Skip to main content

Mittendrinnen…and the Urgency of Relationships

     Mittendrinnen, out of the blue, Arthur sent me a message on Facebook: “Are you the David Raphael who went to Camp Ramah in the sixties?” And, in fact, I am such person. This opening line led to a flood of back-and-forth. Arthur (then Artie) and I were camp friends for four years at Camp Ramah and then years after. As young teens, Artie and I would meet at the Port Authority in New York and spend the day walking the streets of Manhattan snapping photos with our new SLR cameras (Can you imagine parents allowing a 14-year-old to do that today?). In 1969, we traveled to Washington DC together to join the March on Washington to protest the Vietnam War. We lost touch somewhere between high school and college.  A half-century later, Arthur and I have now renewed our friendship.
    Over the course of my life, I have been blessed with wonderful lifelong friends, some of whom I’ve known for over half a century: Richard, who became my “besty” playing basketball for the Jewish Center of Bayside Oaks team at age 16. Today we share photos of our grandchildren. I am still close with Jonathan, my apartment-mate when I was a senior at college (1973).  I’ve reconnected with Bob, head of the waterfront at Camp Masada when I was a counselor (1972). Marc and I first met in 1977 on the Staten Island Ferry on our way to the first day of our field placement at social work school. And of course, there is my dearest friend, my wife Jo, who I have loved deeply for 45 years.  
These precious relationships have and continue to frame and enrich my life. I am a far better person because of them. I have learned of the importance of attending to these and relationships – regular phone calls, birthday cards, and being there in times of need.
    A recent passing health scare, (the seemingly ubiquitous backdrop of aging and, these days, the primary content of our conversations) caused me to reflect on the inevitable passing of time and, in this context, the urgency of relationships.  
    And it is with this mindset that I think not only of time but of grandparental time.


    No relationship is now as precious to me as those with my grandchildren.  These occasional “health bumps” are reminders that I will never be a grandfather for half a century. In recognizing and accepting this reduced time frame, these relationships suddenly seem even more profoundly urgent. And so, I will commit myself to nurturing and attending to these precious relationships and I will commit myself to be fully present in their presence.
    As I think about my life after death, my world to come, I see it in the eyes and the smile of a six-year-old girl who loves to sing, dance, and twirl and her two-year-old brother who is infatuated with trucks and dinosaurs. And so, as soon as I finish writing this missive, I will make flight reservations to travel to an attached home on Abell Avenue in Baltimore, filled with toys, plastic spoons and forks, sippy cups, picture books, little sneakers, and the melodious voices, and hugs from two little children - the reminders of the urgency of relationships.

 



[1] As a child, when I would either ask for something unusual, or do something unexpected, my grandmother, and then subsequently, my mother would respond, with a tone of either incredulity or at times, annoyance, “mittendrinnen” (mitten-DRIN-nin).

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Allowing our Grandchildren to Find their Own Space….From the Tree

    I recently found myself leafing through my dog-eared copy of Andrew Solomon's " Far From the Tree ," a masterful book that illuminates the dynamics and challenges of children and family members who, because of identity choice or cognitive or physical differences, upend the intergenerational cliché "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree." In the opening chapter, Solomon identifies two types of identity: Vertical Identities: "Attributes and values are passed down from parent to child across the generations not only through strands of DNA but also through shared cultural norms." Horizontal Identities: "May reflect recessive genes, random mutations, prenatal influences or values and preferences that a child does not share with his progenitors." The dynamics of children's and grandchildren's horizontal identities can be especially complicated for grandparents....
Post a Comment
Read more

Pop Jacob, Pop Max and Won-Ton Soup

  Like many of us, I had four grandparents.   And, also, like many of us two of those grandparents were grandfathers. My father’s father “Jacob” emigrated to the United States from Romania in 1902 aboard the La Champagne sailing from Le Havre, France.   On that same ship was Rachel Moskowitz who would soon become his wife and, later on, my grandmother. To say that Jacob Raphael was taciturn would be an understatement.   There may have been a time when he smiled – but I have no memory of such.   Every Sunday our family would pile into our Pop Jacob and Nana Rachel’s home in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for a seemingly interminable visit. And each, Pop Jacob and I had the same conversation: “Duvid, he would say from his lounge chair near the front door, “what is the Parsha HaShavuah” – (the weekly Torah Portion). And, each week, I would answer: “I don’t know.” This must have been hard on him as, I ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Bina Trail

This past July, a heavy summer rainstorm deposited perhaps 5 inches of rain on our Sandy Springs neighborhood along with an 80-foot oak on the roof of our home.  The tree removal, which involved an array of heavy equipment not generally intended for suburban usage, also destroyed our yard’s limited landscaping. Desperate to transition our backyard from a post-apocalyptic landscape to something fit for human habitation, I reached out to our local UGA Extension office.  Several weeks later, Abra, an advisor from the office, visited our home to assess the lunar-like landscape.  Observing the ¼ acre arbor of dense trees behind our yard and, noting that I had a granddaughter, she suggested that I create woodland trails to explore.  “For the grandchild” were the three magical words that catalyzed me into action. A week later, Atlanta Arbor, the company that had so expertly removed the oak encased in our roof, deposited a truckload of wood chips on our front lawn. ...
1 comment
Read more