My Dad appeared in my doorway on the first Monday of the New Year to inform me that my grandfather had died.
I responded with the enthusiasm of someone learning that their dentist appointment had been rescheduled.
I responded with the enthusiasm of someone learning that their dentist appointment had been rescheduled.
Zayde -- Yiddish for grandfather, though in our case it might as well have been Yiddish for “benevolent curmudgeon” -- was ninety-four. He’d lived what I assume was a happy-ish life, though happiness and self-awareness were never quite on speaking terms in his case.
I was home in Los Angeles for the holidays, a period during which Zayde had been playing his own version of hospital roulette, checking in and out with the commitment of someone trying to maximize his frequent flyer miles. This meant my parents spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s driving to San Diego every other day, partly to check on Zayde, partly to serve as human hearing aids for my grandmother -- Bubbie, who retained exactly three percent of her hearing, making most conversations feel like an avant-garde theater piece.
An unusual Pineapple Express had blown in, dumping relentless, gray rain upon Southern California for two weeks straight. Between the rain and the death watch, it made for a memorable holiday. Just not the one we’d been expecting.
The day before Zayde died, my parents left me alone to visit him in the hospital. He was lucid, even chatty. He and my Dad had a heart-to-heart in which Zayde admitted he was ready to die -- the kind of confession that should have been poignant but somehow still managed to be confrontational. They moved him to hospice that Saturday night. Naturally, the second his wheels touched the linoleum floor of the facility, Zayde decided he hated it and demanded to leave, as though hospice were a restaurant with disappointing Yelp reviews.
This led to a scene that could only happen in our family: My Dad, exhausted and soaked from the 405, having to explain to his own father that, no, he couldn’t leave, because this was the place where he had agreed to die.
Zayde, being Zayde, riled my Dad up to the point of performative rage. Then Zayde looked my Dad in the eye, flashed a smarmy, triumphant grin, and whispered, “I thought so.” He then crawled back into his blankets with the smug satisfaction of a man who had just won a Supreme Court argument. He died the next day.
I wasn’t shocked by the death. I’d expected it, just not while I was still on the West Coast. And not the day after hospice check-in. The timing felt almost spiteful, which, frankly, tracked with Zayde.
I’d like to say I’ll miss him, but families are complicated ecosystems. I suppose families are like that sometimes. I would have missed him more if he’d been kinder. And if he hadn’t pitted his grandchildren against each other like contestants on some sadistic game show.
He wasn’t exactly the jolly grandfather you’d see in the Werther’s Original commercials, the one who dispenses sage wisdom and sneaks you butterscotch candies. That was Bernie, my high school history teacher, who lived down the street and actually knew how to be kind. When Bernie died, I mourned. When Zayde died, I felt relieved.
Zayde self-declared himself the “patriarch” of our family, which he announced with the authority of someone naming a boat after himself. But for someone who claimed dominion over our daily lives, he preferred to lurk rather than participate. He’d hover during Bubbie’s phone conversations but never join in. He’d deem things unacceptable that were entirely beyond his control, like my brother Drew’s behavioral treatment outcomes.
Drew had gone to Utah for intensive behavioral therapy -- a decision that nearly emotionally bankrupted my parents. He had ADHD, OCD, and a slew of “genetic quirks” Zayde insisted came from Bubbie’s side of the family. But he came back calmer, less fretful. Still very much himself but better. Functional. It should have been a triumph.
“He’s still the same,” Zayde huffed. “I thought this place was supposed to fully cure him.”
No grace. No acknowledgment that my parents had sent their son away during his senior year of high school because they loved him enough to get him the help he needed. Just disappointment that Drew didn’t reemerge more refurbished -- preferably a version that was quieter, more eloquent, and recited Shakespeare that Zayde could find more convenient to his brand.
