Author Archives: jwlef1

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On July 19^th our new grandson was born- Myles William LeFager. He couldn’t wait any longer and decided to enter the world on his sister’s birthday. They are exactly two years apart. I once heard someone say that every time a grandchild is born it is like a miracle that they immediately enter your heart. This was certainly again true. He also has potential to bring much drama into our lives. He didn’t come home for a week and we all worried like crazy about him. The first time I held him I realized that he was perfect.

This has also made me again realize that you never stop being a parent. I worried about my son and daughter-in-law almost as much as I worried about Myles. These blood ties really do run deep. Parenting has changed so much and stayed the same forever. I was born five days after the end of WWII. My father was wounded and came home in 1944. Thankfully he made a full recovery. He returned to the Chicago area where my mother’s parents lived. His mother had died in 1940 and his own father died in 1946. He was close to his mother, but not that close to his dad. His father had remarried shortly before his death. He and my mother had the typical marriage/family at that time. He worked and she stayed home. He was often too busy to play with us.

I know he loved us and I know that I wanted to be at least a good a father as he was. Times and family patterns changed. Both of us worked and tried to have an equal marriage. We also tried to share all the parenting tasks. We went to games and concerts and teacher conferences and doctor appointments. We tried to really be a part of our sons’ lives. I think this was because of how we were both raised. The difficult part is to learn to let go. We both still have difficulty with that. Both of our sons are highly intelligent and successful. I am unbelievably proud of both of them. I think what I am most proud of is how good they are as parents. I think that they are more involved in their children’s lives than I was and this may be just another adjustment of the current state of marriage and family.

This all has taken place in the midst of a pandemic. Myles is entering the world at a very strange time. There is a lot of fear and tremendous anger. The economy is very shaky right now because of all of this. We hear on one side that we are on the edge of a precipice. The other side proclaims that everything will be wonderful in the next few months aside from riots and anarchists.

At some point Myles will see pictures of this time with everyone being masked. We all look like bank robbers. We hear constantly the need to wash our hands and maintain social distance. We are urged to avoid crowds and even avoid family gatherings with those we don’t live with. Due to that our contact with all our grandchildren has been severely limited. Like all grandparents we have really missed them. We are now trying to increase contact. We both had Corona tests and were negative. I think this has made it easier for our families to resume contact.

Now we have another to love. We can think that this is the worst time ever over what has happened to us. Yet our parents went thru their own pandemic in 1919. They went thru a Great Depression, a World War, Korea, the McCarthy hearings, and Polio. We went thru presidential and political assassinations, civil rights abuses, Vietnam , AIDS etc. Every age has their struggle and crises and somehow we seem to make it thru.

I think we have a choice right now to be unrealistically optimistic or unrealistically pessimistic. The first time we saw Myles he was sleeping and then woke up and smiled. All the fear and anxiety disappeared as all of the grandparents made sounds of love. Even in the darkest time the fact that a new life has begun is a sign of hope. Perhaps that is still the answer. None of us know the future but we can focus on the present and the small joys that are present in our lives. If we can do that we may all have the strength to make it thru another day.

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It is an unreal time. Even though we are healthy, society and our own families look us on as ‘individuals at risk’ because of our age. The whole idea of “isolate at home” seems strange. I went out to the grocery store yesterday and was amazed at the number of people buying immense amounts of food before the state order to isolate went into effect at 5:00PM. We can still go out to the store and I did this morning to get newspapers. The streets and stores are all fairly empty.

I keep thinking that this is unlike any time in my life. Even after Nine Eleven I still went to work everyday. I remember taking a day off for a blizzard, but only a day off.

This just seems different.

Maybe it is because of the threat of death. Initially the only people at risk were the elderly with underlying conditions. Now it seem like there is a great uncertainty as to who is at risk for the worst type of this disease. When I thought about this I realized that I have two friends with those underlying conditions that are both at risk. This has made my own mortality become more real. My father died at forty-eight, my mother at fifty-nine. I have outlived my grandfathers and almost all of my aunts and uncles. I have a cousin who is a month younger. He is in good health, but he is also facing this. The whole idea and experience of aging still is hard to grasp. I don’t feel old, but sometimes my body does. I can’t do what I used to. If I do, I pay for it physically for a much longer time.

