In reality, abuse doesn’t need an excuse. And the problem doesn’t stop at alcohol. For a long time, there has been a perception that Jews were not afflicted by the same addiction problems plaguing Western society. Thankfully, there are now many organizations and individuals willing to listen and help Jews in distress. If you have a problem or if you have a family member with a problem, you can begin your search with resources online.

Long before people talked openly about these problems, there was JACS, Jewish Alcoholics, Chemically Dependent Persons and Significant Others [http://bit.ly/ jdrink36]. Established in 1979 as a voluntary group for Jews in recovery, JACS now maintains branches in locations including New York, Chicago and Toronto. In Tucson, a JACS meeting is held on Wednesdays at 6 p.m. at Temple Emanu-El (or you may contact Rabbi Richard Safran at bagel95@aol.com).

Perhaps the most moving site warning about potential dangers of alcohol was created by the family of Yehuda Aryeh Mond. At the age of 19, Yehuda passed away from a drug and alcohol overdose. His family created the Yehuda Mond Foundation to spread the word about alcohol and to provide resources to others. One of the highlights of the site is a chilling 40-minute video that includes a young man who shares how as a teen, “I had an orange juice container mixed with whisky in my fridge in yeshiva that I used to take swigs from throughout the day … By the time I was 18, I was on the streets of Yerushalayim throwing up, wondering why I can’t stop drinking.” [http://bit.ly/ jdrink28]

I was interested to see that major streams of Judaism also recognize that problems exist in our own backyards. In its 1993 resolution, “Dealing with Substance Abuse,” the Union for Reform Judaism called for the introduction of “religious school educational programs for all levels, including the very young.” [http://bit.ly/ jdrink29]

The Orthodox Union has called for the elimination of so-called Kiddush Clubs, a mid-service retreat from the sanctuary on Saturday mornings to make kiddush and drink up. In “Why Kiddush Clubs Must Go,” Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb writes, “This behavior is not lost on the rest of the congregation, particularly the youth, including the very children of these participants. This practice glorifies and idealizes alcohol at precisely a time when alcohol and other addictions are clearly on the rise in our community.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink40]

The OU site also carries the piece, “Orthodox Youth and Substance Abuse: Shattering the Myths.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink30] And the Conservative movement has published “From Addiction to Recovery: A Jewish Spiritual Journey.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink31]

Other Jewish resources include Baltimore’s Jewish Recovery Houses [http://bit.ly/jdrink32], New York’s Yatzkan Center [http://bit.ly/jdrink33], Los Angeles’ Beit T’Shuvah [http://bit.ly/jdrink34] and the Haderech 12-Step Treatment Center based in the Western Galilee in Israel. [http:// bit.ly/jdrink37] and the author of countless compelling articles and books on the subject including “The Twelve Steps and Judaism” [http://bit.ly/jdrink39]

Fortunately, there are successes. In “Today I am 20 Years Sober,” the anonymous author writes, “In Judaism it is said that when one saves a life, it is as if one had saved the entire world. God saved the world for me. I am not even sure why. I was not especially good. I am not especially good even now. I was certainly not deserving. He saved my life and I don’t know why. All I can do now is to keep putting it out there — showing myself to you. …

“My sobriety is a credit to God’s Name and none to me. Thank you God. Thank you for all you have given me and all you have taken from me. Thank you for another day of life.” [http://bit.ly/jdrink41]

Mark Mietkiewicz can be reached at highway@rogers.com.

Abraham Verghese, M.D.

In this age of high-tech medicine compassion can often be neglected, but the annual Cindy Wool Memorial Seminar helps provide a remedy for healthcare professionals in Tucson. The third seminar and dinner on humanism in medicine, held March 28 at the Marriott University Park Hotel, sought to support physicians in practicing empathy while embracing cutting-edge science.

This year’s seminar drew around 600 medical professionals to honor the memory of Cindy Wool, who died of acute leukemia three years ago.

Her husband, Dr. Steven A. Wool, and Dr. Hillel Baldwin co-chaired the event, sponsored by the Maimonides Society of the Jewish Federation of Southern Arizona in conjunction with the University of Arizona College of Medicine. Abraham Verghese, M.D., author of the New York Times best-selling novel “Cutting for Stone,” was the keynote speaker.

