by Carol Blatter (Tucson, AZ)
“It will be a boring visit, I know it will be. I want to be with my friends. They’re going to the movies, and I’ll be left out. Do we have to go, Mom?”
“We have to visit Grandma. She always expects us a week before Passover every year and we don’t want to disappoint her. It’s too hard for her to make a seder. So going a week ahead gives her the feeling that we are together, like it’s a real seder. And as always, we will celebrate two nights of seders, one with friends, and one with the three of us at home next week.”
Dad nodded his head in agreement.
“No discussion, we’re going.”
“Ok, I guess we’re going.” I hated that long ride down the Garden State Parkway. “Maybe I’ll read a book on the way or take a nap. Maybe we won’t have to stay long.”
Dad and Mom glared at me after I said that. Clearly, they were displeased with me.
Once we arrived, Grandma kissed me and gave me a huge embrace. I almost lost my balance.
Dad greeted his Mother. “Rosie, how are you?” Dad always called his Mother by her first name. I always thought it was disrespectful but I kept this to myself. Dad never liked to be challenged.
It was no surprise to see Grandma scrubbing the sink, then slicing some foods on a special board set aside for Passover each year. Grandma followed the requirements for Passover food preparation. How she managed to do all her Passover cooking in this tiny kitchen still surprised me. She changed dishes, pots, and pans for this holiday. It was hard to imagine where she stored these Passover-only kitchen items after the eight-day holiday ceased. It was here in Grandma’s kitchen I learned about keeping Passover.
Grandma and her second husband, Max, lived in an dingy upstairs apartment with a kitchen, a living room, a dining room, and a bedroom. Max was a miser. Anyone seeing this apartment would have been amazed to learn of my step-grandfather’s wealth. His adult children made sure there was a prenuptial agreement so that Grandma had no inheritance upon Max’s death. While my dad was upset when he learned of this, he and Grandma realized that she should go ahead with the marriage. It was better for Grandma to have a companion despite the spitefulness of Max’s adult children. Grandma started almost penniless prior to marrying Max, and she ended up the same way.
From the moment we arrived at Grandma’s apartment, I noticed how much older she and my step-grandfather looked from last year. Grandma was a short, stout lady with white hair pinned up behind her head, probably in her seventies then, maybe older, and she looked shorter and heavier. Max was a tall, slim, white-haired man, partially bald, who looked tired and frailer. He barely spoke. I never remember having any conversation with him.
Suddenly, instead of disliking this trip, I wanted to help Grandma with the food preparations. I can’t explain the change in my mood. Instead of being sullen and annoying, I started to act more grown-up, not like a spoiled pre-adolescent. Maybe I wanted a relationship with my grandma and felt sad that so many years had passed since I had last seen her. So many of my friends had Zadies and Bubbies they were close with. Some lived with their families; some lived close by. I wasn’t so fortunate. We lived far apart. Maybe it had to do with my father’s distant relationship with his Mother; they were only intermittently close. Perhaps Dad’s relationship with Grandma had been marred by his having to go to work at the age of 14 in order to support their family. He had lost his childhood and his education. Maybe he suppressed his anger at her. But I also sensed in that hug, as their eyes met, he really loved her.
I still remember a surprising thing that happened when I saw Grandma many years ago. We were having a great time. I told her about my teacher and my friends. Then I remember saying that I had eaten a bacon, lettuce, & tomato sandwich for lunch that day. Grandma became upset. I had no idea why. She went into our kitchen, and within a few minutes I heard nasty rumblings between Grandma and Dad. I heard the word “bacon.” Why were they arguing about bacon? Several years later, I understood why Grandma had been so upset. She observed kosher dietary laws. Bacon isn’t kosher. She and Max ate only kosher meat and poultry, supervised by a rabbi with an OU label on each product. I think she was disappointed that we didn’t keep kosher. I wondered why my parents didn’t, but I never asked them. Mom came from an Orthodox Sephardic Jewish home, and Dad had grown up in an Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish home. Why didn’t they follow the traditions that they had grown up with?