Zayde also believed I would come out as a lesbian after graduating from Mount Holyoke College. To be fair, a lot of people assumed I already was a lesbian for choosing an all-women’s college, or that I’d inevitably become one by graduation. There’s nothing wrong with either assumption, obviously, but it revealed the stunning depths of my grandfather’s imagination—which is to say, he had none.
The worst part was the exclusion. Being the only girl grandchild meant watching all the boys get Game Boys while I got Barbies. Eventually I got my own Game Boy to play Pokémon with my cousins, but by then no one wanted to play Pokémon with me anyway. While Bubbie taught me Scrabble -- then proceeded to kick my ass with words I’d never heard of, because never play Scrabble with a former elementary school teacher -- Zayde taught all my male cousins how to play poker. All of them except Drew, who still had his “behavior issues” at the time.
Whenever I asked Zayde to teach me poker, he’d refuse outright and tell me to watch TV or something. To this day, I still don’t know how to be a card shark in Vegas. But I can play a mean game of Uno, for whatever that’s worth.
Maybe that’s what created the rift between my cousins and me -- this idea that they were the “men” of the family and I was the disposable “girl.” They’d keep their last names when they married. I wouldn’t. I’d just be moved to another family, and be their problem. I think Zayde had always wanted me to be a boy.
He had two nicknames for me. The first was “Jake,” because apparently my full name required too much effort to actually say out loud. The second was “Princess,” delivered not with affection but with the kind of disdain usually reserved for people who hold up the line at Starbucks. Kinda the equivalent to “Karen.” He started calling me that after I graduated from Mount Holyoke and moved to the East Coast. He only began using my actual name -- Jacqueline -- after I moved to New York, as though living in a sufficiently expensive zip code had finally earned me the right to my own identity.
But Zayde’s true gift was the ranking system. He maintained an internal leaderboard of all six grandchildren, which fluctuated based on metrics only he understood. Matthew, usually held the top spot -- until he joined Teach for America after college, at which point his stock plummeted. Alex moved to number one when he and his wife had their first child. Jon jumped ahead when he got married. I never reached number one. I hit number two a few times, number three more often, and once dropped to number five when my cousin Sammy briefly moved to New York.
The majority of the time, Sammy and Drew occupied the bottom rungs. I felt bad for Sam. He was after all the baby of the family, perpetually overshadowed by his older brother Matthew -- University of Virginia graduate, Teach for America volunteer, fluent in Spanish, world traveler, Bain consultant, Harvard Business School student. And then there was Sam. Just Sam.
From the outside, I thought Sam had it pretty good. He had time to figure things out while living in a nice neighborhood near the ocean in Southern California. But Zayde wanted immediate results. He was briefly impressed when Sam moved east, then gravely disappointed when Sam returned home after a year. No knock on Sam -- the East Coast is an acquired taste. Moving to New York from sunny Southern California can be overwhelming. Matthew and I had attended college out east, which gave us time to acclimate. Sam was just thrown into the deep end. It takes courage to do what he did.
My own lowest point in the rankings -- The Great Devaluation of 2020 -- occurred over Labor Day weekend during the pandemic.
Bubbie and Zayde wanted me to take the Surfliner train from Union Station to visit them in San Diego. I’d been laid off from my job at PBS in July and was essentially floating through unemployment, applying for jobs with the enthusiasm of someone filing their taxes. Governor Newsom hadn’t yet pissed everyone off with his French Laundry scandal, but California was under strict lockdown -- or what passed for strict lockdown, which mostly meant wearing masks and pretending six feet of distance would save us all.
My parents suggested I visit my grandparents for two days. “That should be enough,” my Mom said, with the certainty of someone who knew.
Being naive -- or possibly brain-damaged from all the TikTok videos I was watching -- I convinced them to let me stay for four days instead.
Big mistake.
The first day, they were grandmotherly and grandfatherly, all warm smiles and gentle questions. The remaining three days, I became their indentured servant.
