Bubbe and the iPhone

Dina handed Bubbe the iPhone.  It  would not improve her hearing, thicken her hair or mend her twice-broken hip, yet Dina decided her grandmother should have one for her ninety-first birthday.  Balloons popped and flowers wilted.  Mr. Marmelstein down the hall had helped himself to so much of the Harry and David Tower of Treats she sent for Hanukkah he needed “a Bromo seltzer,” so food gifts were out.

“It’s a what?” Bubbe said.

“It’s an iPhone,” Dina said.

“I thought you said it was for me.”

“It’s your iPhone, Bubb, that’s what it’s called.”  Bubbe held the iPhone toward the fringed lampshade, tipped her head back, glanced out under her glasses and turned the phone around.  “I know,” she said, straightening her neck.  She laughed and coughed a smoker’s hack even though she gave up Pall Malls in 1972. “I watch TV.  I know about all the dot coms.  I have cable here, you know.”

Watertown Commons Assisted Living (with a special floors for the memory impaired) had everything.  That’s why Dina’s mother chose it as the place Bubbe would live after Uncle Ethan died on 9-11.  Her mother had said it would be better for her to be with people her age, who understood loss, than alone in her apartment on East 85th.  And it didn’t hurt that Watertown was on the Upper West Side near Dina, not the Upper East Side near her mother.  It had everything, but Dina knew it didn’t have Zayde and would never have visits from Ethan. Her mother escaped memories through Zanax.  Bubbe was just sent across town in a cab.

“It’s a phone, Bubbe, really” Dina said.  “I’ll call you on it and you can talk to me – or anyone –  no matter where you are.”

“Where ever I am?  Where do I go?  And what’s the matter with the phone here?”  Bubbe pointed to her tan push-button desk phone with the extra long cord that reached to the every corner of the dorm-sized apartment, including the bathroom, as flush-infused phone calls revealed.

“Nothing’s the matter with it,” Dina said.  “I just thought you’d like this for something to do.  I can send you pictures on it – and you can take pictures.”

Bubbe glanced at the stack of photo albums on her bookshelves.  Organized by family memory and year, they held her fading memories.  Dina knew Bubbe looked at those old photos over and over again.  When was the last time she took a photo with Bubbe?  At her ninetieth birthday party?  With the iPhone Bubbe could always have new photos.

“I like to look at my real pictures.  Do you want to look at an album, Deeny? From when you and Bobby were little?  Get the blue one.”

Dina knew the one. She stood from the sofa and took it from the shelf and handed it to Bubbe.  She snuggled up close to her grandmother. Bubbe smiled and ran her hand over the vinyl cover, wiping dust with her gentle caress and opened the book to the first page.  Dina tilted her head and saw a picture of Bubbe, herself and her brother Robert, as he now liked to be called, on the Central Park Carousel. Bubbe was glamorous then, even in black and white, with her straw hat, jewelry, sunglasses and cigarette.  She squinted and read Bubbe’s handwriting underneath: Dina and Bobby, Summer 1970. Dina put her hand on top of the picture, to stop time – and to get Bubbe’s attention.

“I can send you notes too, Bubb, not just pictures.”

“You haven’t written me a letter since you were in college,” Bubbe said. “And even then, not so much.”  Bubbe lifted the page and Dina moved her hand.  She turned it and traced Dina’s face in a grade school portrait.

“I’m Jake’s age in that picture,” Dina said.

“I saw you a lot when you were little.”

“Yes you did.  And now I can call you and you can answer no matter where you are, tell you about the kids’ soccer games or their test scores or just what we’re doing,”

“You could call me on that phone and do the same thing,” Bubbe said.  “That would be so hard?”

“No, but this is more fun – it’s interactive.”

“So is this,” Bubbe said.  She motioned between them and patted Dina’s leg.

“Wait, Bubb,” Dina said, “I’ll send you a picture, you’ll see.”

She took out her iPhone and found a photo of Jake and Rachel on their last day of fifth grade, just a week before.  She hadn’t yet printed it out – which is what she always planned to do so that Bubbe had brand new photos of her great grandchildren to show to her friends and prop up on her dresser.  She showed her the picture on the screen.

“Very nice, bubeleh,” she said. “Jake’s a looker, that kid.”

“Now wait, here it comes.”

Dina leaned into Bubbe’s touched the iPhone’s screen. Tap, tap, tap.

“Oy! It’s the picture. Like magic, this iPhone is. Very nice, dear.”

Dina smiled.  It was the right gift after all.  At first she was going to get a digital frame with one gig of memory, but this was better.  Instant access.  She could be anywhere and send pictures to Bubbe at Watertown.

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