“I think we’re actually getting worse at examining the body as we have more technology,” said the physician/author in his talk, “The Patient-Physician Relationship in the Microarray Era.” Currently the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University College of Medicine, Verghese was born to Indian parents and grew up near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He worked as an orderly for a year before beginning his medical studies in India, followed by a fellowship at the Boston University School of Medicine.

Taking a break from his medical career, Verghese attended the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, where he received an MFA degree in 1991. After leaving Iowa, he took a position as a professor of medicine at the Texas Tech Health Science Center in El Paso, Texas, and later was founding director of the Center for Medical Humanities & Ethics at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.

His commitment to the one-on-one physical exam was apparent in his talk in Tucson, where he spoke of “the notion of the body as text.”

“We’ve only been examining the body since the 1700s, not for many centuries,” said Verghese, adding that prior to the invention of x-rays a physician “could tell if there was a cavity in the lung by percussing the chest.”

“I’m not a Luddite, I love technology,” said Verghese, while stressing the importance of the mutual connection between doctors and patients. He told the story of a breast cancer patient who was getting worse despite treatment “at a high-class hospital. Back in her small town, she said, ‘They didn’t examine my breasts.’ That inattentiveness she could not abide.”

Verghese asked the audience to consider how often they’ve witnessed a physician not taking his eyes off a computer monitor while talking to a patient.

Plus, “the average doctor interrupts a patient in the first 14 seconds,” said Verghese, recalling a patient who had chronic fatigue syndrome. “I let the patient tell the whole story for 45 minutes. Once we slipped into the ritual of the exam the patient said, ‘I’ve never been examined like this.’

“What a condemnation of our medical system,” lamented Verghese.

“What the horse and buggy doctor was capable of doing was the power of visiting the patient,” he said. “There could be healing when there wasn’t a cure.”

Verghese’s unique position as a physician and a best-selling author was on the minds of some attendees during the question and answer period. “I don’t have two careers as a physician and a writer,” he said in response to a question. “I’m all physician. To me the writing comes out of that in some strange way. You have to be in the river of life to have something to say.”

More than 40 percent of Americans with mental health issues first turn to rabbis and other clergy, which is twice as many as those who initially approach a psychiatrist, psychologist or family physician, according to national surveys conducted by Mental Health Ministries. A study released in September by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, shows that over half of the people in the United States will experience a mental disorder at some point in their lives.

“We want this conference to not just be a great, exciting and interesting day, but tomorrow when a congregant comes in with something going on, [attendees] will be able to help this person,” says conference steering committee member Shira Ledman, president and CEO of Jewish Family & Children’s Services. “We hope that a workshop will trigger an ‘aha’ moment, to raise awareness” about the warning signs of mental illness.

The Rev. Susan Gregg-Schroeder, founder of Mental Health Ministries, based in San Diego, Calif., will deliver the keynote address, “Mental Illness as a Spiritual Journey,” followed by two panel discussions. Rabbi Samuel M. Cohon of Temple Emanu-El will participate with other faith leaders on “Why This Conference Matters: Mental Illness in the Faith Community Setting.”

After-lunch workshop choices will include “Addiction and Mental Illness,” “The Importance of Recognizing Depression,” “Aging and Mental Health Issues: Is It Serious and Can You Help?” and “Suicide Awareness and Prevention.”

“Being an Advocate for a Family Member or Congregant” will feature Rabbi Helen Cohn of Congregation M’Kor Hayim along with Susan Smiley, producer of “Out of the Shadow,” an acclaimed documentary about her mother’s secret struggle with schizophrenia.

A key goal of the conference, funded by the David C. and Lura M. Lovell Foundation, is to help reduce the stigma of mental illness, says Ledman. “I think it would be good for members of the Jewish community to turn out,” she told the AJP.

“We’re seeing the steady growth of counseling services, especially for elders and families. What if an elderly congregant usually attends services but then isn’t there,” says Ledman. “Contact is made and the person is ‘not feeling right, not eating or sleeping,’ which can be signs of depression. Maybe a congregant can help get the person to the doctor” for evaluation.

At JFCS, “we can almost always fit a person in for counseling services. People think they can only go if they’re poor or have to pay $100,” she says, but JFCS has a sliding fee scale, plus grants to ensure that those needing mental health services can be seen.

There will be a resource fair at the conference, featuring more than 20 agencies that deal with issues ranging from serious mental illness to substance abuse. “We want people to take home tools,” says Ledman, so they can support healthy recovery for someone affected by mental illness.

