Bubbie

Yesterday was the last day of shiva for my grandmother, Zelda Levinson Aleha Hashalom. I wanted to share some thoughts, both for those of you who met her and those who did not:

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To me, Bubbie Zelda was never a real person like any of us. She was a Bubbie – a species unto itself. No storybook could have conceived of a more grandmotherly grandmother than Bubbie herself. She had curly hair, rosy cheeks and round glasses. Her eyes sparkled. She was soft an huggable. She was always in the kitchen, wearing an apron and baking sweet desserts. To visit her we would drive through the countryside of Upstate New York and stay in her house (cottage, it seemed more like to me) where Concorde grapes grew in the backyard and snow piled up to our necks in the wintertime.

Looking back on old pictures of Bubbie only reinforced this belief. In the years that spanned my father’s childhood and my own she changed so little in physical appearance that, were it not for the context of the photographs, I’d probably have no idea if my grandmother was thirty or sixty five.

Just as her appearance neither waxed nor waned, Bubbie sailed through the sea of her life unfazed by the kinds of ups and downs that dominate so many of our lives. She never shouted in anger, nor shrieked in excitement. She was not the type to try new tricks, but in the things she did she was deliberate, meticulous and perfect. She was a rock.

The kitchen was her legacy. I used to love watching her cook. Perhaps there, more than anywhere was where I witnessed this aforementioned meticulous activity; cooking as a lesson for life. Flour was sifted gently. Apples were sliced carefully. Sugary crumbs were dotted onto a cake bit by bit – never rushed – until the whole thing was covered. Steps which I would sloppily rush through she performed patiently, and patience always yielded perfection – this I will never forget. When I cook and when I bake I can feel her in my blood.

Her voice was always stately and dignified. She’d take you back to her early childhood in Boston every time she asked you to pass the mahmalade or answered a phone call from my uncle Mahk. She kept up formal correspondence with her friends back in Syracuse until she could no longer use the electric typewriter in the dining room. She spent every morning reading the New York Times and the New Yorker magazine. She kept a Hertz chumash by her side to study the weekly portion. Though hearing was quite difficult for a long time, she was sharp as a tack until just before the end.

She came to live with us eight years ago after a fall left her in need of physical assistance. Since that time, though her faculties gradually faded, her unshakable nature never faltered. She would adapt, but never give up on her daily routine. Though she became increasingly dependent on others to take care of her, she was never demanding. She never sought attention, never fished for sympathy and never – not once – bemoaned her condition.

I think this heroic determination is the most important lesson I have learned from Bubbie and who she was. No one can avoid life’s disappointments, life’s unfair challenges, life’s sometimes dreary and repetitive drone or life’s unexplainable tragedies. But we all can choose to either ride life like a roller coaster and let us take it where it will, or we can march through it like a soldier. Bubbie marched until the end, and I can only hope to follow in her footsteps.