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MAKING "TOST' WITH THE
GRANDCHILDREN
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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Note: In Yiddsh, a "tokhter" is a daughter, and "tost" is toast
These two quotes about daughters are favorites:
"A daughter is the happy memories of
the past, the joyful moments of the
present, and the hope and promise of
the future."
Author Unknown
"A daughter may outgrow your lap, but
she will never outgrow your heart."
Author Unknown
With Valentine's Day rapidly approaching, my thoughts turn to a "vunderlekh" book titled, "Making Toast" by Roger Rosenblatt. (Harper Collins Publishers, $21.99))
Roger Rosenblatt is an American journalist, author, playwright and teacher. He was a long-time columnist for Time "zhurnal" (magazine). His pieces in Time have won two George Polk awards.
Rosenblatt is the author of 14 books, which have been published in 14 languages. He has also written six off-Broadway shows.
The Rosenblatt's had three children: Carl, Amy and John.
While exercising on a treadmill in the "keler" (basement), Amy, a 38-year-old pediatrician and mother, suddenly died of a rare cardiac anomaly. "Me darf zayn shtark vi aym." (You have to be strong as iron.) Rosenblatt is not a religious man and has confessed that he is "broygez" (angry) at God.
In the eulogy for Amy, Carl said that when people die, they are said to be in a better place. He said he did not believe that for Amy: "The best place for you [looking at the casket] is right here." Carl began the eulogy by saying he could hear Amy telling him "Don't screw up."
Rosenblatt writes, "I wonder if having a religion makes death easier to take, there being established, possibly protective formalities that attend it. Ginny and I avoided religions ourselves and reared our children without one. She was born Episcopalian. We were married in a Unitarian church in New York. When we first visited the church to see if it woud be right for us, they were dedicating a pew to a cat, which sealed the deal."
Rosenblatt, and his wife, immediately abandoned their spacious Long Island home to settle into a small room in their daughter's "heym." With their son-in-law, Harris, they became part of the team helping to raise the children, Jessie, Sammy and James (AKA "Bubbies"), ages 6, 4, and one.
"Making Toast" originally was an article from a 2008 New Yorker article and was expanded into a book.
One reads brief vignettes from a gifted observer and chronicler of daily life.
The first page of the book tells the humorous experience of hunting in the kitchen trash can for the top front left tooth of their seven-year-old granddaughter, Jessica. "Loose for days but not yet dislodged, the tooth finally dropped into a bowl of Apple Jacks. I wrapped it for safekeeping in a paper napkin and put it on the kitchen counter, but it was mistaken for trash by Ligaya, Bubbies's nanny."
I can relate to this experience and recall looking for my son, Daniel's, retainer after he carelessly left it in a restaurant. $50 later... it was replaced by the orthodontist.
Rosenblatt writes, "...I become a short-order cook, on the receiving end of commands fired at me all at once: cereal, no cereal, cereal with milk and without; orders for skim milk added to Silk and 'cow's milk'; minipancakes and miniwaffles, with and without sugar, with and without butter, with and without syrup. Bubbies remains consistent in his preference for toast."
Rosenblatt taught his grandchildren a new word each day. He writes, "On the morning of New Year's Eve, Jesse is the first of the children to come down to breakfast. 'I had the most wonderful dream,' she says. 'I dreamed that Mommy was alive and that she was having a baby girl.' I tell her that after my father died, I used to dream that he was alive, too.
"No," she says. "It wasn't like that. I dreamed they took Mommy out of the ground and found that she was alive. There was just a small tear in her heart, and they could fix it."
"Did you speak with her in the dream?" I ask.
"She was talking very lightly. I couldn't understand what she was saying." There is no sadness in Jessie's voice, more like a report of something wondrous. We speak of other things. She looks at the Word for the Morning, which happens to be "rejuvenate."
The book ends with a description of March 1, 2009. It is 6 a.m. and the breakfast is set. Rosenblatt is watching TV, while he waits for the children. "Bubbies patters from his room in his red pajamas with the feet built in. He comes most of the way down the stairs, opens his arms to me, and jumps. We look out the glass door.
"Going to snow," he says.
"Looks like it, Bubs. Would you like a banana this morning?" I ask him.
"Toast," he says. "Real toast."
"Real toast it is."
He goes to the table and kneels on his chair. I bring him a sliced banana and toast, along with my own toast and coffee. We eat."
I think of Rosenblatt's loss.
The Yiddish expression, "Me dreyt zikh,
un me freyt zikh" (Keep on trying and
you'll be happy/You keep spinning, and
you become happy) comes to mind.
This Valentine's Day let's remember to say "I love you" to all of the special people in our lives.
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