Ronald L. Berman, 69, gone from view, but remembered forever / Poem: Resurrection

Rabbi Saul Grife of Beth Tikvah-Bnai Jeshurun in Erdenheim, PA, conducted a beautiful service.

People always act their best at funerals. Why can't we all behave this way year-round?

The one and only Heather Pastor Moran, Ron's niece, who drove up from her home in Maryland with husband Sean, and sons Ben and Jonah.

All the men and boys wore kippahs or yarmulkes. I think women should wear them too. It would probly be vetoed b/c of our hairdos.



It's always a shock to see a person's casket.



This is one bed we'll never escape.   

Here's Ron's daughter/law Evangeline, who came with her own daughter, Elaine (Lani) who brought two toy ponies to occupy her during the service.

Evangeline told me that she recently brought in Ron's mail, which included my Compass, mental health magnet, and letter. Darn! He never saw it. 

Amy Pastor, Heather's sister, and residing in Colorado, is now an EMT and will study to become an RN.

Amy has her own Wiki page since she was a TV star on the handyman show Trading Spaces.

Denis Hazam, featured in the pages of our Compass mag, runs a Bipolar and Depression Support Group at the University of Pennsylvania. I talk to him frequently on the phone but haven't seen him or wife Fran in a dog's age. (Just made up that term, altho maybe it's a real term, b/c I didn't wanna write "in ages" b/c it's a cliche.

Always cheerful Mark A. Davis also runs an LGBT support group Pink and Blues downtown at the Church of St Luke and the Epiphany.

Mark - aka Ms. Altered States - is someone who should have his own Wiki page!

Fran Hazam, polymath and mental health advocate extraordinaire, works at the Mental Health Association of Southeast PA, as does husband Denis. She was also featured in the recent Compass.

On the way home from the funeral, I drove past Abington Friends School, which is where my daughter Sarah met Heather. Heather's late mother, Barbara, taught there. Laughing, good-humored Barbara has been gone for five years now, said Rabbi Saul.



While the Rabbi was conducting the service, I was revising my poem, which I began at midnight, and then revised when I woke up at 5 and then at 9 am.

Be sure to read comments below!

RESURRECTION

In memory of Ronald L. Berman (1944-March 29, 2013)

As the full moon rose over the dogwood across the street
I thought of you, Ron, and the moons you will never see
Or the first bird twittering at five outside my window

I remember meeting you for the first time
Was it in the lobby at Reach-Out?
Or at buzz-me-in Friends Hospital?

Your blue-checked shirt barely concealed your half-arm
What happened? I asked, staring at the shiny stump
round as a child’s fist

Car crash, you said, and I watched as you employed it as the
small arm it was
refusing to let it cripple you, or embarrass you

You must have typed all those emails one-handed, a regular pianist playing
Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand, commissioned by a ravaged soldier
Emails I will never chuckle over again
“Humor in a Mundane World,
Hello All You Lovelies,”
and signed with your pen name
“Bullwinkle”

Contrarian, how you chastised me when I called you Ronnie, in front
of those pretentious condescending bigwigs from the DBSA in the
downtown Marriott, how dare I treat you gently?

You’d like this tribute, I do it for myself and Heather and the Hazams, Mark Davis and the rest – Jo from your support group -
We admire your noncomplaining heroism in the face of bloody
Agincourts you fought alone

You and that feline of yours, Arthur, your soul companion, who walked across your keyboard and erased your words
Before the universe erased you from sight.
Where are you now, Ron Berman, champion of the Mental Health Consumer Club?   
Do Jews like us get resurrected?

Is it an accident you’re buried on Easter Sunday?
Or is it all pretend, like this too-short life of ours
Gone in a wink!

I, for one, will remember you the rest of my days
And so, you’ll be surprised, will all your
followers, filling this now-sacred chapel in
your home-town of Philadelphia.

Fare thee well, Ron Berman, I consecrate this doughtnut to you

Ron Berman was a fierce mental health advocate. His license plate read "CONSUMR" which means a person with a mental illness.

From this perspective, with his ups and downs, he made a wonderful leader of a support group for people with bipolar d/o and depression at Belmont Center psychiatric hospital in Philadelpha - that's its gazebo in the photo.

The countless people he helped will be as sad and shocked as I am by his death earlier today.

