Lonny's Ramblings

Making Lemonade I am the baby in our family and ever since I can remember, I knew that I had a sister who was born and died before my brothers and I were born. I don't know how we all knew or how my parents managed to tell us about their massive personal tragedy. There were no pictures on the walls of Elyse, no keepsakes around for my parents to look at. That was just too painful for them. There was a little suitcase with a few of her things, but it was hidden away in the basement. Her short life was just a fact that we grew up with. It wasn't until many years later that I could have some understanding of the terrible loss my parents had to go through and at such early ages (my mother was 22 and my father was 25 when she died). I thought to myself, how could they go through that, remain sane and go on to having 3 more children? My grandfather, for whom my mother was very close, died when I was 3 months old. This, too was such an overwhelming loss for my mother. I don...

I have been a dog person all my life. We have had Westies (West Highland White Terriers) as adopted family members ever since we discovered that this was the only type of dog my mother wasn't afraid of. For my bar mitzvah, my parents bought me a Westie after our Sherry died. I had Arri for 15 years and then had a 20 year hiatus of not having a dog. My wife never had a pet and was very much against getting a dog. On three different occasions, she agreed for me to get a Westie and then took back her agreement. A dog, unlike so many other types of pets has an incredible impact on the lives of everyone in a house - going away for the weekend or longer, walking it, feeding it, barking, sickness, etc - so bringing in a dog without her agreement would be a recipe for disaster. I learned that many years ago when my father did that. My mother left the house and, in no uncertain terms, told my father that it was either the dog or her. The dog went. My younger daughter loved all things t...