Maybe this is a time to reflect on what I have to be grateful for. This June we will be married for forty-seven years. When I was at a doctor’s appointment recently I told a nurse this and she asked “Happily?” I said yes. All marriages go thru periods of intimacy and distance. However I have been very happy with my wife. Last week she had cataract surgery and I was reminded again of how much she means to me. She really is the center of my life. Our sons are adults now with their own families. I heard someone say once that you will always be a parent and this is certainly true. No matter how old they are, they are still my children. I usually think that I know what is best, but I have had to accept that that is no longer true. They both have highly technical jobs that I do not understand. I try to understand the relationships they have in their professional lives, but even this is difficult. They are adults with all of the complexities, conflicts and celebrations that we went thru. I still have much work to do in knowing when to let go.

Their children, our grandchildren are a different matter. I never thought I could love anyone as much as my sons. When their children were born my life changed. I am still amazed at everything these beautiful children do. I treasure every moment with them. I used to laugh and be bored at people who talked of their wonderful grandchildren. Now I am one of those boring people. I heard someone say once how amazed he was at how quickly his grandchildren entered his heart. I now understand.

When I look back I can think of all of the people who helped me become who I am. My parents went thru the great depression and World War II. My parents were raised in the city and moved out to the suburbs to an entirely different type of life. They were both supportive. After my father’s death, my mother never really recovered. I think of my schooling and religious education. As I have gotten older I have thought more and more of my time in seminary. One of my religious directors once told me that I looked as if I was just drifting thru life. I have thought about that and believe it was true. I don’t think I ever really had the commitment or the faith to be in the religious life. All of my friends were and that is why I stayed. I was with some of those guys for over eleven and a half years. When I finally left, I was lost. I didn’t know what to do. I taught for a few years, but I really didn’t want to do that. During this time I met my wife and she helped to center me and make me realize that I had some adult decisions to make. One of my friends told me about social work and that seemed to fit for me. I went to graduate school and then the Family Institute and forty plus years later I can say that that is what I was meant to do.

Retirement and the inevitable process of growing older are still a mysterious journey for me. I would always tell people that work did more than just provide money. It also provided structure.

Since I have retired this has been difficult for me. I have a weekly breakfast group and this has been helpful. This is now on hold because of the virus. I am coming to the realization that this really is a time to reflect and think about the future and the past.

As I have gotten older it really is easier to remember the past than it is the present.  All my friends laugh about the lapses in memory we all seem to have. I can have trouble remembering names or other simple things. The past is becoming clearer and maybe that is the way it is supposed to be right now. I would like to be able to answer the “How Did I Get Here” question before my time is up. I still have much work and research to do.

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I haven’t written in a while. The whole retirement thing is still a work in progress for me. I keep thinking of Freud’s answer to what is mental health—the ability to work and love. I would always tell patients that meant meaningful relationships and productive activity. I have the relationships with my wife, children, grandchildren, family and friends. I am missing the productive activity.

I started to attend a Men’s Group at Church. The guys in it were very nice and also very devout. Right now I am not and the group had some Opus Dei like flavorings that left me more disturbed than inspired. There was a very pious psychiatrist at the clinic who kept trying to convert me to his way of belief and prayer. I had to keep telling him that his way was not my way. One time in a staffing meeting with other psychiatrists he got down on his knees and started to pray out loud. The very Jewish chief of staff had to tell him “There will be none of that in here”. I would not be a good evangelist. I still am trying to understand myself and my relationship with a higher power. I don’t think I can share that with anyone else until I understand it myself

Right now I am again thinking of the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. Since this is the beginning of the Christmas season, I am thinking a lot about the Holy Family. The two major interests in my life (apart from baseball and football) have been family dynamics and religion. I think of the stages of family development. The first task of any couple is to establish their relationship apart from their family of origin. This can be very difficult. There can be conflict over finances, careers and premarital friendships. There can be much conflict over which of the couple’s family of origin is more important. The next stage involves the birth of a child if a family desires to have children. Both can be very excited, but almost every male will feel some jealousy as his wife turns most of her attention to the baby. There then has to be some agreement over who has the most responsibility for the child. Who gets up if the baby is crying or sick? Who stays home, etc? Families can work thru this and then it can start all over again with the birth of another child.  The family then presents their children to the outside world when it is time to start school.  This goes on until it is time for the children to leave and the couple has to renegotiate their own relationship. This is a very broad outline and can have many variables (divorce, illness, death, etc.).

