Life is a Magic Show
In last week’s blog, Lessons in Loving and Grieving, I shared some beautiful poems by Elliot Ruchowitz-Roberts, as well the origin story of our special friendship that blossomed during the final months of his beloved wife’s life in 2010. Elliot and Tey had been married for 50 years, and it was a slow process to heal from the impact of her passing. Eventually, following many years of deep mourning, Elliot knew it was time to move forward with his life. Soon after, he connected with Deborah Sharp, a woman who had also lost a spouse.
I liked Deborah the minute I met her, and not only because she’d brought so much joy into Elliot’s life. She was energetic yet calm—a kind, grounded no-nonsense woman who was keenly perceptive, intelligent and curious. When she told me that she was especially happy to meet me because she’d known my parents, I was blown away. Since their move from Manhattan to Carmel in 1983, my parents had mostly kept to themselves, never developing a circle of friends. It was extremely rare for me to meet people in California who could share recollections of them.
Elliot and Deborah in 2015. Photo by Wendy Moorty
Decades ago, when Deborah had been a writing instructor at Monterey Peninsula College and a free-lance reporter, she’d written a story about my mother and father for a popular local paper, The Carmel Pine Cone. Her article came out in conjunction with the release of my father’s self-published book, I’m Small, I’M BIG—How We Choose to Live.
My father had liked Deborah so much that after the interview he’d hired her to edit what he’d written thus far for another book he’d titled, In Quest of the Eternal Sunshine. This was the unfinished manuscript about my father’s healing and awakening journey that I’d discovered after his death in 2012! I was stunned and thrilled by this coincidence.
Deborah had interviewed my parents, Mendek and Edith Rubin, at their home in December 1995. She told me it was their faces that captured and held her attention. “The depth of what they had experienced was all right there. I was born and raised in Carmel, and had never before come face-to-face with survivors of the Holocaust, which to me was the apex of horror. I felt privileged to meet them. It was a remarkable experience.”
Deborah could see that the suffering of the Holocaust was truly behind my father. “He spoke with detachment about the war, telling me that it wasn’t death that people feared most in the camps, it was the cruelty. He even chuckled about his difficult childhood, telling me how much he’d always daydreamed to block out the harshness.”
Soon after our walk, Deborah emailed me a scan of the article she’d written. I was surprised at how deep the interview went. My father had shared that for decades after the war he’d repressed his emotions, going through life mechanically, on autopilot. He’d said that forgiveness is not always easy, but when we see ourselves as one with the universe, forgiveness comes naturally, because “if you hurt me, you hurt yourself as well.” My father told Deborah that he believed humans are on an evolutionary journey together. “We are all one thought, one mind. The greatest contribution a person can make to humanity is to change himself and to recognize his place in the oneness of the universe.”
Deborah recalled how eager my father had been to share his life-changing revelations, as well as his frustration that nothing ever came of his numerous attempts to find a publisher. For me, the timing of learning this couldn’t have been more auspicious. I was still contemplating what to do with the unfinished manuscript I’d discovered two years prior, and that conversation with Deborah gave me the final incentive I needed to take on the challenge of turning it into a book that could be shared with the world.
During the four years I was immersed in researching and writing Quest for Eternal Sunshine, Elliot and Deborah generously read version after version, giving me honest and insightful feedback. Elliot was descended from grandparents that had fled persecution in Eastern Europe, and he grew up with Yiddish spoken in his home like my father, and many vestiges of “old-world” culture. The kinship Elliot felt with my dad went beyond their roots. They had both been highly observant and sensitive boys who’d endured much suffering in their youth.
Thinking back to the first time Elliot told me about Deborah, I remember his quiet certainty that they would build a life with one another, even though they’d only been together for a few short weeks. Now, almost a decade later, their mutual respect and love continues to blossom, filling me with hope and optimism.
Elliot and my father are inspiring examples of people who experienced tremendous hardship, but nonetheless chose to keep their hearts open and embrace life over and over again. Both men blessed the world by sharing their unique gifts.
I will close with a beautiful nature-based poem of Elliot’s that is filled with much truth about the unpredictable nature of life, and the importance of savoring every joy and blessing. He wrote it after he and Deborah had been together for seven months.