Advance registration is $35 per individual or $25 each for three people from one organization; registration at the door is $40. For more information or to register, contact Terry Alexander at 297-6049, ext. 233, or talexander@icstucson.org, or visit icstucson.org. St. Philips is located at 4440 N. Campbell Ave. at River Road.

Before a wheelchair ramp was built inside Congregation Anshei Israel’s sanctuary, congregant Abby Rosen could not ascend to the bimah.

The new ramp makes it easy for wheelchair-bound members of the congregation to come up to the bimah for an aliyah.

“I’ve been extremely frustrated that people who are wheelchair-bound couldn’t come up for an aliyah,” to bless the Torah, Rabbi Robert Eisen told the AJP. “I said ‘this is wrong.’ Members of the congregation stepped forward and started seeding the project,” believing they could make it happen, including the Melanie and Harris Amhowitz family, who endowed the project.

Alene Schwartz recalls helping to get a wheelchair-accessible ramp installed outside the building 30 years ago. And in 1999, when her daughter got married, “we had to drive around the building in what seemed like a maze to get on the bimah in my wheelchair,” says Schwartz.

In February, on the day the new ramp was completed, Schwartz was the first to navigate her wheelchair up the ramp. “For me,” she says, “it was a dream come true.”

Even more moving for her was the first Shabbat service the ramp was in use, “watching my friend Judy Schneider [being called] for an aliyah, being entrusted with the Torah and driving it around,” says Schwartz. “I didn’t realize how much it meant to me till I saw that. It hit me at the heart level.”

The service moved her to tears. “Instead of someone having to bring the Torah to those in wheelchairs, not being singled out that way, she was bringing the Torah to the whole community.”

Congregation Anshei Israel is “always trying to make services more accessible to everyone, not just spiritually but physically,” says Eisen. “As we’ve evolved we want to bring people closer to God. To renovate means to restore” a synagogue that’s been in its present location since 1969.

Abby Rosen, another Anshei Israel congregant, wrote a poem about her newfound ability to safely approach the bimah, titled “To Daven with Dignity: Baruchu”: Come closer to Me is what I hear/Calling each name so loud and clear/Rising toward heaven just to be near/To daven with dignity will be ever so dear.

“This poem reflects my true feelings about being able to get closer to God —at least physically. I am so pleased that my congregation supported this life-enhancing effort,” affirms Rosen.

Wood smoke contains hundreds of chemical compounds and some of them can harm people with heart or respiratory disease, babies, young children and pregnant women.

Pollutants in wood smoke can cause the eyes, nose and throat to burn with irritation, and cause headache and nausea in some people.

Walking in neighborhoods where fireplace smoke is heavy can cause irregular heart beat, chest pain and shortness of breath in susceptible people. The smoke can make asthma symptoms worse and cause higher rates of lung inflammation and pneumonia in young children .

Also, unless chimneys are cleaned seasonally, creosote, a combustible byproduct of wood burning, can lodge in the chimney and spark a fire.

Fireplaces aren’t efficient home heaters. Most homes aren’t perfectly insulated, so cold air seeps in under doors and through cracks, while hot air escapes up the chimney.

If flues are not properly installed and maintained, particles released during wood burning can escape into the home. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says several of the pollutants emitted by wood burning have demonstrated cancer-causing properties similar to cigarette smoke.

To reduce your risk of harm from using a wood-burning fireplace, follow these tips:

• Burn hardwoods like oak, mesquite and pecan instead of soft woods like cedar, fir or pine. The wood should be split and dried for at least six months.

• Use smaller pieces of wood. They burn more efficiently and are a better source of heat.

• Allow enough room inside the fireplace for air to circulate freely around the wood.

• Never burn plastics, painted wood, charcoal, printed pages in a fireplace. They will release toxic materials into the air.

• Check your chimney from the outside. If you see smoke, your fire is not burning hot enough. Give the fire more air, and then check again.

• Check before you light a fire to see if local air pollution levels are elevated. If they are, avoid using the fireplacee. Get pollution information at airinfonow.org or call Pima County’s Department of Environmental Quality air pollution hotline at (520) 882-4AIR or (520) 882-4247.

• Remember … If you can smell smoke, you are breathing smoke!

