If Only I had Asked

When I was fourteen, my sister Jess and I had the brilliant idea of starting a family newspaper. We wanted to spotlight different family members and hoped that such an effort would bring people together. Grandma, my mom's mom, seemed a perfect candidate for the first interview. A practical, tell-it-as-it-is widow, Grandma loved us and was amused by us, and though she called us "spoiled" (we were!), she also believed in all of our endeavors.  A volunteer in the local hospital, Gram preferred to tell stories about other people than about herself, and she usually spoke about the present rather than the past. Our newspaper would help us learn more about our world-traveling matriarch.

 

I am so glad that I still have the audio-cassette of this momentous interview for the family newspaper that never materialized. When I grow lonely for my museum buddy and driving partner, when I miss my grandmother's wisdom about how to do groceries for one and her undying belief that I could achieve my dreams, I still have her voice on that old tape from (gasp!) 26 years ago.

The conversation, however, didn't go exactly as we had planned it. Someplace in the interview, Grandma intimated "you know I'm not really your grandmother, right?" Well, I beg to differ with that statement. I knew that she had mothered my mom and loved my grandfather when the woman who gave us her genes could not. I knew that she first married my grandfather when my mom was in her early adolescence, and I knew that they came from the private generation of the 1950s where children were only told what they needed to know, so there were now tweets or facebook photos of these historical moments. But Jess didn't know this, and as a result, I have a recording of my grandmother telling us how she fell in love with the little toddler who would

become my mother, and how she wooed the man who would later call her wife. 

I also have a recording of her telling my sister and me to make sure we live with a man before we get married (to make sure we can agree on a temperature for the house!) and of her telling us that she couldn't look at Grandpa's photo after his death because it made her so sad.  I wish he could have known the strong and independent woman she became after his death, the volunteer who helped on the AIDS floor when no one else would, the grandmother who wasn't afraid to let me drive even when I was still terrified to be behind the wheel.  

I am so grateful that I have this and other interviews with her but I wish I had asked more.  I know her favorite color (turquoise) but not her favorite song. I know the books she loved as an adult (James Herriott, Rosamunde Pilcher) but not the books she read as a child. I want to know what she thought before asking Grandpa if she could move in and help with my little mother. I want to know how she felt in that interview with my sister and me. I want to know if she had any regrets.

Grandpa died when I was seven and a half.  I have no recordings of his voice, though I know an audiocassette exists somewhere in which he chats away while driving across America and tells infant me "I won't talk to you until you talk to me."  As a moody pre-teen, I used to look up to the corner ceiling in my room and speak to him, seeking advice for my hormonal angst, hoping that he really would answer. After all, I was talking to him!

Though I never interviewed him, I do have two precious belongings that tell me a lot about him. One is a collection of cards that he wrote me. Grandpa was my first penpal. In all capital letters, he would tease me by writing my name ELLEEMMMILLLLLLLLYYYY or by calling the Mexican song "Chiapanecas" a more raunchy name: Chop Her Neck Off. When it wasn't my birthday and I had ( in my eyes) long since passed the seven year mark, he sent me a happy four-year-old birthday card. I savor this collection and wish we could have kept writing back and forth so I could hold him more and know him more.

Why did he have a mammoth magnet, the other item of his that I hold dear? This isn't an ordinary magnet; it is nearly the size of my foot and powerful enough to wipe out credit cards without even touching them. (Trust me, I know.) 

Of course I have some obvious questions I would have asked Grandpa, had he lived long enough for me to grill him: What was the real story with my biological grandmother? What happened to prevent his getting into the movie projectionists' union? Did he really do stuff with subliminal messages? Did it work? What was it like to have a near death experience? (He was proclaimed dead and then came back to live the key years in which knew him.)  

