churchill had actually been a carrot (if you’re interested, check out page 127). While Jonah loved humor, using mathematics as your punchline was, in his opinion, a superior level of comedy.

Jonah had been embracing his inner geek.

Moving in Day @ UB (Aug 2008). The beginning of six wonderful months.

Every parent wonders if they worry enough about their child. Had I not permitted Jonah to go away to college, had I kept him at home, had I locked him in his room, he’d likely be alive today. Of course, he’d be furious with me and, eventually, I’d have had to let him go (if for no other reason than that by the age of sixteen, he could whup me). And so, I do not regret allowing him to fly off to college. He loved UB. The friends, the music, the learning, the adventure – these gave him six of the best months of his life.

No, I’m not sad I let him go. But I’m heartbroken that he can’t come home. And my heartbreak includes mathematics too. 2046 men and women yearned for their line to continue generation after generation through a young man whose name 2040 of them never knew: Jonah Maccabee Dreskin. 2046 dreams have now been canceled.

I’m heartbroken, as well, for the generations that would have come after Jonah, were he to have married and reared children of his own. In ten generations, assuming an average of two children born to each of Jonah’s descendant families, 2046 of Jonah’s descendants won’t ever have been born. Because Jonah’s life was not lived into familyhood. 2046 stories won’t ever be written because the lives those stories would have been about won’t ever get to begin.

So when I cry, I cry not just for myself. I cry for everyone who played a part in bringing this remarkably intelligent and kooky and kind and beautiful young man into the world. I cry for the part he will never play in bringing new life into the world. And I cry for so many others whose lives will be lived untouched by the wonder that was my Jonah Mac — or by one of his kids, or grandkids, or great-grandkids.

Imagine the 2046 variations on Jonah Maccabee Dreskin who — for the next ten generations, the next 250 years or so — would have been running around, doing surprising, wacky things, defying expectations, confounding uncreative authoritarians, and making us fall in love with each and every one of those 2046.

When Jonah was alive, he fascinated me. And he worried me. And he made me fall in love with him every single day. Now that Jonah has died, I no longer worry. He’s out of harm’s way. But I’m still fascinated by him. I will be so forever. And I will continue to fall in love with him … each day, for the rest of my life.

Billy

When I was a kid, my brother Jimmy (true child of the late-60s, early-70s that he was) painted his room in dayglo colors and glued magazine cut-outs all over his walls. All over his walls. Jimmy made that room into a happening — something that was a true reflection of who he was.

I loved that room, and in my mid-teens I was fortunate to get to live in it for a couple of years. I added a picture of my own here and there, but I could never match Jimmy’s creativity, or his knack for wackiness. Jonah had a similar knack, and a similar feeling about his room — make it into something that’s really a reflection of you.

So what did Jonah do? You know how some people love beer and save their favorite bottles? Well, Jonah hated beer; he detested all alcoholic substances. But there was one beer he did love. Root beer. Most Saturdays, when I finished at temple, I’d stop at the deli and bring home sandwiches. Always, I’d bring a root beer for Jonah. In time, it became a six-pack of root beer … to last the week. Stewart’s. In glass bottles. And unbeknownst to me (for a while, at least, until they reached “critical mass”), Jonah was saving them … caps and all.

Lady Liberty holds a torch for Root Beer (Jan 2004)

He can’t have known he was going to do this. But then again, Jonah was smart. He may very well have been planning this for months. And frankly, I’m still not sure how he made this happen. But one day, I walked into his room, and there, hanging from the ceiling, were a couple of dozen empty bottles of root beer. Their caps had been put back on, and somehow he got string through those caps, and he’d attached them to his ceiling. Everywhere! It was the wackiest … coolest thing. For years, every time I walked into Jonah’s room, I’d look at those bottles suspended from above, and I’d just shake my head. And smile.
We remodeled part of our house in 2005, and Jonah moved to a new room. We lost the root beer bottle collection when the builders ripped down his ceiling.

