February 22nd, 2019

Yahrzeit

I think we all know I’m not much of an observant Jew, or at all really. I am like many goyim in the way that I don’t follow my ancestral religion, but I do enjoy some secular interpretations of certain holidays and traditions that I find personally meaningful. The tradition of yahrzeit, the Yiddish word meaning “death anniversary” is a good one. I never celebrated it before last year, as I had never lost anyone that close to me who was Jewish before 2017. Last year was the one-year anniversary of my dad’s death and tomorrow is two years.

What you do for yahrzeit is light yahrzeit candles, which you can get for a buck and half at certain supermarkets, which are nice and are supposed to burn for the whole day but we’ll see. You can also visit the person’s grave and leave stones, which is another Jewish thing to do, though I don’t know if it’s exactly codified anywhere. Anyway, I got my dad some nice stones in Poland–where his own father was from–so I will bring them to his grave tomorrow. 

Also, you can of course think about the person, though I think about my dad more often than on his death-aversary. In fact, I have made a list (incomplete) of the times I have been thinking about him, below. 

You will note that this is the first time in two years since his death I’ve really written about him here, or anywhere. This is partly due to being sad and not having much to say, and partly due to my father being extremely private and not liking to be talked about–it’s not like I wrote about him so much when he was alive either. But two years later I feel like he has moved on from these earthly concerns, and anyway, this list is far more about me than him.

Times when I think about my dead father:

1) While driving: I’m actually not that bad of a driver–I’ve never hit so much as a parking barrier and my only ticket was 20 years ago–but I never got good enough for most of the actions required to become automatic. Thus, as I drive, my brain plays a constant stream of instructions on what to do next and how to do it, which is I think why I find driving so exhausting and stressful. And the instructions are in the voices of those who taught me to do those things–some professional teachers, some helpful friends, but mainly my dad, who was in his prime the best driver I knew. He also loathed me being behind the wheel–I suppose many parents feel that way–but always pushed me to practice and keep trying to get my license, even after I failed the test and felt I was doomed.

2) At ballet class: I have excellent turnout, despite being terrible at almost every other aspect of ballet. It’s the only thing I ever get compliments on in class, and it’s a great relief to have one thing I don’t have to worry about. Once I was stretching at the barre and someone commented “Wow, you’re very flexible” and I felt compelled to respond, “This is genetic, I didn’t earn it. My brother can do it too.” We all can–I’ve checked with cousins. My dad died at 80 and up until a year or so before his death he was sitting comfortably in the half-lotus, as I usually do when at rest. All Rosenblums, it seems, have very flexible hips.

3) When the time on two clocks or watches doesn’t agree, something that my father hated. He set all time pieces by the beeps on the BBC World Report, and was deeply upset when he became too ill to do so.

4) Whenever I see an unusually large housecat. My dad liked all cats and indeed all animals, but he especially liked big domestic cats like Maine Coons. We adopted all our family cats as kittens from barns and he always hoped one would grow really big, but all Rosenblum cats have been on the small side.

5) Whenever I see a show with one of the disparate group of actors he liked. Mainly my dad liked actors you’d think of for his age and station–Marlon Brando, Paul Newman. But he watched and liked a wide range of movies and TV shows and he had some oddballs in his list of favourites. He really liked Cyndi Lauper as an actress (I tried buying him a cd of her music once, but it was a no go) and he’d see anything with Hugh Grant in it.

6) When I am chiding myself about some small thing, I often use phrases my dad used to me when I was a kid. At the time, they were just things my dad said, but as an adult I have figured out mainly where they came from. “Say good night, Gracie,” was something George Burns said to Gracie Allen at the end of their comedy routines, and my dad said to me at bedtime. “Straighten up and fly right” is a line from and title of a Nat King Cole song, and admonishment to young Rebecca to stop misbehaving. “Put your shoes on, Lucy” was to a busload of sleepy passengers in the middle of the night  Los Angeles in mid-1960s by a Greyhound driver–if it has a longer history I don’t know it–and to me when it was time to go outside. As far as I recall, my dad stop saying this stuff to me at the end of the 80s, but I still say it to myself. Oh and this one is from later, when I went away to university–“Keep those cards and letters coming.” I believe that’s Johnny Carson. My dad liked me to write him letters, at least until I got a decent phone plan, and he was a good correspondent.

 7) Whenever I smell tomato vines (the pungent odor you smell in a garden growing tomatoes but not when you eat the actual fruit? That’s the vines), to which he was allergic, although he grew dozens of tomato plants every year. He developed the allergy later in life and started having to work on the garden with caution around the vines, which he found deeply annoying.

8) When I run into someone I know unexpectedly. My father hated that.

9) When I eat or have the opportunity to eat foods he liked. Probably if anyone lives in a home with someone for any length of time, you’ll develop a shared commentary on food–I have this for a number of people. Even if I don’t like the food in question (tamales, gefilte fish, anything extremely spicy) I always have this kind of secondary opinion rising up underneath my own that it’s excellent and I should buy and eat it immediately.

10) When I try to explain some bit of social or economic theory to anyone. My dad (and mom) taught me a bunch of stuff at the dinner table and I can parrot those explanations fairly effectively but it’s always obvious when I haven’t done my own reading because the well runs dry after 2 or 3 follow-up questions–and then I feel I’ve embarrassed the family. Nevertheless, I’ve impressed a lot of people (myself included) with how much I got to learn at suppertime. 

11) When someone complains about having a bad father, because I didn’t.