Long before I knew her. Long before she met my dad. Long before they created their sweet love story. Long before my sister Jan Weinstein-Sparta and I were born. Long before she would become a grandmother and great grandmother. Wonder what dreams she had that were never fulfilled. I imagine she would have said it was a life well lived with everything she could ever have wanted. Today (November 26th, 2020), I am honoring a decade since she beamed up. Hard to believe that so much time has passed without her here, but I commune daily with her and my dad who died 2 1/2 years before she did. Happy Thanksgiving in Heaven, Mamacakes.
This picture was taken when she was 22 as she was heading to the wedding of a friend, as a bridesmaid.
Selma Rose Hirsch Weinstein was born into a large and loving family. My grandmother Henrietta was one of 13 Bernstein siblings of Eastern European Jewish origins. I once asked her how they managed so many kids. Her response was that the older ones took care of the younger ones. My question went deeper than that. How the heck did they afford the expenses of raising so many and where did they have a house big enough to accommodate them? My great grandfather owned a corner store. I imagine that is how my grandmother developed her belief in a money tree in the backyard that she told my parents we had too.
My Uncle Jim was her protective older brother and playmate as were her numerous cousins who all lived within a few blocks of each other. One of her uncles referred to her as “Sally up the alley”. She would tell me that one of the reasons she viewed herself as being shy was because she hadn’t needed to seek out friends in her childhood. The funny thing is, I never saw her that way since she seemed to make friends wherever she went.
My parents met at a party of a mutual friend. My mother had been dating a man that I referred to as ‘on-again/off-again Freddie’. He stood her up for their date on New Year’s Eve and needless to say, she was angry. When she arrived at the shindig, he beckoned her over. She retorted, “If you want me, you come to me.” My father, Moish, witnessed this and thought, “That girl’s got chutzpah!” It is a word that means ‘guts’ in Yiddish. He approached her, talked all evening, and asked if he could drive her home. When she arrived, she told my grandmother, “Tonight I met the man I’m going to marry.” Their first date was at a Chinese restaurant and her fortune said, “You’d better prepare your Hope Chest.” Less than a year later, they married. My sister and I came along a few years afterward and were raised in a loving home with parents who showered us with attention and affection, seeing to it that our needs were met for food, shelter, clothing, toys, education, travel, and activities.
They had a true partnership. They both worked, outside the home and in; my dad was a milkman and then a bus driver. My mom had a series of jobs that enabled her to be home with us until we were old enough to be latchkey kids when she got a job as a switchboard operator at Sears that she had until she retired in 1989. She was an Avon rep. which was great for my sister and me since we had babysitting jobs lined up for her customers, as well as a gate guard at our local pool in the summer, she sewed doll clothes for a woman named Mrs. Handy (I loved that coincidence). She also wrote a local community column for the Burlington County times, letting readers know who was getting married, graduating, and having babies. She inspired me to be a Renaissance Woman too. When my dad came home, he wasn’t the babysitter, he was the Daddy. He didn’t ‘help’ my mother with our care or housekeeping. He knew he was equally responsible. They spoke all of the 5 Love Languages fluently as they were affectionate in word and action, spent quality time together, gave each other cards and gifts spontaneously, and did acts of service to make each other’s lives easier. Funny thing is, I never had a relationship that emulated theirs. Still welcoming it, since they showed me that it was possible.
She enjoyed her role as a mother, seemingly something she was born to do. She told me that rather than looking forward to our return to school at the end of each summer, she cried since she would miss us. We played and learned simultaneously. She took us to the library up the street weekly and went to Story Hour led by the ‘liberry lady,’ as I called her. I would come home with a stack of books which I would read in time to return the following week. Our home had the Funk and Wagnalls encyclopedia lining bookshelves in the dining room, which she encouraged us to use regularly for research for school assignments and just for the heck of it. Booklover that I have long been, I would page through it for fun. I was a quirky kid.
Music was a huge part of our home, with the sounds of Rogers and Hammerstein lyrics wafting through the air as we would sing and dance along. We used to listen to the soundtrack from South Pacific, that I memorized the songs, I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Outa My Hair, You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught, Happy Talk, Some Enchanted Evening, and Dites-Moi. She had a sweet voice that had lulled me to sleep on many occasions. Although my father tried mightily, his voice was not so soothing. To his credit, what he lacked in talent, he made up for in enthusiasm. Blessedly, my voice more resembles my mother’s lilt than my father’s gravel.
She was a room mother when my sister and I were in elementary school, making cookies and cupcakes for parties and acting as a chaperone on trips. Girl Scout cookie parent was added to her resume as boxes lined the couch in the kitchen. She and my dad would take them to work to sell and I remember toting them in a wagon up and down the street back when it was safe to be a little door to door saleswoman. When we joined the swim team she not only cheered from the sidelines at our meets but would be a timer and hand out ribbons afterward.
A story from my mother’s young adulthood came to my awareness in 2008. When Barack Obama was elected for the first term, I mused with her about how amazing it was, given that I grew up in the 1960s and witnessed the inequities that divided folks based on the color of their skin. She related that when she was 18 and her father had recently died, she and my grandmother took a bus trip from Philly to Florida. This was 1942, during WWII and the bus was filled with soldiers, sailors, and marines. When the bus pulled into DC, the white bus driver yelled, “All you (and he used the N-word that I won’t glorify by spelling out), get to the back of the bus.” At that, my mom stood up and said to my grandmother, “Come on, we’re moving too.” And so they did. I asked her what the driver said and she replied, “Nothing.” And, what did the other passengers say? “Nothing,” but each time they stopped along the way, the military personnel surrounded them to protect them from potentially angry white passengers. I marvel at this anecdote and the family in which I was raised.
In early 2010, she was diagnosed with CHF- Congestive Heart Failure. I was blessed to have traveled the hospice journey with her that commenced in May of that year, getting to be with her seven times in the following six months in the Ft. Lauderdale home she had shared with my father until he passed in 2008. Our conversations were about life, the Universe, and everything and I treasure each moment I had with her. At one point she slid a ring off her pinkie and handed it to me. “I want you to have this.” It was my grandmother’s engagement ring that she had given to my mother and now it was mine to treasure and it will become my bequest to my daughter-in-law when I pass. As I look at it, I feel her with me all the more powerfully.
In a dream a few years ago, while I was facing challenges, I heard her proclaim, “You’ve got what it takes, babycakes!” She was my most ardent cheerleader and always knew what to say to help me navigate sometimes fierce inner critiholism. She is my stalwart, my angel, my role model for all things loving and good.
When I lit the Yahrzeit candle for her, I remember her doing the same for her parents on the anniversary of their passing. A multi-generational chain of love that threads its way through the fiber of my life.
—
This post is republished on Medium.
***
If you believe in the work we are doing here at The Good Men Project and want a deeper connection with our community, please join us as a Premium Member today.
Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
Photo courtesy of the author