Friday the 13th

Paths Converging in the Wild, Wild Wood

Robert Frost made great hay out of two paths diverging in the woods. Of late, especially since my wife “rang the bell” on March 4^th, I have been far more interested in the way paths converge, often when the traveler does not expect it. For those people who are unaware (and until the day in question, I was one of them), the end of daily radiation treatments for cancer patients is frequently commemorated through the ringing of a bell. This ritual signifies the transition from active cancer treatments into post-cancer survival therapies. My father would have been particularly pleased that this ritual took place for his daughter-in-law on March 4^th, as he always loved that day, often pointing out that it was “the only command on the calendar”. My cousin, Daisy Gordon, literally calls it “Command Day”. So, it could not have been more fitting that on March the 4^th, Lily marched forth into her post-cancer survivorship.

That the same day of the calendar marking this ritual of transition for my wife was also my sister’s birthday, served to make the day a personal convergence of two paths. Moving forward, the fourth of March will be a day of celebration for the path from illness to health that my wife has been walking. It will be an anniversary of her new beginning. It will also always be a reminder of not only my beloved sister’s birth, but also her death, and the absence of her in my life. So, two very different paths converging on the same day, inspiring, no doubt, a wide array of emotions and recollections within me.

A few days after ringing the bell, Lily was strong enough for us to head out of town for the first time since Thanksgiving. Though we were only traveling as far as Montecito, I really did not know if she would be up for it. Those radiation treatments are serious business and quite a while before we reached the end of them, Lily was spending most of her days exhausted. Less than 36 hours after ringing the bell, however, her delightfully eccentric sense of fun had returned. She announced this fact by making me laugh in a way that had been a regular occurrence prior to her Christmas Eve surgery, but which she had not been able to attempt in the ensuing weeks.

Lily’s mother, Betsy, and stepfather, Barlow, made the trip out to Santa Barbara to spend several days with us. It was the first time Lily had been able to see her mother since October. One night, at Lucky’s Steakhouse in Montecito, as we celebrated this much-needed mother-daughter reunion, as well as my mother-in-law’s birthday, I confided in Betsy that the feeling I had was the same as when we were emerging from the pandemic. In both instances, after months of being or feeling “bunkered”, we had emerged from mostly staying in shelter and found ourselves reunited with Betsy and Barlow at Lucky’s in Montecito. Indeed, our very first return to indoor dining at a restaurant (after getting our Covid shots) was at that venerable steakhouse. All these years later, it truly felt as if our post-pandemic and post-cancer paths had converged. Unfortunately, during the intervening years between those two meals, I had forgotten that two of the classic gin martinis at Lucky’s is definitely one too many!

A few days later, on Friday the 13^th, I again found my path converging with the past, when I realized that the last time we had a Friday the 13^th in the month of March was six years prior, in 2020. It was the first day I had ever visited the Montecito property that has become our home away from home. The next day, Saturday March 14 2020, in the woods outside Cupertino (where I grew up), Lily and I had a memorial for my mother. And the day after that, lockdown orders went into effect around the country. Lily and I drove through Turlock on our way back to Los Angeles that day, so that we might check on my father and my sister. It would be the last time Lily ever saw my father alive. I have never had any superstitious feelings towards Fridays the 13^th. Yet, now, I sort of wish future calendars might just skip the 13^th of March when it falls on a Friday, the way so many high-rise elevators seemingly skip the 13^th floor.

We had been unable to travel anywhere by airplane ever since Lily began her testing and treatments in May of last year. With her Christmas Eve surgery a success, however, Lily began to set her sights on visiting the D.C. area for the first time since late 2024. In addition to spending time with family and friends with whom she grew up, she desired to celebrate Easter in the nation’s capital. Life-saving surgery on Christmas Eve followed by recovery and personal resurrection on Easter. The plan made sense to me. So, in the early morning hours of March the 24^th, along with trusty feline companion Fuzz Aldrin, we found ourselves waiting at Delta Gate 22 in Terminal 2 at LAX. Lily had eschewed the wheelchair arranged for her by the airline. She was definitely feeling the effort it took to make it thru check-in and TSA, however, when we heard the following announcement: “Would Jane Fonda and Lily Leirness please come to the desk.”

