Zaidy and the toothbrush…

April 9, 2008

Another day, another meeting, today I find myself in New York sharing my room with a colleague from Arizona. I woke up and got into the bathroom early so I could get done with my business before my roommate woke up so she would not have to wait on me. (Shocking that I might be a little high maintenance isn’t it?) As I began to look around the bathroom for my toiletries I noticed my roommates tooth brush on the counter. An ordinary toothbrush, blue with a pink rubber pick at the base, the toothbrush immediately threw me back 15 years…

I always had a bit of an awkward relationship with my grandfather. My earliest memories are of him being uncomfortable with the noise and chaos my brothers and I brought to his home. I remember trying to get my brothers to be quiet and behave so that he would not be angry or uncomfortable. I remember calling the house and he answered the phone, I must have been 7 or 8 years old and when he picked up the phone and said “Hello?” I immediately said “Is Bubby there?” I was unaware of my transgression but was strongly reprimanded for my lack of respect and manners. At my young age I was terribly upset about this disciplinary action and spent the next decade dialing the phone and praying my grandmother would answer, thereby avoiding the possibility that I would anger my grandfather.

One would think that I would have learned from my past behaviors, yet, on the weekend of my brother’s Bar-Mitzvah, as everyone had come to the synagogue for Friday night dinner, I came into the room and said hello to members of the family but never said hello to my grandfather. He was furious, but instead of speaking to me about it he sat all night at dinner and his anger with me grew. Eventually, my grandmother pointed out what I had done, or rather, what I had not done. At 15 years old I went to my grandfather and apologized. As I write about this experience I can still feel how I was shaking as I approached him.

I always felt I was on eggshells with my grandfather. I was uncomfortable when he was around. Yet, I loved him and respected him dearly. This was a man who served our country as a US Army Medic in WWII and was among the first group of soldiers to liberate Dachau. This was a man who moved his young family to be closer to his mother-in-law as he knew his young wife needed the support system she would provide. This was a man who worked to the bone to keep his family fed and clothed. A man who treated his wife like the queen she deserved to be treated as, supported her passions and participated in them whole heartedly. A very, very good man. Yet, I, was afraid of him.

I tried to learn the lessons and internalize my actions. I understood how brushing him off so I could talk to my grandmother or ignoring him in a room full of family and friends must have been very hurtful. I tried to be respectful and include him in my communication and in the excitements of my achievements but all the while inside I was thinking “OK, if I just get through talking to him I can get to Bubby…” I was going through the motions.

My grandfather was diagnosed with cancer when I was beginning college. The family, especially my grandmother, was stunned. Together we fought hard and were willing to try anything to lengthen his time on this earth. I watched my strong, empowered grandmother become tired and beleaguered as the treatments of my grandfather did not strengthen him, did not repair the damage of the cancer, did not provide hope for a positive outcome. As the ultimate result became clear, my grandmother brought him home to be cured with love.

The morning I was heading off to New York for the beginning of my sophomore year of college I stopped at my grandmother’s house. My grandmother was in the kitchen, the place I saw her most, she was chopping and washing vegetables to make chicken soup for my grandfather’s lunch. I asked what I could do to help and she asked me to take Zaidy’s toothbrush and to clean his teeth with the pick. I was immobilized with fear. How was I supposed to do this?

I went into the bathroom and picked up his blue toothbrush. I slowly walked into my grandparents bedroom and saw my grandfather lying on his bed covered to the neck with the blanket, the white bedspread barely revealing a bump in the bed as he was no more than flesh on bones. I approached him, trembling, as I had done in the past, but this time I was not afraid of sharp words - he was no longer able to communicate with words - I was afraid of how he would feel as his granddaughter needed to clean his teeth for him.

My grandfather was meticulous in everything he did. His clothes ironed, his personal items labeled and put away, cleanliness was a part of his nature. Here he lay, unable to keep himself as clean as he always did and needing my help.

I cried as I moved the pick slowly and gently around his gums. I apologized for having to do it, I told him I loved him and asked him to let me know if I was hurting him. I could barely see his teeth with the blur of the tears filling my eyes. He just looked at me with a look in his eyes that was calm and all knowing. He did not look angry, he did not look sad, he just looked deeply into my eyes and I calmed down and finished the task at hand. I told him I loved him as I left the room and returned his toothbrush to the bathroom.

As I left the house the smell of chicken soup filled my nose. I got on the train to New York. When I arrived in my dorm room there was a message waiting for me that my grandfather had died.

My final moments with him were moments of trying to pay him the respect he had been due my entire life yet I had not been able to give to him. On the day of his death, I finally got it right.

I will never be able to give back to my grandfather the respect he was due from me as I was growing up and did not give him, yet, as I remember the look in his eyes on his last day of life, I find my own peace in the message in his eyes. He knew I loved him and he knew his sharp words and his pointed discipline taught me to be a respectful adult. I did, albeit on his last day in this world, I did have the opportunity to show it to him.

I am guided by the words he put in my head and always attempt to be respectful to all who I have the pleasure of knowing. I encourage you to think of your own family and those who have taught you lessons. Be grateful that they were in your life and take the message they have given you and internalize it to make you a better person.

I thank you, Zaidy, for giving me the recognition of how to be a respectful adult. I love you and I miss you.