Bubbie needed an Etsy account for her handmade Victorian button bracelets -- items she’d been selling at trade shows but now wanted to move online. This led to: Creating said Etsy account, photographing each bracelet, writing product descriptions, troubleshooting why no one was buying them, filing a complaint with Etsy about the lack of sales, and becoming Bubbie’s de facto IT person. I fixed “bugs” on her desktop -- really just pop-up ads she’d clicked without thinking. I connected her TV to Hulu and Netflix. I searched for her Wi-Fi password, reset her Wi-Fi password, found the original Wi-Fi password, then changed the new Wi-Fi password back to the original Wi-Fi password.
I wasn’t even thirty. My grandparents were thrilled to have someone “Internet savvy” in the house. TikTok was huge. Instagram Reels had just launched. I was making dance videos and edits. But what I couldn’t master was how to sell things online. My friend Claire was much better at understanding buyer markets. I should have asked her how to sell my old refrigerator on Facebook Marketplace.
Then Zayde noticed my Etsy efforts and wanted in on the action -- for himself.
Zayde claimed to own an extremely rare Michael Jordan hologram card. This card was supposedly the holy grail of sports memorabilia, equivalent to a first-edition shadowless holographic Charizard. It was a big deal… to him.
“Well, can I see it?”
The card was nothing to write home about. Thick, black and white, with a silver holographic image of Michael Jordan performing a slam dunk. A small scratch marred one corner. Otherwise fine.
“Only three people in the world have this card, Jake,” he said. I hadn’t moved to New York yet. “Me, Nike, and Michael Jordan himself.”
“That’s great, Zayde.” I said.
I got to work. It was almost exciting -- certainly better than explaining to Bubbie that Victorian button bracelets weren’t flying off digital shelves. A rare card with actual value? I created the eBay account, filled out the details and descriptions. The problem was photographing the holographic effect on said card. No matter what I did, the photos couldn’t accurately capture the holographic action of Michael Jordan’s slam dunk in motion.
“These are terrible,” Zayde confirmed when I showed him the photos on my phone. “Do it again.”
“I need more lighting, Zayde.” I said. “Like, actual lighting.”
I migrated to his bathroom, where the lighting was marginally better. The photos improved slightly, but not much.
“Fine. Upload them.” Zayde waved me off to perform my wizardry Internet online powers.
“How much are you asking?”
My cursor hovered over the publish button, ready to unleash this offering upon the World Wide Web.
“A thousand dollars!” Zayde declared to me.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” I responded. “There’s a scratch on it, Zayde.”
“It’s priceless, Jake. Priceless.”
“Clearly not, since we’re about to sell it on eBay.”
This was classic Zayde. Overestimating value -- of cards, of people, of his own judgment. As “patriarch,” he believed he could determine worth at will. It explained his ranking system. It explained his lack of sentimental attachment to anything. We were all just stocks in his portfolio, rising and falling according to metrics only he understood.
“Fine, eight-hundred.” He huffed. I entered the amount and published the page. “Now what?”
“Now we wait for an offer, Zayde.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. A few days?”
“A few days?” Zayde was appalled. “That is one of the rarest Michael Jordan cards on planet Earth and you’re telling me we’ll have a buyer in a couple of days?”
“I believe that is how eBay works, Zayde.”
He muttered something in Yiddish and left the room—another signature move of his when reality failed to meet his expectations.
I was wrong about the timeline. Within hours, Zayde’s email flooded with potential buyers. Since this was my first eBay sale, I’d set it up as an auction, thinking Zayde could get more than eight hundred dollars. But people wrote in offering only four hundred dollars.
“Why aren’t they bidding more? It’s a rarity!”
“I mean it’s not entirely in perfect condition, Zayde.”
“This should be going for ten thousand dollars!”
“I thought you said it was worth a thousand?”
More muttering. More Yiddish.
“I need more lighting, Zayde.” I said. “Like, actual lighting.”
I migrated to his bathroom, where the lighting was marginally better. The photos improved slightly, but not much.
“Fine. Upload them.” Zayde waved me off to perform my wizardry Internet online powers.
