My first grief teacher
Article published in Northampton Living
(August 2021)
Grief was never discussed at home. It just played itself out as I watched and learned. I was four when Grandpa Sam died and Grandma Bertha moved in with us. She spent summer days in our backyard, planting and weeding with a passion. Her mind would drift to memories of her little Ukrainian village. How we giggled when she recalled the earthen floors that my great-grandfather covered each spring with a layer of fresh, clean manure that hardened to a crisp, clean shine. After she harvested her rhubarb plants, my siblings and I stood eagerly in her bedroom watching her dish out generous portions of her rhubarb sauce for us.
Every evening, Grandma sat almost completely still, perched on the carpeted floor of the landing at the top of our stairs, eyes cast downward. She’d slowly wring her hands as she mouthed something incomprehensible, perhaps a prayer. She prepared her own simple meals in her tiny bedroom, and nearly always ate by herself. On very special occasions, she’d stand beside the dinner table, plate in hand, nibbling, like a bird, at her food.
When I went away to college, I saw much less of Grandma. I had no time or patience to sit with her and listen to her stories. Once, as I prepared to return to school after a weekend of Mom’s home cooking, Dad asked if I’d remembered to stop into Grandma’s room. I think he knew I hadn’t seen her all weekend. Maybe he knew I was avoiding her. Go upstairs and see her, he gently said to me, if only to kiss her goodbye. She looked so old and wrinkled. I sat with her impatiently for a couple of minutes, gave her a peck on the cheek and left. She died just about a year after I graduated college.
Following her service, Grandma’s sister told me this story: Your grandma was a teenager when our parents arranged for her to be married. She begged them not to make her marry that man, but they went ahead with the wedding without their daughter’s consent. So she escaped right after the wedding ceremony and took a boat to America. She peddled buttons on the Lower East Side where she met and fell in love with your Grandpa Sam. As conditions in Europe worsened, your Grandma saved enough money to bring me and our seven sisters and brothers to America. She saved our lives. If not for her, we’d all have been murdered in the war.
I watched my grandma make her way back to life on the heels of the holocaust and following her husband’s death, and I learned from her about grief and love, courage and devotion. She didn’t smile much while I was growing up, but I’ll always remember how her eyes glowed as she poured her bittersweet rhubarb sauce into bowls for her grandkids.