Valerie 2011

Valerie 2011

My wife Valerie died ten years ago this summer. I have been spending the quiet moments between my work remembering her. This summer is no different than any other. I think of her all the time. It’s momentous that a decade has passed since she left. Her bright hazel eyes and endless smile leap forth. Her laugh and passionate tears hum in the trees. Her super human strength and goodness inspire my work. She left a hole in my heart that can’t be filled and yet I go on connected to her eternally, forever.

Valerie died from Mesothelioma. She fought hard to overcome the disease. The grace she displayed during a struggle that explored all curative options was profound to witness. In her honor, I have committed to undertaking the professional and personal challenge of fulfilling my potential even at this later stage of life. I follow the prayer I say for her when I ask for the elevation of her soul and the ability to fulfill her wishes, strengthen her legacy and take guidance from her life and spirit. As she told me in her last months, “Make the most of each day, love up the ones you love and put other people first. I think I’ve done a pretty good job." I am trying.

So now I turn the page, celebrating Valerie, who made such a big difference to so many lives and to mine.

Remember. Remember and hold on tight. You will be challenged and distracted and the appeals of your lower self will arise, but extinguish those desires with the flush of love and hope. Never give up. Never give in. Do the best you can because it’s good and believe in what you know and what you’ve lived. It was and is real and true. Guard and pursue truth. It is the blood of relationships and in the end these are what matter. S’aggapo Aggapimu. I love you my love.

Dr. Jack Kevorkian died 10 years to the day after Valerie. There’s a synchronistic irony that they should be linked. As weird a personality as he was, I know she would have liked to have met him at the end of her life. It’s funny what you choose to remember or not remember about someone you love who is gone. I’m choosing to remember it all. The last nine days of Valerie’s life when she chose not to eat because she knew she was only feeding the tumors that were causing her so much pain and killing her slowly. She “Wanted out now!” Kervorkian could have helped. This was not a hypothetical case. This was my wife,who I would have given my own life for to free her of pain or misery. I supported her decisions then as I support those of individuals and families who make them now.

“As a result of his advocacy for the right of the terminally ill to choose how they die, hospice care has boomed in the United States and physicians have become more sympathetic to their pain and more willing to prescribe medications to relieve it “

Kervorkian was seen by a world trying to make sense of how best to care for loved one’s at the end of their life. Valerie was seen by those closest to her as she bravely chose to end her life. We witnessed her grace, dignity and strength and we will always remember her joy and love. Always ready for everything life had to offer. She wanted it all.

Check out 17 Bad Habits For Your Heart

My Dentist Sadie Mestman always tells me it takes 3 weeks to form new habits, so I imagine it might take the same amount of time to break bad ones. I found this article a motivation in keeping good heart health.

17 Bad Habits For Your Heart

Heart Awareness Month 2011

All of a sudden it’s the end of February, “Heart Awareness Month”, Valentine’s Day has passed and my next birthday is looming. All is well with my heart. Other parts of me may be breaking down, but my heart beats strong more than a decade after surgery. I ran 3 miles today. I hope my knees and joints can make another 20 years. That would be plenty if my mind can hang in there.

I’ve been helping a 94 year old friend, transition from the independent life style in her own home (remarkable) into assisted living. Currently she is in a rehab facility after a short hospital stay. She’s resistant wanting to maintain her own independence and in denial of creeping dementia and understandable fragility. Remarkable how she has kept it all together her entire life and is still avoiding the tough decisions of advanced directives and power’s of attorney. I want to honor her wishes. It’s a difficult position because her memory can be erratic. When I step back, I wonder if she may have the big secret to make it all the way to the finish on her own. I’m just concerned that she could fall between the cracks and the state will come in and take control of her destiny, reducing the potential quality she could enjoy in her last years. The social worker at rehab has mildly threatened this.

I finally contacted the only know family she has who seems ambivalent to the situation, allowing events and the decisions my friend has made with me to run their course. We’ve made a big leap this week putting the deposit down on an assisted residence and engaging her accountant of some 40 plus years, whom she trusts completely, to become power of attorney for health and financial matters if the need arises.

