“Honor thy Father and thy Mother.” From Exodus and repeated in Deuteronomy.
Unlike Mother’s Day, which was declared a national holiday in 1914 by President Woodrow Wilson, it wasn’t until 1972 that Father’s Day was instituted as a national day of honoring Fathers by President Richard Nixon. Why did so many decades go by before recognizing that Fathers should have the same appreciative status as MotherYs?
On a Sunday night in November of 1962, I was 16, my parents were driving AZA friends of mine to the Los Angeles bus depot to return to San Diego after a weekend conclave ending in having dinner at our house.
On the return ride home, my mother and father were killed in a car crash when our car was struck by a drunk driver. Back in the days of no seat belts and only bench seats, my mother and I were thrown out onto the sidewalk. I don’t know how long it took for me to be aware of what happened but as I looked around at my surroundings, I knew exactly where we were in downtown Los Angeles, on the 6th Street bridge, over the LA River. No one was around.
I felt my mother’s shoulder pressed up to mine, her glasses were on my chest. It was dark and eerily quiet. At first, I thought I was dreaming but when I shook my head from side to side, I realized this was real: We were lying on the sidewalk of the bridge. But all that screamed in my head was, “WHY wasn’t Daddy helping us? Where was he?” And then his words of years before rang loudly in the silence of the city streets: “In a bad head-on car crash, the driver is the first to go, most likely pinned to the wheel.”
In that moment, that was my reality, mine and my two younger brothers. Not only did I fear the worst, I sensed it. And because my Mother wasn’t moving, I believe in that instant, I knew the ultimate truth: They were both dead.
My clarity was proven when my adrenaline kicked in after the police and ambulances arrived — a passer-by finally encountered the accident AND by unbelievable coincidence, the woman was one of my uncle’s secretaries! — and I rattled off the names, addresses and phone numbers of five family members and our rabbi, who lived across the street from us.
And in my innocent/vulnerable state of adolescence, this is when I was struck that my Judaism was real, for after many years of Jewish education, I believed in G-d because in that crisis moment, the Rabbi was the first person I saw when I was taken to the emergency room. He was there waiting. G-d knew I needed him. And that was not the first time he arrived in a time of need for me during a family crisis.
Unbelievably, my injuries were not as bad as they could have been. I did need crutches for three months and could not attend school or go out of the house. Our house stayed in-tact as my grandparents moved in to care for us. My grandfather was a broken man, hardworking but not always a success and having lost a son two years before, he was a silent soul, not a participant in our “new normal.”
I could write a book about our Bubbie. She made her way to America after the Bolshevik Revolution, had been educated in Russia, raised in a wealthy Ukrainian family and knew of the finer thing’s life had to offer back in those days. Not the case in America. My grandparents struggled but raised three children and buried two before they were 60 years old.
And now they were raising three grandchildren. At 16, I became the silent head-of-household, as Bubbie didn’t drive, went to sleep right after dinner, and always cooked and cleaned and tried to make our lives stable. Her days were exhausting. I became the designated driver for my brothers to take them to their various activities, took Bubbie shopping, closed up the house at night.
Within a very short amount of time, I felt a shift in who I was, who I had to be. I was now different from my peers: I had no mother. I had no father. I had responsibilities that most teenagers didn’t have. And because I believed the reason I lived was to take care of my family, I took my role very seriously. And, yet, I still found time for studies, being BBG president and editor of my high school paper. But a major part of life was missing. In an instant, life was different.
But did different mean less? Without having parents, it felt like I was less than my friends. I no longer had the same family experiences, nothing to share on Mondays as to what outings they had over the weekends, no vacation moments to talk about. I found myself drifting away from these conversations among my peers, though, not wanting to feel obvious so no one felt bad about their happy times. It was in those situations, I realized the difference between sympathy and empathy: Sympathy means feeling bad FOR someone—and I learned which few friends might throw me a sympathetic glance during these moments—while empathy means feeling WITH someone—and since all my friends had two parents, thank G-d, I felt empathy was a stranger.
I was plagued with, “Who are we when our roles change? How do we shift from being one identity to another?” One Sunday in November, I was a daughter and by nighttime, I was no longer a daughter. I just wanted to be a kid again. I wanted Mommy and Daddy to worry about the adult stuff, like, how were my grandparents going to afford a new washing machine? Who was going to help me decide what college to go to? (I had serious thoughts about not going away to college, as much as I wanted to, because I was afraid of how Bubbie would manage.)
