Lenny came home today. There was a knock on the door. A few seconds later, he was gently placed on my favorite chair—the one with soft gray and green pussy willows. And there he sat while I sensed his essence, imagining how he would laugh at the whole spectacle.
Before he arrived, while his postage was being calculated, I used my dowsing pendulum to inquire, “Would Len be happier here or there?” It’s a bit late to be asking such questions. The reality is, it did not matter to him. He is on the next leg of the journey, having left Earth some six years prior, and could not have cared less.
So, bring him home. And what exactly is the definition of home? Perhaps all of us would benefit from that definition, regardless of our stage of life.
Was it in Florida on our cousin’s garage shelf while she contemplated sprinkling him in the garden? Or was his home with me, in my living room, 3,000 miles from where he had lived for the past forty or so years?
I loved him fiercely. And for me, there was no closure until his ashes were intentionally placed. And that equated to “not on the garage shelf.”
The USPS box sat unopened for a few days. To be honest, I was afraid to open it. I knew he was not in an urn. We all know the intention of sprinkling negates the notion of an urn.
The postal service has rules about shipping cremated remains. One hundred and thirty-four dollars later, his ashes arrived in a plastic bag with a twist tie, housed inside a cardboard box with his credentials. Then another cardboard box. Then a second cardboard box—one the post office referred to as a “chuck.” Then the postal service box.
I’m hoping the fee covered his plane ride and not the cost of the “chuck,” which, for all logical purposes, identifies simply as a cardboard box. But he is here.
Everyone loved Len. I can’t think of one person—family member, random acquaintance, co-worker—who didn’t love him. He commanded respect simply by walking into a room. He had presence.
There were three specific things about him that made people love him.
He was hilarious. I know people who say things believing they are funny. But Len—oh my God. Someone would make a comment, and his comeback would arrive instantaneously. And instead of reading the room and keeping his mouth shut, it shot right out—unannounced and unpredictable.
His mind worked in such a way he could quickly see the absurdity layered in the remark and his come backs often made us uncomfortable because they were true. Everyone within ear shot would succumb to howls of laughter. Even when Mom was meting out punishment, she had to turn her head to hide her laughter. Len was that good.
He was also an intuitive who seemed to exude light. In our twenties, Len introduced me to Seth. After one conversation that scared the hell out of me, I experienced my first episode of astral travel while sleeping. Len shared his adventures with wide-eyed listeners, and his stories always landed somewhere between believable and “Are you serious? No way.”
Len collected stories the way other people collect objects—strange encounters, impossible timing, moments he considered evidence that the world was larger than we assume it is. And somehow, his stories were outlandishly believable.
One of his favorites involved a storm, a country road, and a hitchhiker named Michael.
I wish he were here to tell it himself in full detail. He and his friend Johnny were driving home during a storm on a pitch-black country road devoid of streetlights. They picked up a hitchhiker who introduced himself as Michael.
After riding together for a while, they encountered a downed tree obstructing the roadway. The men struggled through the storm to clear it, then climbed back into the car. Not far down the road, the hitchhiker said they could let him out right there.
But there was nothing there—no house, no cross street, nothing.
They let him out and continued home.
Until the day he died, Len swore the hitchhiker was St. Michael, appearing solely so they would have help clearing the tree in the middle of that dark and rainy night. There was no other plausible reason to pick up a hitchhiker during a storm, only to let him out in the middle of nowhere.
Another story involved a car accident that somehow never happened. Len and his new wife were destined for a T-bone collision. He heard the metal-on-metal impact, saw a massive flash of light, and then somehow drove away unharmed.
He had one story after another involving encounters like these. If you knew Len, you understood why people believed him.
And his magic didn’t end there.
He was a highly successful and sought-after artist. From the time he created pencil reproductions—not tracings—of Mad Magazine comics as a child, to the day he created the AT&T fiber optics map displayed in New York City’s Times Square, he was always creating.
All kinds of clients sought him out. The City of DeLand, Florida, commissioned him to create twelve-foot-tall “wooden” soldiers for their holiday displays. He built trolleys. Companies hired him to create three-dimensional logos. High-end restaurants featured his handcrafted bar tops.
And perhaps the most amazing part of all this was that he never had a manufacturing plant prepared for any of it. He would get the order first, then figure out how to create the piece afterward.
My beloved brother was brilliant. Although brilliance did not make his life easier. Sometimes I think it made his life harder.
Maternal rejection set the tone. He was bullied at school. He was bullied at home. In my wisdom years, I now understand why he never fit in. He was not society’s child—and we are all better for that.
When he was a teenager, Mom sent him to a boys’ home because he would not obey. “Obey” meant having no agency and no voice, and instead of conforming, Len fought back.
The stories that emerged from that boys’ home are not appropriate for print—stories that stunned me into humiliation and silence.
I’ve spent considerable time trying to track down the medical records, as is my right under New York State law. But accounts of the abuse—even if known by the administration—would never have appeared in those notes.
My comment about “obeying” reminds me of another story. Our family dog had one puppy, and Len wanted to take it to school for show-and-tell. We kids discussed it, and I gave my ill-advised blessing.
The puppy whined through the entire class, and the teacher had a fit. Len’s response was, “Well, my sister said it was okay.”
For years afterward, “my sister said” became our private joke. Whenever either of us was about to do something stupid—or at least questionable—we’d look at each other and say, “My sister said.”
I’ve been wanting to write Len’s obituary for years. We never even had a celebration of life because of logistics and, of course, Covid.
After all these stories about angelic encounters and unexplained moments, it makes perfect sense that Len probably does not care where his ashes are.
But I do.
I’m glad he’s home.
