memories

Yahrzeit Candles

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Tuesday was my mother’s yahrzeit. She’s been gone twenty-six years already, though it seems like yesterday in many ways. I still miss her, every day. I lit the yahrzeit candle in her memory, as I do every year on the anniversary of her passing. Its flame gives me comfort. It’s almost as if she were still with me, just for the twenty-four hours or so while the flame flickers and burns and the wax melts in the little glass. I think about her, and wonder if she’s safe, if she’s at peace, if she and my Dad are together up there in Heaven. If they’re together with our grandson Dillon, who left us way too soon, at the age of 28. Are they watching out for him? Are they letting him know he’s still very much loved? And missed? And will never be forgotten? I hope so. I think so.

While the candle burns, I take comfort in my mother’s presence. I talk to her. I wrap my hands around the glass, feeling the warmth of the flame. I’m grateful to have the chance to be with her again, if only just for a little while. But then the wax is completely melted and the flame dies. And Mom is gone. All over again.

We say ‘may her memory be for a blessing.’ Yes, her memory is a blessing. Also a loss. A loss that doesn’t really get better as the years pass. May she rest in peace and love. She deserves the best.

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Turning the Page

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I’ve just been working on a sketch of one of my granddaughters from a photo that’s about 18 years old. She was a baby then, bright and smiling and totally gorgeous. She’s still bright and smiling and totally gorgeous, but now she’s a college freshman, looking to the future with confidence, ready to make a difference in her world.

All five of my grandchildren were born at the turn of the century, this new century now entering its third decade. Yet when I think of that term, it conveys an image to me of the turn of the prior century, the period that began more than 100 years ago. For my grandparents, the turn of that century began in Europe and their journeys took them to a world unrecognizable from the one in which they’d started.

I remember my grandmother, Riva. I think of how she came to America in 1921, with two little boys and a teen-age niece, to meet her husband who’d arrived seven years earlier, just as the First World War broke out in Europe. I imagine how terrified and lonely she must have been on that journey, leaving the only home she’d ever known, understanding she could never go back and would never see her loved ones again. Yet she must also have been full of courage in the hope that she could make a new and better life for herself and for her children. She never tired of marveling at her new country. I often heard her exclaim in wonder, “Oy, America!”

I don’t know much of her story. She dropped a few hints here and there, yet basically, the past remained in the past. But I’m the grandmother now, and I remember her with love and I wish I knew more about her life. So I’ve been reading and researching and I’ve decided to fill in the gaps for myself as best I can. In this new year of 2020, I plan to write “Riva’s Journey,” a memoir for someone who’s no longer around to write it for herself.

So as we turn the page into this new decade, may we all be blessed with health and joy, and look forward to the future, while remembering where we came from. Happy New Year!