12/19/09. It was the eve after her 90th birthday. I got an email from Yehoshua the next morning. I called home right away. They said they didn’t want to wake me.
She was wearing a red tichel when it happened. It was the one she always wore. Classic Bubby. Like scrambling eggs were. And that sequined blue dress that she wore to every wedding. The one that accented her eyes.
But now I’m scared I’ll forget her. Forget the way she looked. The way she spoke. The funny things she’d say. I never want to forget her. I can’t forget her. I see myself in her. I know that’s crazy to say. She was amazing. But if I look in the mirror, I see those same big eyes, that once were blue. Oh, she loved blue eyes. Secretly, she played favorites with the grandchild who had them. But Zaidy’s were brown. Or maybe hazel. I guess his charm made up for it.
We have this picture of Zaidy giving her a gift a couple years ago. He has this incredible smile on his face, like his whole world is lighting up. Like they were newly weds. She was beautiful. And she was strong. 'Till the very end. She had to be. She lived for nine days without kidneys. The doctors said that’s impossible. But then again, Bubby was no ordinary woman. She was modest. Dignified. I can still envision her on her flowered couch with a tehillim in hand. She probably knew the whole book by heart, she said it so often. But she was modest. She read from the tehillim.
When I visited her in the hospital, before I left, I promised her I’d send her a postcard from Israel. I never did. I davened for her at the kotel. At ma’arat hamachpala. From behind covered eyes when I lit candles on Friday night. I whispered her name countless times. Baila Malkah bas Yaakov Aryeh. May her neshama have an aliyah.