Jonah’s 14th birthday … this is the kid who put up those bottles (Feb 14, 2004)

The only photograph shows evidence of just one bottle. But at least I caught that one bottle on film — testimony to his very creative, somewhat off-beat approach to life. An approach that his friends, I think, will agree is very much like how Jonah was pretty much all the time. As kooky as they come. But with a powerful thread attached, God only knows how, that came loose only with demolition.

Jonah Maccabee Dreskin. The man with a smile for everyone. The man who could get a smile out of anyone. The man who, if you were falling, would toss you a lifeline — a powerful thread — and never let you go.

Billy

Dear Jonah,

One of your friends, in remembering the impact you’d had on her life, excerpted a Walt Whitman poem:

Still though the one I sing, (One, yet of contradictions made,) I dedicate to Nationality, I leave in him revolt, (O latent right of insurrection! O quenchless, indispensable fire!)

I love this verse. It really captures some of your essential qualities. Endless song. Exuberant contradiction! Communal commitment. Righteous revolt. Indispensable fire.

I especially love the part about fire. You see, Jonah, you had this “quenchless” flame inside of you. We noticed it very early on when, in the first grade, you bit Dan Roth. It seems Dan did something, right or wrong, that you felt demanded retribution. The reader may be interested to know that, despite this momentary beastliness, you remained a friend of Dan’s throughout high school. We may also be interested to know that you did not remain a biter. You did, however, retain your sense of righteous indignation – your “fire,” if you will. On more than a few occasions, we heard from parents who were not pleased that your anger had been directed at their child. We apologized. But the flame burned brightly, and we aimed to tend it and guide you as best we could.

We loved that fire. Because, as you grew, it began to get lit by things that mattered. Toward the end of high school, you became involved in a group that protested not the beliefs but the behavior of members of the Church of Scientology. You would meet fellow protestors in New York City, spend some quality time annoying the scientologists, and then get something to eat. I wasn’t sure how valuable these efforts were, but I quietly admired my Maccabee as you began to activate the warrior-spirit that resided inside your mostly dove-like persona.

Then, this past January, in the days leading up to elections, you knocked on doors in Buffalo to get out the vote. I was so proud to learn you were doing that, to discover that you were beginning to kindle that flame of yours for truly righteous reasons.

Who thinks he liked being Jewish because he could light things on fire? December 2006

Ironically, fire played another role in your life. It seems you had a rather zealous interest in making fire; you apparently had a thing for flames. Every Friday night, as our family welcomed Shabbat, you were the one to light the candles. Always Jonah. And when Hanukkah would arrive, we enjoyed setting out some 5-7 hanukkiyot, creating quite a “festival of lights” in the front window of our home. As the nights of Hanukkah advanced, it became quite a job to ready all those candles. Now who do you suppose was always volunteering to set them up?

Taken on January 1, 2009 … we missed Hanukkah by only 3 days!

Each year, during Hanukkah (or sometime after … once we didn’t get around to doing this until the following summer!), we take a family photograph by Hanukkah candlelight. I would have to cajole Mom and you kids to get closer to the flames so your faces would be properly illuminated for the portrait. But your face, Jonah, was always right there. I never had to give you instructions (except to stop playing with the burning candles). We now have a 21-year series of candle-lit Hanukkah family photographs mounted on our refrigerator, begun shortly after Katie, now 21, was born.

Hanukkah also meant gifts. And yours were always handmade. More often than not, they included fire. Once, you made me a cardboard synagogue, with a tiny me inside on a tiny bimah. On top, you mounted two candles. Maybe they were Shabbat candles, I’m not sure. You just liked getting some fire in there. This past Hanukkah, you made me a box that had a single candle mounted inside with a hole on top to keep from burning down the box (and probably the house). All over the top and sides you had punched tiny holes so that, in a darkened room, the candle-illuminated box looked like a night sky full of stars. “Any excuse to burn things” was, I think, one of your mottos. I cherish these kooky gifts of yours.