(L-R) Dr. Scott Sherman, Dr. Elihu Boroson and his wife, Sarah, with Boroson’s ‘Excalibur’ sculpture, which he donated to the University of Arizona College of Medicine in honor of Sherman, a Parkinson’s researcher. (Photo courtesy AHSC Biomedical Communications)

For some people it takes a lifetime to find their passion. Dr. Elihu Boroson, a veterinarian for 23 years, found his when he became a full-time artist in 1980. He and his wife, Sarah, a librarian, lived in Stamford, Conn. She became the breadwinner. “When I stopped working I became an artist and a chef,” quips Elihu. “When the breadwinner comes home, dinner has to be ready.”

Since then, Boroson has created sculptures, ceramics, paintings and even musical instruments, including a harpsichord and five guitars — many of which adorn the couple’s 1,400-square-foot home in Marana’s Sunflower community. Before the Borosons moved from Pomona, N.Y. to Tucson in 1997, to be near one of their four children, they sold more than half of Elihu’s artwork.

Two years later, Elihu was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Unable to handle heavy tools, he still paints. “Since having Parkinson’s I’ve ended up doing what I could do, not what I wanted to do,” Elihu, now 83, told the AJP at the couple’s home last month. From his wheelchair, he proudly led a tour of years of his artwork.

“Combining materials like wood and steel is one of my passions, materials that wouldn’t necessarily be put together,” says Elihu, noting that it would take him about a month to plan a large sculpture and another month to create it.

One of these pieces, “Excalibur” — a sculpture depicting the legendary sword in the stone — was installed and dedicated on Nov. 18 at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine, in the lobby of the medical research building. The Borosons donated the sculpture, carved from a single piece of white marble that was quarried in Lee, Mass., in honor of Dr. Scott Sherman, a Parkinson’s researcher at the university.

The text on the plaque accompanying the sculpture refers to Sherman’s “efforts to increase the quality of life for Parkinson’s patients, and his ongoing work to understand the disease and find a cure.”

Sherman, who has been Elihu’s physician for the past decade, has also toured the Borosons’ home/personal art museum. Patients with Parkinson’s “are a very creative group of people,” says Sherman, also a UA associate professor of neurology. “It’s been fun over the years for them to share their art and music with me.”

Elihu has received “standard treatment with medication” for his Parkinson’s, says Sherman, adding that “Parkinson’s doesn’t go away. Artistic pursuits and exercise have a definite positive impact, whether it’s visual arts, writing or poetry.”

Sherman and his research team at the UA Parkinson’s Research Laboratory conduct pharmaceutical-based trials for patients just diagnosed with the illness, whom, he says, “we hope will have a slow progression.” Researchers “also do pre-clinical research. We just hired a stem cell specialist to look at how to treat Parkinson’s by taking stem cells from patients and turning them into brain cells.

“The public doesn’t realize,” explains Sherman, “that one of the difficulties studying Parkinson’s is we don’t have access to brain cells directly because only humans get [the disease]. The bottom line is we have to study human cells.”

Another clinical study at the UA research laboratory involves molecules that are “somewhat related to caffeine,” says Sherman. “People who drink a lot of coffee, or smoke cigarettes, have an inverse relationship to getting Parkinson’s. I’m not advocating that people with or without Parkinson’s drink more coffee or smoke cigarettes.”

There are other factors involved “in whether people get Parkinson’s or not,”

he affirms. “My personal impression is that

patients I have with Parkinson’s are

disproportionately professional people.”

Making the most of a disability seems key to the Borosons’ lives. Some people who were previously too busy with careers who now have disabilities have found opportunities to express themselves artistically, says Sarah, adding that her husband “always had projects and lots of drive. He was always curious and wanted to learn new [ways of doing] art.

“He’s not as focused as he used to be,” she concedes. Still, she says, “We’re gadabouts,” staying busy dining out a lot with friends, going to the theater, movies and concerts, especially chamber music. “It’s not good for people with Parkinson’s to stay at home,” says Sarah. “We take classes at Pima Community College and at the UA Humanities Seminars Program. Socializing keeps the brain active and is very good for people with Parkinson’s,” says Sarah, 81, who’s a part-time librarian at Pima Community College, and has started a Parkinson’s support group for members of the Sunflower community.

“I’ve gotten very interested in gardening,” says Elihu, with Sarah adding, “He goes to the gym daily, which stimulates the growth of brain cells.”

