Grandma Stella, Summer 2008

Grandma Stella, Summer 2008

The young woman in jeans ripped at both knees and purple dyed hair tenderly brushed
away strands on the comatose patient’s forehead and didn’t try to hold back her tears. Maggie, the ICU nurse, checked the lines one last time making final notations wrapping up a long shift. Though she was tired, Maggie tried to be kind to the hovering family members who asked too many questions that had no easy answers. She handed the weeping girl a box of tissues. “I know it’s a difficult waiting game Hon, but there’s nothing else to do for her. She might pull through. You’ve got to have hope.”

When Becky got the call two weeks ago that her beloved eighty-three year old Grandma
Stella was hospitalized in Oakland at Summit Hospital and in a coma from a stroke, her family worked out a schedule so someone was with her at all times. There were too many horror stories of hospital screw ups, and they knew she needed a family advocate to be there for her. Becky squeezed in a few hours in between college classes at Cal in Berkeley, where she was a sophomore, a twenty-five- minute BART and bus ride to the hospital. She had books in her backpack to study for a biology midterm, but they never got opened.

Walking down the hall breathing in the hospital smells coming from half-eaten food
trays and the squeak of the shiny linoleum floors put her in a reflective mood. Becky hated to see her beloved vibrant grandma looking so helpless, tethered to lines with a ventilator breathing for her. This was not the same person who taught her the Tvist, as she called it and danced salsa with her on her checkered kitchen floor. Her grandma stayed up late with her watching old movies, and they would snuggle together in her bed eating popcorn. The words of grandma’s favorite song repeated in her head in an endless loop, those were the days my friend, we thought they’d never end.

“Grandma, it’s me… Becky. Please wake up. I have so much to tell you about school and
Eric, my boyfriend. I’m thinking of changing my major. I’m even considering pre-med. Can you believe that? Grandma, you always tell me I’m your favorite grandchild, open your eyes for me.” Becky had read that people in comas hear so she kept up non-stop chattering hoping to reach her with her familiar voice. There were four grandchildren, Becky and her sister Marsha and her cousins Ben and Debbie. Grandma told each one they were her “favorite,” and they each believed it because she made them feel important and unconditionally loved. “Grandma, please wake up. Mom is really bugging me about Eric and I need you to speak with her. He’s really smart, a physics major, and very cute. I know you’d like him.”

Becky and her mother got into regular shouting matches over just about everything.
They were that kind of family, loud and boisterous but underneath, fiercely loyal and
supportive so when there was a crisis like Grandma getting sick, everyone came together. Her parents didn’t approve of Eric, with his long pony tail and torn jeans, and because he wasn’t Jewish, but Grandma and she had an understanding. Grandma knew she wanted to marry a Jewish boy but that was years and years away so she didn’t bug her like her annoying parents. She just wanted her to be safe and have fun. Grandma missed out on having any fun as a teenager having to flee Nazi Germany.

Grandma was the fulcrum of her tight knit family making important decisions with an
iron will. She was smart and shrewd, investing in real estate and did well in the stock market having the foresight to buy technology stocks. Grandma made a comfortable life for herself and her husband. She might have looked like she was all fluff but underneath she was made of steel. When grandpa was alive, he doted on her and followed her like a puppy. She was a force, barely five feet, decked out in high heels every day with her signature poufy blonde hairdo sprayed to perfection.

The doctors told the family that a major blockage of her carotid artery in her neck had
caused the stroke. She did not like going for regular check-ups no matter how much the family prodded her. “Doctors are for sick people,” she said. Grandma said she was “vonderful” no matter how she felt, though in the last month she had been mentioning occasional dizziness, and we were concerned. She hated the thought of being an invalid and having to be dependent on anyone.

There was a doctor’s appointment scheduled for her and my mother was going to take
her, by force, if necessary, but she collapsed at home the night before the appointment.
Fortunately, my Uncle Harvey was putting in some lightbulbs for her and called 911. The paramedics came in minutes, and she was taken to the hospital by ambulance but slipped into a coma despite efforts to break the clot.

When I think about it, I know she sensed something was wrong. I should have realized
she was ill. A few weeks ago when I was at her house she said to me, “Becky, I’m tired. It’s time for me to join your grandfather.” I was floored. She was like the Energizer Bunny, constantly in motion, busy from morning until night talking to her broker, calling friends, shopping on-line, nudging her grandchildren.

