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January 14
By Emily Marx Perl
January 14th, 2010 was 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
Read more posts from Issue #13: Bar Mitzvah Season.
Read more posts from Issue #5: Death and Tragedy.
My Father's Name was Lewis Lander
By Ian Lander
My father’s name was Lewis Lander. He sometimes went by “Big Lew the Jew from Avenue U.” This nickname was self-applied, even though he was not from Avenue U, and was admittedly only “a majestic five foot seven on a good day.” He was, however, a Jew. He rarely attended synagogue, and was comparatively unfamiliar with religious practices. I think his Judaism came out in his sense of humor. He used it as a way to view the world and deal with the absurdity of life that he recognized all too well.
One Jewish tradition that he did observe was leading Passover Seder in our home. When it came time to do hand washing, he would say, “Now please join me in washing,” and then spit air into each hand and clap, rubbing them together. That’s how we knew it was time to eat.
When my mother told him she was pregnant with their first child (me), he looked at her with wide-eyed excitement and said, “You mean I’m going to have a brother?” Once he had children, they of course had to have nicknames. I was lovingly named “Thornbush,” undoubtedly a nod to my warm and cuddly demeanor.
My dad had a way of remaining funny while dishing out biting criticism or complaint. I remember going with him to a diner where he thought we had waited too long to order. He stopped a waitress to ask her if there was some sort of secret password that he didn’t know to get service. All I could do was sink down in my chair and be glad that it wasn’t directed at me.
He recognized comedic genius in others too, even if it was unintentional. There was his never published book, “Mangled Idioms,” a collection of mis-sayings by his sister-in-law. “You can’t kick a dead horse in the mouth” remains a favorite of mine. A chicken scratched rough draft remains in the bottom drawer of my mother’s dresser.
God, did he have fun with my mother. There was a period where he was calling her “New York,” paying homage to his beloved TV show “Flavor of Love.” He could always spin it when my mom got mad, saying that New York was Flav’s favorite woman, as she was his.
Big Lew was also willing, once in a while, to make himself the butt of the joke. One day I came home to find him out in the street playing catch with my brother and wearing a humongous “R.I.P. Tupac Shakur” T-shirt.
He would say things like, “Don’t you know I’m challenged?” when he’d spill food on himself or forget to do something important. He called himself “Homer.” In this way, he used humor to cope with his own shortcomings and problems, some of which were quite serious.
I have a lot of my father in me, for which I must laugh to keep from crying. When we buried him two years ago, there was a long silence after the earth was filled in. Eventually uncomfortable, I broke it by shouting, “All right, who’s hungry?” Those who knew us well enough laughed with me, and we started back home.
I miss Big Lew terribly. I’ll remember him and laugh through my tears every time I spit wash before eating Pesach dinner.
Photo by Kevygee, licensed under Creative Commons.
Read more posts from Issue 09: “What’s So Funny.”
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.
…
Photo by Fabio Ikezaki, licensed under Creative Commons.
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