Alef: The NEXT Conversation
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.
Tropicana Christmas
By Lucy Gillespie
When I was a kid, I had a tutor to help me prepare for Secondary School. She had me write a creative piece on Christmas and so I wrote about Christmas in England – the one I had read about in Enid Blyton books, and had seen suggested by intricate shop windows. My mum happened to be in the kitchen when I read it, and she laughed out loud. “What the hell do you know about Christmas?” she asked. Even Mrs. Gilby agreed that the piece was not up to my usual scratch.
“Nothing,” was my answer. I knew absolutely nothing about Christmas.
Going home to see my mother’s family was part of the contract when my parents moved to England. Three weeks in Florida from December 6th until December 31st, or divorce. Every year, the great battle of the Maccabees was reenacted in my house as my mother fought tooth and nail against our Elementary School for a much, much higher purpose than Education. Sicknesses were faked, high airline ticket prices were invoked – anything to get us onto that plane and into the steamy Florida air, where Blue and Silver joined Red and Green upon the walls, and where “Happy Holidays” had long since won out over “Merry Christmas.” The three of us called her “mum,” and she had gotten used to it, but singing Christmas Carols was far, far beyond the line.
Our Channukah feasts were America’s feasts – the grand, spic-and-span carvery table of the Sizzler, and it’s breakfast equivalent, Shoney’s. And it simply wouldn’t be the holidays without a soft mint and a toothpick to cap up our mid-afternoon dinner, then falling asleep, stretched out in my grandparent’s Cadillac on the drive home. Pulling into the drive of Galt Towers, we (the cousins) would alight sleepily in the Florida air as winds of hurricane-capability splayed and tossed the palm trees.
On Christmas Day, when the Flea Markets and Dollar Stores were closed, my grandmother would take us to the movie theatre at 10am, and we would sneak around from screen to screen to concession stand and back to screen. Then, charged with popular culture, we would head back out to the great Churches of Retail – for we were truly in the Jerusalem, the Bethlehem, the Mecca of beloved stuff – and buy sneakers emblazoned with Aladdin or The Lion King motifs. When we got back to England, they would be the talk of the playground. We saw those films months before anyone else, and we had the merchandise to prove it.
In my mid-teens, the Florida trips dwindled, and my dad showed his true colors one year, unloading a plastic tree in a box from the car after a trip to Costco. Since then, we’ve carried out the traditional routine – presents, stockings, Mince Pies. But however hard we try to adapt to this beast called “Christmas Spirit,” the magic is gone. I can’t help but think that the big draw to a stereotypical Christmas is the anticipation, and the sense that you’re getting something you need – spirituality and presents alike! Thanks to my mother, what I need to make my year complete is that trip to the travel agent in June, three weeks to pack my suitcase and perfect my American accent, and eighteen hours of five large individuals at boiling point in airports before the sweet, sweet relief of a beach-front condo. I still dream about those buffets, the Swap Shop Flea Market and its Three-Ring Circus, the pile of presents on my grandmother’s wraparound sofa, half-hazardly covered in a sheet to protect them from the vying fingers of all of the cousins. Tables a mile-wide with relatives that look like me, and who know what I know - that it’s Channukah and Channukah alone that has brought us together.
Christmas, frankly, will never hold a candle to that.
Photo by Arthur Smokes, licensed under Creative Commons.
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