Old Age Had Spun at Night

I never met my paternal grandfather. He died of tuberculosis in 1930, twenty years before I was born. He was only thirty-five at the time of his death; my dad was just twelve. However, I did know my maternal grandfather and have many fond memories of him. 

He taught me how to play chess, which I still love, although I’ve never become very good at playing it. When my wife and I were looking at places to live in Israel, I suggested Beersheba. One of my reasons was that Beersheba is Israel’s chess center. It has more chess masters per capita than any other city in the world! Reread that last sentence.

My grandfather always treated me like a grownup. When we played chess, for example, he never played down to me or let me win just because I was a kid. Sometimes, he would explain his moves to me or why the one I did could have been better. I remember one particularly frustrating game where I had gotten off on the wrong foot and lost a major piece early on. I was way behind on points. Frustrated, I decided to give away all my pieces. I repeatedly moved them into vulnerable positions. My grandfather dutifully captured them. He knew what I was doing but continued to play me anyway. At one point in the game, he stated, “All gifts are gratefully accepted.” Note that he did not stop our game nor criticize me.

For some reason, I became overly interested in money and material things in my middle teen years. I was reading Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich. One day, I was waxing eloquently to my grandfather about the benefits of wealth and sharing some of the ideas I was learning from Hill. He was not impressed. What he valued was elsewhere. Not even looking up from the book he was reading, he said, “A rich man puts on his pants the same way I do.” I often think of this while I am getting dressed in the morning.

Our families lived in the same city, Mobile, Alabama, for two years. We left and moved to Jackson, Mississippi, but many of my family still live in Mobile; many have been buried there. In the third grade, one morning in Mobile, I heard my father’s half of a conversation with my grandfather, who had called him to discuss a decision my mother had made with which my grandfather strongly disagreed. Dad said, “I didn’t tell her yea, and I didn’t tell her nay. I told her to do what she thought best.” To his credit, my grandfather never said a word to me or, to my knowledge, my sister.

The funeral of my grandfather’s mother was the first funeral I ever attended. It took place in the mountains of Kentucky. I was very young, but I still remember parts of it. Once, I was talking to my grandfather about living and dying; the latter has proven to be a topic of life-long interest to me. I no longer remember the context of our discussion, but it ended with his saying, “We begin dying the moment we’re born.” Depressing? Well, maybe. But true? Undoubtedly. I think of him as a philosopher, not an academic one, but one whose philosophy was the product of experience—a philosopher in the mold of the American moral and social philosopher Eric Hoffer.

My grandfather’s influence on me and how I think about life is out of proportion to the time I spent with him. After his death, however, he continued to influence me through his daughter, my mother of blessed memory. 

One of the key lessons I learned from my mother was to see people, to really see them, and who they are and how they feel. Let me give you an example. Once, in Philadelphia in the 1980s, I was speaking to an older woman when I got the strangest feeling. As I was talking with her, I looked directly into her eyes. Her skin was wrinkled, but her eyes were young. It was as if I could see the young girl in the older woman, her soul peering out at me through the eyes of her body.

Joseph Roth has a wonderful description of something similar in his book, The Radetzsky March. He writes of Frau von Taussig: 

But old age was approaching with cruel, hushed steps and sometimes in crafty disguises. She counted the days slipping past her and, every morning, the fine wrinkles, delicate webs that old age had spun at night around her innocently sleeping eyes. Yet her heart was that of a sixteen-year-old girl. Blessed with constant youth, it dwelled in the middle of the aging body, a lovely secret in a ruinous castle.

Roth, Joseph. The Radetzky March (Penguin Modern Classics) (p. 199). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition. 

I owe my love of reading to my mother as she owed hers to her father. I am grateful to both of them.

All the best,
Gershon