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Mom’s Memorial Eulogy

Sylvia Elizabeth Kessler
May 17, 1915 ~ September 28, 2006
at
The Jewish Memorial Chapel
Time: 11:00 am ~ Cemetery following

It was this time last year that Andy and I took Mom to Niagara Falls
(The Canadian side) for our international wedding.

She was not well then, but she was independent enough...
with a bit of dependance.
Whether she needed it or not- she always wanted
‘the kindnesses of strangers‘
and was insistent on that from family.

The year before that, around the same time
Mom received the diagnosis that she had Pancreatic Cancer...

In 1979 at this time... that’s 26-27 years ago... dad died.

The month of Tisre seemed to be
historically filled with major events for mom.

What I am going to say will be in bits and pieces,
sometimes not connecting directly at first.

Put up with me.

----------

166 Howard Avenue
Passaic, NJ
Prescott 7-0743

in time we gained a zip code 07055
and we lost the Prescott to be simply 77 This was our house,
located between Mrs. Schedwick‘s and The Schembergs‘ houses...
at the peak of the hill, just up from Main Ave.
with the diner on the corner.
It could be spotted by the Dark Green Step-in Van at the curb
with the sign reading Advanced Bedding Co. - Factory to you.

The house was the center of our world
(In birth order: Dad, Mom, Ellie, David, and me.)
It was also a haven for the Schob girls;
Joanne, Rosemary, & Christine
(their father had a bit of a temper problem)
Also, there was Girt, Eddie and their kids.
They were part of our household as we were of theirs.

There was Eina, Ethyl, Fran, Bunnie...
They gathered around our place.
Davis’s pals Jackie Hooood & Moose
my friends Freddy, Jeffry, Stewart...
none were strangers in ‘our home.‘

Mel- I can not say he is my brother-in-law
or even adopted brother.
First, he is the nephew of Girt & Ed and
his parents, Anna & Sol became members of the family
even before Ellie & Mel got married.
Mel and Ellie married six weeks after my Bar-Mitzva.
I was more excited about their event than my own.
Ellie and Mel were going together for a number of years,
so Mel was the third bed in the boys room.
He with David are my brothers.

You see... the mechanism or functionality that was the household
was typical for a 1940s-50s family.
The father was in charge of the business of making money
and the mother did the spending.
She bought for herself, dad, the kids
“AND I PUT IN QUOTES” “her house“
which was rather nice ‘considering‘ the standards of the day.
We were never in want for clothing, food, or a warm place to sleep.
For that matter, our home was a place for others to sleep.
Dad, after all, was a bedding manufacturer.
This cobbler’s children had shoes, plenty of shoes.

Dad, bought materials, machines, and vehicles for
“AND AGAIN I PUT IN QUOTES” “his store“
otherwise known as “The Place.”
He also had “the shop“ in the basement of the house,
a garden in the back yard of both the house,
and until the addition was put on... the place as well.

We celebrated two major holidays: Thanksgiving and Passover... always with the cuzzes from the Shapiro family.
Passover was celebrated at both Aunt Mim Shapiros’ house and ours. Aunt Mim’s house on East Chester Avenue in Long Beach
had the advantage of the boardwalk near by.
Our place, on the other hand,
was large
and could accommodate large groups for eating.
It had many rooms... especially in the attic for adventure. One such adventure used the dresser in the boys room
as a launching pad
to jump down on to Mel’s bed, continue onto David’s bed
and then on to mine.
When the chandelier in the dinning room below started to sway
we had to put a halt to ‘that‘ recreation.
Our home was also where Salamons, Leibers, Shulkins, and
other relatives came for events.

Beginning from the time that
Aunt Mim and Uncle Joe got married in the house
it was a place for parties and gatherings.
Except for the unusually extravagant catered parties
at restaurants and halls
(like the two bar-mitzvas
Ellie and Mel’s wedding,
David and Judy’s wedding,
Ellie’s sweet sixteen at the Penguin Inn and the like),
we celebrated with hordes of friends and family on Howard Avenue.

Lest we forget... Kokomo ‘Our bundle of joy pooch
from the Sinclair gas station a block away.’
He was also part of the mix in the house.
Sometimes I think he ruled the roost with the birds,
Pierre, Gigi, & Cooka.... Kokomo’s messy cohorts.

