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Response to Crisis in Haiti
Today is the last day of the Death and Tragedy issue. So far, the stories we’ve posted about the personal loss of mothers, uncles, grandparents, and friends have been deep and sincere. This week, however, the whole world bore witness to devastation in Haiti; the scope of which is hard to imagine.
While Alef will be moving forward with a happier theme next week, we want to acknowledge the tragedy of what has happened. If you’d like to help, please consider making a donation to AJWS, JDC, or a charity of your choice.
- Alef
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Photo by DVIDSHUB, licensed under Creative Commons.
January 14
By Emily Marx Perl
January 14th, 2010 is exactly 15 years since my 13th birthday, 15 years since my bat mitzvah, and 15 years since my grandfather’s death.
My family moved to Tampa, Florida, in August 1993, three days before I started 6th grade. It was a relatively easy transition. I left our Worcester, Massachusetts home in June to go to the camp I had attended for four years, I spent the next seven weeks in Middle-of-Nowhere, New Hampshire, and then after one of the best summers of my life (well, up until that point), I took a bus to Boston’s Logan Airport, boarded a plane to Tampa, and walked into my new life. I didn’t question, I didn’t complain, I just jumped right in… and then walked myself to school on my first day of middle school.
My family immediately immersed itself into the Jewish community in Tampa, and before we knew it, we were already talking about choosing a date for my bat mitzvah. My bat mitzvah seemed so far away at the time, as I was only 11 and was still getting used to my new Hebrew school (and having to get up so early on Sunday mornings!). Our temple’s educator told us that they typically assigned bar/bat mitzvah dates more than two years in advance and, at that time, we were already less than 18 months until my 13th birthday.
“We only have two dates left… May 20th or January 14th,” she told us.
“January 14th?” my mother exclaimed, “That’s Emily’s birthday! What better date could we ask for!?”
So, it was settled (and we considered ourselves very lucky), my bat mitzvah was to be a Havdallah service on January 14, 1995.
January 14, 1995, was one of the best days of my life (way better than all the days combined in that “best summer of my life” in 1993). I was surrounded by my family and closest friends, I got to wear a beautiful new dress, and the entire day was all about me. After the beautiful service, where I nailed my torah and haftarah portions, gave a great speech about women excelling in their chosen careers (which was related to my haftarah portion), and made my parents immensely proud, we boarded a bus to downtown Tampa and celebrated in the kind of party a 13-year-old couldn’t have even imagined. I’d had a lot of “bests” in my life, but it really was the best night of my life, or so I thought.
I woke up the next morning to a knock at my door.
“Hey, Em,” my mother said. “Can you please come out of your room?”
“But I haven’t even done my hair yet!,” I replied knowing that many family members were downstairs. I couldn’t possibly leave my room as the new “woman” that I was without being perfectly coiffed!
“That’s okay, Em, it can wait,” my mom responded.
I walked out of my room to meet my mother and to news that was the farthest possible from what I was expecting.
“Em, Grandpa passed away last night,” she said.
“What?!” I replied. As a child who had never been confronted with death, I just couldn’t understand. “But, he was just there last night. He looked so good… and happy.”
I didn’t want to believe it. She explained to me that my grandmother found him unresponsive that morning in their hotel room. She called 911 and my father, but Grandpa was gone. Apparently he had a heart attack in his sleep that night. It was really hard to understand that one minute we were smiling and celebrating (and I could, and still can to this day, remember the exact moment when we said goodbye that night), and the next he was gone.
I never thought much about the ‘luck’ that my family had with my bat mitzvah date until that morning, January 15, 1995. As a 13-year-old, it would have “totally stunk” if I had to have my bat mitzvah five months after my birthday, as it was very common for one’s bat mitzvah to be around his/her birthday date, but I never really thought about it… until that morning. What if that date in May was the only one available? Would my grandfather have missed my bat mitzvah? Would he not have been present to share in the simcha of me becoming a woman in the eyes of the Jewish religion?
My rabbi, who had stood by me at my bat mitzvah hours earlier, sat with my family and consoled us through the difficult time, told me that it wasn’t luck we had experienced. He explained that since I was the youngest grandchild in my family, I was the last one to become an adult and it was that important Jewish milestone that my grandfather waited for before he was able to peacefully pass on. He explained to me that, for the rest of my life, my birthday was not going to be filled with sadness and tears for my grandfather’s death (as I feared), but rather peace and joy because my grandfather waited for me, that we had that special bond.
I don’t believe in destiny and I’ve never bought much into the concept of fate, but it was this explanation that my rabbi gave me that helped me through an extremely difficult day. It’s something that has stayed with me for the 15 years since and something I will undoubtedly think about every January 14th for the rest of my life.