Hurricane Katrina relief work in Mississippi
February 2007

In February 2007, you and I joined our temple’s mission to Mississippi, to help rebuild homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Once more, your flame of righteousness burned brightly and there was no question that you would be there, even though you had to arrive late following the NFTY Convention in Washington. But once you got there, you worked hard, lending a hand to anyone who asked for it. You pulled nails out of water-ravaged boards, so that they could be used again in the rebuilding. You pulled down ruined parts of houses to make way for new construction. But I think your favorite part must have been helping to build a 12-foot bonfire for our team of three churches and a temple to enjoy an evening of relaxation and fun. I had to return home early from the trip, so I missed this little spectacle, but that bonfire had to have been the biggest fire you’d ever helped create. So I imagine you were feeling pretty good that evening.

Jonah LOVED the bonfire in Mississippi!
February 2007

It is with the following story, however, that you attained legendary status in my life. On the first floor of our house is the bathroom you shared for fourteen years with Aiden. In that bathroom there is a Formica countertop. The countertop had been there for probably a decade or more before we moved into the house in 1995, and had always been pretty much in pristine condition. Formica is fairly impervious to abuse, so the sudden appearance one evening of a prominently positioned two-inch charred hole in the countertop caught my attention. I had my suspicions as to who caused the burn mark, but felt it important to perform my fatherly due-diligence and questioned Aiden, who was maybe four or five years old at the time and, thus, not a very likely culprit. Moving on to my older son, I tried to use gentle but firm persuasion to draw the truth out of your (I was hoping) guilt-ridden soul. Wasn’t gonna happen, though. In fact, in all the years since the burn mark appeared, I never managed to get you to admit anything about it. And the fact that, in succeeding years, you amassed a collection of matchbooks, 11 Bic and/or Zippo lighters, a container of lighter fluid (!), eight boxes of sparklers, and even more boxes of incense … well, let’s just say I held out hope to one day get a confession. This past Hanukkah (Judaism’s fire holiday, always a good time to discuss arson with your child), I actually came close to connecting you to the crime when I mentioned the burn yet again and suggested that enough time had gone by, that the statute of limitations on punishment had run out, so wouldn’t you please just tell me what happened in there. You paused what you were doing, looked over at me, peering deeply into my eyes, smiled that amazing smile of yours, and then walked away. You walked away! I never did get the story of how that burn mark got there. It will remain a mystery forever.

One night during shiva, Rabbi Josh Davidson, our family’s longtime and very close friend, read a poem that I have long loved. It describes a person none of us frequently sees. That Josh selected it to remember you took my breath away. Here are a few of its verses (written by Stephen Spender):

The names of those who in their lives fought for life, who wore at their hearts the fire’s center. Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun, and left the vivid air signed with their honor.

I believe Josh was correct. Jonah, you did indeed wear at your heart the fire’s center. For a brief time you, a child of the sun, traveled towards that great, flaming orb. And when your too brief but intensely blazing and spirited life came to an end, Jonah Maccabee Dreskin had indeed left this world of ours signed with your honor.

Love you forever,
Dad

It’s just about four months since Jonah died. I’m learning important lessons by residing in a world where I desperately wish he were here but — like Sisyphus perpetually at work moving his boulder towards the mountain’s peak — I am always denied my request.

Nessa Rapoport, in her Woman’s Book of Grieving, writes: “It is the hardest of all learning that the opposite of depression is not happiness […] but vitality, to feel alive each minute you are given. Then when sweetness comes it is most sweet, and when sorrow comes you know its name. In the aftermath of suffering, you chart each day as an explorer preceding map or compass, and what you find is shockingly alloyed: All happiness is dappled, and even bleakest tragedy has moments of strange praise.”

Aiden and I spent a couple of days at Kutz Camp this week. We had to leave. Too many ghosts. Everywhere we looked, we saw Jonah. He’d spent so many summers there – as a young fac brat, as a teen program participant and, finally, as an adult staff member. Every field, every building, had once been his playground. And now, every face we looked into was Jonah’s face; so many now there where he’d been so many times before, where he should be now. We had to leave.

