by Darlene Campos
The Book of Genesis says the world was water at the very beginning and this is what Grandpa taught me for the thousandth time on the day before he died. He was the bilingual pastor at The Living Word Church. Genesis was always his lesson of choice.
“Everyone stand up and hug your neighbor before we begin,” Grandpa said, groggy from morphine. “The good book says the world was water. Then God flushed it.”
The day Grandpa died, I was at home, asleep. It was early in the morning and I had taken the day off from work to spend it with him. At 7 a.m., a nurse called me, her voice low. She begged me to come to the hospital as fast as I could. When I arrived, Grandpa’s eyes were already shut. His mouth was slightly open and fluid drained from his nose.
“He fought and fought,” a nurse said as she walked into the room while I stood by his bed. “He thought it was time to preach and he kept trying to stand up. Then he had another heart attack. He was gone mid-sentence.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He said, “Everyone stand up and hug,” and then he passed.”’
The Living Word Church wasn’t fond of cremation, though that’s what Grandpa wanted. Head Pastor Gibbons said Grandpa couldn’t be cremated because then his body wouldn’t resurrect whenever Jesus came. So, against Grandpa’s wishes, he was buried. My parents paid for his headstone. His name, “Alejandro Esteban Jiménez,” was engraved so deeply, the letters filled with water each time it rained. Other than the harsh engraving, his headstone was beautiful. It had a cross, his picture in a small circle, and the words “Beloved pastor, father, and grandfather” underneath. The word “husband” was missing. Grandpa hadn’t been a husband since my mother was two years old.
“I’m sorry, Grandpa,” I said as I rubbed his headstone. “I’m sorry you couldn’t be cremated. I tried to tell them, but they didn’t listen.”
If Grandpa’s spirit could have visited me, he would have said, “Yell at them until they do, the Lord gave you a voice, didn’t He?” Or maybe he wouldn’t have said a word. As loud as he could get while preaching, he hated fighting. He’d raise his voice while he preached to get people’s attention, mostly mine, but he never raised his voice at home, even when I deserved it. There was a day when I was playing baseball with Jimmy, the neighbor’s son. He suggested we play at the park, but I said playing in the front yard was better. I grabbed Jimmy’s baseball and tossed it so hard, it landed on the windshield of Grandpa’s Buick. Grandpa rushed out of the house, saw the damage, and said “Wow, Julia, what a throw you got.” I was still grounded, but Grandpa never yelled.
Several weeks after Grandpa died, Mom and Dad gave me a key. They said Grandpa had a PO Box at the local post office and it hadn’t been checked in a long time.
“Which post office?” I asked them.
“The one by your house,” Dad answered. “You don’t need to check it every day, just whenever you can. Who knows what he’s got in there? Hey, Gloria, what if he had old woman pornos delivered there?”
“Sammy!” Mom said. “He was a pastor!”
I left my parents’ house with the key clutched in my hand. Mom and Dad were raised Christians and they raised me Christian, too, but they were more relaxed about religion. We lived with Grandpa for a few years when I was a kid because Dad injured his back at his fisherman job in Galveston. He was unable to work for a long time. After we moved out of Grandpa’s, we only saw him at church, but we didn’t go often. I admit church wasn’t exciting, especially when I was young. It was long, boring, and repetitive. Grandpa had thousands of sermons with different topics, yet for some reason, he’d always bring up the Book of Genesis. Sometimes I could guess the exact moment he’d say, “Genesis tells us.” Church was not entertaining in the least bit. But, church was where I got to see Grandpa.
At the post office, I checked Grandpa’s box. He had tons of junk mail like a catalog for shoes he’d never buy, advertisements from a politician he hated, and coupons for restaurants he’d never visit. A letter at the very bottom was addressed to “My Dearest Al,” sent from someone named Gilda Cohen. I tore the letter open, read the first few lines, and crumpled it.
I grew up without a grandmother. Dad’s mom, Grandma Lisa, lived all the way in New Jersey with Aunt Edna. I met Grandma Lisa for the first time when I was eight and she swung a rolling pin at me, thinking I was an intruder in the house.