His legacy is that wonderful support group he once led. He'd go to the ends of the earth to help people.

He was contentious. He loved nothing more than to argue and disagree with you. I have several memories of arguing with Ron and learned to shut my mouth or we'd argue into eternity.

Earlier today I bought a fastnacht at Weinrich Bakery.

Made with potato flour, filled with raspberry jelly and dusted with granulated sugar, the fastnacht waited patiently in the oven, to keep it warm via pilot light.

With a delicacy like this, I wanted to eat it at the perfect moment.

To prepare, and I am an insulin-dependent person with diabetes due to my kidney antirejection meds, I went on my exercise bike for 20 minutes while watching 80-yo writer Philip Roth on American Masters. Handsome man at 80. Very regimented in his writing. Stated his imagination deserted him, but no one, including his dear friend, Mia Farrow, believes it.



Taking leave of Philip Roth - and vowing I must read his books - I slipped on my warm pajama jacket over my warm pajamas, took the fastnacht bag, slipped on my clogs and went outdoors into the dark night.

A brilliant cloud cover swept over the sky as I opened the bakery bag.

I could hear Philip Roth expounding from my second-floor bedroom. He was talking about Death and the realization he must find a cemetery for himself.

Moving onto the grass, so the doughnut crumbs would end up on the grass, a treat for the ants, I bit in.

It was hard and stale. How disappointing! Last year - and the above photo is from last year - it was about the most delicious thing I'd ever tasted.

But the raspberry jelly was sweet and moist and fresh.

"Ron," I whispered, "enjoy this doughnut with me."

He died of kidney failure, his niece Heather wrote me.

Heather and my daughter Sarah were best friends at Abington Friends School.

I'll see Heather at the funeral on Sunday morning at Goldstein's in North Philadelphia. I just passed it thother day when I went to Kidney Klink at Einstein Medical Center, where I got a great report. Creatinine level .78.

Standing outside under the night sky, eating my doughnut with Ron Berman, I noticed a shape in the next yard.

A deer?

No, it was Bill Adams, throwing a lit-up ball to his lab retriever Daisy.

"Who's there?" I called.

Like me, Bill also thought I was a deer. And wondered, "What is that sound?" It was the rustle of my bakery bag.

Bill went to Mass today for Good Friday. His wife Stacey was just pulling in the drive after attending services at her Lutheran church.

"We prayed for the Jews today," Bill said.

At last!

And now this agnostic Jew is watching a wonderful program about the Catholic, manic-depressive writer Graham Greene, a risk-taker who could not remain faithful to any woman.

His books are filled with adulterous relationships and wonderments about what would happen to his characters - and most of all, himself and his lovers - under a merciful God. 

Ron Berman lies still somewhere in Philadelphia, his life over.

Last week I talked to Fran and Denis Hazam, who run a support group at the University of Pennsylvania. They had called Ron, who didn't have a phone at Sterling nursing home where he lived. Ron had said he would call them next week. April, in fact.

I asked if I should send him my new Compass mental health magazine?



Absolutely, they said.




I carefully crafted a letter on New Directions stationery, enclosed one of our new Mental Health magnets, which I mused he might put on his front door, and signed the letter "With Love and Peace, Ruth"

May Ron Berman rest in peace and love wherever he is.

Go outside now and look at the nearly full moon rising in the sky.

Give thanks that you're alive and in full control of yourself.

Harry S Truman: Live and Onstage in the Upper Moreland Community Room

 John M. Roushey of Warminster, PA, as Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), relaxes before his talk. 

Decked out in a gray toupee, double-breasted suit, colorful bow-tie, and signature round eyeglasses, John M. Roushey portrayed Harry S. Truman, 33^rd president of the United States, before a spellbound audience of 46 in the Upper Moreland Township Room on March 26, hosted by the Upper Moreland Historical Society.

Roushey is lucky to be alive. Three years ago he was in very poor health, putting his presentations on hold. 

Truman is one of many. His performances include Ben Franklin, John Wanamaker, James Buchanan, and William Tennent. 

Tennent was the pastor of the Neshaminy Warwick Presbyterian Church in the early 1700's, and founder of a school to train pastors called the "Log College," a precursor of Princeton Seminary.

