IN MEMORIAM: Jerry Touger

HALLIE EPHRON: When I was pregnant, my husband Jerry and I both gained 16 pounds. A year ago when he was diagnosed with cancer, my hair fell out -- not as much as his, but a good-sized patch in the back. Shocking to see floating in the bath water.

Since then, it’s been a journey, one I haven’t shared with many people. My daughters, of course. A few close relatives and friends. The Reds. But I’m sure many of you noticed how little I’ve been posting here, and how hard it’s been for me to talk about what I’m writing. Because I’m not.

I remember standing outside his hospital room that first night and thinking that I’d stepped through a portal: from before to after. He’d just been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. The same disease that killed my sister Nora. The disease that my sister Delia survived. Fifty/fifty. So I figured we had a fighting chance.

He died on August 6. His birthday. We’d been married for 52 years.

He was a sweet sweet man who adored being a father. Many of you have seen the cartoon drawings he made of our family that I’ve shared from time to time. Here’s an early one from 1975 when our first-born was six months old and was becoming a repeating character.

ONCE UPON A TIME
THERE WAS A MAN WHO HAD
A WIFE AND DAUGHTER,
AND HE LOVED THEM VERY
MUCH…

SO HE PUT KISSES ON THEM
[MWA… SPLAT… SPLAT]

AND WHEN THEY
FELL OFF…

HE PUT MORE KISSES ON THEM…
[MWA MWA… SPLAT… SPLAT]

AND STILL MORE KISSES…
[MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA... SPLAT SPLAT… SPLAT SPLAT]

…AND THEY LIVED SAPPILY
EVER AFTER
[MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA MWA… SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT… WEIRD]

A few days ago I was sitting alone in my garden and a chickadee was perched a few feet away in the Japanese quince. It gave its 2-note call. Immediately following came a single note. Over and over it repeated that call followed by a single-note that at first I thought it was the chickadee, adding on. Then I realized the trailing single note was coming from a neighboring yard.

A birder, Jerry would have loved hearing that call and response, and then researching it as I did. I so wanted it to be a pair, the one calling out to the other from beyond our fenced-off garden. Turns out it’s more likely that chickadee was marking its turf and warning off other birds. Jerry would have laughed with me, and that bellicose chickadee would have turned up, fierce as can be, in one of his cartoons.

We buried Jerry in our town cemetery, a beautiful burial ground started in 1672. Jerry often walked there, spotting green herons and enormous turtles at its pond, counting flickers and, in spring, orioles flying among the trees.

Ours was a small gathering and my daughters and I shared memories. I wanted to read something, but we’re not religious and somehow most of the usual non-biblical poetry that turns up at funerals felt… off.

Then I thought about what a word person Jerry was. Few people could beat him at Scrabble, and he was a daily “genius” at Spelling Bee. Could do the NY Times crossword puzzle in under 15 minutes. He reveled in silly phrases like splotnik on the frimfram. And he loved reading to our kids and grands from books that celebrated language. One of his favorites was ROOTABAGA STORIES by Carl Sandburg. That’s where I found a passage that felt just right to read at his grave.

It’s from a chapter titled “How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country,” and the three characters in it are named Gimme the Ax, Please Gimme, and Axe Me No Questions. Sharing it with you now:

“Do you wish a ticket to go away and come back or do you wish a ticket to go away and never come back?” the ticket agent asked wiping sleep out of his eyes.

“We wish a ticket to ride where the railroad tracks run off into the sky and never come back—send us far as the railroad rails go and then forty ways farther yet,” was the reply of Gimme the Ax.

“So far? So early? So soon?” asked the ticket agent wiping more sleep out his eyes. “Then I will give you a new ticket. It blew in. It is a long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.” Gimme the Ax thanked the ticket agent once, thanked the ticket agent twice, and then instead of thanking the ticket agent three times he opened the ragbag and took out all the spot cash money he got for selling everything, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, and paid the spot cash money to the ticket agent.

Before he put it in his pocket he looked once, twice, three times at the long yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it. Then with Please Gimme and Ax Me No Questions he got on the railroad train, showed the conductor his ticket and they started to ride to where the railroad tracks run off into the blue sky and then forty ways farther yet. The train ran on and on. It came to the place where the railroad tracks run off into the blue sky. And it ran on and on chick chick-a-chick chick-a-chick chick-a-chick.

Sometimes the engineer hooted and tooted the whistle. Sometimes the fireman rang the bell. Sometimes the open-and-shut of the steam hog’s nose choked and spit pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost. But no matter what happened to the whistle and the bell and the steam hog, the train ran on and on to where the railroad tracks run off into the blue sky. And then it ran on and on more and more.

After I gave birth to our Molly, both Jerry and I lost the 16 pounds we’d gained during my pregnancy. I’ve grown back the hair I lost when he got sick. But it turned out my ticket was to go away and come back; Jerry’s was to go away and never come back.