I Remember 'Gramma'
'Gramma' was short and stout. She had blue/grey eyes which as a child always appeared to me to be just a little sad. She had high cheek bones and thin lips; and when she kissed us, it was always on the mouth - head-on....and we thought it was so funny.
She wore VO5 in her hair and let us play with her hair pins and pearls. She had bunions and worked hard, and still, she traveled from Boro Park in Brooklyn to Rockaway by subway to visit us on Sundays. She came armed with a Charms Lolly Pop for each of us and sat and talked with our mother in Yiddish for hours. She made the best fried fish and her cookies are, today, still unsurpassed.
She sat on the couch like a doll and let all 6 of us climb all over her, teasing her hair into all kinds of weird hairdos. She let us cuddle in bed with her and bought us Breyers Ice Cream so we'd be quiet while she watched the Ed Sullivan Show.
She was my maternal grandmother and I loved her very much. In a couple of weeks we will mark 46 years since her passing.
I was 15 when she passed away. It was my first encounter with the death of someone close to me. It was the first time I'd ever had to deal with the reality of someone I loved simply being gone from my world.
I remember sitting with my sister, Mindy, on our bedroom floor shortly after Gramma's funeral. Our mother gave us a box. It was filled with all kinds of memorabilia. In it, there was a Shana Tova (Jewish New Year's) card Mindy and I had made and sent to Gramma just months before her passing.
Mindy and I spoke about the fact that when we created that card wishing her a year of good health, we had no idea that she wouldn't live more than a few months into the new year. I found that very frightening and a bit ironic... 'How could Hashem do that to us when we had sent her blessings for a healthy year?'
After that I began experiencing frequent nightmares about death and dying. I would dream my own funeral; I'd dream that I was not dead but everyone else thought I was.....very morbid dreams. I'd wake in a cold sweat with my heart pounding only to realize it was another bad dream.
Then, one night, when I woke, yet again, with a jolt, my damp hair matted to my pillow, my heart racing....I felt the most unusual sense of calm at my side. It was Gramma. Her presence was unmistakable. She related to me, non-verbally - kind of telepathically - that there is nothing to fear; that death is not a bad or scary thing; that she is in a good place and I should not be afraid of dying.
Now, some of you might think this odd or me crazy. But then again, this is My Simple Emes and I am here to speak my truth.
A couple of weeks ago, I had trouble falling asleep after waking in the middle of the night. My mind was filled with memories of Gramma. There were hundreds of little memories running through my mind at top speed. I could not stop them. (It happened to be exactly one month before the Hebrew date of her passing. At the time, I had no idea.) In the morning, I decided I must create a booklet of these memories to pass on to my children and grandchildren.
Gramma is so real to me. To my children (who are all adults) she is just the subject of a few stories. My grandchildren know little of my mother and even less about my grandmother.
We are here and then we pass on and all that is left for us (in the best case scenario)
left for us to hang onto are the love and the memories. And after 120 when we pass, our memories go with us. At that point, unless I do something about it, Gramma will just be a name on a family tree and a photograph that the younger generation cannot identify.
I cannot bear the thought of all the things Gramma was to me being a big unknown to my children and grandchildren. I have decided to leave them a legacy of Gramma and this blog is my first step.
What about you? Are there special people in your life who are no longer among the living? Might you consider taking the time to make a project of remembering them with words and pictures to share with those who did not know them? Would you?
Wishing you all a Happy Purim !
MashaFaygel