batyatoon: (littleme)
batyatoon ([personal profile] batyatoon) wrote2005-08-31 10:52 pm
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I want to write about my grandfather tonight.

Tonight is his yahrtzeit, the first anniversary of his death according to the Jewish calendar. I couldn't write much at all about it at the time. I'm still not sure I can.

I want to write about my grandfather tonight.

New Orleans, the city he lived in for most of his life and for the entirety of mine, the city that is inextricably linked with him and Grandma Cecil in my mind, is flooded. Grandma and my other local relatives have gotten safely out of the city. Thousands haven't.

I want to write about my grandfather tonight. His name was Schneur Zolmon Levin. Most people called him Zolly. My father called him Papa. I called him Grandpa Zolly, and didn't learn until only a few years ago how much he would have preferred to be called Zeide.

I've been thinking about National Novel Writing Month coming up in a few, and saying things like maybe this time I'll actually finish one. He always used to ask what I'd written lately.

I want to write about my grandfather tonight, and I keep thinking in other people's words. All true wealth is biological is the phrase I keep coming back to.

He was a small Jewish man with a short scrubby white beard and sharp blue eyes and a sense of humor rivaled only by his sense of principle. He taught me handslap games and Hi-Q and nonsense rhymes, and he tried to teach me discipline and responsibility and respect, and I know I disappointed him more often than not, and my uncle Elliot told me at the funeral that I was always Grandpa's favorite.

I miss him so much.

I want to write about my grandfather tonight, and I will not put it off again.
mtgat: (Default)

[personal profile] mtgat 2005-09-01 03:31 am (UTC)(link)
Love you. :(
cleverthylacine: a cute little thylacine (Default)

[personal profile] cleverthylacine 2005-09-01 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
Oh, Batya. **hugs**
silveraspen: silver trees against a blue sky background (Default)

[personal profile] silveraspen 2005-09-01 03:58 am (UTC)(link)
It was lovely to read this and to form a clear mental image of this man who was so beloved.

*hugs you very much*

[identity profile] filkerdave.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 04:06 am (UTC)(link)
I am glad you wrote about him tonight.

[identity profile] nightface.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 04:33 am (UTC)(link)
We hear you.
*hugs*

[identity profile] dotsomething.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 11:41 am (UTC)(link)
Good, I'm glad you wrote about him.

It's sad that his city is so devastated. Hope any other relatives you might have had down there got out okay.

*hugs*

[identity profile] snowy-owlet.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
No matter how much you miss him, it is still a great gift to keep loving even after they are gone and to know how much you have been loved.

[identity profile] gnomi.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 02:26 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for sharing this.

I'm glad to hear that your relatives in New Orleans got to safety.

*hugs*

[identity profile] mabfan.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 02:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Thank you for posting this.

[identity profile] catalana.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 03:34 pm (UTC)(link)
*hugs*

[identity profile] stakebait.livejournal.com 2005-09-01 03:54 pm (UTC)(link)
*hugs you*

[identity profile] johnnycanuck.livejournal.com 2005-09-04 12:07 am (UTC)(link)
That was powerful and beautiful, and I'm sure it was also terribly difficult to write.

*hugs*