He's also the founder of Warminster, PA, where Roushey has lived for 55 years.

With the help of cardio rehab and his three children, “who take good care of me,” the 79-year-old Roushey is back in the saddle again. A retired mechanical engineer, he performs with such vigor he doesn’t need a microphone. 

As Truman, he strode before the audience of 46 cracking jokes – “Wake up! You must be a Republican” – that had the audience roaring with laughter.

“Being president is no walk in the park,” said Roushey, or, rather, Truman, who had served as a two-term senator from Missouri, when Franklin Roosevelt tapped him to be his running mate.

Roosevelt took notice of Truman when he headed what became known as “Truman’s Committee.” During World War II, he looked into spending for the war effort and discovered massive waste and corruption that saved the taxpayers billions of dollars.

But Truman became one “shook-up person,” he said, when Roosevelt died in April of 1945.                                     

“I’d only been vice president for four months when Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, GA.” FDR was 63. 

“Eleanor Roosevelt summoned me to her office in the White House.”

“Harry,” she said, “the president is dead.”

“Eleanor, is there anything we can do to help you?”

“Harry,” she replied, “is there anything we can do to help you? You’re the one in trouble now, Harry!”

Indeed he was. “I felt like the sun, the moon and all the planets had fallen on me.”

Shockingly, Truman had had only three very brief meetings with the former president. He knew nothing about the development of the atomic bomb.

As the war was wrapping up, Truman flew to Pottsdam, Germany, to attend the now-famous Pottsdam Conference with leaders Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin.

“When Churchill heard that Roosevelt ‘the Eagle’ was dead, he said, ‘Now I’ll have to deal with ‘the Sparrow.’”

At Pottsdam, Truman met with Stalin for the first time. “He was an arrogant son of a….” he told the audience. His salty language, which he learned on the family farm and in the National Guard, where he rose to Major in WWI, had been tempered by his wife Bess.

At Pottsdam, Truman learned that “the baby had been born.” The baby was the atomic bomb.

The final decision to use the bomb became Truman's to make. Clement Atlee, who defeated Churchill and took his place at Pottsdam - “a stuffed shirt” – was against it, but Stalin was all for it.

Truman wrote his wife Bess that “the three leaders haggled like old women.”   

Truman always found himself in the center of controversies, such as whether or not to drop the bomb. His guiding principle, he told the audience, were the 35 words of the American Constitution, summed up in the words “I will preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

“That’s all it is,” he said. “Thirty-five words that would change the life of everyone who took that oath of office."

The Japanese were voracious fighters who refused to surrender. “We sent memos to the High Command telling them if they didn’t surrender, we would unleash a weapon of destruction such as they had never seen. We also dropped leaflets into the major cities, warning them of imminent destruction.”

In early August of 1945, the first bomb exploded over Hiroshima. Three days passed, no word of surrender, and then the second bomb exploded over Nagasaki. Both cities were dedicated to war production. 

“Nobody knew they were the only two bombs we had,” said Truman.

Five days later the Japanese surrendered. The terrible war was over.

“I’m convinced,” said Truman, “we saved the lives of millions of people.”

 “The buck stops here,” read a sign in Truman’s office.

What people don’t know, said Roushey, is that the term derived from playing poker, a favorite of Truman. The buck stopped with the dealer.

The war, which America entered in 1941, put an end to the Great Depression. “By God, I was not going to allow us to get into another one when the servicemen came home. I worked on ‘The New Deal’ with great opposition from Congress.”

He also met with tremendous opposition about the “Marshall Plan,” to help rebuild war-torn Europe, including Germany. Knowing he could never push the bill through a Congress that was hostile to him, he relied on General George Marshall, his secretary of defense and esteemed military leader, who did succeed in getting the bill passed.

The Democratic Convention to choose a presidential candidate was held in 1948 right here in Philadelphia.  

“The Democrats were in complete chaos,” said Truman. “I got the nomination at 11:30 pm.”

He then took the campaign to the people. “We did a whistle stop tour with barely any money, visiting 12 states. Thirty-one thousand miles and 350 speeches later, we had done everything possible,” said Truman, walking back and forth across the stage.

On one of his stops, a man yelled out, “Give ‘em hell, Harry.” Truman, always fast on the uptake, said, “I never gave anybody hell. I just tell the truth on the Republicans, and they think they’re in hell.”

