Stories About Judy

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Judy

I met Judy Spevack in 2014, when she and Gil offered to let me use their telephone.  I was staying at a friend’s home outside Albany while researching a book at SUNY Albany, and while there, I got a request to do a live radio interview. My friend’s home had no landline, and radio call-ins never sound good on mobile phones. So I put out  a request on Facebook for a landline in or near Albany. Jenna introduced me to her parents, who volunteered theirs. “They’re actors,” she warned me. “Don’t let them take over the show.”

But Judy and Gil had no intention of taking over the show; instead, they made me feel right at home. When I arrived at the Spevack’s home in Delmar, there was a tray of cheese and crackers set out, and a bottle of wine open. A room had been prepared for me to use the phone. After I did the interview, Judy insisted I stay for dinner. She was cooking a chicken. We ate and then sat and chatted about everything: books, politics, acting, writing, birds, lives. I hadn’t realized how lonely and isolated I had been feeling, living alone in a strange house, spending every day in the archive, eating dinner by myself at the bar of Cafe Capriccio. Judy fed me, befriended me, and made me feel a lot less lonely, all without knowing one thing about me beyond my being a friend of her daughter.

After that, Judy would drop me an email when she read something of mine in Nature Conservancy Magazine, which she read religiously. We exchanged photos of flowers and birds. Whenever I saw her, I felt like I was seeing an old and dear friend. Her face was always lit up with delight, and her mind was always curious. She was a pleasure to know and to talk to. But I always remained grateful for that time when she made me feel like I was among friends with folks I barely knew, and right at home in a strange town.

Continue reading “Judy”

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Movie Judy

“The Producers” 2005 film

The last time I saw Judy was one of the best. Less than a month before she passed out of this life, I went to spend the weekend with her in Delmar. Judy and I have always joked around, and even under the shadow of her recent diagnosis, this weekend was no exception.

We sat around the dining table: Judy, Jenna, my 15-year-old daughter, Vaishali, and me. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but we decided to make a movie. Jobs were quickly assigned: Judy, myself, and Vaishali would be actors, and Jenna would stay behind the scenes as camerawoman.

What was our movie about? Nobody knew, and nobody cared. Jenna got the video rolling. Outside, the gray, upstate New York December put out a 40’s film noir vibe.

I fed Judy a line to get her going. “Okay, Gladys, let me get this straight. You were here all night alone. You’re sure?”

The mysterious ways of improvisation kicked in. Judy slipped easily into the persona of a wealthy heiress robbed of a prized cameo necklace. Long sigh, as she traveled deeper into the world of Gladys, considering her choices.

“Umm… ehh…” she started. “Well, there was a — no.” Her hand slapped the air. “Yes,” she declared. “I was alone.”

“Let’s rethink this, Gladys. What did you do, let’s say, after 5 p.m. dinner? Walk me through it.”

Judy’s actor eyes studied me, and the story machine in her head started chugging. Her hand went to her chin. “It started with me climbing the stairs,” she said. “Laboriously… climbing… stairs.”

We were gripped. If she’d been performing to a full house at Lincoln Center, she couldn’t have delivered her lines with more conviction. We weren’t just goofing around her dining room table — this was a gig.

Continue reading “Movie Judy”

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Slow and Persistent

Ashes in Maine

When we lose
Someone we love,

It’s not enough to say
Our hearts are broken,

The sentence
Doesn’t end there.

Rather, our hearts
Are broken Open,

Deeper, wider, such that,
The more we lose,

The more worn away
And hollowed out,

The greater our gift
For loving becomes.

This slow
And persistent grief

Wears away
Soft passages

Inside us,
The way water

Weaves through
Limestone and marble.

This elaborate
Network of caves,

Beautiful,
Dark and blue,

And the cool, cool
Wind formed

From our
Very own breath.