“How much are you asking?”
My cursor hovered over the publish button, ready to unleash this offering upon the World Wide Web.
“A thousand dollars!” Zayde declared to me.
“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.” I responded. “There’s a scratch on it, Zayde.”
“It’s priceless, Jake. Priceless.”
“Clearly not, since we’re about to sell it on eBay.”
This was classic Zayde. Overestimating value -- of cards, of people, of his own judgment. As “patriarch,” he believed he could determine worth at will. It explained his ranking system. It explained his lack of sentimental attachment to anything. We were all just stocks in his portfolio, rising and falling according to metrics only he understood.
“Fine, eight-hundred.” He huffed. I entered the amount and published the page. “Now what?”
“Now we wait for an offer, Zayde.”
“How long will that take?”
“I don’t know. A few days?”
“A few days?” Zayde was appalled. “That is one of the rarest Michael Jordan cards on planet Earth and you’re telling me we’ll have a buyer in a couple of days?”
“I believe that is how eBay works, Zayde.”
He muttered something in Yiddish and left the room—another signature move of his when reality failed to meet his expectations.
I was wrong about the timeline. Within hours, Zayde’s email flooded with potential buyers. Since this was my first eBay sale, I’d set it up as an auction, thinking Zayde could get more than eight hundred dollars. But people wrote in offering only four hundred dollars.
“Why aren’t they bidding more? It’s a rarity!”
“I mean it’s not entirely in perfect condition, Zayde.”
“This should be going for ten thousand dollars!”
“I thought you said it was worth a thousand?”
More muttering. More Yiddish.
Then we received an email from a buyer offering five hundred dollars. His reasoning was sound. He owned the fifth-largest Michael Jordan card collection -- a specialized niche in the memorabilia market. Even with my terrible photos, he’d recognized the card as a Nike promotional item for the first-edition Air Jordan 1s from 1985. I looked him up. He was legit.
“But he wants only five hundred for it?” Zayde was fuming.
“He says Nike didn’t even use these cards when the Air Jordans launched. They were just hype material.”
“Who does he think he is? Does he even know that Michael Jordan himself also owns an identical version of this card?”
“Yes, Zayde. He does.”
“Tell him I want eight hundred for it.”
“You just told me that it was worth ten thousand dollars.”
Mumble, mumble, mumble. Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish.
I wrote back and attempted to negotiate. But this buyer knew Michael Jordan history the way I knew Tudor dynasty drama, the complete character arcs from Game of Thrones, and literally everything about Bruno Mars. He was validating the card’s actual worth. Zayde just believed it was worth more because owning it gave him something in common with the world’s greatest basketball player. Therefore, because he owned the card, he was worth something.
“I got him to agree to six hundred!” I announced.
“Just six hundred?”
“Well yeah, it’s a hundred bucks more than what he originally wanted to give us, right?”
“This guy is nothing more than a hustler.”
“You sure about that, Zayde?”
“Write him back. Tell him no deal. The card is worth eight hundred.”
“But you said—”
“Do what I say, Jake!”
“But he wants only five hundred for it?” Zayde was fuming.
“He says Nike didn’t even use these cards when the Air Jordans launched. They were just hype material.”
“Who does he think he is? Does he even know that Michael Jordan himself also owns an identical version of this card?”
“Yes, Zayde. He does.”
“Tell him I want eight hundred for it.”
“You just told me that it was worth ten thousand dollars.”
Mumble, mumble, mumble. Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish.
I wrote back and attempted to negotiate. But this buyer knew Michael Jordan history the way I knew Tudor dynasty drama, the complete character arcs from Game of Thrones, and literally everything about Bruno Mars. He was validating the card’s actual worth. Zayde just believed it was worth more because owning it gave him something in common with the world’s greatest basketball player. Therefore, because he owned the card, he was worth something.
“I got him to agree to six hundred!” I announced.
“Just six hundred?”
