A week ago Sunday I was deeply moved, along with many of you I’m sure, by the New York Times front page. One thousand American names—1% of the COVID death toll to date—each followed by one short phrase extracted from their obituary. One short note to stand in for the fullness of a life: “Moved antiques for more than 25 years.” “Family jokester.” “Mentored by the computer science pioneer Grace Hopper.” “Always busy looking out for others.” “Member of the Literacy Volunteers of America.” “Her favorite thing was to meet new people.”
I’ve been missing my Dad more than usual as I sit in place, waiting and wondering. He died years ago, of cancer, but if he had just now died of COVID, and was on that front page, I wonder what would be his one-line obituary? He was a medical doctor and a man of science. He had a hot temper and he hated crooks, incompetents, and con men. He raised my brother and I, when our mother fell ill with a lifelong affliction, from the time we entered grade school. He told stories about people and history (which to him was just more people), not once ever talking about how much money somebody had, what college they went to, how big their house was, or any other marker of status apart from the talents they demonstrated. Tales of guys that did the right thing, people that practised kindness when it gained them nothing, and, conversely, of people that were jerks or fools, were common in his repertoire. He loved to tell of ridiculous turns of fortune ending in the moral shrug of “Life ain’t fair” or, more cheerfully, “Ya see, G-d got ‘em.”
He died a year before we opened the first Jenette Bras store, which would have bemused and impressed him. He had 16 short years in the company of his five grandchildren. Nothing was more important to him than them. I produced the first one unexpectedly, and they came thick and fast after that. I was a single mother for most of that time, so, needless to say, Grampa’s presence in our lives was monumental. During his last weeks, I found he had written a letter about the kids to a cousin.
Only good things, but it struck me that he was most effusive in his praise of the kindness and affability of the one grandchild who wasn’t a reader, struggled in school, tended to wander off task, and didn’t seem at all bothered about it. In a turn of fortune which would delight my father to no end, this young man is now, in the wake of COVID, the only grandchild who still has a job. He works at Trader Joes and it is thanks to the everyday heroism of him and all the grocery clerks, cleaners, nurses and others like them that we can all get through this trial in relative comfort and safety. They work all day under hot masks to protect us, when the greater danger is from us to them. They wash their hands so often the skin chaps and peels no matter how much moisturizer they use. Their value to society has come into focus. As a nation, do we treat them as they deserve?
Life ain’t fair but we ought to be. Of my Dad, I might say in obituary “He measured by character, not by rank.”
