Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – David Wainland

November 20, 2006

THE LAST TIME I SAW THE GENERAL

By David Wainland

“I know God would never give me more than I can handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much." Sister Mother Theresa.

On Monday, April 24, 1949, I returned home from school to find my Bubbah Gussy (Grandmother), waiting in our apartment. She seldom visited us and seeing here gave me a moments pause.

Gussy is my dad’s mother, a widow for many years and the Matriarch of the Wainland family. At that time, she had eight living children, six of them married and many grandchildren. She shared an apartment with my Aunt Bertha, her two children, my Aunt Letty and my Aunt Esther. In that Bronx residence at 2105 Walton Avenue, she held court managing her extended family. So, it came as a surprise to see her along with my Aunt Letty sitting in our living room.

“Bubbah yesterday was my birthday. Did you come to bring me a present?” On Sunday, the 23rd I reached my ninth year and expected everybody to celebrate with me.

“Yes mine Dovadol,” Gussy spoke with a thick accent and a mixture of words, a hybrid blending of English, Yiddish and her native Polish tongue, “I know it is your birthday and I am here with a special present. I am putting you in Hebrew school.” Aunt Letty helped to translate the singsong voice for me.

I looked at my mother who shrugged her shoulders. Mom made no pretense about her indifference to religion, but she was always ready to indulge my dad and equally unwilling to challenge the iron will of her mother-in-law. Since we had no money, it had fallen upon my grandmother to pay for my Jewish education.

Dad called her, "The General." From the apartment she called home, she cared for and ruled over her family. Her purpose, strength and commanding presence accomplishing that feat since 1926, the year she became a widow.

To me she seemed more like King Arthur of the Round Table attending to her legion of knights and ladies in waiting. The only difference is that her table stood in the kitchen.

Holidays we would all gather in her home to celebrate, eat her food and do her bidding. She spoke softly, but always with determination while the fire of family burned in her eyes.

My charge, as a male heir, appeared to be carrying on the religion of her husband, herself, her family and all of her family before her. For five years, I followed that quest. I reluctantly attended the school four afternoons a week, Saturdays for junior congregation and Sundays for Sunday school.

I found myself answering to her at every gathering. “How is Hebrew school Dovadol?” She would demand of me. “I vill come to see your Rabbi soon, so no bubba maisse." (Fairy tales)

In 1953, I finally became Bar Mitzvah. I remember that day clearly. Bubbah, ensconced in the upper level, the portion of the orthodox synagogue reserved for women, smiling with pride and tossing little bags of candy down upon me as I stood before the rabbi.

Not a year passed that she did not remind me of that day and her role in seeing me through to that final ritual of manhood.

Years later, after her daughter Bertha lost her husband, the two of them moved in with my parents.

In Bubbah’s ninety-eighth year, Bertha died during a routine heart by-pass. Over time she had lost several children, three sons-in-law and three grandsons, one of those my younger brother Jerry. Life began to weigh her down.

Before the funeral, the family gathered at my parent’s home and then drove the long road to the cemetery where they laid my aunt to rest next to her husband.

The General stood still at Bertha’s service never indulging her emotions, supporting her grandchildren and family. She never wavered nor wailed.

Then it ended and the trip home began.

We returned from the cemetery scrunched together in one car. After my uncle Marty helped my grandmother out, we took her arms and escorted her up the short flight of brick stairs leading to the front door of my parent’s home. Then with intensity I could not have imagined, she shook both of us off.

“Dovid, she commanded, “Go ‘round to the side und fetch mere the garbage pail.”

“Why grandma,” I asked.

“Just do it. For me.”

My uncle repeated the same question. “Why?”

“Mine hat, I vant to throw it avay. I wear this hat only for funerals and I am not going to any, ever again.”

I recognized that tone and the command, there was no use arguing. My uncle disappeared around the corner while I waited with that distraught woman. In a moment, he returned and lifted the galvanized lid. Grandma crumpled the black hat, veil and all and in one movement, it disappeared into the open can.

She turned cane in hand, entered the house and in her own resolute way dealt with the mourning period.

I visited grandma often during the short time that remained to her. During that final year, she drew away, into herself and after the incident on my parent’s steps, I never saw The General again.

David Wainland

David@davidwainland.com