Genia's memories

(written for Joan's first yahrzeit)
When I met Jay, he was all alone, and only talked about a very abstract (to me) family. Coming, as I am, from a family of holocaust survivors, I was not used to too much family. I had decided to spend the year before our marriage in the US, which meant having to ask for letters of support for the consulate (showing that I would have a place to stay and someone to feed me). Requesting these letters was my first direct contact with the family. Most of what I heard from Jay about Mom was how much he’d fight with her as a teenager. Mom, on the other hand, had the feeling (she’d told me years later) that I was a gold digger maneuvering her innocent child. She just couldn’t figure out where was this gold to come from. I arrived in the US a few weeks after Jay, and from the first second we just warmed up to each other. She and Dad (and Nan and Poppop, and all the other members of the family), just took me in, and made me feel that I have a family. It got to the point that when our wedding was getting put together, I’d asked her how did it feel to be the mother of the bride and groom simultaneously. That’s just how it felt to both of us. When we moved to Israel Jay kept complaining that the letters and presents were coming to Genia and ahhh, right, to Jay too (sometimes). Their first visit to Israel (my G-d, she was only half a year older than I am now!) was marked by the fact that I was very pregnant (with Rahel), and every hill that she had hard time coping with she kept saying: “if a pregnant woman can do it, so can I…” After that there was a visit a year, either Mom and Dad here, or us there. I especially remember walking into the house on a surprise visit in 1982, and seeing her perform a little dance with a dishtowel in her hand, and then crying for joy. I remember how happy she was with every new grandchild, even though she had thought it was enough for us (as parents).
We live here in a midst of many people who had made Aliya, and thus were physically separated from their families. But of all the distant grandparents we know, Mom and Dad were the only ones who regularly took a hotel room for three in order to have a different grandchild stay with them overnight and for breakfast (Dad would do that part). They were the only ones who made sure to spend time with each and every grandchild. They came to kindergarten parties and choir rehearsals. They came to all the Bat Mitzvahs, and helped us look for a new apartment. Just as Mom made sure that I had felt part of the family from day one, she also made sure we were not disconnected once we were far away, even though it was our choice to move. Mom also told us repeatedly that she thought we were doing a great job raising the kids because we lived in Israel. In other words she made us feel she approved of our choice, and while she would always have difficulty with our living so far away, she understood.

And for both of us, knowing that she understood was very important.