“Grandma ,” I scolded, “ have you been staying up too late watching your old movies?”
She was a night owl, often up into the early hours of the morning. Classic love stories were her favorite and she knew some movies practically by heart. I think we watched Pretty Woman together ten times. The real reason she stayed up late was to keep herself awake and avoid bad dreams. Even though it was many years ago, she still had nightmares about her years in Nazi Germany .

I stroke her forehead, her hair flat and matted. When I look at her in bed she is like a
deflated balloon which had once soared high and proud. The drip of the IVs and the hiss of the ventilator mock her vitality. Intensive care is like an alternate universe where life hovers and time has no boundaries.

“Grandma, you have to get better so I can take you to Mr. Charles. I know he’s missing
you.” Her Wednesday 10 AM appointment with him and her 11:30 AM manicure with Miss Lillian were sacred weekly events. Her chipped nails and flat grayish hair said everything about her pathetic condition.

Grandma Stella had a way about her. She was a huge flirt whether it was chatting up a
shoe salesman at Macy’s or the young man changing her tire at Big O. When I was with her, I wanted to crawl in a hole in the ground. It was so embarrassing. She loved attention and she knew how to get it. Three weeks ago, when we were in Luigi’s, her favorite Italian restaurant to celebrate a family birthday, Mario, the maître d, fawned over her when she walked in, “Miss Stella, you’re looking absolutely fantastic!” When he escorted her to her favorite table, she acted like a celebrity on a red carpet turning her head from side to side as though paparazzi were taking her picture.

But you’d be mistaken to take her for a fool. She always jumped to take care of
the bill, which she loved to do, but when she got the check that night she scrutinized it
adding it up in her head faster than any calculator. Then she called over the server. In
her accented English she told her in a firm voice, “Dahling…you made a mistake. I know
you didn’t mean to do this but you overcharged us by ten dollars.” The flustered
waitress apologized profusely. Grandma sweetly said, “those things happen dear.” She
still gave her a nice tip choosing to believe it was an honest error.

It was her pale lips that really got to Becky. “Grandma, can I put lipstick on you like you used to do for me?” Becky pictured her bathroom drawer crammed with every nuanced shade of pink and red. Without her lipstick she was like a negative of a photograph that you’d have to hold up to the light to see the color. When Becky was a little girl, she imitated her by tottering around in her high heels and putting on lipstick. Grandma lovingly wiped off the uneven smears and carefully showed her in front of the bathroom mirror, ”Dahling, you need to apply it this way see, and then blot with tissue. Never forget to blot.” Grandma didn’t appreciate Becky’s current style of little or no makeup, torn jeans, scroungy, boring tee shirts, purple hair and Uggs or Birkenstocks. She’d tsk tsk, “you need a little lipstick Dahling. High heels are sexy… don’t you vant to be sexy like me? And you should know, purple hair is for clowns. ”

Becky pulled up the chair next to her grandma gently stroking her arm. She thought back to the time when she was fifteen and came to her house excited to show her a tattoo that she and her girlfriends got at the mall. It was a cute little butterfly on her ankle, but before she could explain it wasn’t real, Grandma turned white and her blue eyes got hard.

“Sit down Becky”. She had never spoken to her like that. “Do you have any idea what tattoos mean to me? You don’t know how many family members…my Aunt Branya and Uncle Karl and cousins and schoolmates were lost in the concentration camps. They had tattoos cruel numbers etched on their arms, but they were not for fun. You’re fifteen now and old enough to hear my story. I was the same age as you but that day meant the end of my carefree teenage years.

It was a sunny spring day in April 1933 and the Nazis had just come in to power in Berlin. I remember because it was right before my birthday and the lilacs were blooming, I had come by after school to Poppa’s tailor shop. He had a special surprise for my birthday, a beautiful garnet necklace and two slices of my favorite Linzer torte from the bakery. I was making tea for us. We heard a car screech and through the front glass window saw four men in black trench coats come out of a car across the street.

Poppa acted fast and pushed me hard into the storage closet and motioned with his finger to be silent. I felt like I was suffocating hidden behind bolts of fabric inhaling the musty odor of mothballs. The front door rattled, and I heard harsh voices telling Poppa that he was wanted for questioning. They demanded to know why he was not signed up as a member of the “Party.” I peeked through a crack in the door. He didn’t even have time to get his coat and left in his store apron. So many times, I’ve dreamt about him in his store apron, wandering the streets without his coat.

We didn’t know his fate. Momma was frantic and cried constantly. We made inquiries but there were only hushed rumors about detention camps. Other Jewish men had been taken away as well. This was at the very beginning of the Nazi rule even before the concentration camps were functioning. I had to do something and was determined to find out where they had taken my father and get him released. It was a morning two weeks after he had been taken and Hannah came into our bedroom. I was putting on red lipstick.

