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RIP Rose Hersh Levinson
Dec. 18th, 2006 11:44 pmMy mother called this morning to talk, and as a by-the-way she mentioned that my grandmother (her mother) wasn't doing at all well. She's been going downhill the entire year, since a hospitalization in January that we'd all assumed would be her last. She made a remarkable recovery from that, but the combination of end-stage heart disease and poor circulation couldn't last indefinitely.
She just called a few minutes ago to say that she'd died this evening. They'd been there to visit, and the caregiver called not too long after they got back to say she'd died. My mother said this with a certain wryness. Grandma always did want to do things on her own schedule. She was 95. My grandfather died almost three years ago, and they'd been married for 69 years.
I was talking this morning with my mother about how hard this had to be on her, and did she want me to come in, and she said that it would be a blessing if she could just slip away. She was in a great deal of pain (apparently mostly from carpal tunnel syndrome, of all things), and was getting high doses of painkillers. Mom said that this wasn't the mother she wanted -- the one that went swimming ever day and drove her own car -- and while I couldn't have put it that way, that's the way I felt the last few times I'd seen her. I suspected that when I was in Chicago to visit family for Thanksgiving, it would be the last time, though I'd been suspecting that for each visit this past year.
This isn't any sort of coherent account, just a bunch of random memories, though I'm trying to keep them in something like chronological order.
I was lucky enough to have two wonderful grandmothers, both named Rose. Rose Friedman, my father's mother, was the one who spoiled me. Rose Levinsion, my mother's mother, always had room for me in her life, and certainly indulged me a fair amount, but I didn't ever feel that I could get away with anything she didn't want me to.
I spent a fair amount of time at grandparents' apartment (on the South Side of Chicago) when I was little. My parents used to joke that everyone would think that I was an abused child, the way I begged to stay over at their place every time I came to visit. But my parents didn't abuse me, it's just that there was something special about staying over at Grandma and Grandpa's. About sleeping in the very back room of a railroad-style apartment, and waking up to a smell that I only smelled there (rye toast and percolated coffee), and having breakfast in the little breakfast nook. And playing with the toys that always stayed there, including a vintage copy of "Go to the Head of the Class" that gave me a great respect for the schoolchildren of yesteryear. There was also a triangle and a xylophone, which in retrospect I have great respect for my grandparents' power of tolerance, since we must have made an ungodly racket with them.
Grandma wasn't usually up for kids' games, but she often had projects for me. She'd let the S&H Green Stamps (remember those?) accumulate, and then I'd get to paste them in the books. Part of that was always looking through the catalogs, and figuring out what I'd get if they were my stamps. Especially the toy pages of the catalogs, of course. When I was older, she taught me to play Kalookie -- a card game similar to Canasta that she'd get together with the "girls" to play once a week or so. I kept meaning to ask her to refresh me on the rules, and now I'll never be able to.
Another part of the visiting ritual was to visit the other neighbors in the apartment. Sally lived upstairs, and Ann lived downstairs, and they were always fun to talk to. Just writing about this makes me smell the carpet in the hallways. Gray industrial-type carpet, I think, but with an odor that I never smelled anywhere else.
(aside)
There was a park just a block or so away. It was a great park with two slides -- one suitable for the three-year-old me, and one huge slide. At least, I thought so at the time. My mother's younger sister was only in her teens then, and she chivvied me into trying the large slide. I did, and tumbled at the bottom, and broke my collarbone. I've long since forgiven, but neither of us have forgotten.
(end aside)
Friday night (Shabbat) dinner at my grandparents' place was one of the ongoing rituals of life. We didn't go every week, probably once a month or so. Usually there were other relatives as well -- both grandparents had siblings, so there were a lot of great-aunts and a couple of great-uncles around. Dinner was always salad with a homemade vinegary dressing that I disliked when I was younger, but grew to like as I got older. Grandma was born in the U.S. (IIRC), but her family was Hungarian, as was her cooking. She made the best chicken paprikash ever, though of course I'm biased. Jewish style, without sour cream, because that wouldn't be kosher, even though they were secular Jews who didn't keep kosher.
When I was in my early teens, my grandparents moved to an apartment on Lake Shore Drive, near Diversey. My brothers and I thought it was the height of luxury, being 37 floors up. The neighborhood had changed enough on the South Side that it was probably a good thing, though it was rather a dislocation. But Grandma had the knack of making friends wherever she went. She quickly became friends with Eleanor and Seymour across the hall, and a relative of theirs whose name I'm blanking on who was related to the Hershey empire.
There was a swimming pool in the building, my grandmother was a regular afternoon fixture there, doing her laps. She didn't have much use for the women who would come out there only to work on their tans, and would make snarky asides to me about them.
She always wanted to feed people. If I ever visited her apartment, the first question after the kiss hello would be "Have you eaten? Can I get you something?" Usually followed by a description of what excesses my grandfather had committed buying stuff on sale when he went grocery shopping. And if I didn't duck quickly, I'd soon be sitting down to anything from a light snack to a substantial lunch.
