Nov. 4, 2010:

Dear Donna,

You have beautiful daughters who grew up to be wonderful young ladies.

I recognize that you have had many obstacles raising the girls from health problems to time constraints to money problems to interference. The time you spent with them was quality and teaching time as is evident by the results. Enjoy your daughters as a mother and as a friend. Set an example of courage and hope for a bright future.

I know your daughters love you and that you will get much pleasure from them and from your grandchildren.

Love you,

Dad

I am fortunate to have four adult daughters and a father and mother still alive to give feedback to me. They don’t mince words. It hasn’t always been the type of feedback that you just read.

I am grateful to have children who can appreciate the mother I am. It is nice to be acknowledged. It is a selfless job to be a parent.

So to all of those parents out there, we do a lot of hard work and often it is not recognized. When it is by our own parents, it is a wonderful feeling.

Thank you, dad.

What is the reason we celebrate a birthday? Why isn’t it just another day in the year?

First, it is the day we appreciate our parents and the Almighty for coming together in that intimate moment to give us life. That God found us worthy of our journey.

Today is my 50th birthday. I want to thank my parents for my life.

My father tells the story of sending roses to his mother on his birthday to say thank you. He did this on every birthday of his adulthood until she passed.

Second. We celebrate our birthdays to acknowledge that it isn’t easy to be in life. That’s why so many people exist rather than live. We celebrate our part in making the most of our experience on earth.

Today I am celebrating the miracle of life, the lives that came from me and the lives that came before me. My life has been filled with adventure, purpose and risk. From friends that helped sculpt me to children who helped create me as a mother to partners who pushed me beyond my limits, my life’s journey has had many vast and open roads to explore as well as a few dead-ends.

I’d like to share some of my experiences that helped create me. Having brothers and sisters and multiple mothers gave me an opportunity to share from a young age.

When I was 19 months, my sister Denise came into the world and my life expanded exponentially. Two years later, our brother David joined us. This was my first experience that this was my own baby to take care of.

Ten years later, we expanded again when Jeanette and Alan and Maria joined our family. And we became whole. Or so I thought. I didn’t know how incomplete we were until my father’s wife and my daughter’s husband joined our family. And then there was the root of my heart – my granddaughter Sophia.

I love being an American and an Israeli. Growing up in Israel created purpose and patriotism. Living in America brought fortune and my appreciation.

My chosen profession as a psycho-therapist and my choice to become more spiritual have led me down some important paths.

The easiest and most fun love has been my dogs. I’ve always had them and probably always will. They greet me every time like they’ve just met me.

My daughters are vital to me. Since 15, I’ve wanted to be a mother to four daughters. Good thing my then-boyfriend disagreed. I’ve always felt like my primary purpose was parenting.

The raising of four powerful women was more challenging than the stories told in Little Women and Fiddler on the Roof. My daughters overcame great hardship and some of my mistakes. By the grace of God, my daughters are honorable. They choose quality partners and they have one another as a unit. This unit has been challenged by divorce, illness and financial struggles. Through it all, they’ve stayed as one. They’ve exceeded my expectations.

The next 50 years will be theirs as my role changes to a more passive one.

May all our children make small mistakes, have huge successes, and keep together.

I gave them Torah and I gave them each other.

In this week’s parsha, Noach, God destroys the earth and Noach builds an ark.

Two things stuck me in this parsha. One story is told within another, a very Jewish way of telling a story.

As soon as the waters recede, Noach doesn’t want to leave the ark. It is what he knows. He had become complacent. God scoots him out along with his family.

Almost immediately, Noach plants a vineyard. He craves wine. He can’t think of anything else. Next we learn of his drunkenness and nakedness. He makes a fool of himself.

Our heroic Noach doesn’t trust the Almighty enough to jump out of the ark and live life again. His craving for alcohol takes over his mind and he makes every effort to get his fix and his fix led him to shame.

If it is that easy for the greatest of mankind, what about us simple mortals?