“Well yeah, it’s a hundred bucks more than what he originally wanted to give us, right?”
“This guy is nothing more than a hustler.”
“You sure about that, Zayde?”
“Write him back. Tell him no deal. The card is worth eight hundred.”
“But you said—”
“Do what I say, Jake!”
He barked orders, dictating what I should write to this poor man who’d generously increased his offer. After several exchanges, the buyer ended up walking away. Probably smart of him to do so, if I’m being honest. I was dealing with a hostile client at the moment anyway.
It was ten o’clock at night. I’d been at Zayde’s desk since five p.m., building an eBay page for a stupid card. Okay, maybe not stupid -- six hundred dollars actually seemed pretty good to me, considering I was receiving biweekly unemployment checks just to keep paying rent on my empty apartment back in Boston.
But for Zayde, it wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough for this man. Not Drew’s treatment progress. Not Sammy’s courage to move to New York. Not my four years working at a nonprofit that never appreciated me.
“What did you do? What did you say to him?” Zayde demanded when I told him the buyer had walked.
“Nothing. I did exactly what you told me.”
“You’re the writer! Your dad is an attorney! Where’s the creativity? Where are your negotiating skills?”
“I didn’t go to school to be a lawyer, Zayde. I was an English major.”
“English major.” Mumble, mumble, mumble. Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish. “No wonder you’re such a failure. Useless. You couldn’t even keep your job in Boston.”
It will shock you to know, that didn’t make me angry. But this did:
“If your cousin Matthew were here, he would do a better job than you.”
Grandfather of the year, everyone! No doubt I was officially ranked last after I failed to sell Zayde’s stupid Michael Jordan card. Congratulations were finally in order for both Sam and Drew, because as of that moment, their stock just skyrocketed and mine took a nosedive in Zayde’s rankings.
This was absolutely the worst time I’d ever spent with my grandparents. And I was the genius that wanted to spend four full days with them! And yet my visit did not involve Bubbie baking me cookies and showing me baby pictures or home videos of my Dad. Or Zayde (for once in his life) teaching me how to play poker. I was just free fucking labor to them.
It was ten o’clock at night. I’d been at Zayde’s desk since five p.m., building an eBay page for a stupid card. Okay, maybe not stupid -- six hundred dollars actually seemed pretty good to me, considering I was receiving biweekly unemployment checks just to keep paying rent on my empty apartment back in Boston.
But for Zayde, it wasn’t enough. Nothing was ever enough for this man. Not Drew’s treatment progress. Not Sammy’s courage to move to New York. Not my four years working at a nonprofit that never appreciated me.
“What did you do? What did you say to him?” Zayde demanded when I told him the buyer had walked.
“Nothing. I did exactly what you told me.”
“You’re the writer! Your dad is an attorney! Where’s the creativity? Where are your negotiating skills?”
“I didn’t go to school to be a lawyer, Zayde. I was an English major.”
“English major.” Mumble, mumble, mumble. Yiddish, Yiddish, Yiddish. “No wonder you’re such a failure. Useless. You couldn’t even keep your job in Boston.”
It will shock you to know, that didn’t make me angry. But this did:
“If your cousin Matthew were here, he would do a better job than you.”
Grandfather of the year, everyone! No doubt I was officially ranked last after I failed to sell Zayde’s stupid Michael Jordan card. Congratulations were finally in order for both Sam and Drew, because as of that moment, their stock just skyrocketed and mine took a nosedive in Zayde’s rankings.
This was absolutely the worst time I’d ever spent with my grandparents. And I was the genius that wanted to spend four full days with them! And yet my visit did not involve Bubbie baking me cookies and showing me baby pictures or home videos of my Dad. Or Zayde (for once in his life) teaching me how to play poker. I was just free fucking labor to them.
The next day after calling me “useless,” a “failure,” and oh, yeah, stirring the pot amongst his own grandkids by comparing me to Matthew, he then gruffly asked me to edit his Storyworth manuscript. (Zero apology, naturally.)