And, there’s no doubt that continuing his artwork still gives Elihu satisfaction. Sitting down at the table for some tea, he points out the uranium glaze he used on the teapot. Smiling, Elihu asks, “Who knew you could make something so beautiful out of something so terrible?”

For more information about monthly tours of the UA Parkinson’s Research Laboratory, call 626-2319 or visit http://medicine.arizona.edu/news/ua-college-medicine%E2%80%99s-parkinson%E2%80%99s-research-lab-holds-monthly-tours. For individual home tours of Elihu Boroson’s artwork, call 579-6852.

— Babylonian Talmud Tractate Sanhedrin 37a

Tucsonan Bryan Jaret-Schachter relaxes during his second donation of stem cells for a recipient identified by the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation. Blood from his right arm is fed through a machine to separate out the blood-forming cells, then returned to him via his left arm.

Bryan Jaret-Schachter, a 27-year-old financial analyst in Tucson, picked up the phone at work early one morning in September 2010 and was stunned by what he heard. The caller, a representative from the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation (giftoflife.org), told him that he was a preliminary match for a stem cell donation. The recipient would be a 39-year-old male with Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The news of a match might surprise anyone, but for Jaret-Schachter it was especially significant. His good friend and former roommate, Richard Sims, had died of complications from Hodgkin’s lymphoma earlier that year. When Jaret-Schachter found out the match was for somebody with Hodgkin’s, he says, “I almost fell out of my chair!” Jaret-Schachter would later go on to donate stem cells not once, but twice, for this particular recipient.

The story behind the match, however, goes back to 2009, when Jaret-Schachter was on a Birthright Israel trip (a free educational, first-time trip to Israel for Jewish young adults ages 18 to 26). There, he registered with a bone marrow database after hearing a presentation by the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, an organization that is especially interested in registering persons of Jewish descent.

“Everyone in our group, 41 in total, agreed to register, participating by getting their cheek swabbed,” he recounts. Even though he knew his friend Sims was not waiting for a bone marrow or stem cell transplant, it still seemed to him like an important thing to do. However, Jaret-Schachter admits, “I didn’t expect to hear from them.”

The day Jaret-Schachter returned to Tucson from Israel, he found out that Sims was in the hospital and not doing well. He rushed to the hospital and arrived in time to say goodbye. Sims passed away later that evening. The loss of his friend weighed heavily on Jaret-Schachter, especially in the days following the funeral. “Not many days would go by where I didn’t think about Rich, and how unfair it was for him to suffer through this ordeal,” he reflected in a blog he posted later for the Gift of Life Registry.

The phone call from Gift of Life, coming eight months after Sims’ death, seemed more than mere coincidence. The connection between his friend, his trip to Israel and the chance to save a life was not lost on him. “I’m not an extremely religious person,” he reflects, but “it was hard to deny the irony of the whole situation.” Jaret-Schachter felt this was a unique opportunity to honor the life of his friend, and an opportunity to affirm his ties to the Jewish community.

The stem cell donation, though simpler than a bone marrow donation, would end up requiring an extensive commitment of time and travel from Jaret-Schachter. Gift of Life flew him to New York City in September 2010 for a physical at the facility where the donation would take place. A month later, after five consecutive days of injections to stimulate stem cell growth, Jaret-Schachter traveled back to New York for the procedure, which took about seven hours. The main discomfort, says Jaret-Schachter, was being relatively immobile for that length of time. Fortunately, he’d brought his iPad with him to help pass the time.

Approximately six months after the first stem cell donation, Jaret-Schachter checked in with Gift of Life to inquire if it was safe for him to participate in a blood drive at work. To his surprise, Gift of Life called him back the next day to say the recipient of his original donation needed a follow-up donation. In March and April of 2011, Jaret-Schachter flew to New York twice more to complete the second donation. This time, he brought his work laptop to pass the time.

Jaret-Schachter is especially happy to have been able to help someone through the Gift of Life registry. “Their focus,” he explains, “is to get Jewish people involved, but anyone can donate. So many bloodlines were lost in the Holocaust. If you are Jewish and diagnosed, you are much less likely to find a match.” Last June, Jaret-Schachter flew on behalf of Gift of Life to a Jewish sleep-away camp in Denver, where he spoke to more than 50 counselors, alongside a former camper who had been diagnosed with leukemia. The majority of the counselors joined the registry.

