Baubie

Today would have been my grandmother's 95th birthday. I think. I'm almost positive she was born on this day in 1904. There's always been some confusion around that issue. I called her, Baubie, just like my kids call my mother. That's Yiddish for "grandmother." Baubie immigrated to the United States from Russia when she was a child. Legend has it that they did not have her birth certificate when she came over. Thus, the birth year confusion. I've never seen the document, so I'm not sure if that's true or not.

I was pretty close with Baubie when I was a child. Just like my kids are with my mother. Baubies are meant to be idolized; grandparents are meant to be idolized. I wasn't very close with my father's mother--grandma--growing up. She refused to let us call her Baubie because she said she was too young to be called that. She became a grandmother at 50. My mom was 47 when her first grandchild was born.

I'm much closer with my grandma now, however. It started around 12 years ago when her husband--my grandfather--of 60 years was dying. I was working as an admission director at a nursing home at the time, so I was often surrounded by death. It doesn't make it any easier when it's your grandfather in the bed, but I somehow mustered up the courage to take a leadership role in being with him in his final hours. This--what I would call natural act--showed something to my grandmother that she never saw in me before. It portrayed a side of caring I think she didn't think I possessed. After he died, my grandmother said to me, "I've always liked you, but now I love you." I was 27 years old at the time. That next day was the first time in my life I ever stayed overnight in my grandparent's house. She made me eggs and bacon the next morning.

Before my father died, he used to call his mother on the phone every Sunday at 7pm CST. I took over this task for him. So, for the past 2 1/2 years, I've called my grandmother every Sunday at 7pm CST (minus the time I was in Europe for three weeks). It's brought us much closer together. She just turned 90 last month.

Back to Baubie. I really wish she were around today so she could meet Cyndi and the kids. Lily is named after her, and, while it's not the way you are supposed to do things in the Jewish tradition, I think she'd like that. I miss her. I miss her laughter, I miss her humor, I miss her stories, I miss her love of playing games, I miss her cooking. She's been gone since 1991. Life has changed in many ways since then, but we all think about her regularly. We visit her grave, look at pictures, try to imitate her cooking (sometimes successfully).

My mother inmates her on a regular basis, and my kids love that. I love that. It's the way things are supposed to be.