Photo by Terry’s Photography, Tampa, FL
My Jewish Jeanne
By Ally Iseman
My grandmother, Jeanne Iseman, was one of the most special people I’ve known. When she died on September 29th, I lost one of my best friends. I’m still grieving viscerally, so writing this piece is a powerful challenge, one that I know she would be proud of me for meeting.
Grandma was one of the strongest people I’ve ever met and one of the most honest, especially when it came to giving you her opinion. She taught me the value of honesty, both through its intense presence in her life and in the specific moments she chose to leave it out. From my clothing to career choices, Grandma would never cut any corners or smooth anything over whenever I came to her for advice. However, the few things she wasn’t so honest and upfront about stuck with me in a very different way.
I didn’t know she was sick. Or at least I didn’t know exactly how sick she really was. She’d been fighting one thing or another for 40 years, but never seemed to make a fuss about it no matter what it was, from multiple eye surgeries to double hip replacements. In our weekly phone conversations she always wanted to know what was going on with me, what was happening in my life. No matter how humdrum I felt it may be, she wanted all the details. That started to change over the past year. Our conversations started to be filled with her terrible chemo experiences, the experimental drug treatments that made the skin on the bottoms of her feet fall off, how tired she was…That should have clued me in, but when I asked her about it, her attitude was that “this too shall pass.”
Maybe it was the simple bliss of denial that kept me casual about it. She was the anchor that kept my family together, or at least tried to. She was certainly a staple in my life, a pillar of strength and the woman who introduced me to the concept of true forgiveness through living example. Grandma wasn’t going anywhere! Not in my reality.
Then she asked my Dad, her son, the boy who she adopted as her own when she married my Grandpa Abe, to come down to Florida to be with her. That’s when my Dad knew it was serious. The same woman who wouldn’t even tell anyone she was sick until after the surgeries had already taken place, that woman was asking for his help.
I had already planned a trip home to Maryland that I had postponed twice over the course of summer and autumn, but I refused to postpone it a third time and had committed to flying down right after my birthday. My main focus was to spend as much time with my mom’s mother, “Granny,” as I could before she slipped completely into the dementia she was so hastily approaching. When I landed in D.C. and got home to my mother’s apartment, I received a call from my Dad.
“Ally, I need you to come to Florida,” he said. “I need you to go to the house…and I need you to pick out a suit for me…”
Static filled the air around me and I don’t think I took a breath until I hung up. Then I hyperventilated. Then I screamed. Then I cried and let my mother hold me. I got on a flight to Florida the next day.
When I landed, my Dad told me that he had had to convince Grandma to let me come. She didn’t want me to see her this way. He hadn’t prepared me fully. My rock, my anchor, my best friend, was a jaundiced skeleton who could barely speak. I came just in time; right before her communication skills completely failed her.
Hospice is not a happy place. Over that next week, I helped my Grandma die. Nine days after my 25th birthday, Jeanne Iseman allowed the liver cancer to win. She slipped away in her son’s arms in the middle of the night.
I didn’t have funeral clothes with me. How do you shop for a dress for a funeral? How do you not feel guilty that you still want it to be stylish, flattering, and fit you? Grandma liked shopping with me. She liked my style. She always told me I looked nice in comfortable clothes, so with these thoughts in mind, I chose a dress. I wore flip-flops to Grandma’s funeral.
I picked out her final outfit at my dad’s request. Her favorite color was green, but she hated wearing it, so I went with a pair of neutral pants and a brown blazer over a pretty yellow blouse with floral lace trim. My dad said it was perfect. I picked out her coffin. The simpler the better, she hated extravagance. I picked out the restaurant for the reception after the funeral. It was where she always went with her girlfriends after the theater. I spoke to the rabbi about her impact on my life, who she was, and our special relationship. I said goodbye to her lifeless body at the funeral home. I put dirt on her grave. The sound it made when it hit the top of the coffin will never leave me. I cried. I flew home to Maryland. I spent a day with my other grandmother. I flew back to LA. Life continued.
I wondered, how does everything stay the same? Didn’t the whole world stop when mine did?
Since her passing, I’ve learned more about her past. I’m not sure how I neglected asking these questions when she was alive. I’m unsure how to not feel guilty about that.
Grandma’s journey to Judaism was much like mine. She was raised by an atheist, my Great-Grandma GG, and had no experience with religion as a child. My mother is a self-proclaimed agnostic and my only introduction to Judaism was as an obligation to my father to attend Hebrew school and services on Holy Days and sporadic Shabbats. This starkly nonspiritual image of Judaism devoid of passion was the root of my dissociation with Judaism as a part of my identity and as a whole. Grandma studied to become a librarian long before it was normal for women to go to university. She was granted a position as the librarian at a Jewish Day School. Through this position she not only became active in the surrounding Jewish community, but Grandma became a board member at the affiliated synagogue, had her bat mitzvah, and became an observant Jew. All in her adult life! My connection was ignited through my Birthright trip in August 2008, when I was almost 24 years old. Since then I have immersed myself in countless branches of my surrounding Jewish community and was even given a position as one of the first four fellows with Birthright Israel NEXT in Los Angeles!