“Don’t mind her, Julia, she’s delirious,” Dad said. Grandma Lisa swung at me again, hitting me in the center of my forehead. When I woke up, I heard Dad tell Mom, “Poor girl got smacked, let’s get out of here before Ma kills her.” Grandma Lisa died a month after that incident. Mom, on the other hand, had no mother. As far as I knew, Grandma Gilda was dead. For days, I re-read her letter several times. I thought about telling Mom, but I didn’t know how.
The Living Word Church took ownership of Grandpa’s house after he died, which was something he actually wanted. They used it to host Bible studies, but when the A/C broke down, they temporarily stopped the studies. They hadn’t changed the locks, so I was able to visit with Mom one Saturday morning.
“It’s burning up in here!” Mom said when we walked inside. “Your grandpa wanted to be cremated, we could bring his coffin in here and he’d be dust in no time.”
“Mom, do you know where Grandpa kept his mail?” I said, sweating so much, my shirt stuck tight to my body.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Can we get out of here? I’m going to sweat my skin off.” Mom walked towards the door, but I pulled her back by her arm.
“Wait!” I told her. “I need to show you something. Don’t panic.”
“What the heck is it?” she asked.
“It’s something neither of us ever expected,” I said. I took a deep breath, reached into my purse, and handed her Gilda’s letter. She read it quickly and laughed.
“So, turns out she’s not dead,” Mom said, rolling her eyes. “This lady may be my biological mom, but I don’t care.”
“What if she didn’t know about us, Mom?”
“How wouldn’t she? She’s the one who gave birth to me. Now let’s go, I’m suffocating. You’re not going to find anything about her in this hot-as-hell house.”
Mom rushed outside, but I stayed behind for a few more minutes. I yanked out Grandpa’s junk drawer in the kitchen. It was filled with different sized scissors, hard candies, expired coupons, and gum packs. Through all the mess, I found three letters from Gilda, dated just a few weeks before Grandpa died. I stuffed them into my purse and then went outside to join Mom.
“You actually found something?” she said when we were in my car with the A/C on full blast. “Who would’ve thought my dad was in touch with my mom after all these years?”
“Do you know why they split up?” I asked as I eased my car into the busy street. “You told me they got divorced when you were two, what happened?”
“Oh, who knows?” Mom said. “It was so long ago, it doesn’t matter.”
But to me, it did.
The next time I visited the post office, I dropped a letter off addressed to Gilda. Mom and Dad didn’t know about it. The letter was short. It said I was her long lost granddaughter and I would like to meet her soon. I gave her my phone number, too. I didn’t expect an answer at all, which is why I was surprised when she called me at home. Her voice was soft, yet firm.
“Julia?” she said. “This is your grandmother. HaShem is incredible to have brought us together after so many years.”
“Who?” I asked.
“HaShem,” she answered. “You know, God.”
“Why didn’t you say God?” I asked her.
“I do, sometimes,” she said. “But I grew up calling Him HaShem. Don’t you know why me and your grandfather had our marriage annulled?”
“I thought you two got divorced,” I told her.
“Divorced?” she said. “Your grandfather was Catholic when we met, he had to have his marriage annulled. He wasn’t allowed to be with me because I’m Jewish and I wasn’t allowed to be with him because he wasn’t Jewish. It sounds silly, but back then, rules were rules. Enough about that, tell me about yourself, Julia! How old are you? Where do you work? Are you married? Do you have children? Enlighten me!”
“I,” I said. “I need to go. I’m sorry.”
I then hopped into my car and drove through heavy Houston traffic to my parents’ house. Dad wasn’t home when I arrived, but Mom was. She was raking leaves off the front yard. She threw the rake on the ground so she could hug me.
“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Your face looks like you saw something horrible.”
“Mom,” I said, panting. “I talked to your mom.”
“You did what?” she said with a loud gasp.
