The Way of Zen: Duty, Respect, Humility, Laughter and Borscht
This past week, in a tiny town in upstate New York that he and his family have called home for more than sixty years, a good man was buried with his coffin proudly draped by an American flag. State Troopers in their Smokey and the Bandit hats provided a guard of honour at his funeral.
Zen Sawchuk, my uncle, was 95.
When a loved one passes, we set out the historical markers of their lives. It’s how we “locate” them in the world and in our own adjacent lives. We can also reflect on what gracious gifts the deceased have given to other people including ourselves. And, perhaps, we — whether that’s a family, a community or society — can also commemorate what’s lost by their passing, be it personally or, call it, metaphorically.
Zen’s markers were not only plentiful; they were improbable. He was born in western Ukraine, a region that was twice occupied during his younger years, once by the Soviet Union and once by Nazi Germany. He once told me a heart-breaking story of hiding in an attic with his mother, witnessing his village’s Jews being murdered by the Nazis in the adjoining field, and feeling total misery and powerlessness.
Faithful to the ideal of Ukrainian independence, Zen was himself thrown into World War II and served in a battle where 80% of his unit’s brothers-in-arms became casualties in a matter of just a few brutal days. Eventually, he lost-and-found himself as a Displaced Person (DP) in post-war Germany. He embraced happier times as a musician for the USO. Times looked to get even better when he got to migrate to the US in 1949.
But war still clung to him, it seemed. Within months of arrival, Zen was drafted into an underprepared but valiant US Army and served in combat in the Korean War, and then after with the Reserves. Later, as a professional cook, garlic reminded him of the actual smell of waves of Chinese Army attackers sweeping down a frozen hillside.
He survived. He survived to produce more markers. A musician in Amor, a dance band that entertained thousands at Ukrainian parties (and has the best name ever). A cook in professional kitchens for big New York City banks — in a pre-Uber Eats world that valued stuff like that. President Eisenhower came through once after a function with bank executives to say hello to the guys in the back. He shook Zen’s hand and thanked him for his service in Korea. Needless to say, Zen liked Ike and Republican Presidents in general.
In the early 1960s, Zen and my Aunt Olga moved from Brooklyn to Kerhonkson and, for nearly 50 years at the Log Cabin Ukrainian Restaurant, ran a successful small business. It was truly like a “second kitchen” to thousands, be they locals or Ukrainians up for the weekend at the SuzyQ and CYM estates. He’d keep the bar open late so that the multi-ethnic musicians from the Borscht Belt resorts nearby — the Granite, the Homowack, the Nevele — could come in after their gigs for a soup, a Gennessee beer, and even a jam around the busted-up piano by the pool table. The bow ties of their gig tuxedoes loose around sweaty necks. During quiet periods at the Cabin, Zen liked to sit at the end of his bar, surrounded by glamourous black-and-white promo photos of entertainers who were his friends and customers, maybe working on the form guide for the races at Monticello.
Sales of borscht and lots of love and support made lives for my cousins, Natalka and Roxolana. Strong, practical, funny, smart women with terrific partners. They were all at his bedside as he passed, as was his niece and my awesome sister, Christina, and her terrific husband. They sang a few songs and cracked jokes about not mixing up the morphine with the mayo in the fridge. Zen sang “You Are My Sunshine” to my sister and reminded her of the Pacific Street apartment building where she was born and our family’s American trajectory started.
With Brylcremed jet black hair, Zen was my personal version of the Rat Pack’s cool. He loved telling jokes and funny stories, jazz, soccer, a bet on the Lotto, the trotters or at Atlantic City, Florida vacations, big Cadillacs, dressing up in checked sports coats and smart white slacks for the track or casino, and cooking (especially when he didn’t need to like for Thanksgiving or Christmas where there were always very welcome “orphans” at the table). He supported his local VFW and Ukrainian Catholic Church, and helped local authorities with translation.
If I were to sit down with Zen and ask him about “resilience”, “positivity”, “integrity” or “emotional intelligence”, I know that he would totally understand me — and he would probably use the word “bullshit” in some part of his inevitably hilarious reply. He didn’t need such concepts; like so many of his Greatest Generation, he just chose right and acted right.
I remember there was a period where Dunkin Donuts had a big ad campaign on American television. After a 12 hour shift and some sleep, Zen would wake up for another 12 hours and comically mutter like the character in the ad: “Gotta wake up and make the donuts, gotta wake up and make the donuts.”
In the face of powerlessness, terror, homelessness, violence, tragedy, post-traumatic stress, uncertainty and all of his life’s challenges, I make out that my Uncle Zen just kept on “waking up to make the donuts” and much more. He seemed to know that living is about taking your immediate circumstances and making good things out of them: songs, jokes, meals, a business, a family, a contribution, a life that had almost had been lost to him.
Zen remarkably harboured no hatred to those he might have come to hate. Rather, Zen treated every person he met — and there were thousands through the restaurant — with real respect and non-judgement, regardless of their background or creed. He wished all well on their respective course in life, whether it was driving back to the Trooper Station after a cheeseburger or his nephew in his choice to move to Australia. Every time he saw me on my family visits back to Kerhonkson, he left me with the same parting message: “Look after yourself. I mean it.” And he meant it.
I wonder if the things that Zen did and practiced are being lost in our way of life. Duty, respect, and humility are (unbelievably to me) sometimes critiqued or mocked as ways that “historically entrench power in the hands of the few”. Humour, that ultimate way to both survive and celebrate, is almost subversive and risky nowadays. On the other hand, and ironically, the songs of our era are odes to toxic vanity and promiscuity. We’re bizarrely told they’re “empowering”.
I will miss him, but I hope in some small way to not “miss” the way that he lived. Yesterday, I was in the church I have attended in western Sydney for the last 32 years. I was praying for Zen’s passage to the other side when on the arched dome above I noticed — improbably for the first time ever — a painted dove of peace.
Yeah, call it corny. Yeah, cliched. Yeah, projection. Yeah, sentimental. Or patriarchal or boomer or whatever...
I’ll call it a reminder that I can do a bit better every day. That I can wake up and make the donuts of some good and peace in the world.
