Be Blessed. The Life and Legacy of a beloved Grandmother.

She was seven years old. She’d been standing at the crossroads for what felt like hours eyeing every car that approached the junction.

Grandma and Grandpa (Bubby and Zeidy as she called them) left Manchester six hours ago. “They must almost be here by now, no matter how many stops they make on the way.” Thought the little girl.

“Some people said the drive only takes a bit over two hours. But Bubby liked to take it slow. She didn't like the motorways. She liked Zeidy to take the quiet country roads. That way she got to see more of the nature that she loved.”

Here comes another white car that looks like theirs. But there's no white-haired man driving so it can’t be them.

The little girl imagined Bubby opening her flask and pouring out warm tea. Out would come some paper towels. She could smell the bags Bubby opened. Pulling out pieces of chocolate and unwrapping sweets for Zeidy that she passed into his mouth as he drove quietly along.

How Sara cherished those times that she got to go out with them on their day trips. Each time Bubby and Zeidy would be packing up to drive back to Manchester she’d beg to go along with them. Sometimes it took a lot of begging! "What about school?!" Daddy or Mummy would say as they discussed her plea.

"She'll be back there in a day or two... it won't be the end of the world." Grandma would advocate.

Then she'd turn to Sara and say... "You'll explain to teacher that you wanted some time with Grandma, won’t you darling?"

She understood the little ginger haired girl best in the whole wide world. Sara wanted to explain to Grandma that not all teachers were kind like she was. But instead, Sara just held onto Grandma’s arm as Grandma stroked her head.

How the little girl loved those trips with Bubby and Zeidy. Cuddled in the back seat next to Bubby with pillows and blankets. She hated the smell of Grandma’s lavender perfume, but craved her warm embrace so the smell didn't matter. With time lavender smelled of Grandma and Sara began to love the smell.

“Where are they? It's starting to get dark.” Wondered Sara. “Will they ever arrive?”

She didn't have a watch and there were no such thing as mobile phones in those days. So, she just stood there watching car after car.  The white cars promised hope, until she saw two people in the front seat. That couldn't be them.  Bubby always sat in the back seat.

Then, in a heartbeat, the magic moment arrived! The right car with Zeidy at the wheel arrives at the junction. Sara waves like mad and then runs back to the Avondale cul-de-sac as fast as her little legs can carry her whilst Zeidy slowly circles the green and reaches the house.

Sara’s squeals of excitement let everyone know that the big moment has arrived. How she relishes that moment when Bubby shuffles into the house with a million bags saying "Wait darling wait.. I've got surprises for you."

The little girl watches and follows Grandma with delight as she offloads what seems like dozens of bags. Most are neatly marked with papers, stuck with cello tape, covering her big loving script handwriting.

As she explains to Daddy and Mummy which bags are for who, Grandma squeezes the little girls hand in her big warm ones and blinks her kind eyes at her. Sara’s little heart knows that Grandma’s heart is with her even while she is explaining which bags are for Aunty Judy and which have been sent by all kinds of other people. It felt as though Grandma had brought parcels from half of Manchester!

Finally, the car was unpacked and Zeidy sat down to relax. But Bubby hadn't forgotten about her beloved Granddaughter eagerly awaiting her attention.

"Come darling, come see what Grandma has for you". She pulls little Sara close to her, sitting on the side of the playroom bed.

“Come tell Grandma what you’re doing at school? What’s teachers name? What makes you happy? Who is your best friend?” Grandma wants to know the answers as she showers little Sara with kisses, praise and blessings. When Grandma asked questions about what Sara did in school and who her friends were, Sara felt like she really wanted to know!

The little girl watched with love and anticipation as Grandma unravelled bag inside bag revealing the special gifts she'd bought for her. This time it was a box of fuzzy felts. A felt board with lots of fuzzy feeling pictures that could be placed around the board to form a picture.

How she loved Grandma's gifts. They always felt perfect and exciting. Grandma sat patiently watching Sara’s little hands work to create her picture.

"Oh wow.. she's an artist.. look how clever she is!" "What a brilliant girl!"

"That's the spirit!"

"Look Rachel... look what an amazing girl you have!"

Surely, she was exaggerating thought little Sara. But Grandma seemed to mean it.  She really believed that Sara was brilliant, and the little girl began to wonder if perhaps she was!

Grandma's praise and positive reinforcement melted their way deep into the little girl’s heart. She saw her. She saw her soul. She saw her perfection beyond the rambunctious energetic little red head who didn't always follow the rules.

