Things we remember - The Jewish Standard

My Hebrew is heavily accented, due to my birth, upbringing, and life in New Jersey. No one hearing me speak would ever think I was born in Israel. So, when the phone call came that Sunday, July 15, 1994, in the middle of Adiel’s fifth birthday party, in the living room of our Herzliya apartment, the person on the other end, needing assurance that I understood her grim message, continued to ask me, “At mavina?” Do you understand? “Ken,” I replied. Yes.

My mother had died. I had to go immediately to Kfar Saba, to the nursing home, to make arrangements for the burial. Since the other mourners, my father and my sister, were already gathered to help Adiel celebrate, we would dispense with the festivities and leave the party immediately. We had just come to the moment when our precious girl would make a wish and blow out the candles on the specially selected, genuine whipped-cream cake that we had bought for the occasion in Raanana’s fanciest bakery. We never ate the cake.

Adiel had come to Herzliya for the summer, a brave move for a little girl, to be away from her NYC home for an extended period, without her parents or siblings. She did exceptionally well, joining us every day after gan to visit Grandma Ida, my mother and her savta raba. That day we had come equipped with homemade biscuits that Adiel had helped to prepare. Grandma loved the visits and so did Adiel! The biscuits, however, like the cake, were never eaten. A sudden turn for the worse, and Mom was gone. Not an easy concept to explain to an excited newly turned 5-year-old. Not an easy concept for her grandmother, me, either!

That day, like many others, is marked by my internal calendar, undoubtedly more emphatically because its events happened on a day that was meant to be celebratory. The birthday party was a happily planned event in the midst of a summer marked by Mom’s steady decline. I shall never forget it, as long as I live. All the local Israeli family had gathered for some respite, and that was not to be. My nephew Ilan, now a father of three, deep into middle age, remarked at the time that he and his friend Mottie had even discussed bringing Mom to the party, before concluding that it wouldn’t be possible. Imagine, had they done so, the lifetime of guilt that these two, then young recent chayalim, would have felt, thinking that they had caused her death.

That day is etched in my brain. Certain events in our lives are simply — whether high points, culminations, or nadirs, low points — unforgettable. The dates that bind them are often triggers for reflection, remembrance, or retrieval of long buried emotions.

Yom Kippur has long been such a commemoration in my life. I remember all the days spent in shul when I was one of the lucky ones who stepped out into the lobby during the Yizkor service. While many of my friends had already lost a parent, and remained for the service, I did not become a mourner until that day that Mom passed, when I was already a grandmother. I knew I could have stayed for the memorial service, and I knew I should have stayed, but superstition is a powerful motivator, and so I remained a non-participant, realizing how lucky I was, each year, as I humbly walked out.

Another Yom Kippur, 1970, 5731, corresponded to October 10, a Shabbat. At a little after 7 a.m. I was in Overlook Hospital, where I delivered a beautiful new son to Am Yisrael. We already had three daughters, waiting for the news at home in Clark. Our family was now complete, as my doctor assured me all was well, that the young fellow had aced his Apgar, and then he, the doctor, dashed off to his own shul. My husband still maintains that this was his easiest fast. How can I ever forget that wonderful day! That new baby became a calm, smart, patient, loving man, now a devoted husband to a beautiful, devoted Jewish woman and father to two magnificent teenage girls.

But another Yom Kippur, 1973, 5734, corresponded to October 6, also a Shabbat. Our family, consisting of the two of us; our almost 3-year-old son; our three daughters, 10, 7, and 4; plus our ancient, sickly, all-American, very mixed-breed mongrel, Gringo, who had defied her vet’s expectations and survived the trip intact after a grueling flight in the baggage compartment of the El Al plane. We were living on Jerusalem’s French Hill. My husband had accepted a one-year special assignment to teach at the Hebrew University and work at the National Physical Laboratory as a consultant on Tzihum Haavir, air pollution control. We were happily ensconced in a comfortable three-bedroom apartment, having completed an ulpan for five months in the mercaz klita, immigrant absorption center, Mevaseret Tzion, a scenic hilly spot about 20 minutes outside of the city. We were now settled into our new building, which was directly across Rehov Hahagana from a synagogue, near a makolet (grocery store) and a school. All was good and calm. I had stayed home from shul due to a strep throat from which I was mending.

Suddenly the phone rang. We are not the most machmir (observant) Jews in the world, but speaking on the phone on Yom Kippur is something I had never ever done. Yet it was compelling. Who would call on Yom Kippur? Was it urgent enough for me to take the call?

I answered the phone. It was my sister in Herzliya. She wanted to know if things seemed normal at our shul since, in Herzliya, she had observed that young men, military aged young men, were being called out of the synagogue. I replied honestly that I was not in shul and could not answer when, abruptly, and fiercely, the air raid siren began its mournful shriek. There was her answer. And there was mine. Strep throat was forgotten as we gathered together, after some harrowing moments trying to locate our increasingly Israelicized independent children, and made our way down to the building’s bomb shelter.

War was upon us. Certainly that was a remembrance day to remember.

Other days, other dates, are abundant, anniversaries of births, deaths, wars, celebrations. We, all of us, have these moments, these commemorations in our lives, when we are reminded of what life is all about, the good, the bad, and, hopefully, the simply boring, routine, the days we clump together as the days of our lives. May all of us know the standard, the usual, the normal, with many incredible adjustments and moments for the joyous and the marvelously happy. Ken yehi ratzon!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of 12. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

Opinion