2023 Family Photo
“The Sun is Always Shining Above the Clouded Sky”
This is a tough one to commit to the page. 2023 had some of the highest highs and lowest lows of my life. Through it all my connection to my partner, my kids, my father, and my brother have been tested and have grown deeper and stronger. I’ve learned that grief is not linear and that love can prevail.
It all began at the end of 2022 when my good buddy Pete Looney lost his battle with cancer. During the pandemic Pete and I would meet at our buddy Richard Bishop’s house to drink whiskey around a bonfire. It became a support group for the three us during the challenge of COVID. And it was during that time that we learned about Pete’s illness. Pete was a fabulous musician and the leader of our classic rock band the Hollow Prophets. I knew Pete in that way. But to the wider music community in Montgomery County Pete was an open mic host, a solo artist, and an amazing support for young talent. It only seemed fitting to host a concert in his honor. So January 2023 was all about wrangling 33 musicians for an amazing concert at the Olney Theatre. The event went off without a hitch and I thought it was the perfect celebration of a wonderful life.
Meanwhile we were beginning to understand the serious nature of my mother’s own battle with cancer. The C word weighed heavy in 2023.
In 2022 I had the great pleasure to play the final Chesapeake Bay Blues Festival with Gabe Stillman. I have a buddy named Pat who lives in San Diego who told me about this great band that was playing after us called Elektric Voodoo. He was friends with one of their horn players. So backstage I went on a hunt to say hello to that horn player. I never actually found him, but I did find their band leader and he told me he had just moved to the Baltimore area. Of course I reached out to him after the festival, and we exchanged a few nice messages. That was in June of 2022. In December he messaged me that he was thinking about starting a band. I wrote back in seconds: “Let’s meet for lunch tomorrow.” By February of 2023 rehearsals were underway for Scott Tournet and the Spark. In a year of highs and lows, working with Scott Tournet, Jeff Reed, and Ricky Wise is the top of the mountain. This is the band I’ve waited my entire life for. Scott is a brilliant songwriter and these dudes have more talent than you can imagine. I’m over the moon excited about the potential of this band. February was a month of rehearsals and the journey began. We’ve had 9 gigs in 2023 including a weeklong tour in mid-September that took us to Vermont, NYC, and Boston, and a one nighter in South Dakota in front of 4000 people. This band sounds so good.
March was the beginning of a season of celebrations that were years in the making. Carter worked on his last high school theatrical production and we hosted our last cast/crew party. This was also the month that we began to prepare for the biggest celebration of the year, the wedding of my brother Barett and his amazing new partner, Omer Ben Sedia. More on that later.
After nine long, hard years Deb defended her dissertation in March! Her thesis topic was the Minority Scholars Program which is a statewide program that’s been her passion for nearly two decades. For nine years my amazing partner worked a full time job teaching high school, worked as senior leadership of MSP, AND worked on getting her PhD. March was the culmination of all of that effort. It’s been a journey and Deb is an inspiration.
April had trips to chemo with mom and wedding prep. Logan turned 21 and my brother was in town to help me take him to a speak-easy in DC to celebrate. Good stuff.
Planning for the month of May was pretty overwhelming. This was the month that I thought was going to be the most complicated and challenging month of the year. What did I know? The first week of May I purchased a new keyboard made by a Swedish company named Nord. The Nord Stage Four (fitting name for a year of cancer) is a powerful board and I thought it would be cool to make an “unboxing video” showing my excitement. The view count went up so fast I decided to pursue a new thread in my life: as a YouTuber. Since I published that video I’ve been creating tutorial videos for the keyboard and I’m on my way to making a little ad revenue.
May also had the first gig for Scott Tournet and the Spark. We had cameras set up everywhere and I edited a fun video of one of our tunes. Carter went to his Senior prom and graduated from Blake High School. Of course we had house guests and parties to celebrate Carter’s graduation. The following week Deb walked across the stage at the Universtiy of Maryland to be publicly knighted as a doctor. She makes me look like a slacker. We had a wonderful party for Deb with guests from all over the country.
May ended with a beautiful wedding on a perfect day at my mom’s house with over 100 people and a rehearsal dinner at our house the night before. My brother married an amazing Israeli opera director named Omer. They met in Hawaii a few years ago when she was there to direct a production. She travels all of the world and has directed some incredible shows on some huge stages. I love her to pieces and we’re all overjoyed that she’s joined the family. Mom’s home is called Eden Valley. Since 1987 we’ve hosted literally hundreds of events there, from yoga classes to 300 person blow-out parties. Having Barett and Omer’s wedding at Eden Valley was special, especially knowing how mom’s health was deteriorating. The day went off without a hitch. Mom rallied and hosted like she has for years.