She was addicted to this Grandmother, to this love.

Why couldn't all the adults in her life be like Grandma? She wondered. They all seemed busy with lots of important adult things. But Grandma seemed to notice the people and their feelings not just the tasks to get done.

Their visit flew too fast. Why were they leaving already. Now began the begging once again.

"Please let me go back to Manchester with Bubby and Zeidy for one or two days." Begged the little girl.

The debate was on again. It felt like her world would end if they said no. Time spent with Grandma was like her oxygen? Grandma was the adult in her life who loved and understood her, without the responsibility of having to educate her.

Alas her dream came true. There she was huddled at the back of the car, driving slowly through dark rainy streets, headed for Manchester.

She couldn't feel the cold, even though Grandma didn't stop adding layers of blankets and jumpers around her and asking if she was warm enough.

Grandma's warm and loving words were all the little girl felt. The sparking festival lights along the way just added to the magic. Grandma kept pointing out interesting decorated trees and little gnomes. Life felt perfect.

Before long Sara found herself tucked comfortably into a soft bed at the end of the corridor. Everything felt different. Different sounds, different smells. She could hear Bubby and Zeidy talking in the hallway. They were making plans for how she would get back to Gateshead. Zeidy would drive her to Leeds where he went voluntarily to teach Biblical studies under the organisation of SEED. Mr Katz would come in from Gateshead. Zeidy would phone Mr Katz to ask if he would be willing to take his granddaughter in his car back to Gateshead. It sounded like they were planning the phone call. Phone calls got planned in those days! Their black turn button phone was situated on a small table in the front hall. Sometimes when they made private calls, they'd extend the wire into the kitchen and close the door. It was interesting listening to Bubby and Zeidy planning the outings that they wanted to take her on before she went back home.

She was their first Granddaughter and it felt like she was the joy of their lives. That made the little girl feel so good.

The floor in the hallway gave a creek. Grandma was coming closer to her room. She knew it was her coz she could hear her mumbling, "Are you OK darling?"

Grandma entered the bedroom and adjusted Sara’s pillows. She pulled the covers higher over her little shoulders. She couldn't have done it alone coz the covers were way too heavy. There were lots of covers.  In Gateshead the little girl was used to sleeping with one quilt. Grandma didn't seem to have those kinds of quilts. Her beds were made with under sheets and blankets, and more sheets and more blankets. It felt like there were endless layers. The little girl wondered how many layers there were. If the sheets and blankets got messed up it was impossible for her to sort them out alone.

But she wasn't alone. Grandma kept coming in to check on her. Once to adjust the pillows, once to cover her, once to put tissues near her bed, then a peeled tangerine wrapped in kitchen paper "Just in case you feel peckish in the night darling." She’d never heard the word "peckish" before but she could understand what it meant.

Most of all though, she could understand the language of endless love and care which seemed to come with everything Grandma did.

Just as the little girl was finally drifting to sleep Grandma came to check on her yet again to make sure she was OK and comfortable. It felt like she’d got woken up. But Sara didn’t mind, Grandma's love was worth it.

What little Sara didn’t know then was that some seven years later, when she’d turn fourteen, her beloved Grandfather would leave this world. Neither did she know that she’d spend a year and a half living with Grandma and get tucked into bed with loving words and tissues and tangerines each night.

It was a regular Saturday afternoon while he was taking a nap that dear Zeidy took his last breath. Grandma, was suddenly left a widow at the young age of 65.

Sara arrived with Daddy and her young brother Avrohom to Leicester Road on that Saturday night. Zeidy’s body was still in the house. People were sitting around him as he lay wrapped in a white prayer shawl on the dining room floor.

When they first arrived, Sara had been afraid to enter the house, but suddenly Bubby appeared at the door. Sara didn't know what to expect, but Grandma pulled her inside.

"Come darling, there's nothing to be scared of, Zeidy loved you, you were his favourite. Don't be sad darling, Zeidy wouldn't want to see you sad. God took him back to Heaven. We're only in this world to do good deeds and then we go back to Heaven. Be happy darling, you're young, you've got a life ahead of you".

The little girl was almost fourteen at the time. How those words engraved a mark on her heart. Where did Grandma get her strength from?

The next day before the funeral began, Sara came into the house.  Zeidy's coffin was in the hall. Bubby was standing there crying...

"You were my crown, the joy of my life..."

She was talking to Zeidy. To his soul. She felt it. She believed it. There's no such thing as death, only a transition into a non-physical existence. She didn't preach it.  She felt it.  She believed it. And her belief was contagious.

