Page 418 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
Two-Way Signs
When Sylvia died, Michael had not accepted the idea that his marriage was over, and Phyllis and I were both as angered as we were saddened that Michael’s focus seemed to be more on Susan than on his mother. The split seemed to be irreconcilable to me, but not to Michael. All that I felt was pity for him and anger toward Susan, but I don’t recall believ- ing that their problem could be our problem. Perhaps I should have, and perhaps I did, but to me, so many things pointed in a different direction.
After all, many marriage-affirmative acts had occurred since we had reunited in late 1977. Probably most significant to me was a decision that we had arrived at in or around 1982: Phyllis and I agreed that I would follow the example of a good friend, Alan Nieder, and have a vasectomy and, therefore, no more children. That was an operation that someone of my age who believed divorce to be a possibility was not at all likely to undergo. As far as I was concerned, there could be little that was more marriage-affirmative than a mutually agreed-upon vasectomy. I assumed that Phyllis felt the same way.
And I had little doubt that my responses to Sylvia’s death added to the solidity of our marriage. After Sylvia’s death, I viewed my role as a caretaker for Phyllis. Everything was subordinated to her need for heal- ing. As I have described, I essentially ran the shiva and the events that surrounded the funeral, and I attended to her need to say Kaddish virtu- ally every day. Phyllis seemed to have clearly appreciated what I was doing for her. (Even after we ultimately divorced, Phyllis made a point of telling me that she would never forget what I had done for her and her family after the loss of her mother.) And I insisted that we go to Little Dix Bay for a week, so that she (and I) might have a respite and change of scenery. She appreciated that as well.
As I’ve also said, after Sylvia’s death, Rabbi Turetsky became even more involved with Harry and, more important, with us. After Harry made the pledge to have the eternal light named for Sylvia, I was “hon- ored” by the rabbi by being given the role of chanting the haftorah on the
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