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Grandparents
Are Remembered
ERICA RAU7JN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
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QUALITY
CONSTRUCTION
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INITh 1111•11M 1•11•11101
TAKE VINCE AND LARRY'S
CRASH COURSE IN SAFETY BELTS.
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LESSON
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"Folks should remind
others to wear their safety
belts. Remember, there could
be a dzontny in your car"
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118
I 7311 COULD LEARN A LOT FROM A DUM
BUCKLE YOUR SAFETY BELT.
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I
omorrow is my birthday
and I'm dealing with it all
right, except that in a very
acute way, I miss my
grandparents.
Once upon a time, one of the
most special things about my
birthday was that it was also my
maternal grandmother's birth-
day. We celebrated together all
my life, until she died two years
ago, at age 98.
You can hardly ask for longer
than that with someone you love,
but I miss her every day. I don't
just miss her the way she once
was: vital, interested, active and
busy, one of my best friends. I
miss her as an old, old lady, too.
She was a strong person, even in
the winter of her life, the years
after age 85. She was frail but
aware, caring, still involved, de-
spite her walker and hearing aid.
She always invited her friends
to join her for Washington Week
in Review. She chaired a couple
of committees in her retirement
community, including the Li-
brary Committee and the Com-
mittee on World Peace (if you
wonder what has happened to
global politics, they fell apart
when Mutti stopped being chair-
man).
She always ate like a bird and
conducted herself with discipline
and good sense. She had high
standards, antique furniture and
great courage. She survived the
Nazis, but she refused to think
about them. She survived losing
my grandfather the year before
I was born, but she kept him alive
in many ways.
Mutti loved classical music and
literature. She read history books
and biographies not only because
she liked them, but because they
were "improving" .
Once, well into her late eight-
ies, she was rushed to the hos-
pital gasping for breath, her
lungs filling with water. My
mother flew across country to sit
beside her bed. Mutti was an in-
ert figure, the weathered color of
old paper, still as a statue under
the bleached sheets. Mom quiet-
ly pulled a chair up next to Mut-
ti's bed and sat reading the
paperback romance she had pur-
chased for fun at the airport. Sud-
denly, a whispery but imperious
voice from the bed demanded,
"Well, is that the best thing you
can do with your mind?"
Mutti always did the best
things she could do with her
mind. Talking to her was some-
times an inquisition. She would
labor to get to the bottom of
things. In her last good decade,
as she asked her penetrating and
perceptive questions, she did be-
gin to loop. That is, sometimes
she'd repeat herself, but she still
knew where she was trying to go
and her guidance was always
valuable.
At the end, her body just
stopped working, but didn't quit
living. She could no longer do
anything but wait. She fought
against it. But in those last cou-
ple of years (well, she was in her
far nineties, after all) her memo-
ry really slipped away, along with
her hearing and her sight. Yet,
she was always glad to see me,
even after she began to believe I
was my mom or my aunt or my
cousin. As Mutti got weaker, she
refused to eat anything except
tea, vanilla ice cream and butter
cookies. One night, she just dozed
away. Her last words, to a nurse,
were, "Thank you."
Thinking of her brings my fa-
ther's parents back to me, as well.
They were also a constant and
beloved part of my life well into
their eighth decades. My genes
may have made me plump and
nearsighted, but they have
longevity on their side.
My grandpa lived to age 82. In
his cherished family, he had two
sons, five grandsons and me, his
spoiled little girl. I understand he
was regarded as an intimidating
businessman by many who knew
him, but he was the soul of car-
ing, generosity and courtliness to
me. I thought the world had lost
its protective roof when he died
12 years ago, just before my old-
est child, his namesake, arrived.
My grandma, who has been
gone almost six years now, was
also my friend and counselor. She
never talked to me like I was a
child; we had real conversations.
She would meet us at the train
station when my brothers and I
came into town, and take us
everywhere, including a little deli
where she let us stuff ourselves
with immense sour pickles and
corned beef on rye. Even in that
setting, she was elegant, but as
always down to earth, practical,
fun-loving, deeper than she let
on. She was the one who gave me
a virtual fortune when I was 12
— five whole dollars of my very
own — for an afternoon at a shop-
ping center. She laughed indul-
gently when I spent the whole
thing, in ten minutes, on a mar-
velous book of Carl Sandburg's
poems called Honey and Salt.
She was the one who told me,
when I was 15, to be careful what
I wished for, because I might get
it. She was the one who took me
to Europe, with my mother, for
my high school graduation and