“Stella, what are you doing? Why are you wearing Momma’s lipstick and her new velvet
shoes? She’s going to be mad.”

“Anyway dummy she never wears these shoes since us Jews have been forbidden to go
out to nice places. You know she can’t go to the opera or theater any more. Hannah, you have promise me to keep a secret. I will go this morning to the office of the Gestapo. I have to find out where they took Poppa, but you musn’t tell Momma.”

“Stella, you can’t go there, it’s much too dangerous. You might not come back!“ She
sobbed and clung to me.

“Hannah I have to go. I’m going to tell them Poppa was a brave soldier and was
wounded during the first war. He even got a medal. I found it in his dresser drawer. Maybe they will release him for his past loyalty to the Vaterland. I’m dressing so I’ll look older. I can pass for an Aryan with my blond hair and blue eyes. Hannahle, look at those fashionable women through the window down on the street. They don’t have a care in the world. That’s how I’m going to act.” I convinced Hannah and myself taking another glance in the mirror gathering courage. I did appear older than fifteen but inside I was a scared teenager.

Poor Hannah was trembling and pale with fear. I reassured her in a firm voice, “Hannah,
be brave and pray for me. I love you and I’ll return with news about Poppa. I promise. When Momma comes home, tell her I went to visit Annamarie. I don’t want her to worry.”

“I won’t tell her Stella. Please be careful. I’ll pray for you every second.”

I hugged her tight, got on my bike, and peddled hard to the offices of the Gestapo on
Prinz-Albrecht Strasse. The red and black swastika of the new Reich boldly flying outside the building made my stomach clench. I left my bike and ran up the brick steps shaky in the high heels.

I got in the line of people like me with haunted darting eyes waiting silently to speak to
an official at a big wooden desk way across the room. I smelled a nauseating stink of fear and sweat and realized it was coming from me too. I’d been waiting for over an hour and moisture was gathering under my armpits and dripping down my back. All thoughts of being in control were gone and Momma’s stupid fancy shoes hurt my feet.

There was a commotion and four Nazi soldiers came in to the office with rifles drawn
and snarling dogs snapping on leashes. It felt like my heart stopped beating and in front of my eyes I saw my sweet sister Hannah and dear Momma and Poppa. Was this going to be the last day of my life?

One guard shouted orders. ‘Everyone out to the courtyard. Raus. Raus.’ The dogs were
barking and pulling at their leashes. I was pushed with the other stunned people to the outer brick yard.

‘Line up facing the wall.’ I stumbled in the heels and in a trance lined up in front of the
red brick courtyard wall. At the side of the yard, there were flower boxes with beautiful spring flowers. For a moment I was angry. I never even had a real boyfriend, just that dumb Fritz who followed me like a mooning puppy dog. Why God? I don’t want to die like this. I don’t deserve this fate.

Shots rang out, and my knees buckled. The people to the right and left of me dropped to the ground with sickening thuds. There were screams and shouting and I realized it was me screaming too. Every other person in the line was shot in the back like a rabid dog and the rest of us were left standing. I was alive through total luck. I shivered in shock.

Fancy officers in elegant black uniforms and tall shiny boots, the dreaded Gestapo I’d
heard about, strutted about amused and chatting over the spectacle and soldiers dragged the bodies to a shed. One of them smirked, ‘Now the rest of you fine citizens of the Reich, who still has business in this office?’ I ran with the others who had survived back to the office and down the stairs fast. I grabbed my bike and peddled with every ounce of strength I had, not noticing I had wet my underpants.

When I got home, I fell into Hannah’s arms sobbing. Hannah held me and didn’t ask any
questions. Momma ended up bribing some local officials to get Poppa released and thankfully he returned home after six weeks, a thin broken man with a shaved head who barely spoke, but he knew we had to get out of Germany. He immediately made arrangements to leave the country and were lucky to get affidavits six months later provided by Momma’s brother Uncle Herman who had already emigrated to the United States ten years before.”

Becky startled awake realizing she had drifted off recalling Grandma’s story. Becky
stroked her hand still feeling a deep pang of regret that she got her so upset over that stupid tattoo. “Grandma it’s me Becky. I love you so much.” She spoke quietly to her “You taught me lessons I’ll never forget. I’m want to be brave and strong like you and make something of myself. And Grandma… I’ll get rid of my purple hair and start wearing lipstick. I’ll even wear heels …well, now and then. I promise.” Becky was certain she saw a little smile form on her grandma’s lips.