Two weeks after the week of mourning, Daddy called Sara into his room and asked her if she’d be willing to move schools and go live in Manchester with Bubby.

It was a no brainer.

Within two weeks she’d moved in to live with Grandma and was joining a new school.

The year and a half that followed became a reservoir of joy, love and faith that would nourish and influence Sara’s life.

Being a young and rambunctious teenager alone in a house with a fresh widow had its challenges. Between Grandma’s fresh grief and Sara’s teenage hormones there was sometimes tension between them. But no matter what, Grandma always had a warm meal ready for her beloved granddaughter when she got home from school. The kitchen table, covered in layers of stick-on fabric that Grandma would periodically recover was always covered lovingly with bread bins, fruit bowls, cups and saucers ready for tea and plates of food covered with turned over plates sometimes with instructions scribbled in black marker on top.

There were also lots of fun moments. “Let’s go and get some chips and a big whippy ice cream!” Grandma would suddenly suggest.

“God wants us to live and be happy”. Grandma somehow knew the secret of living. Despite her sudden and unexpected loss turning her into a widow at the age of 65, she seemed to know how to tap into the goodness of life and living despite all odds.

Grandma’s becoming a widow wasn’t the first challenge she had faced. In her early teens when bombs were falling over London, she left her parent’s home in the Eastend and was evacuated to the suburb of Susex where she lived with a gentile family. Even at this young age she would wonder around in the fields over Saturday so as to observe the Sabbath and ate less than what was available in order to observe the Jewish dietary laws.

There was a natural love of life and connection to the spiritual reality in everything that Grandma did. Her deeds always felt wholesome, whether she was picking up a lone feather in a park or offering a hard-boiled egg and a cracker to some random guest who seemed in need of nurture.

When Grandma prayed, she wasn’t mumbling some pre written text, she was communicating with her Creator, sharing her needs, her struggles and her gratitude.

Yes, gratitude was a central theme in Grandma’s life. Weather it was new buds she saw in the garden as she opened the morning blinds, the gathering of family and friends, or a new gadget or garment that she liked, the gratitude was always there.

She had an amazing combination between love of life and beauty on the one hand and yet detachment from the need to gather material possessions on the other. Her home was extremely simple and old fashioned. She didn’t have need for the luxuries of modern-day life as she knew that they would not be the thing to determine her happiness or quality of life. Yet she preserved all things she found beautiful, from the scribbles of her grandchildren to pictures of nature or humours quotes in magazines. Those were the things that gave her joy.

“Let’s take a walk around the park while the sun is out” Grandma would suggest randomly in the late afternoon hours.

Arm in arm Grandmother and Granddaughter walked across the grassy expanse towards the lake as the ducks quacked in the background.

“Smell the lovely freshly cut grass” Grandma would say as they panted across the grass.

“Isn’t God good for giving us such a lovely world to enjoy!”

“Look at that pretty Magpie and see that naughty black crow! Doesn’t she look like a naughty witch?!”

The young teenager’s imagination was ignited. She loved the magical way in which Grandma saw the world.

“And there goes a little robin red breast!” pointed Grandma excitedly as if it was the very first time in her life seeing such a bird!

“How do you know the names of all the birds Grandma?”

“Grandma likes to study and learn, Grandma likes to read and learn new things. When I was young, I was a teacher.  I taught for many years.”

The young girl listened with fascination. She wondered what it would have been like to have Grandma as her teacher. A dream!

But being a teenager came with it’s struggles. There were moments when Sara felt unmotivated.

“You’re a beautiful girl with a whole life ahead of you darling”. “Put on some music and dance”. “Life is filled with all kinds of moments, there are ups and there are downs but we must learn to enjoy the good times and just let the others pass.” “God is good, and you will have lots of wonderful things in your life.”

Grandma’s words were always infused with love, strength and hope and they had a way of penetrating deep into the heart.

Those were the fond memories of a young girl. Memories that would shape the way Sara would see life and the world around her.

At Nineteen Sara married and moved across the ocean.

She came back periodically to visit Grandma and drink from her well of love, knowledge, insight and spiritual wisdom.

Before long Sara turned Grandma into a Great Grandmother! How Grandma squealed with joy watching the Great Grandchildren. She would watch them with the fascination of a child, observing their every move and new antic with love and wonder.

“Enjoy them while they are young my darling.” “Before you know it, they grow up and fly away”. “Then they will turn around and say “Mummy… what did you do for me?!!”