To me, she had always been the family member most connected with Judaism, so I had just assumed it was always that way. To find out that our beginnings were so similar, our journeys so intertwined, I now more fully understand our connection. We both grew up completely detached from our Jewish identities, and knowing that she was able to see me find my connection to Judaism – something so beautifully integral to her being – within her lifetime, fills me with happiness.
Our bond was not one of blood relation, but one that goes much deeper. I now know that she truly lives on in me. Not in my DNA nor just in my heart, but in my journey forward. Grandma lives on in my stubborn zest for life and in my passionate exploration of my Jewish roots.
Photo by Brittany G, licensed under Creative Commons.
Sitting Shiva in the Land of Oz
By Stephanie Spiegel
Back at the hotel, flipping through the cable channels, I stumbled upon a favorite movie from childhood – The Wizard of Oz. In spite of my grief, I watched the film and my thoughts become a bit more focused.
Sitting in my aunt and cousin’s home, where my uncle’s death had left my family with an overwhelming sense of loss, I realized that we seek the same things that Dorothy and her three friends did on their journey to Oz:
As a scarecrow without a brain, we try to comprehend, but cannot.
As a tin-man without a heart, our hearts are heavy and torn.
As a lion without courage, we are weakened and feel powerless.
As a traveler without a home, we feel loss but search for comfort.
As we seek to fill the spiritual void, we look to that ultimate wizard. He/She/It, whatever you may subscribe to, tells us to sit shiva, say Kaddish, and reflect on the good times, to once again emerge into light and normal life. At that moment, I felt “there was no place like this home,” to be here with my family and for my family during this time.
Dedicated to my uncle, Edward ‘Ezra’ Spiegel (my father’s brother and best friend); my cousins Beryl, Jason, and Jared’s father, and my aunt Elissa.
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Photo by Fabio Ikezaki, licensed under Creative Commons.
To Mom With Love
By Ruth Bregman
My mom, Margie, was in her forties when I was born, very unusual for those times. So she was much older than all of my friends’ mothers. I clearly remember when she began to be forgetful. It happened shortly after my father died – they had adored each other and she just couldn’t deal well with living alone.
The forgetfulness started when she was in her late eighties. At first it was an occasional lapse, but gradually became more pronounced. Finally, my mom’s doctor made it a reality. He diagnosed her with dementia, probably Alzheimer’s.
I was forced to face the truth and deal with the many problems that followed. Almost immediately, she began a long stay in the hospital due to a serious lapse of memory, her decreasing ability to deal well with reality, occasional hallucinations, and her need to begin medication and to have it regulated properly. But when the time came for her to leave the hospital, I had to argue with the hospital social work staff and administrators who insisted that she belonged in a nursing home. I refused because I knew she wouldn’t do well in a nursing home, and I had also promised my dad never to allow that to happen.
I won that fight and was able to take her back to her apartment on the Lower East Side, but it meant hiring 24-hour aides to “ensure her safety.” My mom adjusted to the aides, and had a complete personality change which often comes with this disease. She became extremely attached to me and also more demonstrative as the dementia increased. This was not what I’d been accustomed to growing up, and proved to require a big adjustment on my part. However, it also proved to be an unexpectedly positive change. It was actually very nice to be hugged and kissed whenever I came over to visit.
Watching over her was a big responsibility. I had to check up on her and the aides every day at first, gradually cutting back to three to four times per week, and eventually (at the insistence of my friends) two to three times per week. Before I realized what was happening, my life consisted of full-time work, telephone calls to mom twice a day, and visits to her, which seemed to make her happy. Then there were trips to the cleaners, laundry to be done, grocery shopping, picking up prescriptions and distributing them in weekly dose containers, and all the other tasks that needed to be taken care of for her.
Mom’s health deteriorated with time, and after three more years at home she passed away in her own apartment. It was not unexpected, but still a shock. The funeral was small, with only the rabbi, family, and her aides (who had grown to love her) attending. In her nineties, when she died, she didn’t have many friends who were still alive and well enough to come to the graveside burial.
It took over two months for me to stop picking up the telephone to call my mom to say hello. And it took almost as long for me to feel comfortable planning outings with my friends and family after being unavailable for such a lengthy time. But it always made me feel gratified to have done the best I could for my mom in her final years, and to have been able to fulfill my promise to my dad not to put her into a nursing home. Maybe best of all, I had been the recipient of her outpouring of warmth and love over her last few years.
Finally, although it’s become much more common nowadays than it was when I was born, it makes me smile to think about the negative feelings many people have regarding “older people” who have babies and never live long enough to see them grow up. Boy, did my mom prove that theory wrong! She was able to see her only daughter and her two grandchildren become productive and happy adults.
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