Though this was the first time these two performers shared billing together, I have high hopes it will not be the last. In this instance, the reason these ladies were urged to come forward was because they were to board first. What I learned about Jane Fonda that morning is that she actually prefers to board last (perhaps so she won’t have to sit captive in a fishbowl, feeling all eyes upon her). On the other hand, what I learned about my wife is she really can use the extra time boarding first affords her. In fact, she probably always should have boarded first. It would have made countless trips far less stressful for me. In this instance, given her uncertain strength, and her sudden and frequent side effects-induced need for restrooms, early boarding was an absolute godsend. Sure enough, as soon as she had made certain that Fuzz was settled in beneath the seat in front and had verified that I had correctly placed her carry-on luggage into the overhead space according to her exact specifications, Lily immediately availed herself of the on-board facilities. Full boarding had yet to commence when she returned and announced, “I saw Laura Friedman!”

Los Feliz sits squarely within California’s 30^th Congressional District. Our representative is Laura Friedman. The last time my path had crossed with the honorable Congresswoman was at a town hall sponsored by the Los Feliz Improvement Association. I served as master of ceremonies at that event and it was there where I first announced publicly the news of Lily’s cancer diagnosis. Now my path and the Congresswoman’s were converging again at the start of Lily and my first post-cancer trip. On that long ago-seeming night at the town hall in Friendship Auditorium, Representative Friedman had a “hard out” (another event she needed to attend), which I knew to be a birthday party for her daughter. Yet, instead of making a timely departure that night, she loitered in order to be able to spend a few moments in conversation with me. She shared with me her own story of survival and offered to be available to Lily and me should we ever need to talk.

Our paths converging on Delta Flight 392 allowed Lily and me to share with Representative Friedman the news of Lily’s prognosis, express our appreciation for her humanity, and to tell her how much her words had meant to us. I also got to thank her for her hard work on her constituents’ behalf and tell her how much I admire her taste in eyeglass frames (look her up - she sports seriously bad ass frames!). She introduced us to her daughter (with whom she was traveling) and invited us to visit her on “the hill” for a tour. That kind invitation was one Lily was not yet physically prepared to accept. More than that, however, considering that coming weekend’s “No Kings” protests, we planned on giving the Capitol a wide berth during our stay.

Not that I was going to eschew my civic duty, of course. Indeed, I went with my mother-in-law and step-father-in-law and their friends to the No Kings rally in the Friendship Heights section of Bethesda, Maryland. The crowd there was definitely on the older side. I might actually have been one of the younger protesters at that locale! It was heartening to see so much joy and wit embodied by so many in service of protest. My favorite sign that I saw read, “Even if I wanted a king, it wouldn’t be this guy!”

As I stood on a particularly well-trafficked corner, taking in the exuberant show of community going on all around me, in again, an area literally known as “Friendship Heights”, I realized that I had packed up and brought with me on the trip a whole lot of sadness. It was a sadness I had only let myself glimpse when my guard was down, and then, only out of the corner of my eye, and it was becoming assuaged by the sights and sounds and energy around me. My friend Isaac Prado sings a song he describes as being about the silence of “not wanting to show our sadness for fear of the flowers dying.” Since Lily’s cancer diagnosis, I have known the sadness of witnessing her fear and pain. I have known the sadness of having no idea what would become of me if something happened to her. I have known the sadness of utter powerlessness. Though I have also known great joy amidst the sadness, what I have not known is the freedom to speak of such sadness in any meaningful way. It was not a freedom I was refused. It was one I denied myself out of fear I would be unable to control it, that I would, in the process of expressing it, kill so many flowers and do so at a time when I was all too aware of their fragility.

Being on the East Coast at Easter is a powerful reminder that the flowers do bloom again. Kyoto, Japan, is one of my favorite places on Earth. I was fortunate enough to visit there while the ancient imperial palace was open and while the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. At the time, I doubted I would ever be in a locale more breathtaking in its beauty. Of course, I didn’t know then that in 2026, I would be able to stroll through the Kenwood neighborhood of Chevy Chase, Maryland, with Lily, her siblings, and their mother. It was both a stroll down memory lane, as it was the neighborhood where Lily grew up, and a nature walk, as the canopy of full-bloom cherry blossoms created tunnels of color on the residential streets. D.C. was famously gifted thousands of cherry blossom trees by Japan and tourists visit every year to take them in. The Tidal Basin, East Potomac Park and the National Mall are just a few of the iconic locales of these trees. Take it from me, though (an insider’s tip if you will), Kenwood in full bloom cannot be beat. Lily returned to the neighborhood several times during our two-week stay back east. Being surrounded by the rebirth of those trees did her healing a world of good. Everywhere we went those two weeks, Lily paid particular attention to the astonishing array of flowers we encountered.