Truman was a health nut. “I walk two miles every day at the army pace of 120 steps per minute. That kept the Secret Service boys and the newsmen on their toes.”

His breakfast? Every morning he ate a bowl of oatmeal, two slices of whole wheat toast and a glass of milk.

On Election Night, Truman drank a glass of buttermilk and went to bed around 8 p.m. He awoke around midnight to hear the radio announcer call the election for Thomas Dewey, governor of New York. 

Roushey held up the now-famous Chicago Tribune headline reading “Dewey Defeats Truman.” In fact, Truman handily won the Electoral Vote, but only 49 percent of the popular vote.    

          

John Roushey tells a story about his naturalistic appearance as Truman. He went to his optometrist to get a pair of Truman’s round eyeglasses. The optometrist told him to look at Truman’s inauguration photo and adopt his attire. 

The eye doctor fashioned Roushey a pair of round eyeglasses; Roushey ordered the double-breasted suits and bright bow-ties favored by the president. Roushey was a Mason and wore a Masonic ring, as did the president. 

The conflict between North and South Korea took everyone by surprise. “A lot of people didn’t even know where Korea was,” said Truman. “When the North Koreans crossed the 39^th parallel and invaded South Korea, I knew that I had to act quickly,” he said.

Truman sent men, ships and planes, and General Douglas MacArthur to defend South Korea. And what did MacArthur do? “He disobeyed a direct order.

“I had no choice but to remove the offending officer. That’s one time when I wished an old soldier would just fade away,” he said. The Korean conflict had been called a “police action.” Truman feared it would turn into another world war, which is why it was necessary to fire his nemesis. 

Truman was proud of his accomplishments.

“I was the first president to appear on television. 




I remodeled the White House after [daughter] Margaret’s piano leg went through the floor. 



I was the first president to recognize the NAACP and I recognized the sovereign state of Israel. My ‘Fair Deal’ programs, which included the expansion of Social Security, gave our servicemen jobs when they came home from the war.”

Facing the audience, he said, “At heart, I’m a Missouri farm boy who failed miserably in business. I learned that the government should be run like a household. And Bess was the love of my life.”

He was always saddened when she left the White House to return to their Independence, MO homestead to get out of the political limelight. “If you want a friend in Washington,” she said, “get a dog.”

At home, Truman’s aged mother lived with them. Unlike most people, she wasn’t afraid to “give him hell.”

Checking the clock, Truman thanked the audience for its attentiveness.

“I would ask one thing of you,” he said. “Hold your opinions of me until I’m out of office for ten years. Then you can decide what you think of my Presidency.”   

John Roushey is a die-hard Republican.

When audience member Irwin Schwartz of Huntingdon Valley was 11 years old, he went to downtown Philly to see President Truman. At 11th and Market he was surrounded by a crowd and asked a man, "Where is the President?"

"I am the President," said Truman. 

 Elaine Leibrandt, Vice President, Secretary & Programs, introduced the speaker.  

 Jack Houriet is in charge of the e-newsletter.

Joe Thomas is president emeritus of the Upper Moreland Historical Association.  

The Association has a museum in the Upper Moreland Township Building, 117 Park Ave. in Willow Grove across the street from the library. Joe presides over its thousands of artifacts, books, posters and other memorabiia on Thursdays from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. 

Sharon Brings Them In ! Talk on Family Involvement With Mood Disorders

A full house for Sharon Katz, prescribing nurse and owner of Collaborative Care wellness center in Abington, PA.

Whole families showed up to learn how to communicate with the diagnosed individual.

I held up our Compass and encouraged everyone to take a copy and give a few to their health-care providers. The Kaleidoscope is our literary section and indeed, Martha, a fine poet who wrote the lead poem "Time" in the Kaleidoscope was there.

A 70-year-old man had recently retired and hit the abyss of depression. He was grieving the loss of his job and his identity now that he wasn't working.

You need a plan when you retire, said Sharon.

The medicine had just started to kick in. Sharon also suggested 'talk therapy.'

Retiring w/o a plan means that the routine you've relied on for most of your life has vanished. These circadian rhythms are one way our body takes care of itself.

