Nine Years Gone
Nine years ago today we lost my aunt, Michelle Goldman Kane, who was stabbed to death by her estranged husband.
LAPD knew he was going to kill her after be violently violated his restraining order, yet still did absolutely nothing.
You can read more specifics about Michelle’s murder from my words in Women’s Lives Matter (March 2017) and May Their Memories Be A Revolution: A Reflection on My White Aunt, Police Violence, and Black Lives Matter (June 2020).
Michelle’s brutal murder obliterated so much of my ability to simply remember who she was before the tragedy, but I want to share some highlights: A highly accomplished paralegal, Michelle could run circles around attorneys early in their careers. She endlessly loved her kids, nieces, nephews, and cousins more than anything. Over ten years younger than my father, she grew up largely as an only child. Michelle developed deep lifelong friendships with women she treated like sisters.
I have fond memories of her being my hip younger aunt, a quintessential Gen Xer who helped my parents figure out the names of songs I heard on the radio and desperately wanted to have readily available via audiocassette or CD, who would show up for lunch at Fromin’s Deli in Santa Monica on the same block as her apartment on Sunday afternoons extremely hungover (of course, she had just woken up at noon or later) to see us after Hebrew school.
The murder also served as a harbinger for more loss. By 2019, we lost three of my four grandparents, my great aunt (my Bubby’s twin who was like a fifth grandparent to me), and my great uncle (my Grandma’s older brother who had formed a special, grandfatherly bond with Michelle’s kids). We sold my Bubby and Papa’s Santa Monica home, a family refuge and gathering point for nearly five decades. With my maternal grandparents and their home gone, the anchor for both sides of my family left us.
My Grandma, who had been raising Michelle’s kids with the help of nannies, fell and suffered permanent, immediate brain damage and dementia, on March 15, 2020. Though a plan was in the works for the kids to move in with my parents, to do so the same day as lockdowns began amidst a global pandemic cost my parents the ability to have a healthier transition from empty nesters to raising children again (and it became another significant loss for the kids).
I also lost relatives who are still living, but out of profound and unexpected selfishness and emotional narcissism, refused to uphold the bare minimum of their moral obligations of being a part of the village supporting Michelle’s kids.
Michelle always embodied a sense of optimism, though an optimism fueled by naivete. She thought that growing a family would save her marriage. Michelle believed that somehow everything would be okay without seeking the help she needed from her family or social service agencies. While the murderer and law enforcement alone bear responsibility for her death, I can’t shake the thought that her outlook contributed to the loss of her life.
Yet I wish to have a healthy dose of Michelle’s optimism today. We need it.
June 15, 2013 remains the darkest day of my life, but the world too often feels worse than when we lost her. At first, I continued to think that progress is linear, that the world continued moving in the right direction despite my family’s tragedy. Most pointedly, the Supreme Court’s rulings on marriage equality not even two weeks after Michelle’s murder (and again in 2015) solidified this belief that at least we had a chance as a family to raise her kids in a world moving forward.
Once Trump won the Electoral College in 2016, the trauma I felt seemed to be more widespread as the world turned upside down for more than half the country. It’s what finally led me to require light medication alongside therapy to stabilize my own depression and PTSD as the election shocked my system to a point where I was no longer be able to get out of bed or barely get myself to work.
Here’s the thing: I got the help I needed and it worked pretty quickly. I volunteered and donated. We flipped the House in 2018, then the White House and Senate in 2020.
Lots of good still happened personally, despite the heavy losses. We moved back to my native Los Angeles in 2018 after 11 years away in DC and the Bay Area. I married my best friend at the wedding of our dreams in 2019. I gained the best in-laws ever and a (not-so-baby) nephew who is the light of our lives. I’ve made many new friends in my hometown, despite it often being a difficult place to meet new people as an adult. I have a job that I find extraordinarily fulfilling and meaningful on a team led by some of the most competent, empathetic, and humorous people out there.
Carrying some optimism isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Progress won’t be linear, especially as we’re on the precipice of the Supreme Court gutting abortion access and the rise of Nazi-like thugs threatening to attack LGBTQ people with the tagline “Kill Your Local Pedophile,” many of whom are also getting appointed to election boards and running for local office.
But we’re also seeing the most progress ever on any form of gun control since 1994. Contrary to national headlines, California voters aren’t going in a rightwing direction. Despite backlashes, acceptance of all kinds of genders continues to grow, allowing for humans to thrive as their authentic selves.
Let’s all carry a bit of Michelle’s optimism with the realism required to survive the challenges of these unstable times. We have it in us to keep fighting for that better world that Michelle didn’t get to live to see and her children deserve.
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