More than sixty years have passed since my father's family
flew in fear from Germany as war approached. His sister made
it to Zurich, a brother to Tel Aviv and another brother to
far-off Melbourne. My father was already established in
America when his parents finally came to live with us. For
all the years of my childhood, my grandparents shared our
home.
Letters used to arrive in those days in the form of a flimsy
pale blue aerogram. My grandmother would begin crying at the
sight of one of those envelopes. She would carefully open it,
painstakingly unfolding and steaming the part under the glue,
because sometimes there would be a word or two written there
and she didn't want to miss a single precious one.
Her three far-away children married during those difficult
years without her help or presence. They established homes
and began their families. In addition to the aerogrammes, an
occasional black and white photograph would arrive. These
were of sufficient importance to call a family gathering of
any cousins and friends from the old country to come and
see.
And I, in my childish envy, would think, "What's the big
deal? She doesn't go all ga-ga over every picture of me!"
And as she sat and read those pale blue letters over and over
again with big tears rolling down her wrinkled cheeks, she
would exclaim over and repeat all the adorable feats of those
distant grandchildren as if they were the brightest, most
accomplished youngsters on Earth.
Little me would think, "Am I not as adorable, talented and
studious as they? Why doesn't she cry over my test papers and
drawings?"
*
Today, I'm the Bubbie of the family, and my children and
grandchildren are scattered around the country, with one,
temporarily, I hope, in America. From those who live at some
distance, I receive lovely photos of children all clean and
polished and looking like they never hit a sister or dribble
ice pops all over the floor. Some pictures are not posed, but
impromptu snapshots of children wearing Abba's shoes or
licking the chocolate cake bowl with glee. The tears spring
into these eyes as soon as I spot an envelope with foreign
stamps, especially a fat one that might have photos
inside.
E-mail has replaced the fluttery blue air letters and a
scanner recently sent me a photo of my children attending a
dinner thousands of miles away. Imagine, a color picture
flying to me in seconds, virtually instantly. My grandmother
had to wait weeks for a boat to plow through the Indian, the
Pacific and the Atlantic oceans and maybe the Suez Canal to
get to see her grandchildren. One could do a whole geography
lesson on the globe, tracing my grandmother's mail. But
whether it's weeks or seconds, when a Bubbie gets contacted
by her family, the waterworks get turned on.
Now my local children complain, as I did, that I'm more
impressed with the goings on of the more distant
grandchildren than with the ones close by. I know, now, that
this is not the case. The closer they are, the more you feel
that they are truly an extension of your own family, of you.
You put up with their tempers and colic, their sniffles and
fevers, their not-so-nice behavior (only on rare occasions)
towards each other. You see their notebooks and art projects
and make them birthday parties. Sometimes they show brilliant
insight in their learning. They might even get lice. All this
and more you would never know, feel, experience with a far-
away grandchild.
I have started a wall of pictures in my bedroom, trying to
give some sort of equal time to all the families. It's a
hodge-podge of wedding pictures, formal family protraits and
kids in Purim costumes. It is my attempt to show a physical
manifestation of caring for all at the same level. Probably,
it will not convince anyone of anything.
But at least, I now understand my grandmother and forgive her
for her alleged favoritism. It wasn't that at all. The tears
we shed are indeed tears of nachas, but they are mixed
with the sad knowledge of all that we are missing.
