SWEET MEMORIES

I received a lovely phone call last night from an old friend. Hedy married David’s best friend, Erv, more than fifty years ago, and remained Erv’s and our good friend even after they were divorced and even after she moved some distance away from us. In our conversation Hedy talked about the memories she had of David over the years, and I asked her to share them. She talked about the time she dated him (before I had met him – and which I knew all about), and she talked about how much she appreciated our making the long drive to see her on two occasions – the sad one when Erv died and the happy one when their granddaughter was Bat Mitzvah’d. Hedy asked if it was too painful for me to hear these memories, but I relished them and appreciated hearing through her voice and her memories how much she too loved and admired my David.

These are the messages that mean the most to me – the conversations and the notes in which people share their memories of David, because through all these memories he lives on. There’s the junior high school teacher who wrote to me of a time when David came to speak to his class and had the students mesmerized by his talking about his career in radio. (I know what a tough audience junior high schoolers can be!) Or the young man who wrote about how David had welcomed him into our home at a crucial time in his life. Or the trainer at the gym who told me of the good conversations they used to have. Or the young woman who lived next door to us as a little girl and still remembers his smile and how he helped her single mother clear away the snow in her driveway.

Some of these memories are new to me, or forgotten, so they give me the gift of seeing still another aspect of who he was – and what his impact was on people outside our family. I’m grateful for this gift.

terrific show

As a follow-up to the interviews that local fifth-graders conducted of senior citizens, including my husband, Mark, and me, the children, aided by a person from a nearby arts council, put together 26 skits based on what we seniors told them. It was the best show I have seen all year -- and I go to Broadway a lot!

They acted out a scene Mark had described when his jeep in World War 2 rolled over and he and his driver were both injured; they acted out my description of being in a remote Nepalese village where the children have so little compared to these modern kids; they acted out one man's memory of being caught in quicksand and being saved by his loyal dog; they acted out another man's memory of coming to this country from Italy as a 12-year-old and being put into first grade because he didn't speak English. And they acted out an 80-year-old woman's memory of having wet her pants in elementary school. This last was wonderful because they got her point -- that you can undergo something really embarrassing -- and you can get over it.

I was really moved by the way the children tuned into history through our memories, and it was another reminder of how important it is for us to tell our stories to our grandchildren. They won't know what our lives have been like, what kinds of things scared us, embarrassed us, made us happy, or made us sad -- unless we tell them.

Now, over the holidays, when so many of us are lucky enough to be able to spend time with our grandchildren, is a perfect time for letting them into our lives before they knew us. Happy holidays, everyone!