(And I'm falling asleep over the keyboard, so I'd better stop here. I'll post this tonight, and hope to write more tomorrow.)
ETA: I've edited to correct some of the facts, after my relatives got to read this.
She just called a few minutes ago to say that she'd died this evening. They'd been there to visit, and the caregiver called not too long after they got back to say she'd died. My mother said this with a certain wryness. Grandma always did want to do things on her own schedule. She was 95. My grandfather died almost three years ago, and they'd been married for 69 years.
I was talking this morning with my mother about how hard this had to be on her, and did she want me to come in, and she said that it would be a blessing if she could just slip away. She was in a great deal of pain (apparently mostly from carpal tunnel syndrome, of all things), and was getting high doses of painkillers. Mom said that this wasn't the mother she wanted -- the one that went swimming ever day and drove her own car -- and while I couldn't have put it that way, that's the way I felt the last few times I'd seen her. I suspected that when I was in Chicago to visit family for Thanksgiving, it would be the last time, though I'd been suspecting that for each visit this past year.
This isn't any sort of coherent account, just a bunch of random memories, though I'm trying to keep them in something like chronological order.
I was lucky enough to have two wonderful grandmothers, both named Rose. Rose Friedman, my father's mother, was the one who spoiled me. Rose Levinsion, my mother's mother, always had room for me in her life, and certainly indulged me a fair amount, but I didn't ever feel that I could get away with anything she didn't want me to.
I spent a fair amount of time at grandparents' apartment (on the South Side of Chicago) when I was little. My parents used to joke that everyone would think that I was an abused child, the way I begged to stay over at their place every time I came to visit. But my parents didn't abuse me, it's just that there was something special about staying over at Grandma and Grandpa's. About sleeping in the very back room of a railroad-style apartment, and waking up to a smell that I only smelled there (rye toast and percolated coffee), and having breakfast in the little breakfast nook. And playing with the toys that always stayed there, including a vintage copy of "Go to the Head of the Class" that gave me a great respect for the schoolchildren of yesteryear. There was also a triangle and a xylophone, which in retrospect I have great respect for my grandparents' power of tolerance, since we must have made an ungodly racket with them.
Grandma wasn't usually up for kids' games, but she often had projects for me. She'd let the S&H Green Stamps (remember those?) accumulate, and then I'd get to paste them in the books. Part of that was always looking through the catalogs, and figuring out what I'd get if they were my stamps. Especially the toy pages of the catalogs, of course. When I was older, she taught me to play Kalookie -- a card game similar to Canasta that she'd get together with the "girls" to play once a week or so. I kept meaning to ask her to refresh me on the rules, and now I'll never be able to.
Another part of the visiting ritual was to visit the other neighbors in the apartment. Sally lived upstairs, and Ann lived downstairs, and they were always fun to talk to. Just writing about this makes me smell the carpet in the hallways. Gray industrial-type carpet, I think, but with an odor that I never smelled anywhere else.
(aside)
There was a park just a block or so away. It was a great park with two slides -- one suitable for the three-year-old me, and one huge slide. At least, I thought so at the time. My mother's younger sister was only in her teens then, and she chivvied me into trying the large slide. I did, and tumbled at the bottom, and broke my collarbone. I've long since forgiven, but neither of us have forgotten.
(end aside)
Friday night (Shabbat) dinner at my grandparents' place was one of the ongoing rituals of life. We didn't go every week, probably once a month or so. Usually there were other relatives as well -- both grandparents had siblings, so there were a lot of great-aunts and a couple of great-uncles around. Dinner was always salad with a homemade vinegary dressing that I disliked when I was younger, but grew to like as I got older. Grandma was born in the U.S. (IIRC), but her family was Hungarian, as was her cooking. She made the best chicken paprikash ever, though of course I'm biased. Jewish style, without sour cream, because that wouldn't be kosher, even though they were secular Jews who didn't keep kosher.
When I was in my early teens, my grandparents moved to an apartment on Lake Shore Drive, near Diversey. My brothers and I thought it was the height of luxury, being 37 floors up. The neighborhood had changed enough on the South Side that it was probably a good thing, though it was rather a dislocation. But Grandma had the knack of making friends wherever she went. She quickly became friends with Eleanor and Seymour across the hall, and a relative of theirs whose name I'm blanking on who was related to the Hershey empire.
There was a swimming pool in the building, my grandmother was a regular afternoon fixture there, doing her laps. She didn't have much use for the women who would come out there only to work on their tans, and would make snarky asides to me about them.
She always wanted to feed people. If I ever visited her apartment, the first question after the kiss hello would be "Have you eaten? Can I get you something?" Usually followed by a description of what excesses my grandfather had committed buying stuff on sale when he went grocery shopping. And if I didn't duck quickly, I'd soon be sitting down to anything from a light snack to a substantial lunch.
(And I'm falling asleep over the keyboard, so I'd better stop here. I'll post this tonight, and hope to write more tomorrow.)
ETA: I've edited to correct some of the facts, after my relatives got to read this.