Recently, I found a lot of photos that he had taken (or, if he was in them, at least he had labeled). You know, even in my childhood in the 80s and 90s, photos were expensive. Rolls of film cost money, and then developing the film cost a lot too. My mother was amazing at photo documenting our childhoods, and my sisters and I are lucky about that. We weren't rolling in money, but we were comfortable and photos were something my family valued. Grandma and Grandpa, back in the 50s, however, sometimes struggled to put food on the table for their family of four. Still, Grandpa managed to take, label and preserve photos. I am so grateful!  This leads me to think that if he had lived longer, he would have agreed to be interviewed, too. I wonder what wild chop-her-neck-off responses he would have given me.

Nana and Papa, my paternal grandparents, lived until I was in my thirties. In fact, I started this blog when I was worrying about their fast decline. I had much more time to interview them and have not only audio cassettes but also DVD recordings of them talking about their childhoods. In day-to-day conversation, Nana was much more verbal (one might say "domineering") than Papa, so it was through these interviews that I began to see my grandfather as much more well rounded than the retired baker who fell asleep watching Sunday football. 

Papa came here from Poland in the 1920s. There are some discrepancies about his age when he came here; formal documents and memory don't always match. I know he was a school boy with undiagnosed learning disabilities and a need to learn English in an era where schools followed the sink or swim factory model. I know that he became the class clown (how I loved his laughter!) and that he made up for a lack of school-smarts with an abundance of life wisdom...and Scrabble skills! 

Though the details of Papa's life may be sketchy, I learned from him the importance of never letting a credit card payment go unpaid. Pap taught me how to make the best use of my S tiles and double or triple word squares. He spoke adamantly about the need for forgiveness in family matters; we don't know when an estranged family member may need us and we may never know what internal battles caused the estrangement, but family matters.  

It is ironic, then, that I first learned about his family in America during his final years. Nana had promoted the myth that his family had died in the Holocaust (oy!) when in fact most of his clan had made it to America before he did. This speaks so sadly of her insecurity and her need to have him for herself. I am sooooo glad that Papa gave me enough clues to track down family on his mother's side and that I was able to find his first cousin, Helen, and my Dad's second cousin (now my dear friend) Ron.  Sometimes I grow sad about lost time and opportunities for connection, but quickly I realize that moping doesn't do any good. I wonder what societal, familial and interpersonal situations allowed the gap and myth to last.  And I know there is sooooo much I don't know about his paternal side. It is only in the past few weeks, since I have learned a bit of Polish, that I have been able to decode the sound "Pwotsk" to figure out the real spelling of his father's native town, Płonstsk, where, lo and behold, there are plenty of Bengelsdorf records. (It seems like several of those poor souls did meet the fate Nana described. Ouch.)

As I prepare for my trip to Poland, I wonder how much Polish he knew and how much he remembered of his early days there. I wonder how his family shifted in so few years from his grandfather-- a rabbi named Israel-- to our family of Christmas tree Jews. Papa served our country as a baker in World War Two, and I wonder what his reactions were as the news of German atrocities became more and more clear.  I wonder if he was ever curious about his hometown again.  Lately, above all, I wonder what he would think about my upcoming trip.  Even though I have so many interviews recorded with him, the questions asked a decade ago are not enough to quench my curiosity. 

As far as Nana goes, she was a fountain of stories. She would tell of her heart-weary grandfather telling stories with children gathering round. She would tell of Victrola music and samovars and parties in days of yore. Nana spoke of her grandfather traveling on foot from Vitepsk and eating wildflower carrots to escape from the Cossacks. The problem is, Nana didn't always have a good filter between fact and fiction. Even when she was alive, I had a hard time parsing out reality, even emotional realities.  

But this I know: she loved me, and she loved all of her grandchildren. 

I grew up loved. I have recordings of that love in interviews, letters and photographs. I have that love pumping through my heart every day and I feel its current running through my veins. I am lucky and strive to pass the love on.

But I beg all of you to ask questions, take photos, write letters--- connect with the people you love while they are still here, while you are still here.

Life is ephemeral. My Little Prince teaches that. But connections between people help us transcend our own fragile lives.