This international union needed two weddings so a month later we all flew to Israel to celebrate round two. Two weeks before the trip mom’s oncologist cleared her for travel and encouraged her to travel. I was born in Israel and this trip was to be my first time back to see where I was born. Unfortunately, mom’s health took a sudden turn and she decided she wasn’t strong enough to make the trip. So Deb and our boys, along with my dad, went to Israel without mom to celebrate with Barett, Omer, and Omer’s wonderful family.
The trip was amazing and I still haven’t taken the time to write it all down on the page. I have tons of photos and videos to share. My dad spent many years there in the 1960s and this was his first time back since we moved back to Pennsylvania in 1971. The wedding was amazing. The trip was a high point in many ways. We traveled all over the country, had some great time with my dad, and even took a day-trip to Petra in Jordan. We wish mom could have been with us.
This is where our year takes a turn. The day after we returned from Israel, we went to see mom to tell her all about our adventures. She didn’t communicate much with me while we were abroad, and I had a feeling that something was changing. I had no idea how much. It turns out she spent most of our time in Israel in Mercy hospital in Baltimore. She didn’t tell us because she didn’t want us to worry, and she didn’t want to ruin our trip. She looked emaciated and weak. I knew right then that she wasn’t going to beat this one. The joys of our successful trip crashed to the ground. Two months later she was gone.
I do have stories of happy moments of the tail end of 2023 that I was planning to share, but as I write this they don’t seem to matter. I talked to my mom all the time. She called me for my advice regularly, and she was my primary advisor. Whenever something good happened to me, no matter how trivial, my first thought was to send a text to mom to let her know. She’s been gone over three months and I still have those thoughts every few days. I still want to tell her everything going through my head. I miss her terribly. Some days the grief is overwhelming.
Someone told me recently that grief isn’t linear. I can’t get that line out of my head. The months leading up to her passing I was in dutiful son-mode. I drove her to most of her appointments. When she was in the hospital I spent all day with her. On the surface I did my best to keep it all together. On the inside I was crumbling. Mom knew it. From her hospital bed she scolded me for not expressing myself to her. She told me it was going to be harder if I didn’t let my emotions flow then. I told her she was my best friend. She told me I was her best friend from the moment I was born. Grief isn’t linear. It comes like a tsunami when you’re not expecting it. I’ve never felt this kind of loss.
My mother was a rock star. She came from a very conservative Mennonite farming family in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She was a trailblazer out of the gate. She pushed boundaries and lived her truth from an early age. She touched more lives than anyone I’ve ever known. Her entire life was about serving and helping other people. As a Registered Nurse she worked the overnight shift in the emergency room and later worked in hospice. She even ran a branch of the Visiting Nurse Association for a few years. She was the founder and first chair of the board of CASA de Maryland which has grown to be one of the largest immigration support organizations in the US. They’re now in 48 states and have become a regular foil of extreme right. CASA has helped 100s of thousands of people. She was a leader (clerk) in the Quaker community and she was given the awesome task of leading the mid-atlantic region the year before she passed. She ran an organization that assisted Afghani refugees in the Baltimore area. She spent years volunteering in prisons and built deep relationships with many of them. From her hospital window we could see one of the prisons she spent the most time as a volunteer. She mentored countless women and had dozens of “daughters.” She opened her home to people who had health issues. People would stay at Eden Valley for months as they recovered from various illnesses. She worked as a mediator for many non-profits as they worked through change. She was a force of change. She could be a tsunami.
A few years ago I had a chance to talk to Tom Perez who was the Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, the chair of the DNC for a few years, and a candidate for Maryland Governor in 2022. He started his career at CASA when mom was still active there. I walked up to him at a rally and said, “Sec. Perez, you and I have a mutual friend. My mom is Bette Hoover.”
He takes a slow step backwards, and a huge smile lit up his face. Then he said, “your mom is a force of nature.”
In 2023 we lost a force of nature.
I have high hopes for 2024. Musically I’m finding my groove and getting calls to play with some of the most talented people anywhere. I’m really hoping 2024 is the year I record my first solo album. My video business - dnbstudios - has steady work with some big clients like AARP, FDA, and Sallie Mae. I still love video production and I enjoy having this creative outlet. My kids are amazing and Logan will be graduating with honors this spring. Dr. Delavan is trying to figure out what’s next for her life and career but the doors are begining to open. We have food, shelter, and family. I’m surrounded by love.
Life is good and the sun is peaking from around the clouds.
