Monthly Archives: January 2026

To my brother Aaron, who couldn’t be with us to say goodbye to Judy.

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Brother Aaron, nearly 70 years have passed since you were born. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you.

Just last May, while we were in Chicago for a family reunion, I saw our distant cousin Daniel J. in Hyde Park where we all lived when we were born.

Daniel is a pediatrician. He was a co-founder of the “Lab” school for kids at U. of Chicago where you studied before we moved to California. He spoke earnestly and eagerly of his fond memories.

Your best friend from the Lab school, Professor W., has always stayed in touch with me. We’ve even shared a bottle of Nebbiolo or two as we talked about your life.

He’s a famous law professor at Harvard. Every time he and I connect, I am reminded of how Judy used to say that you would have been the first Jewish U.S. Attorney General.

When I got to La Jolla High School, so many of my teachers told me that they expected a lot out of Aaron Parzen’s younger brother. I tried my best, brother, to follow in your footsteps.

My memories of you are hazy: I was five when you died, you were 15. Judy used to tell me how much you adored me and took me everywhere you went.

I have strong, crystal-clear memories of the day you died. And the day we buried you, in the same plot where Judy is now buried. I can see the scene in my mind like it was yesterday.

You couldn’t be there with me on New Year’s as I sat alone in the early hours of rainy La Jolla morning and dug through our mom’s photography and papers.

But you were in my heart, as you always are.

I barely knew you but I miss you more now than ever.

Four tragedies shaped the arc of our family’s troubled life. The second of those was your death, the tragic outcome of a misguided teenage road trip. The photo above was taken not long before you died.

Know that no matter what happens, I will always speak your name. And my children will, too. And they will tell their children about you. We will always speak your name. I love you.

When a soccer game is more important than family, even as we say goodbye to Judy.

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Above: the last sunrise I’ll most likely ever see in my mom’s La Jolla apartment. That’s the full moon.

Last week, Tracie, the girls, and I traveled to La Jolla for family vacation. I spent the better part of the week sorting through my mom’s apartment and shipping precious photography and other documents back to Texas where I plan to build an archive for her.

We had planned to gather as a family in La Jolla, earlier in the month, the first weekend in December, although without our daughters — just me and Tra, my brothers and their wives. The mission was to dig through the apartment, leaf through hand-written memories people had shared at the memorial, spend a day, maybe a meal together, reminiscing.

Some days before our trip, brother Micah called to say that he unexpectedly wouldn’t be there that weekend. He was traveling outside San Diego for a soccer game. He would sort through the things on his own and inform us as to what he was taking.

That wasn’t what we planned, I protested.

It was a complicated weekend for us but we had figured it out. A Herculean effort, with a bar mitzvah, an audition, and a friend’s recital for the girls to attend. I turned down a juicy gig with my band. Tra put clients on hold. Her parents cancelled their participation in a credit union board event (Randy’s mayor of West Orange).

Micah, how could you do this?, I pleaded. This is really messing us up.

I have to do what I have to do for my mental health, he said.

A soccer game?

We rescheduled for our winter break. Not only did he not meet me. He didn’t even have the courtesy to tell me that he was punking me again — a pattern through our lives. No call, no show.

Thing is, his soccer team lost and there was no match that first weekend of December. It was all just a game he was playing.

How can he dishonor the memory of our mother like this?

Some years ago he changed the name of his museum from the Museum of Man to the Museum of Us. I applauded at the time.

Seems his next project is Museum of Me.

.דאָס איז אַ שאַנדע און אַ חרפּה