ChatGPT didn’t exist yet. Where was it when I needed it most? I just sat in front of his computer reading his sad written stories about him growing up with Grandpa Al (Zayde’s father.) There was one story I read that was about this bike Grandpa Al had saved up to gift to Zayde when he was a kid. And how Zayde absolutely had hated that bike. How ungrateful he’d been to poor Grandpa Al, who barely spoke English, had little money, and was just trying to achieve the American Dream after passing through Ellis Island from Russia.
The gist of these other stories: Zayde had been an ungrateful brat who thought the world owed him an itemized receipt for all his material desires. He wanted to fit in with the more well-off kids at his school, stand out among the more successful New Yorkers when he started working for NW Ayer & Son on Madison Avenue. He wanted to be a real “Mad Man,” a Don Draper type. That’s who he was -- someone thankless that he’d married a wealthy woman who gave him three children, ungracious for the life Grandpa Al had wanted for him, and unappreciative that his own children had become more successful than him.
Could it be that Zayde was jealous of his own children? Did he resent them? He wasn’t Logan Roy telling his kids at the karaoke club that they weren’t “serious people.” It was the reverse. Zayde’s own children were telling him he was the one that wasn’t serious. How self-centered was this man?
On my last day, Zayde wanted to watch a movie. Having mentally checked out -- I couldn’t wait to sleep in my own bed and be back in Los Angeles again -- I deferred to him.
“Well, why don’t we watch your favorite movie, Zayde.” Then I realized. “Wait, what is your favorite movie?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that sulky, cranky Zayde even had a favorite movie. There were many things I knew about my grandfather -- some less pleasant than others -- but not this.
I assumed he’d say something classic. Citizen Kane. Casablanca. When I was younger, we’d watched My Fair Lady together, and he’d sung “Get Me to the Church on Time” while driving me to the Flower Fields.
He also liked dramatized Holocaust films -- Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice, The Pianist. I would have accepted Inglourious Basterds or Life Is Beautiful.
But instead he said this other movie: “The Bridges of Madison County.”
“What?”
ChatGPT didn’t exist yet. Where was it when I needed it most? I just sat in front of his computer reading his sad written stories about him growing up with Grandpa Al (Zayde’s father.) There was one story I read that was about this bike Grandpa Al had saved up to gift to Zayde when he was a kid. And how Zayde absolutely had hated that bike. How ungrateful he’d been to poor Grandpa Al, who barely spoke English, had little money, and was just trying to achieve the American Dream after passing through Ellis Island from Russia.
The gist of these other stories: Zayde had been an ungrateful brat who thought the world owed him an itemized receipt for all his material desires. He wanted to fit in with the more well-off kids at his school, stand out among the more successful New Yorkers when he started working for NW Ayer & Son on Madison Avenue. He wanted to be a real “Mad Man,” a Don Draper type. That’s who he was -- someone thankless that he’d married a wealthy woman who gave him three children, ungracious for the life Grandpa Al had wanted for him, and unappreciative that his own children had become more successful than him.
Could it be that Zayde was jealous of his own children? Did he resent them? He wasn’t Logan Roy telling his kids at the karaoke club that they weren’t “serious people.” It was the reverse. Zayde’s own children were telling him he was the one that wasn’t serious. How self-centered was this man?
On my last day, Zayde wanted to watch a movie. Having mentally checked out -- I couldn’t wait to sleep in my own bed and be back in Los Angeles again -- I deferred to him.
“Well, why don’t we watch your favorite movie, Zayde.” Then I realized. “Wait, what is your favorite movie?”
It hadn’t occurred to me that sulky, cranky Zayde even had a favorite movie. There were many things I knew about my grandfather -- some less pleasant than others -- but not this.
I assumed he’d say something classic. Citizen Kane. Casablanca. When I was younger, we’d watched My Fair Lady together, and he’d sung “Get Me to the Church on Time” while driving me to the Flower Fields.