Besides the many, many birthday parties,
and the cast party for
“A Funny thing Happened on the way to the Forum”
staring MWA we also had 300 people attending Ellie and Mel’s Engagement Party. The beams were checked continually
to make sure they were holding the load.

The house was solid and...
in retrospect...
it was a happy place...
far from perfect, but it was our home...
and in years to come...
it was this house that we tried to reproduce in our lives.
Ellie even went back recently
and waited outside to see the family who lived in it now.
Another time David went back- was given Ellie’s green scrapbook
she had somehow left behind.
The book and the house were filled with countless good times.
How many friends lived with parents, but found ‘home‘ with us?

Mom always saw herself as the Balla-Busta...
Well, to paraphrase what is written on the tile
that mom’s friend, and my dear friend, May Friedman gave me
"The house is clean enough to be healthy
and dirty enough to be happy."
That statement was true down to the nap of the gold SHAG carpet.

Mom’s mom was a formidably dominant figure.
This little woman was a force to be reckoned with.
Grandpa went out to work (long pause)
well... the twenties and thirties were similar to the forties and fifties
however in much smaller spaces
and with less money especially during the depression. Mom went to College,
something that few women did at that time.
She had studied to be a home economics teacher,
but she never finished her studies because
there was not enough money,
even for Brooklyn College.
She always said that she was a nutritionist anyway.
When she left school she worked different jobs in retail
especially in the glove department at Sacs.
Grandpa was head tailor there.

Dad and mom met at the Young Israel
on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.
Dad was more in the production end of retail...
bags and other leather goods,
and then bedding.
There are probably a million stories
about Jewish couples just like them
who got together, married and had children.
My parents achieved major status
by moving to ’New Jersey‘
and a few years after renting, they bought a house.

When Ellie was about three
mom, and a number of others started
Hillel Academy Pre-School in Passaic.
Mom was in charge of creating a lunch program
with Mrs. Statmire, the cook.
I loved Mrs. Statmire.
Mom learned how to procure food
from the government surplus
and trade with the school next door
the non kosher foods for dairy.
While we were kids
the yeshiva expanded from just a kindergarten to eight grades.

Mom held a few offices, for quite some time
in Haddasa.
She is now a life member.
I remember one year
I went to the donor’s luncheon with her
‘in the Emerald Room of the Astor Hotel on Times Square.‘
I sold an entire book of mom’s Haddasa raffle tickets.

Grandpa & Grandma used to take
Mom, Aunt Mim, Uncle Joe & Uncle Bert
to the Metropolitan Opera.
They sat in the Family Circle.
Many years later, at age ‘12‘
I went to a Metropolitan Opera student performance
of La Traviata.
I was immediately hooked and I asked mom if I could go again.
We saw Aïda.
I always had to pay for my own ticket.
The next year, and for many years after,
we had a two ticket opera subscription...
first, at the old Met and then at the new. A couple of times when Mom and Dad were on vacation
Ellie or David took mom’s seat.
I had become the sibling of experience,
(pause) at least as far as classical music goes.

We had those family circle tickets
until I went away to college.
Aunt Mim took my ticket over then.
When I got back to New York after five years
we added one more matinee ticket.

Except for the opera,
mom and I had little communication.
My long conversations
and deep talks were with dad,
starting when I went to undergraduate school.
He and I would be on the phone for an hour...
two or three times a week.
The receiver was then given to mom.
“How are you doin‘ boy-a-la“ she would say.
“How’s the weather?“
At that point dad would tell mom that the phone call
was costing a fortune.
So mom would say good by.
He also blamed mom for the phone bills each month.
I can’t remember mom ever calling me at that time. It was up to the children to call mom.
Mom rarely ever called me except to lay a guilt trip-
none of which ever worked on me.
You see, after dad died, about 27 years ago,
(that‘s about half of my life ago)
I became the son of someone whom I really did not know well.
We only talked about the weather in Miami and the opera.
I talked with her sister, Aunt Mim.
(I was her Mark, she my Cleo)
We talked much more and about... Things.

---

It is always hard to draw the line
between being there for another’s wants
as opposed to another’s needs.
I can never say that I was ignored
when I was ill, hurt, hungry, or physically uncomfortable.
I cannot say that I was not given the opportunity
to develop the basic tools that I was to need in life.
However, I always got the cheaper version of something.
It worked just about same.
It just did not have the cashet’ of the major brand
that ‘everybody else had.‘
(It was made in Japan... remember?) I learned not to take offense of this,
rather I saw it as the way
they logically did the best they could
with what they had.
Hand-me-downs were not uncommon for the smallest boy. Eventually, I grew bigger than David
so for a short-short while he got a bit my stuff.
Remember the blue blazer?
When I was able to stretch and afford better
I bought better for myself.

