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Yenta Gammy

From earliest childhood, one of my closest relationships was with “Gammy,” my maternal grandmother, Edith, a traditional Russian bubbe.“ Gammy” was my closest approximation to “Grandma”.
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July 21, 2015

From earliest childhood, one of my closest relationships was with “Gammy,” my maternal grandmother, Edith, a traditional Russian bubbe.“ Gammy” was my closest approximation to “Grandma”. 

According to Jewish tradition, a baby is named with the first letter of a loved deceased relative’s name.  The E in Emily is for Edith and her Hebrew name is Edya. 

Gammy always told me how much she loved the sparkle in my eyes. She liked it best when my hair was in a ponytail because she said it set off my eyes, green like her own.   When the elevator opened on the third floor of her building at Bundy and Montana, across from the elementary school and around the corner from the farmers market on Sundays, my sister and I would race to the sterling silver bowl of Andes Mints and voraciously unwrap them as if we were denied the pleasure at home. Since my mom was an overweight child, Gammy steered us in the opposite direction, limiting the Andes to one each.  I wondered why she had the bowl out in the first place.  I understood after her death that to her and her culture, appearances are everything, that she needed to present a certain façade to the world, that as long as there were mints in the bowl, everything was alright. 

She was a complainer.  She would call my mom and report that she was feeling “lousy” – a word Emily has adopted – she would moan and groan in a voice that suggested someone had died.  We called it a “Gam Slam” for the recipient on the other end.   Once again, part of the Russian culture to brood. 

When she didn’t want me or my sister to know what she was saying, she talked to my mom across the room in Russian, even cursing in Russian from the tone, literally right over my head. My mom grew up speaking Russian and English at home.  She can speak and understand but not read or write, maybe a reluctance to learn the secrets of the culture. 

When she was on her death bed, she would not allow my mom to contact her old friends. 

Gammy said:  I can’t have them see me like this. 

She had the hospice hair dresser style her once a week bedside. 

One octogenarian came anyway with flowers from the Cedars gift shop and sat next to me on the hospital bed.  My grandmother was so short and slumped over with a hump on her back that she didn’t even take up half the bed. 

Her friend said to me: Why didn’t Edith call me?

Again, the candy bowl. 

Gammy also had several important pieces of ivory and jade – an elephant made of individual parts and an old fisherman with a caught fish on a delicate string.  Her only other valuables were a portrait, photographed and painted over of me and my sister over her fake fireplace and a snapshot of her late canine companion Lucky, a miniature poodle who left her many years before.

Gammy was widowed when my mom was 18.  She became a “Yenta”, a matchmaker,  though never for herself. She began to fail rapidly during my last year of graduate school but still kept her hand in on finding a Jewish doctor for me. 

When it involved her beloved Robyn, she was as determined as a Russian pulling a horse cart.   She had no idea about the challenges I faced – despite her own bouts with emotional darkness, since my bipolar predisposition came from the other side of my family, my parents and I kept it a secret from her. Too much worry for her to contain.  I always thought she could see it in my eyes. 

One morning, as she pondered her weekly Jewish Journal over lox and eggs, she read about an Internet dating service for Jewish young professionals and among her last requests to me was that I subscribe to JDate.com.

Though we were still in the beginning stages of our relationship, I could see that Gammy was near the end of her life and so, when I introduced her to Josh, I lied and said we were engaged so she could go quietly, secure in the knowledge that her darling Robyn was going to marry a Jewish doctor.

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