I just read Michael Winerip's Generation B column in the New York Times about my sister. It will be in the February 8th edition of the paper but it's already online.
I must say I had my misgivings about her going public about the fact that my father, who died on September 7th, was "Madoffed"
But it's hard to keep secrets about something so big.
I've told a lot of people. And not told a lot more people. It's a huge part of my life right now and I spend a good deal of time thinking about it, discussing it with family members, going to see our lawyer, and reading about it in the media. (It's the great IT in my life right now).
But it's also the big elephant in the room that I haven't written about on the blog or in my Brooklyn Paper column.
That's because my life has been such a strange and confusing whirlwind since December 11th, the day Bernard Madoff was arrested for running the biggest Ponzi scheme in history.
As soon as it happened I wondered if I should write about it. In a way, I felt too close to the story. And there were so many unknowns. At that point, I decided it was best to take a lot of notes, maybe for a book, and sit tight.
A few weeks ago my sister told me that Winerip, was interested in devoting a column to her story. Frankly, it made me a bit nervous. I may be an open book but my sister tends to keep things closer to her chest. Now she was opening up her life for all to see.
In the New York Times no less.
How would this effect her? How would this effect the family?
I gave her some pointers about talking to a reporter. "Remember, if you don't want him to use some information just say, 'it's off the record.'" I figured there would be pressure to reveal more than she was comfortable revealing.
But I also gave her my blessing. I knew that Winerip was a good writer and that he would probably write with sensitivity and honesty.
Luckily, I was right. I love the piece he wrote about my sister. He really got the specificity of her story, her disappointment, and her resolve to move on. And he wrote it very well.
And that was before she’d been Madoffed.
Some days, the 50-year-old Ms. Jacobson handed off her daughter to the baby sitter at 7:30 a.m., raced from their Brooklyn co-op to a production studio in Queens, put in a 12-hour day, then headed to the hospital in Manhattan to see her father.
No matter how fast she ran, she worried she was neglecting someone.
Her father had been a highly successful Madison Avenue ad executive. He had lived well — he loved opera, museums, the racetrack — but had also saved and invested his money and was generous with his two daughters, Ms. Jacobson and her twin sister, Louise Crawford, as well as their families.
Still, like many of his generation, her father had a prudent streak, preferred the subway to car services. When he grew thin from colon cancer, Ms. Jacobson tried to persuade him to hire a food-delivery service. When he wouldn’t, she and her sister would stop by his apartment with the minestrone or tongue sandwiches he loved.
She tried getting him to take a car service to his chemo sessions, but he was stubborn. And then, in mid-August, he called her saying he’d collapsed on the subway and two big men had to carry him up to the street.
Not long after, on Sept. 7, 2008, he died.
It's painful and poignant to read Winerip's opening. My grief over my dad's death trumps my feelings about our Madoff situation. But it's all braided together now. And it's all very public. Last week his name along with 13,000 other names on a list of Madoff clients was released; the list is easily accessible on the web.
Sometime I wonder what my dad would say about all this if he was alive. Sometimes I feel relieved that he didn't live to see this happen. I know it would have made him sick and sad. It was his intention to take care of us after he died, especially my stepmother.
But it also makes me feel his loss more keenly. I sure could use some of his insight and guidance at a time like this. But most of all I miss his sense of humor. He probably would have made me laugh about some aspect of this.
Of that I'm sure.
I am sorry for your multiple losses, but I must ask you, how do you NOT write about this –the most personal of experiences– in your column where you write about the most personal family happenings.
At a time when you you are defending your right to write about your kids AGAINST their wishes, it seems hypocritical for you not to write about your family’s other experience — being Madoffed. As a quasi-journalist how could you not write about this? You admit its the elephant in the room — not to mention tied to what EVERYONE is worrying about — THE ECONOMY STUPID — and yet you choose not to write about it. But you DO write about your family over the protestations of your kid, not to mention your critics.
You are a loud and proud chronicler/memoirist of Brooklyn and New York, yet you choose not to write about events that are current and effecting a broader scope of people when you are defending your right to write about your family. Hpocrites have no business writing a column, or being representative of my neighborhood
Mike Winerip is a wonderful writer and he did a sensitive job on the column, I think. (He interviewed me for a profile in the Miami Herald in 1982 and it was the best single article I’ve ever had written about me.) His “Nine Highland Road” is a gorgeously-written, sensitive book about a group home in Glen Cove.
You write very poignantly about your loss. The healing of a parental loss is overwhelming, as I know that we never really do. I wish you strength in your dealing with it all.
I read Winerip’s column today. Sorry to hear about the loss of your father and the discovery of your inheritance being invested with Madoff. Losing a parent is tough enough, but the loss of your inheritance because of that vile man is unconscionable. I’m very sorry to hear it. I helped take care of my father when he was dying from prostate cancer, it was heartrendingly sad, and he was my only parent. I hope you and your sister are able to recover something, but you have 2 great kids and are a great writer, and I hope that you can take some comfort in that. I have lots of stories about my older son but probably not many people would want to read them as they are rather tragic, since a year after my dad died he was diagnosed with autism.