Although Jaret-Schachter is curious about the man who received his stem cells, the donation will remain anonymous on both ends until his recipient passes the one-year mark since his last donation. Jaret-Schachter hopes to meet his recipient at the annual meeting of the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation this spring.

After four trips to New York in a span of six months, Jaret-Schachter has no qualms about donating his time and blood. What would he say to people who are reluctant to donate? “You’re giving somebody the chance to live who otherwise wouldn’t be able to,” says Jaret-Schachter. “It’s hard to overcome fears, but it is a tremendous opportunity … I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Maria Ma-Tay Russakoff is a freelance writer living in Tucson with her husband and two sons.

Michael Cassolis

My personal experience with death happened when I was 14, far away from home, in a British boarding school. The housemaster summoned me to his study. This was normally a place where some sort of punishment was dished out. However, the circumstances this time were different. My housemaster, Mr. Marsden, called for me, and I waited patiently for an hour while he walked up and down the length of his study in front of me, then left the room abruptly. I had to ask his wife, who was also present, what was going on, why I had been called, and she apologized for her husband. The headmaster’s wife then told me in a kind and gentle way that my father had malaria, was sent to the Tropical Disease Hospital in London, and passed away.

That was a long time ago, in 1979, and today I am here with you in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.” In my day-to-day work in hospice care, I have learned many people have a fear of death, even just talking about it. But working in the hospice field, I know this is a community filled with people who make it their life’s work to help terminally ill patients and their loved ones at one of the most difficult times of life. Hospice care provides these patients and their loved ones with medical, emotional and spiritual support.

Life after death is an unknown, and that lack of knowledge can create a fear of death. I would like to paraphrase a parable I read in “The Jewish Way in Death and Mourning” by Rabbi Maurice Lamm, which I hope offers some food for thought.

In the parable, twin brothers grow peacefully in their mother’s womb, the only world they know. After a time, they begin to notice that they are steadily getting lower in the womb, and they wonder what will happen if they are forced out of it.

Lamm calls the first infant a “believer, heir to a religious tradition that tells him there will be a new life.” The second infant is a skeptic who believes only in what can be demonstrated. The first brother imagines a world where he says they will “eat through the mouth” and “see great distances,” and the second brother says they will “sink into oblivion.”

Then the water inside the womb bursts and the first brother falls outward. The skeptical brother mourns at the sound of loud cries and general tumult. However, while the skeptic mourns, the other brother is being celebrated by a waiting family in the new world. “As we separate and die from the womb, only to be born to life, so we separate and die from our world, only to be reborn to life eternal,” writes Lamm.

Hospice’s holistic viewpoint can help patients approach death with faith, without fear. The aim of hospice care is to provide our patients the chance to die on their own terms, with dignity.

I know which twin I am. Which twin will you be?

Michael Cassolis works in professional relations at Casa de la Luz Hospice.

“Following Ezra” does not disappoint. The paperback cover, with its bright plastic dinosaurs marching across a blue field, promises a book filled with energy and fun. It’s not all sunshine and roses: there are harrowing accounts of Ezra’s tantrums; his overwhelming obsessions; his reckless oblivion to the danger of running across a street or climbing a rickety garden trellis.

But mostly this memoir is a celebration. Fields-Meyer recalls sitting in a therapist’s office soon after his 3-year-old son is diagnosed with autism. The therapist suggests that he needs to grieve “for the child he didn’t turn out to be.” Fields-Meyer resolves, instead, “to pour love on my son, to celebrate him, to understand, to support him, and to follow his lead.”

Fields-Meyer is a writer by profession, and dealing with the challenges of Ezra’s autism has, perhaps, made him an even keener and more insightful observer. In “Following Ezra” we get a remarkable glimpse into a mind that works differently from most. Ezra builds up storehouses of information, such as the release dates and running time of animated movies, which he finds comforting. He learns, painstakingly, that it is not OK to comment on people’s size and shape. And he connects with friends and neighbors in his own fashion, remembering not only their dogs’ names, ages and genders but sharing his prodigious knowledge of their breeds.

Ezra’s mother is Rabbi Shawn Fields-Meyer, and at one point “Are you Jewish?” becomes part of Ezra’s litany of questions, asked of everyone from his gym teacher to the waiter in an Italian restaurant. The author sees the question as a positive development: “He is gaining an awareness of religion and what it means. And at least he’s not asking why they’re fat.”