“Her name is Gilda Cohen, she said she couldn’t be married to Grandpa because she’s Jewish. What if she’s lying to me? What if Grandpa lied to us his whole life? Mom, I need to know what really happened.”
“Oh, Julia,” Mom said, sighing. “Don’t force anything you can’t control.”
“I’m not forcing it,” I said. “I didn’t know I’d find a letter from her in Grandpa’s PO Box. I need to know her better. I need to know why she was never around.”
“Honeypop,” Mom said. She hadn’t called me that since I was a kid. “Some things are better when they’re left alone.”
“Some things,” I said. “Not this thing.”
I didn’t contact Gilda for a week after our first call. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her – I wasn’t sure how to approach her with my questions. She called me a few times. I never answered her, so she started leaving messages.
“If you’d like to meet, come over,” she said on one of them. “You have my address.”
Even with her pleas, I didn’t call back. The following Friday, I went home from work early because the news said a flood was coming. Houston floods, not often, but it’s not unheard of either. Mom and Dad begged me to stay with them so I wouldn’t be home alone during the flood. I declined because I didn’t think it was necessary. The last “flood” we experienced was bad, but nothing worth fretting over. If you asked me, Houston would be just fine.
“Dang it, Julia,” Dad said on the phone. “It could be the apocalypse outside and you still wouldn’t listen. Here’s your mother, she’s been pulling her hair out over you all day long.”
“Julia,” Mom said. “Do you have enough bottled water?”
“We’ll all have water if it floods,” I said.
“Julia!” she answered. “Go get some water right now and call me back when you get home, okay? Your dad’s right, you’re impossible.”
I said bye to Mom and went outside to my car. There was a grocery store just down the street from my house, but of course, they were out of bottled water. I drove to another grocery store further away. Before I could even go inside, an employee taped a big sign on the doors that said “NO WATER. NO MILK. NO EGGS. NO BREAD.” I tried three other grocery stores and encountered more “NO WATER” signs. Next, I tried an office supply store and they had plenty of bottled water. I purchased four large cases for the worst-case scenario. The line was so long, it started at the very back of the store. It took me an hour to finally check out. During my drive home, a stoplight went out from the high winds. I managed to make a U-turn through the packed rows of cars, but to my luck, I ended up at another broken stoplight. As I waited for my turn to pass through, I reached into my glovebox for my sunglasses. I accidentally grabbed a letter from Gilda. Her address wasn’t far from where I was. In fact, her house was closer than my own. Even though I was supposed to get home, I drove towards Gilda’s house instead. After about ten minutes, I parked in her long driveway, straightened my hair, and then knocked on her door.
“Julia! My granddaughter!” Gilda said when she opened the door. “You came.”
“Look, Gilda,” I said, firmly. “I want to know the truth. I want to know why my grandfather and you split up. I want to know why you weren’t in my mother’s life. And I sure as hell want to know why you weren’t in mine. Do you know what it’s like to grow up without a grandmother? My childhood was spent listening to my friends talk about how their grandmas baked them cookies, made them quilts, and took them to the zoo. My grandma smacked me in the forehead with a rolling pin and you let me grow up without you. Can you explain that to me? I really think you should. You’re not “Grandma” to me. You’re Gilda.”’ I wanted to hear Gilda’s side of the story, yet at the same time, I wanted to curse her to hell. She stood in front of me, her mouth slightly opened like Grandpa’s when he died.
“Of course,” she said. “Come in.”
Gilda led me inside her house. She had plenty of food, bottled water, batteries, flashlights, blankets, and pillows all over the living room. I took a seat on the couch. She walked into her kitchen, telling me she’d be right back. As I waited, I looked around the rest of her house. There were old black and white framed photographs of people I didn’t know. A shiny Star of David sat above her fireplace. She had a massive bookcase filled to the edges with books on Judaism, Christianity, nature, World War II, Elvis Presley, and genetics. The one book that stood out was Harmony: How to Live the Way God Wants You to Live. Grandpa wrote it when I was a kid. I grabbed the copy off the shelf to read the first pages. He had autographed the front cover with “Gilda: Life with you would have been harmony. Let’s wait until we meet in paradise. Al.”