The “Lil and Phil” suite in the Overlook neighborhood of Bethesda, Maryland, offers us (and especially Fuzz) a breathtaking view of a spectacular grove of trees. When we arrived, they were still in their midwinter state of stark nudity (why is it humans shed their clothes in warm weather, but plants and trees shed theirs in cold?). In fact, the trees were so bare I would have sworn that they must have been dead. Remember, I’m a West Coast boy, born and raised, and after forty years in Los Angeles, spring is more of a concept to me than an actual season. So, to witness those trees burst back to full vibrant life in a matter of days was nothing short of astonishing. I truly believe I could actually see the leaves grow before my very eyes! Maybe this means I am old, but the phrase “watching the grass grow”, which used to be to me a descriptor of something being boring, now seems like a miraculous activity for which I would gladly volunteer.

Just down the road from the grove of trees is Little Falls Stream Valley Park, in the shadow of the Capital Crescent Trail. Though there is a paved path leading through the park, if one sticks close to the stream, much of the park can feel like wild woods. It is this experience I usually choose, as I did one day while taking Fuzz for a hike. The plan was to meet up with Lily and my sister-in-law somewhere in the park. As the minutes crept by, and the temperature started to go down, and Fuzz grew restless inside the cat backpack I wore (on my front, actually), I realized we needed to be on the move. I was hopeful that Lily would find us somewhere in the woods. This did not happen, however, and as the time wore on, Fuzz, now outside of her backpack and showing no interest in the ducks frolicking near the stream’s shore, chose to go in search of Lily. While Fuzz marched through the woods, calling out with increasingly plaintive howls, I was struck by a debilitating thought: This is what life would be like if something happened to Lily.

By the time Fuzz and my paths did converge with that of Lily and her sister, almost an hour had passed. I was in bad shape. My back was locking up from carrying Fuzz on the front of me, and my emotional well-being was in an even more fragile state. I handed Lily the cat backpack, said, “You need to carry her” and made it back to the Lil and Phil suite as fast as I could. Once there, I lay facedown, flat on the floor of a walk-in closet (that doubles as my podcast studio). I did not move for more than an hour. There were times during Lily’s dance with cancer where I felt the pull towards paralysis, physically, emotionally, and mentally. Now that we were, if you will pardon the expression, out of the woods, I plunged into that paralysis.

As Lily I walked this path over the past year, what has frequently kept me out of any kind of paralysis is my drive to celebrate those things that matter to me. So, on Easter Sunday at St. David’s Episcopal Church, I found myself particularly moved by a panel in the stained glass behind the altar. It depicts King David and features the words, “I will sing and give praise”. Lily’s journey since Christmas Eve had been one of rebirth. It has been an arduous journey, at times. I am truly grateful to have witnessed it. In that church pew, I heard the rain outside, I smelled the freshly bloomed flowers both inside the church and out, and I allowed myself to be swept along upwards by the collective of voices in shared song all around me. I thought about how it is possible to re-grow the parts that have died. Nature teaches us this. Offering a joyful noise unto the creator and celebrating all that truly matters is what makes that growth possible for me.

Following Lily’s cancer treatments, her recovery from surgery, and her radiation treatments, it was a bit of a gut punch to realize that the next phase for her medically (the post-cancer treatments) will last for many years. Since getting back from the east coast some four weeks ago, she has been sick. Her illness has been caused by a confluence of factors, but the side effects from her various medications, as well as her reaction to the pills she takes to quell those side effects, will take some getting used to I am sure. I, myself, succumbed to a particularly painful bout with a viral condition and what got me out of it was the opportunity to celebrate my neighborhood, my love of movies, and the value I place on people coming together to share in story. At a time when joy itself can seem under attack, gathering together in community for story, for song, for protest, is no luxury. It is necessity.

The next Friday the 13^th on the calendar will serve as a reminder to me of this fact. It will be in November. On Friday the 13^th of November in 2015 gunmen and suicide bombers conducted a coordinated series of attacks that culminated in a massacre at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris. For as long as we have been together (almost 19 years now), Lily has had a large framed poster advertising the Bataclan. It now hangs on the wall on my side of the bed. On that day in November, my path will converge with all those whose lives were irrevocably altered by the worst of human impulses, to seek out joy and community and attack them. And I will continue to sing and give praise.