KInship Project Paper

Ayelet Schrek

Every summer since I was nine, my parents stick me on a plane to Florida and ship me off to my grandparents for a week or two, while they themselves travel to some exotic, fun, interesting location, always outside the US. Not that I mind; I love my grandparents very much, and my visits to “Camp Grandma” are often the highlight of my summers. My grandparents are both intelligent, strong-minded people, and the funny, serious, and thought-provoking conversations we always have make up for the humidity and lack of places to go. When I first started going, it was a chance to relax and eat junk food, but over the years it’s become, or at least now I realize that it is, something much more important and valuable; a chance to spend time with the people I love. And lately, what with papa (my grandpa)’s kidney issue, each moment has become more and more precious.

In order to illustrate a little more my grandparent’s personalities, I will tell you the story of how they first met.

My grandma Harlene was at the beach with her friend, sulking about the fact that both their boyfriends had left for the summer. They had set up their towels and left their stuff by them, and then headed into the water.

My papa Frank had a date. However, his friend Joey didn’t and since they wanted to double date, they headed down to the beach to find prospective girls. They spotted two unguarded towels, obviously belonging to two girls, and, without much further thought, Frank suggested that they sit down on them and wait for them to return. Then, Frank reasoned, Joey could ask out whichever one was prettier. This they did.

Harlene and her friend had enough of swimming, so they returned to their towels, only to find…

Frank and Joey.

“These are our towels,” said Harlene, wondering what the heck was going on.

Frank looked her straight in the eye, his face serious, betraying nothing. “These towels belong to us.”

When Harlene, a week or so later, returned from her first date with Frank, her mother groaned. “Oh no,” she had said. “You’re in love!”

Frank and Harlene got married of course. And not long after, my mother was born.

When you hear the phrase, “the joys of parenthood,” it usually refers to the less appealing parts of having a child. But with Frank and Harlene, raising their two daughters Adrian and Haley was a true pleasure. The harder part came later.

For the first 11 years of Adrian’s life, the family lived in the bottom floor of a two-family home in Canarsie, in Brooklyn, New York. On the second floor lived Frank’s sister, Doris, and her husband and two daughters.

A lot happened in those 11 years. Stories of over-grown rats, not to be mistaken with cats, stories of ruined birthday parties, stories of adopted pets, stories of childhood. And then a flood. And then the big bad move. To Rockland County, New York. A place as boring as its name. My mom, good daughter, perfect student, hated it, and immediately switched into her rebel teenage years. I don’t have many stories from these years. She won’t tell me.

The only thing I really know about my mom’s high school years is camp. Camp Hemshech, and Yiddish sleep away camp, at which Adrian had some of the best times in her life, and made friends that she still has today.

But where my mom’s life was filled with crazy stories and emotions running every which way, my dad, David, had a much calmer, much more “normal” childhood in Passaic, New Jersey. He lived with his parents and a brother, older. He went on to graduate from Vassar, and then eventually got a job at a daycare center in New York. The same daycare center my mom worked at after she finished college.

You know those stories of love at first sight? Well, my parents were not one of those stories. Adrian’s initial impression of David was annoying and a stickler for the rules. David’s first impression of her was that she was, to phrase it politely, an angry, ummm…feisty lesbian. He also told me, a bit reluctantly, that he thought she was “cute.” But on one fateful night, on a staff retreat to Fire Island…

Both Adrian and David wanted to sleep outside. It was raining, but the house they were staying at was built on poles, so they could sleep underneath the house. But when the first flash of lightning hit the sky, Adrian insisted on going inside. David joined her. They found themselves a spot on the crowed ground and went to sleep. In the morning, Adrian woke up to find David playing with a piece of her hair. That’s what did it, she told me.

They traveled everywhere. From Israel to Thai Land, Spain to Egypt. In fact, it was on a bus in Turkey that they decided to get married. Neither were in a hurry to get married, hippies that they were, but the knew it would make their parents happy, and they wanted to be with each other forever. So they figured, why not?

They got married on Lag B’Omer. Not due to any religious beliefs, but because it was convenient. Despite what you might expect, they did not honeymoon at any exotic place; in fact, they went to Utah, canoeing on the Green River with friends. Friends, one of whom actually proposed to another on the trip.

I was conceived on a hiking trip. Let’s leave it at that.

My birth, however, is a whole other story. I was late, two weeks late. In fact, I was pretty reluctant to leave the comforts of the womb, something made pretty clear by the 44 hours of labor it took to get me out. Oh, I was clever. I had a plan. At the last second, I flipped, not so that my head was where my feet were, but I went from facing down like a good little baby to facing up, making everything slightly more complicated. In the end, she couldn’t birth me the natural way; she had to have a C-section. Now remember, I was facing up. So when the nurse cut my mom open, the first thing she saw was my face, eyes wide, mouth already screaming. As the famous story goes, she was so shocked, that she said “Oh boy!” “A boy, a boy?” my parents, well probably really my dad, as my mom was in no state fit to respond, inquired. “Oh no, it’s too early to know,” the nurse had responded. “I was just surprised.”

So that’s me. I came out with my eyes and mouth open wide, and I’ve stayed that way ever since. As another famous story goes, I was crying so hard as a newborn, that my bellybutton popped out. I mean, you know how some people have innies, and some have outies? Well, I had an innie, until my gut-wrenching sobs popped it right out. Over time, it has receded back into an innie. Needless to say, my parents did not get much sleep when I was younger. For this, and many other reasons. As a baby, and pretty much up to the time I got pneumonia when I was just turning two, I was constantly sick. I was born sick. And there are few things scarier to new parents than a sick baby. But after pneumonia, which I conveniently developed while in Florida, visiting my grandparents for Hanukah, I stopped being sick all the time. I guess my body was just used to it, and able to fight it all off. Something else also happened around that time. My grandma Deena, dad’s mom, died. She had a stroke, but it was a doctor’s error, not the stroke, that killed her. She died over 11 years ago, but it’s taken me till now to really miss her.

Everyone always assumes I went to Temple Emanuel preschool, the preschool my father directs now. However, my father directed another preschool before that, the UCSF preschool. Located by the UCSF campus in the Sunset, it was a tiny little preschool with a tiny little space in which to play, not that that stopped me from having fun. My greatest objections to the preschool were the naptimes and the woodchips. I still have friends from that place.

Kindergarten screening. A boy punched my in the nose. I got in. He didn’t.

Ah, what to say about Brandies?

It’s my school. Enough said.

My grandpa Stanley died. Dad’s dad. I hate to say this, but I don’t really know when. Last year, I think…or maybe the year before. I only remember all the Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, wondering if I should say Kaddish for him. We weren’t that close. But looking back at pictures, I realize that we were, in another lifetime. Before he remarried. Before he started to loose control of his mind. I don’t know if I miss him.

This was my latest visit to my grandparents, and my first in a while. My first since it became apparent that papa would need a kidney transplant, or be on dialysis for the rest of his shortened life. But first, before he could be approved for the transplant, he would have to undergo rigorous testing. He was just approved a couple of weeks ago. Which doesn’t mean he has a transplant. But he might.

So anyway.

They were there to greet me right outside security. I ran to hug them, a little girl again, but also at the same time more mature than I had ever been. I think I might have been crying. I don’t know. I was so glad to see them. Him, particularly. We drove home and grandma made me the traditional matzo ball soup.

It was a simple week. It was so special. And that’s what we’re about. We don’t need grand adventures or spectacular events. We just need each other.