“I love that book,” Gilda said when she returned, a glass of grape juice in one hand and a plate of crackers in the other. “You can borrow it if you’d like to.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “I was just, looking.” I sat back down on the couch and Gilda carefully handed me the juice and crackers. I wasn’t sure how old she was, but she had to be around Grandpa’s age. Her face had few wrinkles and her hair was still mostly black. Her eyes were a deep, peaceful blue, like “the water that once covered the earth,” as Grandpa would say. I could see why Grandpa was attracted to her.
“So,” she said as she sat next to me. “Where shall we start?”
“Why did you leave my grandfather?” I blurted. It probably wasn’t the best way to word the question, but it was honest.
“I didn’t,” she answered, stroking her hair. “We met, we got married, and after your mother was born, things got rough.”
“With who?” I asked.
“Not with us,” she said. “You see, times were very different. Your grandpa was a strict Catholic as was his family. On the flipside, I was a strict Jew and my family was stricter than his. My family was so strict, I wasn’t even allowed near a Christian Bible, much less allowed to date a Christian man. I was arranged to marry a boy named Abraham. My parents had everything for us. They booked a venue, a rabbi, caterers, a band, but I ran away with Al two days before my wedding. I loved Al and he loved me.”
I sighed heavily. Even though Gilda sounded like she was telling the truth, I just couldn’t believe her. It’s hard to believe a person when you have no idea what to expect.
“Do you have another question?” she asked, her eyes calm and focused on me.
“When did you meet my grandfather?” I said, almost in a whisper.
“January 7th, 1954,” she answered. “Your grandfather loved sweets. His favorite dessert, at the time, was a brownie with hot fudge. I worked at a bakery called Herschel’s, close to where your grandfather worked. He was a custodian at Thomas Jefferson High School. Every afternoon, he’d come in for a hot fudge brownie. And every afternoon, I’d serve it to him and he’d say, ‘You’ve given me a slice of heaven.’ I was so touched by him, I looked forward to seeing him. He was 20 and I was 18. We were young, younger than you are. Love touches the young much more seriously than the old.”’
I took a drink of the grape juice and nibbled on a cracker. Gilda stood up slowly. She walked to the giant bookcase and pulled out a book which turned out to be a false book filled with letters. All of them were from Grandpa, the oldest dated December 12, 1954. She allowed me to read the letter myself. It was brief and it said, “Gilda, my dear, thank you for giving me a wonderful 1954. Your eyes are passageways to paradise. Kissing your lips makes me feel like a millionaire. Your face is so fiery, I can’t look away from you. Shall you give me a wonderful 1955, too?” I placed the letter down on my lap in disbelief. It was hard for me to picture Grandpa being so flirtatious, especially since he never spoke like that to anyone.
“He was wonderful,” she said, sniffling. “You were lucky to have him.”
“You haven’t gotten to why you split up,” I said. She gulped twice and smiled. She showed me more letters dated from 1961. In those, her mother called her the biggest whore in the world. Her father told her she was dead to the family. Her siblings called her words so hurtful, I couldn’t finish reading their letters.
“Times were different,” Gilda said. “My family made our lives a living hell and your grandfather’s family wasn’t any nicer. For the sake of your mother, I thought it was best that she never knew me. My parents didn’t want anything to do with her. They wouldn’t even acknowledge her as their granddaughter. It was horrible, Julia. I’m so sorry.”
She leaned in to hug me, but I backed away. I had never hugged either of my grandmothers before.
“More crackers?” Gilda asked, squirming in her seat. “I’ve got chips, cookies, breads, you name it. Just tell me.” I didn’t answer her. Instead, I excused myself to the bathroom to call Mom on my cellphone. When she picked up, she scolded me for not calling sooner.
“I thought I’d turn on the news and see you swimming in the flood!” she said. “Are you finally home or what?”
“No,” I said. “I’m, I’m, I’m at grandma’s, Mom.”