From these visits to Lakewood, I learned how to choose kosher for Passover foods and make a home clean and ready for Passover. Grandma told me that she cleaned cabinets, counters, closets and searched for crumbs, chametz, which had to be disposed of before the holiday began. Did Max help her? I doubted it. He was a sedentary, reclusive person. Maybe she never asked him. Throughout her life, Grandma worked hard and rarely had help. She was used to it. But as she aged, I could see how it became harder for her to do some of the things she used to do.
“Grandma, let me help. I know how to do things for Passover. I have friends whose parents keep everything kosher for Passover.”
“Here, you can put these dishes on the table.”
“And what about the silverware?
“Yes. And you can put them out, too.”
“Grandma, do you want me to put a piece of lettuce on each small plate to go under the gefilte fish?”
“Yes, bubbelah. Yes, meine aynikl.”
“Do you want me to fill these glasses with wine?”
“Yes.”
“Can I have some?”
“How old are you now my bubbelah?”
“Eleven.”
“Ok, a little schnapps can’t hurt.”
Then she pressed me against her large bosom, gave me a huge hug, and kissed me on each cheek. Her face filled with a warm glow that I felt for days afterwards.
I knew Grandma had traveled in steerage with her parents and siblings from Poland to New York in the late 1800’s. I knew they had been sick for days in choppy waters. She spoke Yiddish and had to learn English in a foreign land. I knew her first marriage to a physically and emotionally abusive man had been a disaster. More choppy waters. And I knew she had raised four children herself after she locked my Grandpa out of their apartment. I doubt that Grandpa Henry gave her any money to support their children once she locked him out.
Many years later, she married Max, who enjoyed her meals and her housekeeping without providing her with a more enjoyable and enriching life. Why would they remain in this little apartment when they could have lived with a little more luxury? When Grandma held me to her bosom and hugged and kissed me, I realized how amazing it was that she had any love left, having been deprived of love most of her life. I withheld tears. Grandma deserved better.
We sat down to eat lunch in their small dining area. The table was just big enough to fit five of us. The meal was reminiscent of what we would eat next week at the seder at the home of our friends. Gefilte fish. Then chicken soup with matzah balls followed by slices of potato kugel. For the main dish, she served chicken breasts seasoned with paprika and cloves of garlic, covered in onion slices, and bathed in chicken broth for baking. Everything tasted delicious. Then came my favorite. Dessert. Chocolate-covered macaroons, a specialty every year for Passover. Swee-touch-nee tea, Kosher for Passover, ended the meal.
After lunch, I asked Grandma to tell me how she made gefilte fish. Like many old-world cooks, she didn’t have a recipe. She was a professionally trained guesser.
“Bubbelah, I grind carp, white fish, pike, mush them together with matzah meal and eggs, shape them round or into a log, like today. Broth, onions, fish skins, heads, bones, add carrot slices. Then boil them.”
Can you tell me anything else? How much fish to use? How much matzah meal? How many eggs? How many carrots? How long do you boil them?”
“I don’t know, I just do it.”
I didn’t get specifics for making gefilte fish but I learned a lot about Grandma. What I thought would be a boring day turned out to be one of the most memorable days of my life.
Carol J. Wechsler Blatter has contributed writings to the 2024 Birren Collection The Gift of A Long Life, Chaleur Press, Story Circle Network Anthologies, Writing it Real anthologies, The Jewish Writing Project, the Jewish Literary Journal, True Stories Well Told, Writer’s Advice, New Millennium Writings, and 101words.org. She has contributed poems to Story Circle Network’s Real Women Write, Growing/ Older, and Covenant of the Generations by Women of Reform Judaism. Ms. Blatter is a recently retired psychotherapist, she is also a wife, mother, and grandmother of her very special granddaughter who already writes her own stories
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