 I can read the early chapters of Matthew and Luke and see a young family experiencing a lot of stress. However there is really not much there. Jesus suddenly appears in his early 30s and is dead a few years later. What about before that? I have seen families raise children and have personally experienced raising two wonderful sons. However every family struggles. How did Joseph and Mary support themselves? Joseph is described as a “tekton” which commonly means craftsman or artisan. He is thought to have been a carpenter and Jesus is described as a carpenter. What kind of work did they do? There were no power tools so the work was probably physically very demanding. Joseph would come home and be very tired.  The family had to eat. Was Mary a good cook? Usually in Jewish villages there was a communal oven. The women would stand around and talk while their food was cooking. What would they talk about?  Did the family have friends? Would they celebrate the holidays with other members of their village? After Jesus left on his mission, how would Mary support herself? Joseph, who was supposedly much older, is presumed to have died before Jesus left. Was Mary so revered in her village that the village took care of her? The more I read about the scriptures origins, the more confused I get.

I wonder how much of this is true. The scriptures have a common theme, but some of the details are different. How many were put in just to enhance the faith of the early Christians?

I will probably keep struggling with this until my own end. Even after that I can picture myself in a session with Joseph just trying to get some answers. The advice just to pray and accept isn’t working right now. It probably never did for me.

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Mother’s day has always been kind of a strange holiday for me. Flowers, candy, a nice card, etc,etc, and then it changed.  My mother died on Mother’s Day in 1979. I hadn’t thought of her for a while and then this week brought a lot back. I have a friend whose mother has been on life support in the hospital for over a month and that is probably the trigger for thinking of my Mom. She was born in 1919. It amazes me to think that she would have been 100 this year. She was the youngest of an Irish immigrant family. She went thru the depression and WWII. She married my Dad before he went overseas and waited and worried the whole time he was gone. She became a widow at 47 and only lived until 59.

When I think back she really went thru a lot. She was left with three children. I was mostly gone from the time I was 18, but she still had two young girls to raise. My sisters were 14 and 16. She had a difficult year and never really got over my Dad’s death. She then got a job and worked almost up until she got sick. She laughed a lot, loved gossip, and drank too much. We all loved her and it’s a shame she didn’t get to see all of her grandchildren.

I think most of us deny death until we have to face it. It always happens to someone else, or someone else’s family until it happens to us. The fact that there is a beginning with a tiny, beautiful baby is wonderful. The fact that there is an end is difficult to accept. When someone you love dies, it really does feel like the end of the world. You don’t think you will ever get over it, but then you do. Unfortunately some people never do. However most us go thru periods of intense pain and sorrow and gradually life goes on.

I hadn’t really thought of my mother, or my father, for a long time. We used to go fairly regularly to the cemetery where they are buried, but I haven’t been there in probably at least 20 years. When my sister died eight years ago I would go weekly to her grave, even bringing flowers to place there. After a while I even stopped going there and since we have moved it is a much greater distance.

I still think of my mother and my grandmother going weekly to the cemetery. Even years after the death of my father and grandfather, they would still want to go. It is strange how the dead reappear. A word, a song, a picture and it all comes back.

I heard someone say that cemeteries are for the dead; we need to focus on the living. Yet cemeteries are for memories. They are also reminders of our own mortality.

I am thinking more lately about the reality of death. What do I leave behind? I can look around and see possessions that I don’t want to get rid of. Furniture, pictures and books (lots and lots of books) that I know my sons will not want. Will they just try and sell them or donate them, of just throw everything out?

I have pictures of my mother and father and pictures of my own childhood. I have some strange things from my father, but really not that much. Maybe that is why I don’t think of them much.