Jonah and Dan
Kutz Camp, July 2005

Three weeks ago, I was driving along a road I’d not been on since last year when, every morning, I would take Jonah to the bus that got him to school. I decided to follow the old route and was amazed at the powerful sense of Jonah’s presence I was feeling. At one point, I had to pull over and actually put my arm “around him” in the passenger seat, tears streaming down my cheeks. But here’s the astounding part. I have more than ten thousand songs on my mp3 player, usually set to “shuffle mode” so each tune heard is selected at random. At the exact moment that I turned onto the road which leads to where we would meet Jonah’s bus, one of only two tracks I have of Jonah playing ukulele – two tracks out of ten thousand – began to play. This was from a 2005 concert at Kutz where Dan Nichols had invited Jonah to accompany him and his band on a song. As I made the turn, my heart skipped a beat when I heard Dan say, “Please welcome Jonah Dreskin.” And the entire time I drove the route to Jonah’s bus, I was crying and listening to Jonah play his ukulele in 5/8-time on “Turn the World Around.” Utterly amazing.

Jonah’s mom and dad kvelling
Kutz Camp, July 2005

Jonah died while still in his teens. As such, he hadn’t really begun sharing a lot of his life with his parents. You know the routine. He loved us, to be sure, but so much of his daily living had little room for mom and dad. Things had been as they should be. But as chance would have it, both Ellen and I had been up at Kutz the night he got to play with Dan Nichols. We couldn’t have been happier for him, doing what he loved more than just about anything else: making music with one of his very favorite musicians, in front of one of his very favorite communities. This holy moment – and it was certainly a moment filled with everything right and true and good – became even holier in memory. Not only would Ellen and I forever cherish this exquisite snapshot of the heights to which Jonah would rise in the four years that would follow, we would continue to witness the sights and sounds of that evening long after our boy was gone. We’d had no idea that Hope Chernak had taken pictures of Jonah (and of us reacting to Jonah) that night. Even more stunning (and holy) was that Leon Sher had made a digital recording as well. We were there and, so it seems, we can return there again and again.

Perhaps that’s the purpose of ritual: to return us to someplace right and true and good, again and again.

Ellen, Katie, Aiden and I miss Jonah so much. We each grieve in our own way, our souls so deeply hurt by his having gone away. But Jonah gave us so many BIG memories. He was a giant in our family. He could be irresistibly adorable, and confoundingly aggravating. Wholeheartedly earnest, and impenetrably aloof. Whichever persona emerged from him, he drew our attention like moths to light. We couldn’t get enough of him. He was growing, learning, evolving all the time. It was wondrous, and a privilege, to see.

We still enjoy watching him. Even in memory, Jonah Maccabee never ceases being something to behold. There are tears now. But they are partnered to our smiles. Everywhere we see him, there are tears and smiles. And I never feel quite so alive as when I swell with this fusion of delight and heartache. It’s astonishing … that out of Jonah’s death comes this intensified living.

I imagine that, eventually, everyone of us dwells in the aftermath of loss. Whether it is a child, a parent, a limb, or a livelihood, life sometimes changes in ways that can’t be fully healed. It becomes, as Nessa Rapoport writes, “shockingly alloyed.” The pure, rarified laughter and joyfulness of youth won’t likely return. But in the life we live after death touches it, something precious – something filled with love and beauty – can still abide. A new home for the next part of the journey, where soulful ghosts and awakening spirits learn to bunk side-by-side.

Billy

I’ve just returned home from 24 hours in Buffalo, NY. I was there for a wedding (a really nice guy named Dave married Katie’s “twin sister” Brooke) but I knew I was going to be looking for Jonah. It was precisely where I needed to be on this first Fathers Day without him.

Even at age 1, Jonah was thinking outside the box!
September 1991

After the ceremony, I drove to the North Campus of the University at Buffalo where Jonah was loving being a student.  I know … since when did Jonah ever love being a student?  Well, the scoop there is that Jonah always loved being a student.  Just ask anyone at Summit High School or at Woodlands Community Temple.  Jonah was always listening, always thinking, and always had something worthwhile to contribute to the class.  Some people thought he was just joking around.  They missed it.  Jonah may have been making jokes, but he was always tuned into the matter at hand.  He was as natural a learner as there could be.  And if you’ve ever been lucky enough to talk with him about something that mattered, you quickly understood that this was one smart kid.  He wasn’t always that way, mind you (even if he said he was).  He had to learn what he knew.  And too often, he did so in spite of the schools that thought they could teach him.

