Lena Goldfarb was proudly and determinedly, a modern Jewish mother. On no account would she allow herself to become the nagging, critical, second-guessing, guilt factory of a hundred thousand Borscht Belt jokes. Her own mother-in-law’s widely-bestowed catchphrase, ‘oy, you’re so stupid!’ still popped up in her head from time to time and was frequently revived at parties even by family members who had been born long after Bubbe herself had moved on to berate poor souls in another place. Was this a good way to be remembered? Absolutely not, thought Lena, now at 88 more than a little preoccupied with her legacy on earth. Bubbe’s example had been highly influential. She herself would be a different kind of Jewish mother, a model of tolerance, forbearance and restraint.
Lena had enjoyed a long and happy marriage to Leo Goldfarb. Her husband of fifty years had been a superb man and provider until felled by a heart attack while dancing the horah at his nephew Barry’s wedding. Losing Leo had been devastating, of course, but even his death had been exceptional – swift and dramatic, sparing Lena the dreadful, inevitable slow dance of cancer or Alzheimer’s.
“My Leo died full of life,” Lena liked to say bravely. She even felt a little sorry for Barry, a rather overweight vertigo-sufferer, whose violent struggle to get down from the ballroom chair he was being carried on, had precipitated his uncle’s demise.
Family was such a comfort, of course, and in that Lena had also been blessed. Two wonderful , successful children, two beautiful grandchildren. Her darling Deborah a dynamic realtor and, at long last, mother to Daphna and Leo Junior. Israel? Well, why not. Deborah assured her mother that life in Tel Aviv was perfectly safe and that she feared more being gunned down by some deranged teenager outside Target in Del Ray. Anyway, Israel was no distance these days and an onslaught of photos kept on coming through the email, testament to the kids’ pleasure and achievement; school reports, swimming, chess, music, karate, you name it, not a day passed when these children didn’t do something extraordinary. Lena’s piano groaned under the weight of the photo frames, her girlfriends at the Club would sigh inwardly and exchange glances as she extracted her bulging, recently-updated Bragging Book from her purse.
There was her firstborn Sammy, an oncologist, so successful he was already semi-retired and only 55! An entire wall of Lena’s living room was devoted, shrine-like to the commemoration of Sammy’s many achievements. His numerous medical degrees had pride of place, for they had made possible the rest.
“Cancer will never go out of business, Mom,” he’d said to her on choosing his medical specialism. Sammy owned a private jet, a condo in Aspen, another in West Palm and a large number of motorized vehicles, referred to as his ‘toys’. Quite exceptional, even the ladies at the Club had to acknowledge this.
And then, finally, profoundly, was the fact of Lena’s Holocaust survival. Lena never spoke of that time in her life. This modern desire to discuss feelings, emotions, death and horror, might be alright for Oprah, not for Lena Goldfarb. Enough to say that her journey from young Czech girl to American matriarch, the horrors and sadness she had experienced, the others she had been spared, and finally her very presence on this Earth; this was a matter of exceptional luck. And no, she didn’t speak Czech, had probably forgotten every word she ever knew. That was history.
It was after Leo’s death that Lena started to rethink her commitment to being a low-maintenance mother. Perhaps she had been too easy, too relaxed.
“Everything is fine, don’t get me wrong,” she confided in her group of girlfriends, thereby ensuring that everyone understood perfectly that Lena was bringing a problem to the table. The problem was Sammy, not yet married. Lena did not like to say ‘never married’, thereby admitting the possibility that he might remain a bachelor forever. She preferred the upbeat tone of ‘not yet’ even if her optimism rang a bit hollow these days. But there was still time, just look at the man. Such a career, helping so many sick people, this had been Sammy’s mission, his calling in life.
It is important to say that Lena was mostly confident that no aspersions could be cast upon her son’s masculinity, not that this restrained her girlfriends at the Club who speculated upon this subject luridly and often. Certainly there were photographs evidencing Sammy’s apparently endless manly achievements, the skiing, the biking, the marathons, the Iron Man challenges, the collection of toys. Sammy was extremely competitive and entered every athletic event he ever heard of. If medals had ever been awarded for crocodile wrestling, Sammy Goldfarb would certainly made sure that he was photographed brandishing one. He was, according to Lena, just too busy saving lives and having a good one of his own, to settle down. On the other hand, she worried privately, was he maybe trying a little too hard? The ladies at the Club, and Lena herself knew that homosexuals came in all shapes and sizes these days. Not that Sammy had ever seemed like ‘that’. And he did bring lady friends home, didn’t he?
The ones he’d brought home? Ah, thought Lena. The other problem was (and she would never have admitted this to a soul,) they were always disasters. She had come to dread the calls from Sammy to say he’d be dropping in with his latest. Sammy could be confident that Lena would not interrogate the lady about their relationship, it just wasn’t her style. Always Jewish, no problem there, but there was always some issue. This one too desperate and needy with a migraine. This one fat and slovenly. The kleptomaniac who walked off with Lena’s bone-handled cake slice. The divorcee who appeared to be drunk. And then there were the lunatics. Frankly, it was a relief to know she didn’t need to remember their names, since she would never see them again. She never said anything to Sammy; poor Sammy, such a good, good man, but was it too much to ask that he have better judgment in women? All the same, for years Lena had chosen not to interfere. It was Sammy’s business and Sammy’s alone.