“You’re what?” she said. “You barely know her!”
“I know,” I agreed. “I’m going to visit with her for a little longer and then I’m going home to ride out the storm.”
“Home?” Mom asked. “The rain is too heavy. You’d better stay over there.”
“Here?” I said. “Mom, I don’t even know her!”
“You’re going to be stuck with her for at least three days, now’s a good time to get to know her, Julia. Call me anytime you want, me and Dad are staying put. Right, honey?”
“Flood, schmood!” Dad said in the background. I said goodbye to Mom and then went back to face Gilda. She sat comfortably on the couch with crackers in her hands. She had opened the curtains from the window behind the couch and Mom was right about the heavy rain. The rain came down so fiercely, it banged against the window like a strong man’s knock.
“You’re not going home in this,” Gilda said. “Sit! We have food, we have books, we have a whole house to ourselves, let’s rejoice!”
For the remainder of the evening, I watched an old movie with Gilda. I wasn’t interested in it at all, but she was. She had seen it several times before and was quoting all the lines. The movie was as boring as a rock. While we watched, the rain came down harder. At one point, the lights flickered, but they stayed on. I excused myself again so I could peek at how the neighborhood was doing. I opened the front door and saw water rising, but not to ominous levels. The big drain by Gilda’s driveway seemed to help.
“Julia! Shut that door! Leave the storm outside and keep our fun inside!” she said. I obeyed her request. Fortunately, the movie was finally to its credits. Gilda shut the television off, stood up to stretch her arms, and she asked me where I would like to sleep.
“Wherever you think is best,” I answered, confused by what she meant. For a woman who lived alone, she had a spacious house. She had three guest bedrooms and an office with a pullout couch. I chose the first guest bedroom. The walls were dark blue with painted white anchors up high. As I tried to sleep, the rain came down even harder than earlier. I had only been asleep for a short time when Gilda woke me up.
“We might have to leave,” she said, panting. “The water is rising.”
I rose up and rushed to the front window. The water was past the curbs, spilling to the sidewalks. More rain meant it would reach the driveway next.
“What should we do?” Gilda asked. “Help us, HaShem.”
“Uhm,” I said. “Looks like we need to stay here.”
“Didn’t your grandfather have any prayers during bad weather?”
Grandpa had a prayer for everything. He prayed before he cut his nails, before he washed his hands, and after he washed his hands. His prayer for bad weather was simple:
May the Lord push this weather to the level of the devil. Amen.
When I told Gilda this prayer, she laughed out loud.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “That is something he would say. Let me show you something you’ll like a lot.” I followed her down the dim hallway. We came to the third guest bedroom and Gilda opened the closet. She reached up to a shelf and brought down a tattered box.
“These are some old prayer books he gave me years ago, before we were married,” she said. “Al lived for preaching. And this, this is us on our wedding day.” Gilda handed me a flimsy picture frame. Grandpa was so young, so handsome, so in love. His dark eyes were totally fixated on Gilda’s face.
“I’ve never seen this picture before,” I said, rubbing my fingers on the frame’s glass.
“A long, long time ago,” she said. “We bought ourselves the nicest clothes we could afford and we went to the courthouse downtown. No one from our families went with us, it was just us two. But it was still a beautiful, wonderful day.”
Gilda sat down on the daybed inside the room. She covered part of her face with her hands. She cried softly to herself, whispering, “Al, why Al?” The rain outside seemed to strengthen and I peeked out the window, but it was too dark to see anything.
“Do you need a tissue?” I asked her as she dabbed her tears with her shirt sleeve.
“No, I’m all right,” she answered. “I miss him.” She stood up, cleared her throat, and told me she was going to try and get some sleep.
In the morning, the rain hadn’t stopped or slowed. I called Mom and she said she and Dad were still safe. The water reached the edge of Gilda’s driveway, but it was still far from reaching the front door. We were still safe, so far.
“What are you doing watching that solemn show?” Gilda said as I looked out the window. “We’ve got a king’s breakfast waiting to be eaten. Stop focusing on that.”
