Thank You to My Really Old Gym Shoes
Permanent linkFilms About Tough Jews
Permanent linkWhat Are We Losing For?
Permanent linkHaters Don’t Gotta Hate
Permanent linkFeeling the Tefilah
Permanent linkMy 29-Hour Birthday
Permanent linkEven though it seems like it was only a year ago, I'm about to have another birthday.
But this is no ordinary birthday. No, no, no. Not only is this the first birthday I'm going to celebrate without all of my baby teeth (I misplaced them on the bus), but it's also the fifth anniversary of my 24th birthday. So yeah, I'm going to be 29. I hope it will be a birthday to remember since I can't remember the last 28.
But fear not my generous Oy! enthusiasts, for I have a surefire plane to make sure this birthday is one for the books! That book being "The Book of Things Adam Kind of Makes Up to Make His Life More Awesome: Part 1." Journey with me.
I've never been big on birthdays. I'm usually normal size. But birthdays don't have the same profound impact on me as I've seen them have on others. I tend to care more for unique celebratory milestones, like when I celebrated turning 10,000 days old, or when I take a moment to enjoy some of the small things life throws my way. But this year, I'm quite looking forward to my birthday because it will be -- in my twisted logic -- the longest birthday I've ever had to perfectly accommodate the age that I will become.
You ready for this? Read on. Or read the title of the article. That's a dead giveaway. But then read on.
You see, I am fortunate enough to be going on a vacation this year to the most important state in the union, Hawaii, which is important because it helps make our flag look balanced. I mean, a 49 star flag -- that would be outrageous, egregious, and preposterous.
When I am in the Aloha State, a phrase which here means, "a quiet laugh," (Get it? A-low-ha. Heh heh … I'll see myself out) I will be celebrating my 29th birthday. I'll be doing this on May 12, because that's when my birthday is. I know because I was there.
But here's the thing, when in Hawaii the time zone difference from Chicago is 5 hours. So that means when it is 7 p.m. on May 11, Hawaii time, it will be 12 a.m. on May 12 Chicago time. So in a way, that is when my birthday is technically going to be starting. However, given that I am on Hawaii time, I fully intend to still consider the full day of May 12 -- all 24 hours of it -- as my birthday on top of the aforementioned additional time.
Do you see it? If you see it, that's great. You're amazing. You're basically mishpacha (family). If you don't, let me do some math for you so you can become mishpacha.
Let's break it down. My actual birthday is 24 hours long, but to everyone I know in Chicago, it will be starting five hours earlier since I will be in Hawaii. Mostly based on the fact that I know my Dad will be wishing me a happy birthday right at midnight Chicago time, it is safe to say that we can add five hours of celebratory shenaniganery to my normally 24-hour birthday.
So, 5 hours + 24 hours = 29 hours. And it's my 29th birthday.
I couldn't make this up. I couldn't have planned it. But if this was going to happen to anyone, it was going to happen be me. This blows the idea of a Golden Birthday (when I turned 12 on May 12) out of the water. Or my reverse birthday every year (again, given I was born on May 12, my reverse birthday is December 5). It's like some amazing, unbelievable, coincidence! (That's a previously written blog that came out last year -- on my birthday! It just keeps going!)
But when I had the realization that on my 29th birthday I would be having a 29-hour birthday, my jaw hit the floor. It was because I had tripped. But when I got back up, I immediately had to write this Oy! blog, which you are reading right now to immortalize my incessant dorkiness with the way I view the world and the fun moments that are hidden within the everyday ones. It was short. It was sweet. It took me about 29 hours to write ... it just keeps going!
Mission complete
Permanent linkGrandpa Max with Grandma Rita -- married 68 years -- circa the late 1950s.
My Grandpa Max passed away this spring -- on his 93rd birthday.
According to Jewish wisdom, dying on the same day that you're born is a blessing. In fact, Moses was said to have died on his 120th birthday. The Talmud teaches us that God calculates and completes the lifespan of a righteous person.
Jewish scholars say that righteous people are charged with a mission at their birth: To live their lives to the fullest potential and finish their mission completely. The mission ends on the very same day it was begun.
So that means Grandpa passed away on the exact day he was supposed to.
My grandpa -- my dad's dad -- was a mensch who lived his life with dignity and integrity. A kind, humble, generous, and gentle soul with the driest wit.
It was the way he loved and teased my grandma for 68 years.
It was the way he would interact with people at the deli counter, Grandma's beauty parlor, or the convenience store where he bought his lottery tickets, how he'd disarm them with a joke.
It was the way he would rarely sign his paintings, because he didn't care to take credit for his work.
It was the way he served in combat during World War II on the beaches of the Philippines and in the jungles of New Guinea.
When he returned to Long Island after the war, he met my grandma, set up by their two sisters who dreamed up their shidduch (match) at a canasta game. Max worked long hours in the family school supply factory in Manhattan. He would bring home for his two sons -- and later his four granddaughters -- notebooks and pencils with our names etched on them.
He never went to college, but he read voraciously, and seemed to know just about everything. Every day, my grandma would do the crossword puzzle, and any time she didn't know an answer, she would enlist the help of her Max. Whether it was a baseball player, an obscure politician, or even the name of a 1990s boy band member -- somehow Grandpa knew the answer.
In his free time, he loved to paint, especially portraits of the people he loved; Max would capture not only their physical likeness, but their spirit too.
When I'd come to visit, we'd paint canvases with his special acrylics; I'd get frustrated when my artwork, unlike Grandpa's, looked nothing like the person I was painting. But Grandpa would always tell me they were beautiful. I knew that they weren't, but I also knew that Grandpa believed that they were because he only saw the good in his granddaughters.
In the summertime, Grandpa and I would stroll along the boardwalk near Grandma and Grandpa's home in Long Island. We'd sometimes chat about school and friends and other times just walk in silence, smelling the seaweed and ocean air, and listening to the soothing crashing of the waves. For my grandpa was a man who was comfortable with silences, and who only spoke when he had something to say.
Each one of us have our own Grandpa Max, people we miss every day, people that paved the way for us, who live on in us forever.
My other grandfather, Harry, died two weeks before my second birthday.
Even though I didn't get the chance to know Grandpa Harry, he always held this superhero status in my mind and heart. After all, my grandma, my mom, and other people who knew and loved him would constantly nourish me with stories about him, about his decency and his moral compass.
A Jewish socialist, he immigrated to the States from Russia in the early part of the 20th century. Here, he met my maternal grandma and they bought a farm in Wisconsin, where they raised cattle, corn, two sons, and a daughter. He and my Grandma loved Israel and he insisted on investing their meager savings in Israel's early days. Harry would say, "If this is worth nothing, then our lives are worth nothing."
Grandpa Harry died 36 years before Grandpa Max. These last few weeks, since Max died, I keep envisioning my two grandfathers, who had been fond of each other back when my parents were first courting, reunited with each other now. I bet that they, along with my late grandma, are enjoying each other's company and making each other laugh.
Death has this way of making us take stock of our lives. When our loved ones die, in the best of worlds, their passing makes those of us they leave behind want to live our lives with even more purpose and integrity. Like Grandpa Max and Grandpa Harry, the really great ones inspire us to live our lives to our fullest potentials, to complete our own missions.