Even though Grandma was a deep, intelligent and spiritual person, she non the less had a great sense of humour which made her so much fun to be around. She wasn’t heavy in her approach and her deep faith impacted one and all.

“Don’t worry about anything darling. God has the big computer and He knows everything.
We're just like little ants.”

Her poetical and lovely way of talking touched so many hearts.

“May G-d bless you and may you never be short of what you need.
Life has all kinds of challenges. We don't understand anything, but we are in the palm of God’s Hand.
G-d is good and G-d is great, and He doesn't forsake anyone.
Don't let small things worry you. Take time to relax and do the things you enjoy. Listen to music, eat something tasty.
Everything will be OK. It’s often just a storm in a teacup!
May G-d shower you with blessing and may the light of Heaven shine upon you.”

The blessings and goodness literally overflowed from her good heart without effort. It was a byproduct of her deep connection with God and belief in His kindness.

Grandma had eyes that saw beyond the external. She saw the inner qualities of life and the soul within each person rather than just outer appearances. These qualities of love and acceptance without judgment had a deep and profound impact on Sara.

Towards the end of Grandma’s life, she moved in to live with Sara’s parents who doted on her lovingly repaying her for all the good she had given to others throughout her life.

When Sara got the call that Grandma’s days seemed numbered, Sara was on the plane without second thought.

Grandma had spent a number of days in bed with little recognition to people or what was going on around her.

“She’s not really recognising anyone, so I don’t know if she’ll recognise you!” I was told when I finally arrived at the house late at night after a long flight.

“Sshhh”…. “Please don’t tell her anything. Let’s see.” Was all I said.

I entered Grandma’s room. Her eye’s had been shut most of the time over the past few days. I approached her bedside with reverence and leaned over to kiss her beautiful face. Yes, even at over 90 years old she still had the sweetness and beauty of a child.

I remembered how I used to stroke her soft face and tell her “Grandma, you will never get old!”.

Now, her eyes fluttered and opened a crack. She turned her head slightly towards me, raised a hand to my face, and in a hoarse and voice barely audible, exclaimed “Surele!”

It’s difficult to describe the deep happiness I felt at that moment.

I took a mattress and placed it on the floor of Grandma’s room where I would spend the next few days in her precious presence. It was amazing waking up the next morning to see Grandma looking in my direction and motioning to me with her fore finger to come to her. I sprang out of bed and hugged my beloved Grandma. She embraced me with so much love that words were unnecessary. She knew that I’d flown across the world to be with her and that was all that mattered.

Death was a topic that Grandma had discussed on varies occasions over the past few years.

It was on one of my recent visits that Grandma had taken my two hands in hers and looked me deep in the eyes.

“Surele darling, when my time comes and God calls me back to Heaven, I don’t want people to be devastated, I want them to celebrate my life. I’ve had a good life, God has been good to me.”

Wow! How does one respond to such words. I hugged her and said “Grandma, I’ll do my best to make sure that happens, but please don’t get any ideas about going to Heaven just yet. I heard that there are big waiting lists up there, and right now they’re not letting anyone in!”

She laughed and appreciated my humour. But I’d come to realize that she was living in reality and contemplating her passage to the non-physical world.

Now I doted on her around the clock, bringing her sips of drink and tending to her needs. I was grateful that although very weak, she was peaceful and didn’t appear to be in pain. Indeed, she often used to say, “I pray that when my time comes, God should take me peacefully without suffering and without needing to be a burden on anyone.” Her prayers were sure being answered.

I had arrived to Manchester in the days of Chol Hamoed Succot. Grandma spent most of the time in semi sleep with her eyes mostly shut and unable to speak. She just made small hand motions to show us what she needed. But on the night of Simchat Torah the most incredible thing happened. There were a number of family members including children and grandchildren gathered around Grandma’s bed whilst the men were in Shul. My dear brother Avrohom and his family too. We decided to celebrate Simchat Torah together by singing the songs that the men would now be dancing to in the Shul. And so we did.

As the singing grew louder and more animated Grandma suddenly opened her eyes wide, wider than she’d ever opened them over the past weeks. She looked at the young offspring surrounding her bed and pointed lovingly to each one, flashing her eyes with love and gratitude. How precious and priceless were those moments of pure love and joy for the life she'd brought forth to this world.

A few short weeks later her pure soul returned peacefully to her Maker, calm and serene.

That year of my life was an intense one. I went through a divorce and moved to Jerusalem where I opened a girl's safe home named Bet Nechama called after my beloved Grandma.

Grandma continues to be a source of strength and inspiration in my life.