Jonah loved school. What Jonah detested was school systems that catered to mass production, school systems that rarely stepped outside their pre-fabricated walls of one-size-fits-all learning, schools that took care of those who excelled within their system and those who trailed behind everyone else. What Jonah resented most about school systems was when they refused to acknowledge the individual learning styles and spirits of the many students who showed up each day … stuck between the two extremes.Well, the scoop there is that Jonah always loved being a student. always tuned into the matter at hand. He was as natural a learner as there could be. And if you’ve ever been lucky enough to talk with him about something that mattered, you quickly understood that this was one smart kid. He wasn’t always that way, mind you (even if he said he was). He had to learn what he knew. And too often, he did so in spite of the schools that thought they could teach him. Once Jonah got to a school that recognized the value of ensuring each and every member of the community was appreciated for wanting to learn, he thrived. He thrived at Summit High School. He thrived at Woodlands Community Temple. He thrived at Kutz Camp. And he thrived at UB.

Study @ L’taken in DC to prepare to lobby? Oh sir.
December 2006

I used to love taking Jonah on in my tenth grade Confirmation class. Whether it was to debate the existence of God, the value of Torah or the destiny of the Jewish people, he loved taking me on right back! What I especially loved about Jonah was that he was never mean-spirited in his attempts to beat me down. Nor did he grandstand for the sake of attention. Did I mention that Jonah loved learning? Given the opportunity to work through an idea, to be respected for trying out an idea aloud, Jonah jumped right in. And in doing so, he inspired others to jump in as well. Throughout that tenth grade year, it was like he was my teaching assistant, helping open up dialogue so that everyone felt comfortable with the learning.

At UB, Jonah had been taking a course called “Science and Religion.” During his December break, he was so animated presenting to me his thoughts on the compatible intersection of science and religion – the notion that both could live side-by-side without either compromising its essence – I asked him if he would share his ideas with my Confirmation class before returning to Buffalo. He agreed, and for several days he’d check in with me to show me how he would introduce the discussion, what questions he’d be asking, and what backup materials he’d have on hand in case things slowed down. I was so delighted! First, to have something about which he and I could speak in depth. And second, to see him so interested in teaching this class. For ninety minutes, Jonah talked science and religion with my thirty students. You could say it was a religious experience for me: I was in heaven!

A few weeks ago, I sat with my Confirmands for our very last class together. I thanked them for being with me, and by me, during the nightmare of losing my son. But then they thanked me. They had been so honored to be present at that session last January when “this really cool college kid came and taught us.” They thought he was amazing, and felt especially lucky to have experienced Jonah’s growing love for teaching, a love from which they would be among the very few to benefit.

I don’t know what Jonah would have chosen as his career. But if you force me to pick something, I’ll tell you it would have been education. Lucky dad who had the good sense to become a rabbi just so one day he’d be able to witness this extraordinary moment between my tenth-graders-trying-to-figure-out-who-they-were-going-to-be and my beloved-son-taking-his-first-steps-acknowledging-that-he-had-indeed-figured-out-who-he-was-becoming.

On March 5, 2009, the world may have lost one of its future favorite college professors. But me, I had just found Jonah Maccabee Dreskin beginning to make his professorship come to pass. Is that what he would have done? Can’t be sure. But on this Father’s Day, a brief trip to Buffalo sent me home with the precious gift of knowing that whatever path he would eventually have chosen, this dad had always been proud and always would have been proud.

Thanks for all my Father’s Days, JoJo.

Billy

I don’t really attend concerts. I prefer listening to music at home – to a playlist of my own choosing, at a volume of my choosing as well. When I do get to a concert hall, it’s not usually to hear a rock guitarist. So finding myself at the Izod Center for two hours of Eric Clapton was a bit of a stretch for me. Jonah’s girlfriend Jade and her parents had invited me. I said yes because, first, they’re great people and I like spending time with them. Second, it was Jonah who they’d first asked to join them. After Jonah died, they invited me to use his ticket.

