Sasha Turns 19

My baby is not only all grown-up, but true to her declaration uttered when she was a mere ten-year-old, Sasha is now a Freshman Acting Major at NYU.

It is oh-so-strange not to be with my daughter on her birthday, but the fact that she celebrated with dear friends at the beloved Serendipity makes a happy dad.

My dear friends Jeremy and Aubrey welcomed their first child this past Sunday, a son named Arthur Stewart.

There are no kinder and sweeter people in the world than Jeremy and Aubrey and so young Arthur is is good hands. The world is a better place for his presence.

Congrats Jeremy and Aubrey and to the greater Lopatin and Alter clans!

The next stop for Jeremy, Arthur, Jeremy (my son) and I is Bonnaroo 2021!

Happy Birthday Jeremy!!

The key stats here are: 14 years old 6′ 1″ (and growing), size 14 feet (and hopefully done growing).

Yes my Jeremy is now 14 years old and taller than his old man! Next fall begins the High School years chapter with Jeremy attending Ann Arbor’s Community (Commie) High along with Sasha.

This evening Sasha returned from her week long trip to Paris. She came back sporting a beautiful Parisian hair cut that makes her look even more like a future movie star (if that is possible). The poor girl has always felt that Ann Arbor is too small to contain her, and having lived in Brooklyn last summer and now after her return from Paris, I imagine her distaste for Michigan is growing exponentially.

Welcome home baby girl!

It was seventeen years ago today that the most wonderful Daughter a Dad could ask for was born. I’ve truly lucked out in the child lottery and have been graced with a miraculous Daughter. This spring brings college visits and the next time you read this birthday wish for my baby, she’ll be of voting age!

Sasha, your strength, tenacity and compassion make you the kind of woman that the world needs more of.

Those of us in our 40′s have gotten used to dealing with mortality. With our parents in their 70′s and 80′s, dealing with the death of a family member has become something we have had to learn to live with. But the death of someone of our age hits us like a sledgehammer. A couple of years ago my dear friend Tim lost his wife to cancer – that was the first time that I felt the sting of death so close to me.

Tonight my brother told me of the death of my cousin Marian from lung cancer. She was only 52 and left behind three children. Death is as much a part of life as birth is, and although I had known that Marian had been battling cancer for a while, it still shook me to think such a lovely human being was gone.

It saddens me to say that I have not been close with my cousins over the years. Long ago battles between our parents and grandparents put the distance into place and I so wish I had not let old wounds from an older generation keep me from the cousins I was once close with.

When I think of Marian McNeill, I think of my fellow former wild-child from an otherwise straitlaced family, she with her red hair and Irish features she inherited from her father. I think of the fact that when I picture her, I can only see her smiling, She was a lovely, kind human being and the fact that she is gone at 52 makes me deeply sad.

After he lost his brother in a plane crash, my old friend Garnet Rogers began to live by the rule that you never miss the opportunity to say I love you to those who are at the center of your world. It may be trite to say, but life is too short and too uncertain to not say what you feel to those you love.

Rest in peace Marian.

Those of you following our family Broadway show saga from home, we got our official cancellation for this Wednesday’s performance for Legally Blonde. Given the fiscal importance of the holiday season, I was almost completely sure that the Broadway strike would have ended last night. Today’s cancellation gave me little more than one day to come with Plan B.

One of the great things about New York is the depth and breadth of the theater scene. Thankfully for Sasha and Jeremy, there were any number of Off-Broadway show with tickets still available.

Looking for something that would please a 13 year-old boy and an almost 17 year-old girl, I chose Altar Boyz, “a new musical about a struggling Christian boy-band riding the wave of America’s latest fascination with religion.” The New York Times loved the show, and so I’m hopeful that our day in the city will be as fun as last year’s.

The McGowan-Onassis Clan wish you a happy Halloween, especially Sasha O!

Eight years ago when I was working at Borders.com, I turned to my next-door neighbor Beth, the children’s book editor, and asked her for suggestions for books to read with my then five-year-old, Jeremy. We were coming out of the long and wonderful Dr. Seuss period and were looking for something a bit more challenging. “What about the Harry Potter books?” Beth asked, referring to the then two book series that was starting to get attention here in the states. After Beth’s reassurance that the books would be okay (with a little parental editing of the scariest parts) for a five-year-old, Jeremy and I snuggled up in bed and began reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.

Flash-forward eight years and Jeremy is now quickly approaching high school and the six foot mark with alarming rapidity. This morning he woke up early, came to my bedroom, and for the final time we opened the last of the large and familiar tomes and brought the seven year-long Harry Potter saga to a close. When we came to the epilogue, I got sad and Jeremy took the book from me, and while I listened, eyes closed, he read the final few pages to me. It was a sweet bookmark to the eight years we had spent covering all those thousands of pages together.

The great gift of the Harry Potter books is that they, in many ways, brought back the dying art of reading. The idea of hours long lines and parties at midnight, all for the release of a book brings joy to my heart. Our nightly ritual of reading together has been one of the strongest bonds that Jeremy and I have shared, and though there were many other books we read in the past eight years other than Harry Potter, the Potter books provide the framework for our last eight years.

If you’ve got young kids, don’t stop reading to them even when they get older and more independent. Keep finding books that challenge both of you – there is something magical (no pun intended) and binding about the sound of the human voice reading from a book perched on your chest. Reading to or being read to by someone you love dearly is as good as it gets.
Thank you Harry Potter.

Hooray! Jeremy is back home after his three week trip to Europe as part of the People to People Student Ambassador Program.

Malta, Sicily, Italy, Monaco & France, Jeremy’s been on the trip of a life time.
For those of you keeping score from home, you can read the blog from his trip here.

Tomorrow morning at 4am I hop on the Amtrak in Toledo and head to Brooklyn to pick up Sasha after her three week trip away from home, studying acting at the SOCAPA Acting For Film Camp.

Three weeks without my babies, I’m so happy to have Jeremy back, and in two days the three of us will be together in Brooklyn!