From Generation to Generation: The Traditions We Carry

It's not enough to just be holiday season for Jews, it's also been airplane season for me. Not to mention I keep having lunch with my big brother... 3 Sundays in a row. I mean, the guy lives outside Philly, so it's not like I can call him up and say, " hey, let's do lunch." First time was in Austin at the maternal-side wedding. Second time was at my house because he was here for Rosh Ha'Shana...which is when I usually see him. 

The third time was because I flew into NY to join the paternal-side for Aunt Cynthia's headstone unveiling. Uncle Lenny passed away several years ago and was buried in the family plot. His headstone had a blank space for Aunt Cynthia. When I was in New York this past August, I noticed the space was still blank. In a way, I was relieved. Since I've been saying kaddish for my aunt (mostly because I go to daily minyan,) I wasn't quite ready to see her name chiseled on there quite yet.

Unveilings seem to be a uniquely Jewish thing. They take place about a year after the burial. Some people do not visit the grave until the unveiling, and then regular visits for kever avot happen. But I really wanted to talk about unveilings. 

Unlike funerals, they're not usually weepy-wailers. They are smaller, more stoic, and when I was a kid, someone always pulled a card table from the trunk and laid out sponge cake, herring, and schnapps. These days, we go for lunch at the local kosher deli. But unveilings are important to share with the family. It's a marker moment, a fixed point in time when you really come to the end of mourning and the wound is theoretically scabbed over. Of course, there's not a real timeline for any of it, but the unveiling serves to gather us together for a sigh, a hug, and a wistful goodbye. I've always found them to be strangely cathartic. 

It would make it so final. But when we got to the cemetery this time (in the pouring rain which seemed oddly appropriate) there it was. As if it had always been there. But of course, it hadn't. We covered the stone with cheesecloth, my cousin Richard led the brief service, and we removed the cloth, and it was official. 

Now, Tante really is next to Uncle. Just like Mom is next to Dad. Grandma Bessie is next to Mom even though this is my dad's side of the family (long story best saved for another time.) Grandma Sarah is next to Grandpa Moishe. Having them all together is very convenient. 

(Ziggy and I actually have plots there, too, but he wanted to be buried in Minnesota,
 so I guess I'll end up permanently in the land of passive/aggressive.)

In the midst of the Jewish holiday cycle,  you end up thinking about what you're gonna cook, who cooked it before you, and why the hell they're not here to tell you what you're doing wrong. But it's more than that; it's a through line, one generation of Jewish women to the next. I know there are weird things I do because Grandma Bessie or Grandma Sarah did them, as did my Mom. I imagine one day Little Miss will tell her daughter or granddaughter that you must use seltzer when making matzah balls because that's what her Savta (me) did. Just like Bubbe and Grandma Bessie did. These are the unwritten traditions we pass from one generation to the next. Every time I stand at the cemetery, I recite the litany of what I've tried to pass down this year. 

When we sit around a shabbat or yontif (holiday) table or stand together as a family before the open Ark during Ne'ila, it links us to who and what came before us. Just as I have memories from my childhood, I hope the Senior Son and the Junior Son have equally fine memories. I can only hope Little Miss and Young Sir are already collecting their own memories of our fun, boisterous, happy family gatherings.

Is that so much to ask?

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Taking plants that were outside all summer into the house?

Don't forget to check for emerging bugs.

I'm a great believer in spraying the top of the soil 

with Dawn mixed with water.

Works like a charm.