In the weeks since I've met my brother and sister via phone I've learned a lot about each.
For example, Amy and I enjoy the same author, Ken Follett. Dan and I sound alike -- so much so that Amy's kids can't tell us apart on the phone. As you may have seen in the previous post, Dan also is a wonderful writer.
Physically, none of us are thin.
All of us, clearly, are intelligent and we all like multitudes of kids.
It's really going to be wonderful learning more about one another in the coming weeks, months and years.
But so far we're off to a great start.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Sunday, April 27, 2008
A New Season
The cycles of life, and of fate, are interesting beyond belief.
My brother died in January, 2007. Andy Kohn was a gentle soul, haunted by voices no one else could hear, slowed by medicines to harness those voices, trying his best to earn a living and maintain his independence. He was an overcomer, until the day the medicines and financial stresses and challenges of modern life all intertwined to finally break his body down. He passed in his sleep, a victim of the medicinal cocktails he took to combat schizophrenia. I believe he simply needed the peace after a lifetime of struggle. Having lost both parents, my sisters and I now had to face life without our brother. I often thought, "Hasn't our family suffered enough loss?"
Meanwhile, across the country and outside our knowledge, Keith Kohn was facing loss as well. Facing his own cancer and the failing health of his mother, Keith explored his family roots and waited for the right time to reach out. Out of respect for his mother, he waited until her passing to call my sister and introduce himself.
I can't help but believe that in the time of grief in both halves of this family, a new family is being born. It is comforting to know that in times of loss, the seeds of new life are sown. As I reflected upon these changes in the past few days, I recall some ancient words that capture this timing well. Keith's other blog had several lyrical references, so I thought I would continue in that tradition and point to an ancient (the 60's!) song from the Byrds based on an even older passage in Ecclesiastes.
It's a new time, a new season in our lives. This truly is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Welcome to the family. My brother lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNopQq5lWqQ
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
My brother died in January, 2007. Andy Kohn was a gentle soul, haunted by voices no one else could hear, slowed by medicines to harness those voices, trying his best to earn a living and maintain his independence. He was an overcomer, until the day the medicines and financial stresses and challenges of modern life all intertwined to finally break his body down. He passed in his sleep, a victim of the medicinal cocktails he took to combat schizophrenia. I believe he simply needed the peace after a lifetime of struggle. Having lost both parents, my sisters and I now had to face life without our brother. I often thought, "Hasn't our family suffered enough loss?"
Meanwhile, across the country and outside our knowledge, Keith Kohn was facing loss as well. Facing his own cancer and the failing health of his mother, Keith explored his family roots and waited for the right time to reach out. Out of respect for his mother, he waited until her passing to call my sister and introduce himself.
I can't help but believe that in the time of grief in both halves of this family, a new family is being born. It is comforting to know that in times of loss, the seeds of new life are sown. As I reflected upon these changes in the past few days, I recall some ancient words that capture this timing well. Keith's other blog had several lyrical references, so I thought I would continue in that tradition and point to an ancient (the 60's!) song from the Byrds based on an even older passage in Ecclesiastes.
It's a new time, a new season in our lives. This truly is a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Welcome to the family. My brother lives.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNopQq5lWqQ
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
It all began...
It all began here, in Flatbush, which is in Brooklyn, N.Y. There, Mel Kohn (above left) and my mom, Beatrice Spitz, met and dated in the late 1950s.They hooked up and went out West and ... pop, I was born in late 1959. But by then, my father had headed back East and Mom had gone through the pregnancy living with friends Sheila and Jack Bailey, and then with her sister, my Aunt Sukee and my cousin David Spitz. Later, she and I lived with my Aunt Faye and Uncle Chip Levine and their two daughters, Amy and Stacey.
When I was a little more than a year old we moved back to Brooklyn, to the home of my grandparents Sam and Yetta Spitz. (I learned only recently that I was living about a mile or so from my Aunt Joan Kohn and her two sons, Alan and Jeffery.
But for the next 47 years, I'd hear nothing of my father -- or his new family. I had no idea they existed and they didn't really know I existed except in theory.
Welcome
It took my mother's death for me to discover the family I never knew I had.
Somehow, there's a reason for this reunion, and I hope in the coming weeks and months I'll discover this, or perhaps we'll discover it together.
This amazing discovery happened a week ago today when I met my sister and brother on the phone for the first time. I discovered I had four siblings, probably a fifth, and that one, my brother Andy, died a little over a year ago after a lengthy illness. I have a brother and two sisters who live in Southern California, and, likely, a third sister who, like me, is estranged from my father's core family. I'm the oldest of the Kohn gang, and like me they have a bounty of children.