I can’t help but think that I could be in the same position someday. I have no children or wife, so on this last day of Heart Awareness month, I am committing to finally make my wishes known, so in the event that I encounter a bad scenario no one will be pressured to act and advocate on my behalf without knowledge of my wishes. I still have the Trust in place from my marriage, but without Valerie, the Durable Power of Attorney is void.

I know, I don’t want to be a ‘vegetable’. Who does? Or be brought back from the dead after say age 80 (the number has gone up from the moment I began this blog in increments of 5) and I refuse to be a burden on my family, no feeding tubes if I’m unable to decide and no heroic measures. So I’ve said it. But it’s meaningless unless it’s witnessed, notarized and formally stated in a legal document. One more step.

It will be a big gift to those I love.

Farewell to a Fighter

Rabbi Levi Deitsch was my friend. His death is a hole I will never fill in my heart. Rabbi Jacobson begins to explain Levi's tenacious courage in the face of his illness in the following essay. I have experienced this courage before in my wife Valerie and thus have been twice blessed. Hopefully I can draw strength from my friend. I miss him.

http://www.theyeshiva.net/Article/View/113/Farewell-To-A-Fighter

Election Day - Nov 2nd

Get out and Vote Today! It will make you feel good. You will be giving direction and support to the country’s future and your own. In your heart, you know that we are all in this life together and we must take responsibility for the people we empower to lead and legislate. I’m proud to be an American and when I see people at the polls tomorrow I know I will be overcome with that rich sensation of being with my fellow Americans who all, no matter what their political background, want the best for the country and each other. I may be naïve, but these are the principles with which the United States was founded and they exist in us today, if we can break thru the encrusted cynicism of the media and politicos. The choices are clear and countless lives will be affected by those choices we make today. Do the right thing and vote. Feel good.

FREE Screening of Dying to Live - the journey into a man's open heart in LOS ANGELES

Congregation Mogen David
is proud to sponsor a viewing of the autobiographical memoir,
“Dying to Live – the journey into a man’s open heart”
by Ben Mittleman.

At the age of 50, doctors diagnosed Ben with a hereditary cardiac condition requiring nine hours of open heart surgery and a long recovery. Dealing with the profound questions most of us are too afraid to ask opened the gateway to the fears and insecurities of middle age, the relevance of his Judaism and the nature of life and it’s true values.

As the writer, producer, director, and subject of the part video diary/part real-life drama, Ben Mittleman confronts these matters of his own mortality, and captures every detail of his battle while undertaking the care and support of his wife and mother, as both women battle cancer.

This authentic look at truth profiles the period of his personal transformation while revealing the raw realities of one man’s fight to survive while trying to heal and care for the women who love him.

The inspirational movie serves a catalyst to begin discussions about the complex issues it exposes.
“Dying to Live – the journey into a man’s open heart” addresses the truth and strength required to overcome one’s fear of dying and pursue the business of living.


Light Refreshments will be served along with a discussion
with the director Ben Mittleman and Rabbi Gabriel Elias

SUNDAY JULY 25, 2010 6:00 PM
Please call the synagogue to RSVP
310.556.5609

Share Your Story

When I was making the documentary “Dying to Live- the journey into a man’s open heart”, I was telling the story for several reasons. 1) I had originally begun a film about my impending open-heart surgery that was left unfinished because of a cascade of personal tragedies over several years. 2) I wanted to honor the lives and courage of those I loved. 3) I was looking into my life and soul for it’s authentic center and wanted to reveal truths for myself and dispel my own myths.

I realized the story might represent a commonality of the human condition that could provide understanding and perhaps comfort to others as they struggled with their own challenges of survival, but I did not realize at the time, that in telling the story and reliving the searing truth’s I’d lived and witnessed, I would begin to fully undertake the deep healing necessary to move forward in my life.

I am going to initiate a place on our website www.dyingtolivethemovie.com that will be for the sharing of stories of survival, care-giving, grief and struggle. It is something I’ve discussed doing for a while now and I would appreciate comments and thoughts on how to make the site more beneficial.

I will make the space available un-edited and filtered only in the broadest manner. “The truth will never hurt you” is something I believe and I would like to facilitate sharing your truth’s with a greater public. You can provide contact information if you wish.

Contact me or send your story to ben@dyingtolivethemovie.com and we will get your story out. Just getting it down on paper will make a world of difference.