His long-suffering wife was there, crying, as well as their four grown children and spouses. Such great support for him. They were at a loss on how to help him, how to talk to him.

Sharon suggested he go for daily walks and develop hobbies and interests when his 'anhedonia' - lack of pleasure - goes away.

Sharon handed out a mood chart. On here you record your moods between doctor/therapist visits.




Sample dialog from Family Member:

"This is what I've noticed" .....  not sleeping, making many purchases, speaking rapidly

"What can we do about this?" ... work with family member to stabilize mood, such as call doctor or therapist.

Important to avoid hospitalization if possible b/c it takes a big chunk out of your life - timewise, financially, and your self-esteem plummets.

"Tell me why you can't get out of bed. What can I do to help you?"



"What triggered you to feel so depressed?"

The bad economy and inability to get a job, said Sharon, can trigger a bad depression.

Don't allow a family member to isolate themselves. Take a walk with them. Keep them as part of the family even though they don't feel like it when they hit the abyss of depression or the wildness of mania or hypomania.

Many families do not understand that depression is a medical-biological condition and the suffering individual is not simply lazy. This is also one of our columns in the Spring 2013 issue of the Compass: What People with Mood Disorders Want Their Families to Know.

"Jenn" is a newly diagnosed bipolar woman, image off the Net. Like most of us, she doesn't wanna take meds for her recent mania and hospitalization at Horsham Clinic.



Let's say she comes to see Sharon Katz who gets her meds stabilized. As we know, hospitals load up the meds and it's up to the follow-up psychiatrist to taper down the meds.

Why don't we like meds? By taking them, we're reminded that we have an illness disdained by our society.  Knowingly or not, we've taken on this same horrid value system of society. There's no stigma against diabetes or cancer.

Sharon will get the newly diagnosed individual on the right meds, often using the new technique of "genetic saliva assays" she spoke about at her last talk. 

The newly diagnosed between 18 and 30 have the hardest time accepting their illness. 

Sharon will get to know the personality of the individual. "Vibrant, loving, creative," etc.

Our personality is totally out of whack when mania or depression hit. 

Then, upon occasion, she will allow her patient to take a "med vacation." 

Some patients are really insistent on going off the meds, so Sharon will take this into account, as well as women who wish to get pregnant.

Always with the proviso of going back on if necessary.

 It's advisable, said Sharon, to do a family history of mental illness.

Although genetics is not destiny, she said, it's useful to take a look. "Although we never talked about it, your grandfather did kill himself."

"Let's make sure this doesn't happen to you."

Statistics show that people with mental disorders die 25 years earlier than 'normal' people.

Why? Smoking, drinking, risk-taking behavior, using illicit drugs, complications of prescribed medications.



How to help you live successfully with your mood disorder:

- Good sleep hygiene - the most important thing. The family should be aware of the patient's sleeping patterns and discuss it if the individual wakes up at 2 am and cleans the house until 6 am.

- Nutrition - healthy foods including green leafy vegetables.

- Exercise - the mind gets fed as well as the body.

- Vitamin supplements - our neurotransmitters, such as serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine are all built upon basic vitamins.

She recommends you take Folic Acid, B-6, B-12 and D.

- Avoid triggers such as a job you don't like or abusive relationships.

It was wonderful to hear about MOTIVATED individuals who wanted to change their lives. With Sharon's help, a young woman changed jobs, journaled, and lost 150 pounds due to her overmedication when she first saw Sharon.

This woman knew that employees don't like hiring obese individuals. A real health risk!

Let's talk! Here's mom Marion and daughter Diane.

If living at home, the bipolar or depressed individual should:

- Be on a daily schedule. Be awake and showered by 10. This routine is necessary. Even if the person is not responding yet to medication, his or her body is maintaining a similar routine as before the depression.

- Have specific tasks to do around the house. One project per day even if depressed.

- Be on a curfew, if young

- If having an episode, take away car keys, credit cards, etc. These things should be discussed in advance as part of a Family Plan.

- The ill person should learn to verbalize what they're feeling with both their family members and therapist.

  Ah, welcome to my home Ludwig! Nice of you to stop by. Guess you knew I'd been listening to a radio show about you and your Eroica Symphony, narrated by songwriter/performer Suzanne Vega.

