For those of you who do not know what a Bubbie is, it is a grandmother in the full-blown Jewish tradition. Think of a traditional Italian grandmother and one can come close enough. Yes, there are those today who choose the name Bubbie when the time arrives, but in my opinion, they simply are not the same.
Today's grandmothers are more often than not engaged in their own careers and social affairs and are thus not perennially available for the hug, the kiss, the listening ear and the willingness to conspire against that nefarious in between generation. Not to mention the kitchen always at the ready, the forbidden chocolate available and life was good in Bubbie's house.
One thing I am finding out now is how smart my Bubbie was even though I did not appreciate the brilliance, the common sense dispensed freely, always with a sweet and gentle touch, never critical, for an 'ainekel' (grandchild) could never do wrong, merely needful of a gentle nudge to remain on the straight and narrow. In fact, if one thinks about it, with the wisdom of hindsight, a great brilliance underlay all those quaint sayings.
Take the one about children starving in China, apparently an encouragement beyond refute to eat your dinner. Could not understand how food in my stomach would help a starving Chinese kid. My proffered bit of wisdom was to package the food and send it posthaste to that starving Chinese child. So smug in my cleverness, brilliant in my solution. Never understood why it was never implemented.
Now I know better, blessed with the brilliance of hindsight. Bubbie, alone, at the age of 17, took her chances and came to America. Leaving behind all her family, her small community, almost totally wiped out during the Holocaust, she sailed away. To build a life for a future family never to know the food insecurity of Europe. Ironically, her family did know it during the Great Depression as often enough an onion in boiling water was dinner.
To waste food was a major no-no. She knew that there was always a child hungry somewhere in the world and we should appreciate the gift we were given, to know there were others who needed that spurned food, to think of them. She was one of the first people I know who took of their paltry funds and donated to organizations who fed the hungry in other parts of the world.
Another remark now better understood was the one which reminded us to keep negativity away, to display it as least as possible, to keep the ugliness inside, lest it frighten others or worse - freeze into permanence. Was that the face we wished to keep forever? To keep the ugly and frightening distortion of face which accompanies negativity shunted to the outside often to where it most assuredly did not belong? Think about it, or better yet, look in the mirror as you make angry faces. Observe the distortion, the often frightening appearance forthcoming, inducing fear, anger, and worry in others, from one's family, especially children, to coworkers and all in-between. Would we be okay with that face and the matching personality, the antagonism it would elicit from others towards you? Most definitely not. We took that freezing face threat seriously.
There is a raison d'etre for this posting. Bubbie's wisdom and forethought once again, quite apropos. I could just see her distaste of the ridiculous childishly defiant face of Trump's mugshot. Is that the face to freeze on you? For eternity? To be immortalized infamously in history, to be the symbol of a country bereft of soul, lost in a swamp of that face's creation along with the nation highjacked and brought to a bizarre land sans morality, sans trust.
Apparently so, for he is now using that childish display of pique, caught in the cookie jar up to his shoulders and forced to hear of serious penalties, his excuses falling flat, deflated, victims of his pomposity. Useless as childish behaviorisms and excuses do not work in a world of adults ready to face truths ignored far too long.
These ignored, defiled and defied truths have come out to the fore, as they are wont to do. They have come back to bite all in their respective rear ends for they thought with that piece of anatomy rather than with what is between their ears. They refused any and all paths to truth, to responsibility, to loyalty to this country and its residents.
Now they all wear that frozen face of Trump. But we must learn to understand what happened, get over the difficulties of the way back, the thawing of all those frozen faces. It might even hurt a bit as deicing does, but the end results can be very welcome. We must reject that frozen face and return to sanity, as a nation together.
We must find faces that inspire truth, and respect. Trust in the motivations of the leaders of the nation, In fact, to be leaders once again.
The togetherness we must always keep is that which has uplifted Yitzy. He remains himself, even as he recovers from a particularly long day of strong chemo. His signature grin remains as contagious as ever, inspiring as well. In the midst of pain and nausea he managed to pull off a joke on his mom and attending nurse, and they all laughed. That is Yitzy.
Kee the prayers. Keep the togetherness.
Keep the wisdom, the love, and the strength of all the Bubbies of the world.
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