Funerals used to include wakes, ceremonies, and burials. My grandfather was waked for three days, my father for two. There would be a ceremony at the grave and the family would be offered condolences. Now this has evolved to a ceremony at a cemetery chapel and the body is buried later. There is now often a cremation instead of a burial. A ritual of scattering the ashes often replaces the burial. Stories of ashes being scattered in ball parks, beaches or favorite parks are fairly common. There are also stories of people keeping the ashes at home. One of my old patients kept her husbands ashes under the bed for years. She had difficulty explaining this to her young son, especially as he entered adolescence. There are other families who keep cremains in a place of prominence in the home. Maybe that would be a way to keep the memory of a beloved family member more present. Right now I don’t know what is right. Every family has to decide that.

I just know that sometime this summer I am going to the cemetery and revisit some memories while I still can

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I am a touchy feely person. I wasn’t always. When I was a child and early adolescent religion was more magic than faith to me. I was raised with idea that I was always being watched. Someone was always judging me and if I screwed up and made the least little mistake, I could be condemned. If I stayed on the right path I would be rewarded, but the path was very narrow and dangerous. Somehow I got the idea that if I wore enough medals and scapulars I could bypass this and be guaranteed a quick entrance to heaven. In grade school I would wear three or four scapulars at the same time. Then I would wear medals until they turned green because of cheap metal and my sweaty little adolescent body. I think what reminded me of this was a recent Mass where there was a lot of talk about sacred relics etc.

I recently read a column in the Washington Post about Christians need for physical objects. The author was interviewing the rector of Union Theological Seminary. He believes that Christians have a need for physical objects because God made his son a physical being. We need to be able to touch things. Interesting idea but I am not sure about this.

When I was growing up the idea of sin was ever present. There were venial sins, which were about minor transgressions involved with all of life. Even thinking about doing something wrong was a sin. Then there were mortal sins. These were bad things that could send you right to hell. They were about murder and other crimes, but an awful lot were about sex. I think back about this and think about how it affected me. For a very long time I was not comfortable being touched or hugged. As an adolescent I really didn’t even want my mother to hug me. I know this was normal for any adolescent male. However I just wasn’t comfortable with that level of contact from anyone.

It wasn’t difficult when I was dating or with my wife, but casual hugging with strangers was not OK. I remember hearing one of my early patients talking to another. She was asked if I hugged her at the end of sessions. She said, “No Jim isn’t the hugging type”. I would often be called to consult on the adolescent unit at the hospital re substance abuse. One time they were being taught how to give appropriate hugs to each other.  I had a lot of questions about this. Some one told me to read books and articles by Leo Buscaglia. He thought that people needed a number of hugs each day.

I think that another part of the process that helped me thru this was the birth of my sons. Infants and young children need this type of loving contact. As I progressed as a therapist I became more comfortable hugging patients if they asked. Sometimes I would offer a hug to provide additional support. I never did it for my own pleasure. However now I have begun to think about this again. The MeToo made us all aware of the harassment women have been subject too.  Joe Biden has recently been criticized for his contact with women in that he was violating their space. I recently saw a guy wearing a tee shirt with “I Don’t Hug” on it and maybe that is the answer. You have to be clear about what level of contact you are comfortable with. Sometimes people really give off clear warnings about their boundaries. Some others don’t and need to be asked what they are comfortable with. I know there is a lot of conflict in the field about this right now. I know a psychiatrist who won’t even shake hands with new patients.

A friend of mine who shared some of my views about hugging patients was fired because of hugging a patient who he had a long relationship with. The patient was very comfortable with this and most sessions ended like that. It was a purely platonic hug, but was now against policy. Sometimes political correctness interferes with what is really correct.

There are so many areas like this now. Relations between men and women have always been confusing. What was OK is now not. Years ago on the old Homicide TV show one of the main characters said “I remember when Co-dependent relationships were the way it was supposed to be!! “. Well no longer.

Perhaps modern technology can help. With my new car I get warning beeps if I begin to swerve from my lane, or if another car is to close. Maybe someone will develop a “Personal Boundary Alert” if you are violating someone’s space. It would be interesting see how people would respond to a loud siren going off when you tried to touch someone.

Right now I continue to question my own life about what is Ok and what isn’t.  I don’t know if I would use the word sin anymore except for big things that hurt other people. I still have to try and stay open and clarify my own boundaries. My wife says that she likes to know things. She has an insatiable curiosity about life. I have always said that my goal in life is clarity. I just want to understand. It was a lot easier in my 20s than it is in my 70s. It will probably get harder each year. I hope I can keep trying.