by Herbert J. Levine (Sarasota, FL)
That she had come to this country from the Austro-Hungarian empire at age two,
that her mother ‘s Viennese relatives were cousins of Theodor Herzl,
that her step-mother felt jealous of her good looks,
that she had become a Suffragette at age sixteen and raised money for the cause selling flowers on the Boston Common,
that the grandson of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had been smitten with her appearance as Isaiah’s wife at a play at the West End YMHA,
that he had asked her to marry him on the spot, saying “my grandfather the poet loved your people,”
that she had replied, “Well my father doesn’t love yours,”
that she married an American-born man twelve years her senior,
that she and her husband embraced whenever they met one another in whatever room of the house it was,
that it took her seven years after she married at nineteen to realize that she could get on top,
that she had gone every Sunday night to the Ford Hall Forum to hear visiting intellectuals who lectured on every topic under the sun,
that she had practiced saying, “every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better,” as one of them had advised,
that her sister who lived upstairs once said, “Rosie, what are you constipating to do?”
that there was nothing more beautiful than the sunset seen through her kitchen window,
that she lived as a widow forty-two years after Hyman‘s death, half of those working for the Federal government,
that the buses she took to work were designed for making friends with her neighbors,
that if you don’t own a car, it’s very important to befriend people who do,
that rush tickets at Symphony Hall were half-price for Friday afternoon rehearsals,
that there was nothing better for the spirit when visiting historic sites than saying “I love America!”
that it was important for young people to cultivate a sense of intimacy – she had been reading Erik Erikson at the time –
that she would never live long enough to use that bottle of one thousand buffered aspirin that I bought her,
that she left to her children and grandchildren her love of the sun and the moon and the stars and the sky
that she would spend her money before she died, which she did not,
that I should say at her funeral that every morning she recited the Twenty-Third Psalm, but not until after she had eaten her bagel.
Herbert Levine is the author of two books of bi-lingual poetry, Words for Blessing the World (2017) and An Added Soul: Poems for a New Old Religion (2020). He is currently working on a humanist and earth-based prayer book: Blessed Are You, World: A Siddur for our Time. This is the fifth of his family portraits shared on the Jewish Writing Project. To learn more about Herb and his work, visit:https://benyehudapress.com/books/words-blessing-world/
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