—

By David Mussen

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Judy Mom

I knew and loved Judy as my girlhood best friend’s mom, and, as such, she was a second mother to me during those complicated teenage years.  She shared many of the same traits as my own mom, also a Judy, but she was an anomaly in the realm of friends’ moms as she was uniquely open and patient and present.  In the face of all our struggles and mischief she was there to listen and to empathize.

She was also so definitively her own person. I loved her eagerness to experiment with her careers and talents. I constantly asked her to play the video tape of her laundry detergent commercial. Why was it so thrilling to see Judy with her “That Girl” hair flip running through a field, holding the hands of two children long before there was Jenna and Aaron?

Though she grew up without her own mother, somewhere along the way she figured out how to excel in her role as a real mom. Through her patience and empathy, creativity, sense of humor, and youthful enthusiasm she totally nailed the Mom gig.  And somehow she managed to make the two kids and a loving husband and lots of pets and a house in the suburbs seem so unconventional.  She was a natural.

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Gone Before

image of Blaisdell Plaque
Blaisdell Plaque

So many have gone before
Some just stories of struggle and success
The genetic fiber weaves itself
into the person I am becoming
Life leads me in busyness
to neglect their breath of life
now dead. A puff away from
my own existence, and yet I forget.
Remember, I must, these people
of old. I share their spirit
within my soul. The wind of
history can steer the course
and I, I may not know.
– MPS

Judy was on a journey to discover her past, her heritage. Her mother died when she was very young. Because of her father’s deep grief, her mother was not talked about much if ever after her funeral. In her memoir, Judy shares a story of the day of her mother’s funeral. The large black car slowly drove up to the front of their house. Her father and grandparents walked down the steps, got into the car and were driven away. Judy was left on the porch not knowing where they were going or where her mother had gone. This image inspired Judy to dig deeply into her family history. Being an only child, and having no close family, she did not know where to start. Finding a box of old family photos, Judy began trying to piece together her family history. She found one or two pictures of her mother. There were other family pictures, but most had no labels to identify the people. Judy was frustrated by the lack of information but was determined to find life in her heritage.

Visiting Pemaquid Point, Maine several years ago, Judy came upon a memorial rock. It was a memorial to the Blaisdell Family. Judy was thrilled. Being a Blaisdell, she finally had a sense of her roots.

Judy’s stories of memoir are funny, touching and sad. She was always searching to hear the voices of the past. She did not have time to solve the mystery of all the people in the old family photos, but she left us with a sense of peace. She must be celebrating with the mom she lost all too early for both.

Judy in Maine
Judy in Maine
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Goodbye to Judy

My writing group friend, Judy, died early this year from a brain bleed out caused by her glioblastoma brain cancer.  Her death was unexpected. She was going to have a brain map done to prepare for the next step in healing, but the illness and her brain wore out first.  We didn’t have a chance to say goodbye or to visit in the last weeks. My flu virus stole our last moments. We emailed instead, each cyber note mentioning love. Love seemed to be her last language:

I will cherish the love sent to me and our family by your caring and love. 
I wish I could have thanked you in person. Your love and caring spreads wide.

Love, Judy

Thank you for all the love you spread. May you have a wonderful holiday filled with joy and a special time with family and love ones. You are the “tops!” Looking forward to our next get together. I cherish you.
Judy

I wanted to see her and catch once more the slight smile on her sweet, ageless face.  Judy stayed young and vibrant in her own way right to the end. Age has its stereotypes:  short grey-lavender hair and elasticized-waist pants, but Judy’s wore a pale blonde pageboy and rocked some serious jeans.

She wrote memoir and screen plays, but also occasional poems.  Who writes tender visual pieces at 80? Judy did. She wrote about old apartments, being a flight attendant, dogs she loved, or the nun who stole her chance of finding God in a particular denominational form.  And of course, her first and successive years without her mother. For this she is one of my heroes, a motherless girl who found her way to be a girl, a wife, a mother, and a woman without her mother walking beside her. Each of her pieces is a treasure, a golden nugget made all the more precious because of her willingness to hear the writing group’s reactions and incorporate them—immediately. She scribbled our suggestions down as we said them, all of us sitting around the dining room table with her writing in front of us.  She trusted us that much.