Most likely, you suffered from manic-depression during your life. In a letter to your brothers, you wrote, Don't call me ill-tempered or misanthropic, you have no idea of what I'm going through inside. Worst of all, I am losing my hearing. That this should happen to me, of all people, is cause for the utmost despair.

Though there's no sign he tried to kill himself, what Beethoven did was to put his feelings into his Third Symphony Eroica - originally based on Napoleon's triumphs - until he became a dictator.

Beethoven "bent and twisted" symphonic conventions which caused a scandal when it was first performed.

DA-DA-DA-DAH!!! The brief pause after the initial phrases indicated "a look into the abyss" of his mind, said the narrator.

"The Third Symphony shows all the emotions of life. Of Beethoven's life."

Thanks for coming Jim and Ed.  Ed is one of our terrific discussion leaders.

Great job, Sharon! Let me walk you out to your car.

At the foot of the stairs, a group of people from the group were gathered together.... talking! This is what we love! Communication.

Mental Health Awareness Magnets.

$10 apiece. We sold quite a few at the show. Profits go to New Directions, the little support group that could! Hey, Judy, when you gonna come over and pick up your Compass? It's still on the couch waiting for you.

PS - Speaking of genetic assays, my library book club is reading "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." Lacks, a black woman, was dying of cervical cancer, and w/o her permission, doctors grew her cancer cells in a petri dish, which have subsequently been used as the basis to treat and help many conditions. Read today's Times article about the recent publication, again, w/o her family's permission of her entire genome. 

Driving home I come upon an Estate Sale on Greyhorse Road

Was surprised to see a For-Sale sign on Greyhorse Road, a neighboring street. Last autumn, I had talked to an 80-some year-old widow named Lillian who was outside raking her leaves. She moved here from Bala Cynwyd, I believe, to be close to her daughter and family who live a few doors down.

Can she have died? I wondered. I didn't believe so.

Lillian moved. Christina Odusanya, the estate sale coordinator and originally from Ireland, had no idea where she went.

I'd just picked up my Mental Health Awareness Bumper Magnet and was wearing it on my shiny rear end.

After entering Lillian's former house, I slipped off my clogs, so I'd be more be more comfortable exploring all the rooms. I was wearing my PJ bottoms, but no one notices.

She had a beautiful house. Photos courtesy of Trulia.

Someone had bought the huge grandfather clock and a beautiful table in the living room.

They didn't let you bargain, but everything was 20 percent off.

In the carpeted basement, many beautiful linen hand towels were displayed. I picked up a beautiful set for $6, plus a door wreath, and then after thinking about them, put em back down again.

When you're a penniless do-gooder with no friggin' money, you've gotta be careful about every cent you spend.

So I spent $28 cash on my frivolous purchases. No way am I gonna add things to my credit card, since it's the one with the Compass costs on it.

Here's a quilt I bought. It came with a dust ruffle and a pillow case. I told them to keep the dust ruffle. When I began carrying it in from the car, I noticed it smelled. Not a bad smell, probly from laundry detergent.

I tried to stuff the quilt into the washing machine, but it was too fat, so it's airing out on the back porch. The pillow case is in the machine.

It will go in the spare bedroom. Sarah will undoubtedly come home when Max is born at the end of the month.

Lillian had beautiful fake plants. I dunno the name of the one on the left but it's beautiful and from the Trulia photos I see she kept them in the carpeted basement over by the gas fireplace.

The philodendron on the right was in the dining room.

Brilliant idea to have artificial plants that look real. Sarah will be surprised when she comes home from Bklyn to find a plant in her bedroom.

I think I'll put the flowers in the bathroom and remove the garage-sale-purchased abacus that sits on the back of the toilet.

The plants are airing out on the back porch. Can't wait to bring them in!

Yes, we do love our things, don't we?

Mental Health Awareness Magnet - Support Mental Health for $10 apiece

Katy Temple from New Directions designed this bumper sticker magnet. I picked it up this morning from Artistic Screen Designs on Davisville Road in Willow Grove, right around the corner.

Order yours today! Pick one up at a ND meeting or send $10 to New Directions, Box 181, Hatboro, PA 19040.

If possible, enclose an envelope to fit the 8 inch by 3.5 inch magnet inside.

Let's end stigma toward mental illness!