As you can imagine, the evening was an emotional one. But here’s the thing. Jonah would have loved this concert because he loved guitar and he loved Clapton. “Clapton’s the greatest,” he’d tell me. In fact, after Jade’s family had invited him, I was one of Jonah’s first phone calls. He was so excited to be going. I was excited to get a phone call from him. Clapton got Jonah to phone his dad. I love Clapton.

When Jonah was 14, he started taking guitar lessons from local rocker Cliff Mays. He was a good student because, unlike his dad and piano lessons, Jonah actually practiced. Which kind of amazed me … this from the kid who, on moral grounds, had refused to do homework for all of middle school and high school.

Self-portrait
Hawaii, February 2006

You’ll want to know how this worked though.  Jonah, in case you hadn’t heard, spent a large percentage of his teenage years in front of a computer.  Massive multi-player online games were his thing, alternating between “City of Heroes” and “World of Warcraft” (he and Aiden splitting the cost to finance their shared addiction).  The idea behind these games is that you link up with as many as a dozen other players to join in shared adventures.  As such, Jonah would spend a lot of time waiting for the others to “show up.”  And it was during these waiting times that Jonah would practice guitar.  I always loved the image of Jonah sitting at his computer, electric guitar on his lap, alternating between wielding one axe to master a virtual world and wielding a second axe to master a classic rock riff.

I don’t actually know many of the songs that Jonah could play because his guitar was never ever amplified. Guitar was something Jonah did for himself, and he demanded no (nor did he particularly welcome any) audience. Thus, when in his senior year of high school he’d considered becoming a music major in college, he changed his plans almost immediately upon learning he’d have to audition. There is, however, a video he made during his junior year to audition for the Summer 2007 Maccabi ArtsFest.. I’m told that Josh Nelson is the only person in the entire world who was permitted to view it. In the video, he plays on his acoustic guitar (and sings!) “Blackbird.” He then picks up his electric guitar and plays (amplified no less!) the amazing Tommy Emmanuel version of “Day Tripper” (you can be amazed for yourself at youtube.com/watch?v=mYzajpeAWuA). He then plays “Over the Rainbow” on his ukulele. It’s pronounced “oo-koo-lay-lay,” by the way, and don’t you dare say it wrong because Jonah got his ukulele in Hawaii where they certainly know what it’s called and he tolerated no other pronunciation.

Guitar in hand (computer is to the right)
February 14, 2007

There are a few other notable performances I was permitted to witness.  One was at Kutz Camp during the summer of 2005 when Dan Nichols invited Jonah to play ukulele on “Turn the World Around.”  The impressive thing about that (other than everything) is that the song has five beats (rather than the typical four) to a measure, and Jonah never missed one of them.

One other memorable moment came last June (‘08) when Jonah played his ukulele on stage during a PGT production of “Hair.” He and Aiden performed a duet of “Don’t Put It Down.” The song was about the American flag, but a very proud dad was only thinking of Jonah and his uke.

I asked Aiden if he remembers any songs Jonah used to play. He told me about a piece called “Prancing in the Fields of Magenta” which he isn’t sure but thinks Jonah made up. I googled it and got nothing, which figures because the title sounds all Jonah to me. The song consists pretty much of strum – “wazzup!” – strum – “wazzup!” – strum. Interestingly, Aiden thinks that was the first song Jonah mastered.

As I was getting ready to head out to New Jersey to see Eric Clapton, I slipped two guitar picks into my pocket. One was inscribed with “Toys from the Attic,” the guitar shop where Jonah and I had spent hours playing, and then purchasing, his first two guitars. The other pick Katie had imprinted as a birthday present with “J-MAC.” I did my best to bring Jonah to that concert with me, but I needn’t have tried very hard. For the rest of my life, my sweet, talented son will be with me whenever great music happens.

Billy