Thursday, 14 May 2015

I got up fairly early this morning and enjoyed a nice, full walk.

I spent several hours in the middle of the day talking on FaceTime with my daughter in California. We just chit-chatted about all kinds of things. We both enjoyed it so much. I don't know why we don't do it more often. Perhaps we will now.

For lunch, I went to Greg Café at Mercaz Big and had their delicious fatoush salad.

David's funeral was at 5:30, and it wasn't until I got there that I realized that a minyan (10 adult Jewish males) might be a problem. Fortunately, my dear WIZO friends were thinking more clearly, and so managed a minyan very nicely without having to pull in strangers (remember that, very unfortunately, they do NOT count women for a minyan here). The guys who led the prayers seemed like simple but honest and sincere men. Of course, I only picked up words here and there from their mumbling, but they still did an important service. I actually rather like the very basic way they do funerals here in Israel. There is NO casket at all, just the dead person wrapped in a shroud. They simply slide the body off the stretcher into the grave, and then anyone who wants to can participate in shoveling the dirt. It seems shocking at first if you're used to the very euphemistic American way, but it actually is more helpful in accepting the final, shocking reality of death. "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return."

To conclude today's post, I'd like to share a brief life sketch of David that I actually began assembling earlier. This is a just-the-fact-ma'am story of David's life. Later, I'll try to put together and more person and emotional piece about him.

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David Fyffe z”l was born on 29 December 1955 in Chillicothe, Ohio, and spent most of his childhood in a hollow (small valley) a few miles south of town.

After finishing high school, he went to barber school and, later, beauty school in Columbus, Ohio. For a while, he had his own shop in Columbus.

In the early 80s, he, his partner at that time, and a dear friend of theirs decided to leave Ohio and move to California because they were tired of the cold winters.

Shortly after arriving in California, David embraced Judaism and joined Beth Chayim Chadashim (BCC), a synagogue in Los Angeles with mostly gay and lesbian members. He was very active in the synagogue life and was one of its lay leaders until he moved to Israel.

Around this same time, David was mugged on the street, and his left eye was damaged. A while later, he gradually went totally blind. He remained blind for a number of years and learned to read Braille. After some surgeries, though, his eyesight was restored.

The tragedy of the AIDS epidemic struck the LGBT community very hard around then, as well. David lost his dear partner, James, and more than 300 other friends. He himself was also diagnosed with the disease, but he was lucky enough and smart enough (he demanded the medicines as soon as they became available even though he wasn’t yet that sick) to manage to survive, along with a very few others.

In the autumn of 1995, he met Arlan Wareham at BCC, and shortly thereafter moved in with him. They were united in a beautiful ceremony at BCC on 1 June 1996 and were inseparable after that.

As David’s health improved some, he went back to school to renew his hairdressing license and worked for a while again in that field, but it proved somewhat difficult for him. In 2003, he enrolled in a 2-year program in Computer Network Engineering and completed it in 2005, earning his A.S. (Associate in Science) degree.

Just before the end of 2005, Arlan and David made aliyah (immigrated to Israel) together. They bought a brand new house in Tsfat and began enjoying life in this amazing land.

During the Second Lebanon War, David and Arlan remained in their house in Tsfat for almost the entire time. One morning, a volley of two Hizbollah missiles hit very close to the house, doing some minor damage. A ball bearing from the rocket flew through the bedroom window and within a meter of David’s head as he was getting dressed after a shower, striking the air conditioner near the ceiling on the opposite side of the room.

In February of 2012, Arlan and David sold their house in Tsfat and moved to Eilat, renting an apartment there. Although they both loved the North, the house was too big, and the winters were too cold. Both of them really fell in love with Eilat.

Over the years in Israel, David’s health began to slowly deteriorate. He was hospitalized numerous times for various reasons and was never healthy enough to work in Israel. His health also limited his ability to learn Hebrew, something which he always felt a bit bad about. His cognitive abilities in general also began to decline, almost undetectably at first.

Several months after moving to Eilat, he went totally blind again for no known reason. After some months, his vision returned and then went away again and then returned again. No one was ever able to figure out why, even though he was thoroughly checked.

In his last several months, his cognitive problems became quite a bit more apparent, and he was diagnosed with HIV-related dementia. Although this came and went to some degree, it got to the point where he rarely could manage to get a complete sentence out without forgetting what he was trying to say.

In the last several weeks he was hospitalized 3 times and also spent some time in a long-term care facility.

Early in the morning on 13 May 2015, he finally succumbed to all his illnesses and passed to his eternal rest. He was laid to rest in Eilat on 14 May 2015.

Besides his partner, Arlan, David leaves behind two sisters, Faye and Joyce, and nieces and nephews in the U.S., and a multitude of friends around the world, all of whom will miss him very much.