Occupy Compassion (In memory of my Dad)
By Mickey Z.
07 October, 2012
Worldnewstrust.com
Mike Zezima: Dec. 10, 1932 – Oct. 1, 2012
Preface: In 2004, I spoke at an event in the DC area and it was filmed by C-SPAN , giving my parents the opportunity to see me in action when it aired a few days afterwards. As my radical musings echoed through their apartment, my mother turned to my father and said with a mix of irony and pride: “It's a good thing you retired or else you might be investigating your own son.” Dad took this in before shaking his head and letting out a little laugh, a laugh that could've been translated into the following five words: “What a long, strange trip…”
"It's you when I look in the mirror..."
- Bono
I must have been about thirteen or so. We were still living in a fourth-floor walk-up in Long Island City when my Dad came home unexpectedly from work one afternoon. I was hanging out in my room with my best friend, Bobby (whose father, ironically, was in the Mob until his “untimely” death), and my Mom called us into the kitchen.
When we got there, laid out on the kitchen floor were about a dozen machine guns on a blanket. My Dad had just been out making a buy and—for some long-forgotten reason—had to stop at home before bringing the weapons in to be registered as evidence.
As Bobby and I stared slack-jawed at the mini-arsenal, I sort of smiled to myself. When your father is a Special Agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, it's not like you're the son of an accountant or something. In his own way, Bobby understood, too. If Dad has an unusual job, you learn to expect anything and after a while, nothing surprises you.
Not even machine guns in the kitchen.
Years later, I got another glimpse into my Dad's rarely seen work persona when my mother had her chain snatched while attempting to board a bus. After getting the phone call with the news, we jumped into Dad's car and sped off on a trip that would normally be a 15-minute drive.
It was legend in the Zezima family that my father drove slowly and had little sense of direction. That afternoon, however, I was treated to another side of his auto-handling skills. We raced through red lights, in and out of traffic, and practically on the sidewalk. We reached the crime scene in under three minutes; I was too amused to be afraid.
My father was a man who performed his undercover duties so well that a mobster once asked him to be godfather to his child, a man who rode shotgun on 747s and—during Secret service duty—was prepared to take a bullet for a politician ( major disagreement there). A man who witnessed the Nazis overrun his hometown, saw battle in Korea, and had his sunglasses smashed by Hubert Humphrey; a man who stepped on John Gotti's expensive shoes and had a flat tire fixed by one of Joe Columbo's bodyguards. He turned down million dollar bribes and stared down the barrel of a gun that miraculously jammed. My Dad dealt with rogue CIA agents, was cross-examined by F. Lee Bailey, bonded with Golda Meir, hunted for the Son of Sam, and saw Geraldine Ferraro in nothing but her nightgown.
Despite some seemingly unbridgeable chasms (ya think?), my relationship with my father remained uniquely close—based on mutual respect and unconditional love—and over time, he even came to appreciate and understand my viewpoints.
Can you say: “universal lesson”?
Occupy Compassion & Empathy
"When we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings.”
Losing both of my beloved parents in less than five years is an experience that's teaching me previously unimaginable lessons about grief, sorrow, and loss.
Amidst my mourning, I can't help but visualize the feelings of grief, sorrow, and loss being experienced in places directly and indirectly impacted by U.S. foreign and economic policies. Imagine if you will, a mother in Pakistan . She walks to the market as an American predator drone levels her home. Her parents, her husband, her children: all killed.
What of her grief, sorrow, and loss? I had time to “prepare” (a laughable Western concept) before each of my parents died yet I feel as if my heart will never heal. Can we possibly imagine how this Pakistani woman feels?
And why do we relate more to the men and women who volunteer to drop the bombs than those living under all those taxpayer-subsidized bombs? When was it decided that their lives matter less than ours? Where did we get the audacity to feel so superior?
Howard Zinn sez: “I wonder how the foreign policies of the United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world, at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.”
Mic Check: It's not just military murders.
There's a line in the song, “Middle of the Road” by the Pretenders : “When you own a big chunk of the bloody Third World/The babies just come with the scenery.”
Along with the scenery, comes this: 29,158 children under the age of 5 die from preventable causes every day.
The next time you're at a sporting event or rock concert, glance around and get a feel for what 29,158 looks like. Then try your best to conceive of the feelings of grief, sorrow, and loss inspired by those 29,158 preventable deaths… each and every day .
That's a whole lot more grief, sorrow, and loss—more anger and frustration, too. These are human beings, not statistics. They feel as much as you or I. They cry, they mourn, they miss loved ones, and they ask why.
Contrary to American mythology, we cannot vote these problems away, so here's a novel idea: Instead of blowing up and starving babies in the Third World , let's occupy some compassion and start feeding them and respecting them and loving them. Yes… loving them. Che Guevara tells us that the “true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love.”
If Che was right, dear comrades, it's high time we start showing the world—our fellow humans, all species, and the eco-system itself—some revolutionary love.
Mic Check: The unexpected but oh-so-welcome side effect of sustaining a permanently broken heart has been the crystal clear recognition that without compassion—limitless, boundless, audacious compassion—life is an empty and unfulfilling exercise.
Occupy Everywhere
“While there is a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”
The book or film, The Grapes of Wrath , tells the story of families thrown off their land during the Great Depression—in particular, the Joad family. The Joads head out looking for work and suffer terrible indignities until Tom, the oldest son, starts to organize and fight back.
He knows his work will put his family in danger so he decides to sneak away…but not before his mother catches him to say goodbye. She and Tom were very close and she worriedly asks: “How will I know where you are? How will I know you're okay?”
Tom's reply is one of my favorite little speeches in literary and film history. In his song, “The Ghost of Tom Joad,” Bruce Springsteen embellishes this speech a bit and that's the version I'd like to share (meditating upon both of my parents as I do so):
Tom said, “Wherever there's a cop beatin' a guy
Wherever a hungry newborn baby cries
Where there's a fight ‘gainst the blood and hatred in the air
Look for me Ma (and Pa), I'll be there
“Wherever there's somebody fightin' for a place to stand
Or decent job or a helpin' hand
Wherever somebody's strugglin' to be free
Look in their eyes, Ma (and Pa), you'll see me
You'll see me…”
Postscript : Back in the day, my delinquent friends and I were regulars at Joe's Pizzeria on 36 th Avenue , under the el. We never got a satisfactory answer as to why it wasn't named after Gino, the owner—a stereotypically rotund Italian pizza man who sponsored our 14-and-under softball team with jerseys that read: Joe's Pizzera. No spell-check back then.
I played first base for the Joe's Pizzera team…unusual for my relatively small size but, hey, I've never done the expected, I guess. I made the all-star game and my Dad wanted to come watch me. It was being played at the old L.I.C. High School yard just 3 blocks away from our fourth-floor walk-up…but I asked him to stay home. When you're 14, your parents are perceived as useless (unless you consider being annoying a use).
Midway through the game, I made a big play in the field and looked around at the folks clapping for me. That's when I noticed my Dad watching near third base…trying to hide behind the entrance gate. The next inning, I doubled with the bases loaded and I eventually ended up coming in a close second for the game's MVP award.
I did all this while my Dad proudly but surreptitiously bore witness…having (thankfully) ignored my childish edict. I guess that's why 14-year-olds probably shouldn't run the world.
Thank you, Dad…for your unconditional and infinite love and for teaching me so many lessons about strength and compassion.
Mike Zezima: Presente!
Dec. 10, 1932 – Oct. 1, 2012
Mickey Z. is the author of 11 books, most recently the novel Darker Shade of Green . Until the laws are changed or the power runs out, he can be found on an obscure website called Facebook .
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