The second part of the story talks about his three sons. This righteous father produced radically different sons. Crisis brings out the true character of people.

One son laughed about his father’s nakedness and went to tell the others. One son didn’t know what to do. One son got a large piece of fabric and draped it over the father.

I am a child of five. What character traits have I exhibited to my parents? I have four daughters. Who are they at their core?

As Leonard Cohen sang:

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

Friends and family came from Israel to be at my birthday. Friends from junior high school came. Thank you for sharing 50 years with me. Thank you for allowing me into your hearts. I am working to getting closer to my potential.

My brother David, may his memory be a blessing, passed away at 29 of esophagal cancer. In honor of my brother and just knowing that we had lasting love, I leave this message. To those of you turning 50, I hope my words will make it easier. God bless.

When people come in for psycho-therapy, they are often there by their own accord. They want to correct things in their lives. What always stumps me is that when they get very close to something, they move away.

This afternoon I was reading Nietzsche and I saw a beautiful example of this. He spoke of it as the rapport between the foot bridge. He writes:
There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us.
Just as you were about to step on it, I asked you: “Do you want to cross the footbridge to me?” Immediately, you did not want to anymore; and when I asked you again, you remained silent.
Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn’t. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.
Let’s reason it out. One person is about to cross the bridge and when the second person invites him to do the very thing he planned, the first person can’t make that step because it would seem like he was submitting to the other. Power gets in the way of closeness.

Nietzsche writes: “We feel hatred for those who see our secrets and catch us in tender feelings. What we need at that moment is not sympathy, but to regain our power over our own emotion.”

We must be very careful how we remove this cancerous part, this part that creates suicidal feelings. The part that creates self-hate. Even in despair, the client will hate you for shaming him. We must be careful to gain their confidence in a sympathetic manner so it doesn’t feel like we are gaining power over them. We must remember that we are equals. That we are teachers one to the other. That we have a profession that we have studied and that we are good at just as the other person is good at equally important things in the world.

As therapists, we face resistance every day. To get through the resistance is an art form.

Check out E! News. I’m talking about celebrities who cut themselves.

Resistance is what therapy is all about. Resistance to change. Yet people come in because they want to change.

I want to give an example. There’s a woman I’m working with on cluttering and hoarding. She says it has been going on her entire marriage (35 years). Her son used to be embarrassed to bring his friends over because of what the house looked like. She doesn’t want to call it cluttering or hoarding. She says she just collects stuff. We were on our third session. It was the same time every week. She calls me ten minutes before the session started and says, ‘Donna, we didn’t have an appointment this week at 1pm, so I’m not going to show up.’

I wondered to myself, how long has she been thinking about this appointment at 1pm and then she canceled it.

It’s brilliant how people do what they do, they want the change they want, yet at the same time they are not willing to look at it. I don’t know what it will take for her to have the breakthrough she’s looking for.

She says it’s not that bad but she doesn’t want to bring in pictures.

It’s hard to change. For those who come into the room to change, I pat them on the back for having an enormous amount of courage.

I went to see a movie Sunday. After about an hour, I left the theater. There was too much unnecessary sex and infidelity. And it turned my stomach.

I left the theater and went to get my car. I happened to park underground next to a CVS Pharmacy.

When I left the theater, I felt like I was in a movie. It was so beautiful outside. I was in a daze.

I felt proud of myself for leaving.

I looked over to the see the garage for the CVS Pharmacy and I saw that the gate was closed and the store was locked and I was unable to retrieve my car.

I thought I would knock on the door anyway even though it was 40 minutes past closing and a dear sweet friend from behind the pharmacy opened the door and she said, “Donna, what are you doing here? It is way past the time you can park here. But I’ll tell you what to do.”

She let me take my car out.

It’s so nice when people do unexpected kindnesses.

So Farnaz at CVS Pharmacy, I am so grateful. With my trunk filled with groceries, and my illegal parking, you let me go through and I am very grateful.