I’ll Be There

My heart sinks as I see that the dates of our vacation and the performance coincide

We loved our Zeidy and Bubbe. So much of our childhood was spent in London, it was like a second home to us. We traveled there at least three times a year, often staying for weeks at a time. We also traveled to other locations, such as Miami, to be together with our beloved grandparents.

My Zeidy lost almost his entire family in the war (only one cousin survived). He went into adolescence with a close, caring extended family and left it as a starved, beaten teenager incarcerated in Auschwitz. He was haunted by his memories, but he never let them affect him. He overcame his trauma with love.

He loved his children and grandchildren so strongly, it radiated from him. One of my fondest childhood memories was arriving in his house on Danescroft Avenue in Hendon straight from Heathrow Airport, where he promptly threw me in the air and hugged me. Combined with jet lag and motion sickness, it didn’t end well. But I’d take that feeling of nausea any time, as it was infused with love.

Toward the very end, the doctors made it clear that Zeidy’s cancer had spread and there were no treatment options. At that point, my mother was traveling to London every other week. We all knew time was short.