“It’s getting really bad out there though,” I said. “Have you watched the news?”
“For a minute this morning, yes,” she answered. “Evacuations have started. Just thank HaShem we’re fine for now. Come, eat, there’s enough food to feed the whole city.”
Gilda led me to the kitchen where she had plates of pancakes, scrambled eggs, Belgian waffles, sausage, hash browns, and bacon strips.
“Bacon?” I asked.
“You don’t like bacon, Julia?”
“I do, but I thought you couldn’t eat bacon.”
“Well I couldn’t marry Al either but here we are,” she said, giggling. I laughed along with her. She handed me a paper plate and told me to help myself to whatever I wanted. For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to have a grandmother.
“That’s it?” Gilda said when I finished picking out what I wanted. “That’s a meal for a bird. Get as much as you want.”
“I’m fine, I’m never hungry in the morning,” I said. She sat across from me, drinking coffee and eating a small plate of scrambled eggs. The rain continued on as we ate. It was so loud at one point, Gilda couldn’t hear me speaking. It slowed down a little bit after breakfast, but not by very much.
“Another day stuck in the house,” Gilda said. “How’s your mom?”
“She’s doing well,” I said. “Would you like to talk to her?”
“Of course,” she answered. “But I’m not so sure she’d like to talk to me.”
“She’s stuck at home too, might be a good time to call her,” I said. Gilda’s lips tightened. Her eyes blinked quickly. She stood up, placed her dirty dishes in the sink, and took a deep breath. I wondered what was going on in her head.
“Okay Julia,” she said. “What’s her phone number?”
Gilda went to her bedroom and called Mom from my cellphone. I waited patiently in the living room even though I wanted to eavesdrop. They talked for a long, long time. I read parts of several books, watched the news, did the dishes, and Gilda still hadn’t come out of her room. I sat on the couch, waiting patiently until she finally came out. Her face was neutral.
“Are you okay?” I asked her.
“We talked,” she said. “She’s mad, understandably. But I feel like I need to apologize to you as well. I’m sorry for what I did, Julia. You needed a grandmother. Everyone does.”
She sat on the other side of the couch, rubbing her head with her right hand. She fell to her knees, panting heavily. I rushed to catch her before she completely fell to the floor.
“I’m a horrible woman,” Gilda said.
“No,” I said and I meant it. Grandpa talked about Jesus a lot – he was a pastor, after all. But the way he spoke about Jesus was different than other pastors I knew. He said it didn’t matter what you did in life because ultimately Jesus would never stop loving you. The Jesus other pastors spoke of was a terrifying figure, waiting for people to sin so he could cast them into hell. As Gilda sobbed, I thought of what Jesus would do according to Grandpa. Grandpa could’ve yelled at me when I broke his Buick’s windshield with the baseball. He could’ve yelled at Gilda for leaving him and Mom. He could have. He didn’t. The first thing I wanted to do when I saw Gilda was yell, but I held back, just the way Grandpa would’ve done.
“Don’t blame yourself,” I said. “You did what you believed was right.”
“It seemed right at the time.”
“And, maybe it was,” I told her. “But now, it’s in the past. I forgive you.”
“I don’t know if your mom ever will,” she said. “She doesn’t have to.”
“She does though,” I said. “That’s what Grandpa talked about a lot. Forgiveness, loving your neighbor, things like that. I forgive you, Grandma.”
She turned her head, squinted her eyes at me, and she smiled. I helped her stand up.
“Thank you,” she said. “Granddaughter.”
The rain continued to pour. I watched the water in the street rise a little higher, recede, and then rise again, but then it started turning away. It was like Genesis all over. To me, the water seemed to cover the whole earth. And in a way, it was a type of Genesis. Some people would be starting their lives over after the flood. Others would be spared, like Noah and his family. If Grandpa were alive, I knew he’d be preaching Genesis to the rain outside.