We were not rich.
That Advanced Bedding van was our transportation
when others had cars.
Dad drove, mom sat in a found red velvet easy chair,
Ellie sat in the step of the van,
we called “the Well,”
in a red painted wooden chair
and David and I sat on a pad on the motor...
me next to dad, David with the extra side window.
The Passaic Hillbillies.
The truck had no heat!
We could afford one vehicle.
Dad’s shop won out until we got the used Kaiser
that went to Ellie when she went to Newark State.
Four years later the used Dodge station wagon...
David’s transportation to get him to Montclair State.
Both kids became teachers like mom had wanted to be. When dad had his first heart attack up in the Catskills,
(Chalk up another event to the month of Tishre.)
mom became totally alone.
Ellie & Mel were married
and the boys had to go to school.
Thank goodness David could drive at that time...
that green Dodge stationwagon.
(We may have had the used the bit more stable beige Chrysler.) Anyway
David and I went back and forth every weekend
as did Ellie & Mel most weekends.
Mom’s life had changed completely.
She stayed for many weeks at Mrs. Crumb’s boarding house...
No, guest house,
they served no food.
She ate her meals either in the hospital
or down the hill at a fast food place.
I think she snuck a small heater for tea water up to her room.

(Remember how the temple there wanted to charge
us to go to High Holiday Services with dad in the hospital?)
I believe that dad’s realization
concerning the lack of money for dad & mom
stems from here.
It was after this that dad started putting cash
in number ‘10’ envelopes
into a safe deposit box
for mom in an emergency.
Mom only found out about this after dad died. Mom arranged for time away from the store and the house.
She and dad went on many cruses and other trips.
Not having the money at the beginning of their years of travel
was less important than a long periods of a lack of stress for dad.
They both looked forward to these trips
and dad loved to film them with his 8MM Bell and Howell.

Mom had arranged for another trip with dad to Israel
just before he died.
(That was heart attack number 12.)
One extra ticket now.
David & Ellie were occupied in complete family lives with children.
So mom asked me to go with her.
I paid for a good portion of the trip, but not all.
We were able to easily move the trip earlier
when the season was cheaper,
so we added Egypt & Greece for the same money
since she could not get any refund.
We were also able to be in Jerusalem for dad’s first yerseit.

For the first two days after we landed in Israel
we fought-
so bad, in fact that we could not leave the room.
I was her child and should act like one,
following her every order.
She was this person making relentless demands of me.
Neither of our reactions were pretty.
We learned to take the crumbled boulders
from the parent/child edifice
and used them as the foundation for a new structure-
with equal... mature... supports.
I could tell her off if I felt I needed to,
and let me tell you,
she certainly did the same with me.
As Kerri, Jodi, and Adam can testify
she was still doing that last week.

She was a new person in my life
who only looked like someone I had known for years.
We never changed who we were individually,
we only changed how we related to each other.
There was a line she did not cross and
I had dared not cross either.
-------

OK where am I going with this?
The heart operation, the rehabilitation,
the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer,
the first stent, and the following two permanent stents,
with the last one having a major complication.
This was hard on everyone,
most especially mom and Eli who was slowly clouding in a fog.
Still through all this
mom attended some family functions
though she was not able to go to all
She lost the ability to take care of herself-
totally. The last time Mom left New York,
after her seven week stay in the hospital
and my 72nd Street apartment,
she called me up the following day.
Yes, she called me.
"You know", she said,
"you have always been far more tolerant of me
than I have ever been with you."

I think about that quite often.
Mom and I never changed.
We rarely indulged each other with the other’s wants.
We were there,
quite strongly for each other’s needs.
Perhaps we had grown up a bit together.

A quote from Uncle How’s book of far too complacent phrases:
“Life is painted on a canvas of expectations where the artist is never totally satisfied with the outcome.“

And... Now mom is gone.
In the Kaddish we pray for peace.
These are not meant to be mumbled words in a chant.
They are true... honest... ‘pleas for peace.‘
I hope mom has found peace.
I hope we ‘all‘ can find peace.
I am going to miss mom greatly.
and I can honestly & in good conscience say,
I am glad she was my mother.