“Following Ezra” starts when Ezra is three and begins showing signs that his development is veering off track, and ends when he is 13, a Bar Mitzvah. The lessons learned by both father and son along the way make this an inspiring, uplifting read for any parent — or anyone interested in how we learn about life and love.

Sam Caron with Elwood

The benefits of being a ventriloquist have come full circle for Sam Caron. “At age 6 I was a very sick child” with rheumatic fever, says the Sierra Vista therapist, who has a Ph.D. in guidance and counseling from the University of New Mexico. “When I came home from the hospital as a child my aunt gave me a Jerry Mahoney-type puppet that went with me everywhere.” Caron, now 64, named the puppet Elwood, and he recently told the AJP, “It’s the only childhood toy I still have.”

When Caron was around 12 the family moved from Detroit to Albuquerque, N.M. Elwood went with them, although Caron didn’t perform with the puppet until he got his master’s degree in the early 1970s and started working in a hospital for developmentally impaired patients. “We would bring in people to entertain, but they would often get upset and leave,” says Caron. “I really got into it, not like the other entertainers.”

Caron later became a counselor in an Albuquerque elementary school. “I would use [Elwood] as an ice breaker” visiting classes, he recalls. “My use of puppets was growing, but I needed more girl puppets.” This was before the Internet, but through a magic and kite store in Albuquerque, Caron found someone who could help, commissioning a local puppet-maker to construct professional puppets that would be appropriate for developmental counseling in schools. Using the puppets to write scripts with students became one of Caron’s frequent therapy techniques. “I’m a believer that you educate and entertain simultaneously,” he says.

By the early 1980s, Caron had moved with his wife, Mary, and sons, Ben and Jeremy, to Sierra Vista, where he started a private counseling practice. “I bought more puppets, specifically for problems that children had,” he says, citing an abused teenager who used puppets to role play herself and the perpetrator in therapy. “It made her feel much better,” adds Caron.

The reception to Caron’s puppet therapy in schools and in his private practice was so gratifying that he produced 30-second radio spots with the puppets. Although Caron wasn’t nonprofit, “I wanted to give them to radio stations. I wanted to do a mitzvah,” he explains. Parents shopping with children in supermarkets was one of his topics, suggesting ways to prevent children from putting unwanted items in a shopping cart or from running around in the store. In the late ’80s, Caron wanted to produce a 30-minute TV program, but instead, spent a year airing improvisation pieces with Harvey Job Matusow, a clown and storytelling personality, on Tucson Community Cable Corporation, which is now Access Tucson public television.

Caron has also been part of the international puppet therapy scene, and has presented workshops at the Japanese Ventriloquists Association three times. “My goal is to write a series of books on the adventures of Dr. C and Elwood,” says Caron, who currently writes an online newsletter for parents of children with ADHD (adhd1.net), where he advises parents to share with their overly active 7-year-olds the three main symptoms of the disorder: “being hyperactive, acting fast without thinking first about the consequences or alternatives, and getting bored and distracted easily.”

In his private practice in Sierra Vista, Caron deals with a range of issues through puppet therapy. “A parent called me one day about her 4-year-old refusing to go to school,” he says. “Bring the child to my office with the understanding that she’ll be going to school,” Caron told the parent.

When they arrived at his office, he pulled out his dragon puppet, got in the car and started singing “we hate school,” with the puppet sitting on the girl’s shoulder. “She was thrilled with the puppet,” says Caron, adding that they had switched to “school is cool” by the time they got there. The previously school-hating little girl introduced the dragon puppet to her class, he notes, “giving her a new status.”

Caron, who is the major lay leader at Temple Kol Hamidbar in Sierra Vista, says that Elwood is Jewish. Caron has led Seders with his longtime puppet companion, performs a Chanukah song with Elwood on YouTube (youtube.com/watch?v=LtMjDZJCtqM&noredirect=1), and, he says, “Elwood comes to services with me.”

Caron’s sons, who also live in Sierra Vista, have inherited their father’s passion for puppets, and are both ventriloquists.

Having Elwood in his life has been therapeutic for Caron. “Six years ago I had triple bypass surgery. I took Elwood to University Medical Center with me. I was back to work in three weeks,” says Caron. And, he says, “Inputting my own creativity into my work makes it so much more fun for me.”