As the day went on, I watched another old movie with Grandma Gilda. It was an Israeli movie and even though I didn’t understand a word, I could somewhat tell what was going on. The father of the main character disowned him for leaving the Jewish faith for Christianity. The father screamed and howled and threw plates at his own son. Grandma Gilda had tears in her eyes as the scene continued. The movie ended with the father and son reconciling their differences, which probably wouldn’t have happened in real life.
“Looks like the rain is finally easing up,” I said when the movie was over. It was still raining, but it was finally losing its power. Grandma Gilda looked out the window with me. She squinted her eyes, focusing on the water flowing in the street.
“Finally,” she said. “This storm is ending.”
“The news said it might be over by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh, the news says many things, Julia.”
After we had roasted chicken and rice for dinner, the storm had mostly stopped. The rain began to trickle instead of pouring. By bedtime, the trickling was even lighter. Before I went to sleep, I called Mom. She answered after just one ring.
“Hey there, honeypop,” Mom said. “Guess what? I talked to my mom today.”
“I know. What did you two talk about?”
“Everything,” she said. “I invited her over for dinner, when this storm is done, of course.”
“You did?” I asked, mostly because Mom hated cooking dinner for strangers.
“Why not?” Mom said. “Food is food.”
By morning, the rain stopped. The sun wasn’t out, but it made an appearance in the afternoon. I didn’t realize how much I missed the sun until I finally saw it. The news said to stay indoors for at least one more day to let the floodwaters drain away, so that’s what I did. My last day in Grandma Gilda’s house was spent looking at old photos of Grandpa, talking about Judaism and Christianity, and cooking more bacon. She mentioned her deceased husband for the first time, a man named Daniel, who was a rabbi at Temple Israel. They were married for 20 years when he died suddenly from a heart attack, like Grandpa.
“Danny left me this house,” she said. “When he died, his obituary was in the Houston Chronicle and my name was there in the “survived by” section. Al called me days later to comfort me. Before I knew it, we were writing love letters again. We talked on the phone a lot and met in person several times, but love letters were our favorite.”’
During dinner, Grandma Gilda told me funny stories about Grandpa, like a time when Mom was just a five month old baby and wouldn’t stop crying. Grandpa put on a hat with all the colors of the rainbow and started doing a silly dance, but he tripped and landed on his bottom. His fall was so wacky, Mom finally stopped crying and laughed.
“I had no idea,” I said, smiling.
“He was something,” she answered. “We talked about remarrying, but before the talks could get more serious, he died, too. But I’m so happy, thank HaShem, that I got to enjoy his company for five years before he left us. And now, I have you, part of him. Thank HaShem for that, huh? I thank HaShem for you and bacon!”
When the next morning came, Grandma Gilda prepared me a big breakfast. Once we were done eating, I gave Grandma Gilda a hug before I headed out the door to finally go home.
“Wait a second,” she said as I stepped outside. “Where is your grandfather buried?”
“Not far from here actually,” I answered. “He’s at Glenwood.”
“Would you mind taking me to see him?” she asked. I shrugged my shoulders and told her to get in my car. I drove slowly in case we encountered high water spots, but thankfully we didn’t. The cemetery gates were wide open and while there was some water, Grandpa’s area was dry. I helped Grandma Gilda get out of my car. She needed more help as we walked up the sloped sidewalk. She grabbed onto my arm, panted a little, but then she caught her breath.
“Did he want such a high place?” she asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “Maybe he knew Houston would flood someday.”
“That rascal Al,” she responded. “He thought he knew everything, didn’t he?”
When we reached Grandpa’s headstone, I helped Grandma Gilda kneel down on the grass. She kissed her palm and then rubbed Grandpa’s name with it. The deeply carved letters were filled up to their brims with water, as I expected.
“Al,” Grandma Gilda said. “My dearest Al. Look at you all covered in water, you Genesis-lover.” I laughed a little at her statement.
“This is a beautiful headstone,” she went on. “Oh, I miss him. He was a great man.”
“He was,” I agreed. “After all these years, I wanted a grandma and he gave me one.”