We met at each other’s homes.  At least twice we met at Judy’s home, a lovely cottage with photos of her in theatrical presentations, her children, her grandchildren, and her beloved Gil. She would set out china teacups with little cookies she baked, and I was swept into an era that honored gentler things. Once she emailed us to say she was babysitting a little white pup.  She wanted us to be certain we understood the dog was an honored guest, too, so please accept him as best as you can. I can’t imagine Judy rejecting anyone, much less a little white pooch. I think he sat between us on the sofa and we both petted him throughout the meeting.

I want to believe that Judy will be with us the next time we meet, that she will bring some little cookies and will ask us what we think about her last piece.  I want to tell her again how great she looks in those jeans and see that sweet hint of a smile. “You paved a road for me, Judy,” I want to say. “You grew older your own beautiful way.”  Heaven seems a little closer, a little more doable because she slipped away first, graciously and predictably, without making too much trouble for anyone right to the end.

I want to believe we will be sitting together with some little white pup between us, laughing at life and how all the cruelest things, all the losses, couldn’t hold us back from our share of its joys.

God bless you, sweet Judy.
I will always love you and your sweet spirit.

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Butterfly

Judy at the Natural History Museum.
Butterfly Pavilion – NYC 2016

I saw Judy on stage at CapRep once and her performance as a miserable old lady gave me no desire to meet her. Years later, when she joined our writing group, I changed my mind. Her stories about moving in with grandmother, bonding with a dog, scanning the skies for enemy planes, flying cross-country as a stewardess fascinated me. When others read, she listened with patience. She gave helpful hints in a soothing voice. If I thought of the miserable old lady on stage, the memory told me Judy was a talented actress.

Then came the diagnosis. During precious final days, the real Judy wasn’t acting: bright eyes, soothing voice and even perfect hair endured.  So did insight, courage, curiosity. She accepted her prognosis, talked about it, but never gave up. “I want to live,” she told me with just a hint of tears.

A poem she wrote in December tells me she was confident she would, somehow, do that:

Butterfly
Blue, Orange, Black
Rises to heights unknown
Calmly returns

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Knowing Judy

Pat and Judy in Maine
Pat and Judy in Maine

I am Judy’s cousin. My dad Frank was her mom Ida’s brother.  In the early 90’s we visited Judy and shared a family album with a few pictures of Ida on the farm in Kearney, NE. Judy wanted to know all about her mom- what my dad and she did together. My dad told stories of taking Ida to a barn dance on the buck board horse carriage. Judy recorded these conversations on tape and camera. I remember her mom faintly, as I was only six.  We played together a lot when we were little and then grew apart, her being in New York and me in California, but we kept in contact through family gatherings.  Her dad ‘Blais’ was very witty and it was a big deal when he came to visit.  I am still very saddened about her death; can’t seem to accept the fact she is gone; every day I think about her. I am so glad I got to visit her in October of 2017, before we knew of the dreaded disease.  She was blessed with a wonderful husband, Gil, great kids, Jenna and Aaron, and a grand-daughter she admired and had so much fun with.

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Backyards

photo of shared backyards
 
Judy was our neighbor for over 30 years. Our backyards abut one another, so our lives were inextricably entwined, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. There were so many days when Julie and I would be in our kitchen looking out our large breakfast nook window and see Judy buzzing around her yard, straw hat lamp-shading her head, gardening tools in hand. She was as much a reliable part of our everyday life as the sun rising in the morning. Often, we’d come home from work or open our back door on a weekend morning and find a treasure trove of greenery piled on our back stoop. Kale. Beet greens. Flowers. All freshly picked from her garden. In the fall, our backyard raking would be mercifully paused by visits with Judy and Gil at the border of our yards. We’d talk about children, movies, books, food, politics. Any imaginable topic covered with insight, intelligence and humor. She was a cherished neighbor and friend. Our backyard will never be the same.