I was thirsty for change, for normalcy. Hoping the college experience would bring about something new, it was during that year I realized nothing magical was going to happen to make a change. I had to create my own normal. An interesting revelation did happen at San Francisco State where there were many international students and I learned: There is a communality in all humans. I actually met two students from other countries who had lost one or both of their parents and we shared similar feelings of loss, identity, security issues. We actually asked a psychology teacher to lead a support group for students who had suffered different levels of loss as young people, which was of great value to all of us.
My biggest take-away from those group sessions was what moral values, life-lessons and character-building my parents gave me. My mother taught me how to love, care for others, tzedakah, value of friendships and the importance of family. All great words but they don’t mean much unless one takes these traits and puts them into action. Moral values VS actions = CHARACTER! Qualities we have to work on every day to create a moral character, to be a lifetime mensch.
And since Father’s Day is upon us, my Daddy was, in my opinion, the smartest man in the world! He knew so much about so many things. I believe he taught me to always be curious. He regretted not having the opportunity to go to college. But as a very successful business owner, he used his amazing skills as a writer and an artist to instill in his children the love of everything beautiful! He would marvel in the beauty of nature on our many road trips; he would loudly exclaim the magnificence of G-d’s color pallet on our Earth and often would shout the splendor and awe of the ocean, rivers and mountains! These moments live in the front of my memory bank!
My dad was in Germany and France during WWll and he kept a diary writing poems and described scenarios of what he was experiencing. At times these entries were while he was in a fox hole. One entry that was so poignant for me was when he and his fellow soldiers found a German doctor hiding in a shack. The man was screaming hysterically upon being found while rifles were pointed at him and his hands were in the air, as in surrender. He obviously didn’t speak English and the only way they could understand him was that my Dad understood Yiddish and they managed to communicate.
My dad was overwhelmed with the doctor’s fear because the man explained that he hated Hitler, the reason for the war and had nothing against Jews but was forced to attend to injured Germans. When he had a chance in the dark of night, he escaped his unit and had been hiding in the shack for weeks. He expressed he was happy to be found by Americans and would help with their injured soldiers. He was taken as a prisoner and my dad always wondered what happened to him.
My dad’s diary is one of my most prized possessions.
Both my parents LOVED music, theater and movies. My brothers and I were brought up on our father’s idol, George Gershwin and Rhapsody in Blue as being the highest measure of any piece of music. My mother could sing and dance to all the Broadway shows of the 1950s and 1960s. My brothers and my musical theater education started in grammar school when our mother would take us out of class to go see live shows. Those were the days! I followed suit and did the same with my own kids. And to the highest compliment to what my parents introduced us to, my son produced an Off-Broadway show, was the director of a San Francisco nightclub called Feinstein’s, which is a tribute to George Gershwin and Broadway, and today is the marketing director of a Regional Theater. The musical experiences my parents inspired has gone a long way and come full circle!
As my children lost their father to suicide, we don’t have a traditional Father’s Day celebration. So as a Father’s Day tribute to my amazing father, I celebrate that he imbued in me that I could be or do anything I wanted! It was a silent message that I heard loud and clear. Back in the days when women had defined roles, he let me know I could have a college education (that I completed at 40-years-old), and I could go outside the norm to find my path/role that suited me.
As a single mother, my path wasn’t what I thought it would be. But I learned from every step on my journey, realizing that the various roles (job recruiter, helping Russian immigrants resettle in the US, working with high school kids on self-esteem and role-modeling, owning a student foreign exchange company and of late, writing and being a home-chef for working moms and seniors) that the fateful Sunday in 1962 carved my destiny to a life of taking care and helping others, which I’ve always thrived and enjoyed the challenges. I do hope my mother and father know what they gave their life for and that I did pay attention to their role-modeling, worthy qualities and the incredible amount of love they gave us.
Best wishes for a loving Father’s Day to all the fathers, grandfathers, uncles, clergy, teachers, coaches and mentors who take time to nurture those without fathers!
Sandy
As a Baby Boomer Bubbe who still feels 18 but has four grand kids to prove this is the 21 Century, Sandra writes to leave a legacy for the next generations. Her belief that these precious kids need to know their cultural and family’s past in order for them to live their future is all the muse she needs!
She has a Master’s Degree in Psychology and Cross Cultural studies, has written a family history, personal memoir and is completing her first novel.
Her grandmother’s journey to America and life is her source for her deep belief and love for Judaism.
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