Saturday will be 11 years since my grandfather passed away. It was the first big, significant loss for me and his death had a profound impact. Profound in the sense that it taught me a lot about myself and my family.I hadn’t gotten the chance to know my grandfather on my father’s side and only have a vague memories of my paternal grandmother.
My grandfather and I had actually shared time together. First in the studio when I was a kid. He applied oil paint to canvas with the kind of care and precision only an artist can master and I dabbled in oil pastels and charcoal drawings while he worked. Later, when his style changed to hard lines and sharp corners and geometrics, I was planning on becoming a cartoonist and switched to pen and ink.
Later, as a young adult trying to figure out what the hell I was really going to do with my life, our moments often took the form of two people in one room, reading. He introduced me to Jane Austen and Albert Camus. I was always comforted by a collection of Emily Dickinson he had on his shelf because, at the time, she was my favorite. The last book I ever bought him was a collection of poetry by poet laureate Billy Collins. It’s what he was reading when he died. Today, I would ask him his thoughts on Dorothy Parker and Kierkegaard.
On a random afternoon, completely unprompted, he said to me, “Maybe you should think about going back to school. You could study writing.”
Jewish funerals are supposed to happen quickly. But when you have a big family that’s spread across a few states and two continents, it takes a while to get everyone together. So my grandfather’s funeral was delayed. Most of my family had arrived within the first 48 hours. The Rabbi needed to go over the service and though it’s not customary, he said anyone who wanted to come up would have a chance to see him one last time.
Everyone went except for one of my aunts, my mother and me.
With everyone gone, the house was quiet. Almost normal. I put on some music in my room knowing it would be the last time I could listen to it without headphones for at least a week. There were more than 20 relatives all staying at our house – my mother, brother and I lived with my grandparents at the time. Twin beds lined the basement like a bunker. We slept wherever there was space. Privacy was on hiatus.
Growing up, I was brought up on a steady diet of Motown (although thanks to an Irish father, I enjoy a good bagpipe now and then). So as my family went over the service for my grandfather’s funeral with the Rabbi, on that particular morning, I chose Marvin Gaye & Tammy Terrell’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” I turned it up a little bit, but not too much.
From downstairs, I heard my aunt yell, “Hey! Turn that up!”
“Really?” I called back.
In unison, she and my mother answered, “Yes!”
I cranked it. Ain’t no river wide enough, baby. For a minute, I sat on my bed and cried. But then I ran downstairs. They were moving about their business, singing along and dancing as my aunt straightened up the kitchen and my mother fixed her hair in the bathroom. I ran back upstairs. Next up, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” by the Temptations. Then, “The House that Jack Built” by Aretha Franklin.
If I played more music after that, I don’t remember it. But those three songs were key. We relished in the sound of soul instead of sorrow. If my grandfather had been alive, he’d have been sitting in his spot on the couch, smiling at us and enjoying every minute of it.
Now, whenever the skies start to get darker earlier, when the trick-or-treaters are out on the street, when the anniversary nears, I start to crave a little Motown in my ears. It makes me think of my family at its very best. Being so spread out, separated by an ocean and very few visits, some of us don’t even know each other. Some of us don’t always get along. Sometimes we don’t even like each other. But put us all in a room and turn on some Stevie Wonder … and we won’t be sitting for long.
I don’t dread this weekend in November. I crank up the music when I can, flip through the pages of a book. I take stocks of how much I’ve grown and think about what he would say about it all. It’s why I write about him every year at this time. So I remember.
Sometimes I even try to draw something.
And sometimes, in the privacy of my own home … I even dance it out.
Here’s to you, sabah.
On the radio this morning a news report began with the description of a basketball team with a unique bond that went to the Olympics – here it is – 20 years ago. Thinking back I thought, “that can’t be right. The last time I remember a basketball team getting lots of attention for its athletic make up when it went to the Olympics was in the day of Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen and that was …”
I would go on to be a huge fan of her movies of course. I watched “You’ve Got Mail” and when I went to New York City years later, sat in the same Starbucks in which Tom Hanks knocks on the window and delightfully surprises Meg Ryan while she’s reading a book. I bought coffee and rugelach at Zabars and as I was getting there I discovered Westsider Books. I try to go there every time I’m in New York. It’s the quintessential used bookstore. I imagine it’s the type of place one of Ephron’s characters would wander in with a friend or a coworker rattling off dialogue with wit and perfection. It’s one of my favorite places. The first time I went there I bought Ogden Nash’s “I’m a Stranger Here Myself,” not because I knew him or his poetry but because the title seemed to fit me at the time. The second time I went there I bought a book of essays about New York and my aunt bought me a book of essays about family.
