Five Generations

Fifty-five years ago Easter Sunday fell out during Pesach. All the neighbor kids were celebrating their holiday. I was bored and my mother gave me a startling suggestion.

“Why don’t you call Dana to come over to play? You’re always talking about what a good time you two have together in religious school.”

It was a scary thought. What if Dana said no? Ennui overcame my insecurities and I made the phone call. To my relief Dana said yes. She was probably just as bored as I was. Florence, her mother, drove Dana over and stopped in to visit with my parents for a while. It was a scenario that repeated itself over and over as Dana’s and my friendship strengthened.

Our families were happy with our relationship for it wasn’t just our parents who were friends. Also our grandparents had been close. Exactly when and how their connection began isn’t clear to me. My grandfather, Leon, had made his way to New York via several countries sometime after the turn of the twentieth century. That’s where Dana’s grandfather, Philip, lived. Had they known each other there or only in Wichita, Kansas where Philip eventually settled? It was in Wichita that my grandparents lived for about ten years before moving to Leavenworth. I have no answers to my questions.

I do know, however, that they stayed close for nearly two decades in different towns at a time when communication was limited to letters, occasional phone calls, or telegrams. It was one of those devises that conveyed the bitter news to Philip that Leon had died suddenly following a heart attack. His reaction to the news became a family legend.

The stormy weather on that miserable day in the winter of 1942 didn’t stop him from getting in his car to travel over two hundred miles on old country roads. Putting his own grief on the side Philip focused on Leon’s three youngest children, aged eleven, fourteen, and sixteen, whose mother had died nine years earlier.  He would look out for the orphans until after the funeral and permanent arrangements could be made. The terrible weather didn’t deter him from his mission.

Dana’s mother, Florence, was Philip’s only daughter. She was best friends with one of my older aunts. My uncle was Dana’s family doctor in the old sense of the word. Her father and another one of my uncles owned a business together. Our two families weren’t quite relatives but we were close and there was a certain security for Dana and me knowing that ours was a three-generation friendship.

Our connection, of course, had its ups and downs through the years. For over thirty of them we’ve lived on opposite sides of the ocean. Dana was usually able to manage a visit to her parents when I visited mine. That along with occasional letters and phone calls kept our bond strong. Now, unlike our grandfathers, we are able to stay in touch with Skype and WhatsApp.

Several of Philip and Leon’s great-grandchildren have been friends. When Dana’s two sons came for their year of yeshiva in Israel my youngest son enjoyed showing them the country through his eyes. It was when her oldest son was learning here that my father was hospitalized in Wichita for a couple of weeks. Dana’s father came to visit him every day.

The lines became fuzzy. Were we family or friends? My mother used to say one could pick one’s friends but not one’s family. Dana and I picked each other, and we all became family friends.

Recently my youngest daughter and her family made a trip to America and decided to spend Shabbat with Dana and her family. They are very talented at the mitzvah of making guests feel welcome in their home. An added benefit was their granddaughter who lives in their basement apartment with her parents. She’s two months older than my granddaughter and in the weeks leading up to the visit Dana and I primed the girls to be friends.

All our messages and pictures worked. Even though the girls don’t speak the same language they bonded. Friday morning my granddaughter happily went to nursery school with Dana’s. We have half a dozen pictures of the two girls hand-in-hand.

Will their friendship grow into something similar to what their grandmothers have? We never know what the future will bring. Right now, though, I am certain that from the next world Philip and Leon are enjoying the sight of their two great-great-granddaughters hugging each other. If only all of us could put aside our differences and get along as well as these two little girls did.