He also liked dramatized Holocaust films -- Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice, The Pianist. I would have accepted Inglourious Basterds or Life Is Beautiful.
But instead he said this other movie: “The Bridges of Madison County.”
“What?”
I’d never heard of it. But here’s all you need to know: Meryl Streep plays a housewife alone in rural Iowa. Clint Eastwood plays a photographer passing through. They fall in love. He tries to convince her to run away with him. She decides to stay with her husband and children. But there’s a pivotal scene where Clint’s car pulls up next to the vehicle Meryl and her husband are in. He sees her. She sees him. She reaches for the door handle, about to abandon everything -- her husband, her life, her children -- to escape with Clint. And at the last moment, she stays. He drives away. They never see each other again.
That scene -- Meryl’s fingers on the door handle -- is when I turned and saw Zayde. The man who ranked his grandchildren like thoroughbreds and called me a failure over an eBay listing, this eighty-year-old man, was crying.
Overall, I mean, it is a pretty sad movie about Meryl’s character choosing her family over her own happiness and then having the rest of her life be one of longing and regret.
Missed opportunities can be a real bitch.
That scene -- Meryl’s fingers on the door handle -- is when I turned and saw Zayde. The man who ranked his grandchildren like thoroughbreds and called me a failure over an eBay listing, this eighty-year-old man, was crying.
Overall, I mean, it is a pretty sad movie about Meryl’s character choosing her family over her own happiness and then having the rest of her life be one of longing and regret.
Missed opportunities can be a real bitch.
“It’s just so sad,” Zayde weeps when the credits start to roll. “She wants so badly to be with him. And he was right there!”
The next day, I returned to Los Angeles and told my parents about my four-day ordeal. Also about Zayde’s favorite movie being a Meryl Streep film.
“Of course it is,” Dad said, rolling his eyes.
I wondered why that car-door scene affected Zayde so deeply.
The next day, I returned to Los Angeles and told my parents about my four-day ordeal. Also about Zayde’s favorite movie being a Meryl Streep film.
“Of course it is,” Dad said, rolling his eyes.
I wondered why that car-door scene affected Zayde so deeply.
Then I realized that Zayde didn’t see himself as the patriarch; he saw himself as Meryl. He saw himself as the victim of his own life, a man who suddenly found himself trapped in isolation while the world turned without him. Here was a man once full of promise and potential and opportunity. Then one day he’s suddenly stagnant with his wife and kids while his “Clint Eastwood” (whatever that may be) drove away. He’d more or less achieved what Grandpa Al had wanted for him. He had achieved the dream, but he hated the dreamer.
And when he died, he was still clutching the door handle of a life he wished had gone differently.
It is a terrifying thing to reach ninety-four and realize you’ve spent your life as your own gatekeeper. Zayde died thinking he was the one left behind at the crossroads, never realizing he was the one who had built the fence to begin with.
My only hope is that when my turn comes (which I pray will be many, many years) I have the sense to see the difference between a sacrifice and a self-inflicted wound.
I want to look at the people around me and see a family, not a ranking system. And to realize that the door had always been open for me. It had been opened on the other side this entire time by people who weren’t just a list of fluctuating stocks, but who were the ones who had loved me for being myself.
For just being me. For just being enough.
And when he died, he was still clutching the door handle of a life he wished had gone differently.
It is a terrifying thing to reach ninety-four and realize you’ve spent your life as your own gatekeeper. Zayde died thinking he was the one left behind at the crossroads, never realizing he was the one who had built the fence to begin with.
My only hope is that when my turn comes (which I pray will be many, many years) I have the sense to see the difference between a sacrifice and a self-inflicted wound.
I want to look at the people around me and see a family, not a ranking system. And to realize that the door had always been open for me. It had been opened on the other side this entire time by people who weren’t just a list of fluctuating stocks, but who were the ones who had loved me for being myself.
For just being me. For just being enough.
RSS Feed