My brother Dan Kohn, named after an uncle, is the eldest of these siblings, followed by Amy Jones and Tracy Jones (yes, the ladies are married to brothers). Andy was the youngest.
Among them are eight nieces and nephews I also never knew I had.
I've known since the 1990s my father had died but never knew for sure he had more kids. I'd suspected all along he had moved back to New York after leaving my mother, though in 1978, at age 17 and after a trip out West with mom, she told me she was surprised I hadn't looked up my father while we were in the L.A. area.
It registered, yet didn't. Why, I thought at the time, would I care to meet a man who had foresaken me? I didn't really care much about him at the time. But over the years things change. As you might have read at my companion blog, CancerVivor.blogspot.com, I developed cancer late last year and defeated -- hopefully permanently -- it earlier this year. So reality hit me in the face like a brick.
About a month or more ago I did some research online and found the obituary for my father, Mel Kohn, who passed away in January 1992. It listed four children as survivors. That is how I tracked down my West Coast family. From that obit in the Orange County Register.
But do you know how many Dan Kohns there are in Southern California? A bunch. And since then, both Amy and Tracy became Joneses and Andy passed away. Still, I found a number for Amy and on Thursday, April 17, about a week and a half after Mom died, I dialed her number. I waited until about 1 p.m. local time, since there's a three-hour difference and didn't want to disturb Amy too early.
When she answered the phone, I asked if it was Amy, and she said yes. I then said, "I think we are related. I think we have the same father."
She was taken aback but not shocked. She kinda sorta knew I existed, she said amid tears from us both. It was amazing. I had a sister.
But not only that, I had another sister and a brother. Amy and I chatted for about an hour, maybe more, as we learned a bit about one another and our new families. She has four kids, Dan two and Tracy two. I still have an aunt, the widow of Daniel Kohn, Joan, and four cousins, one of whom who lives about two hours away in Sarasota.
Imagine, going from only child to eldest of a handful. As Dan said when I spoke to him later that day, "It's a lot to digest."
But we can digest it over time as I learn more about my new family.
Somehow, there's a reason for this reunion, and I hope in the coming weeks and months I'll discover this, or perhaps we'll discover it together.
This amazing discovery happened a week ago today when I met my sister and brother on the phone for the first time. I discovered I had four siblings, probably a fifth, and that one, my brother Andy, died a little over a year ago after a lengthy illness. I have a brother and two sisters who live in Southern California, and, likely, a third sister who, like me, is estranged from my father's core family. I'm the oldest of the Kohn gang, and like me they have a bounty of children.
My brother Dan Kohn, named after an uncle, is the eldest of these siblings, followed by Amy Jones and Tracy Jones (yes, the ladies are married to brothers). Andy was the youngest.
Among them are eight nieces and nephews I also never knew I had.
I've known since the 1990s my father had died but never knew for sure he had more kids. I'd suspected all along he had moved back to New York after leaving my mother, though in 1978, at age 17 and after a trip out West with mom, she told me she was surprised I hadn't looked up my father while we were in the L.A. area.
It registered, yet didn't. Why, I thought at the time, would I care to meet a man who had foresaken me? I didn't really care much about him at the time. But over the years things change. As you might have read at my companion blog, CancerVivor.blogspot.com, I developed cancer late last year and defeated -- hopefully permanently -- it earlier this year. So reality hit me in the face like a brick.
About a month or more ago I did some research online and found the obituary for my father, Mel Kohn, who passed away in January 1992. It listed four children as survivors. That is how I tracked down my West Coast family. From that obit in the Orange County Register.
But do you know how many Dan Kohns there are in Southern California? A bunch. And since then, both Amy and Tracy became Joneses and Andy passed away. Still, I found a number for Amy and on Thursday, April 17, about a week and a half after Mom died, I dialed her number. I waited until about 1 p.m. local time, since there's a three-hour difference and didn't want to disturb Amy too early.
When she answered the phone, I asked if it was Amy, and she said yes. I then said, "I think we are related. I think we have the same father."
She was taken aback but not shocked. She kinda sorta knew I existed, she said amid tears from us both. It was amazing. I had a sister.
But not only that, I had another sister and a brother. Amy and I chatted for about an hour, maybe more, as we learned a bit about one another and our new families. She has four kids, Dan two and Tracy two. I still have an aunt, the widow of Daniel Kohn, Joan, and four cousins, one of whom who lives about two hours away in Sarasota.
Imagine, going from only child to eldest of a handful. As Dan said when I spoke to him later that day, "It's a lot to digest."
But we can digest it over time as I learn more about my new family.
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