Well, let’s not get carried away.
When I walked into the main area of the apartment, I could see it was spotless. Of course. She was meticulous about ensuring there was nothing out of place. That drove me batshit crazy when I was a teenager. Now it’s amazing.
In the small kitchen, there wasn’t so much as a single unwashed coffee cup.
The apartment was tiny, only about 900 square feet. I could see everything easily—the kitchen, a small living room, and a nook over on the left that had a long oak table. Grandma used that for fancy dining, which happened just about never-time. The bedrooms were at the far end, beyond a small bathroom.
I looked back at the dining room table, which had several items sitting on it. I hesitated, but then I walked over and pulled out a chair.
The envelope on my left had two words hand-written, clear, no nonsense.
Welcome, David.
In my mind’s eye, I watched her write that, but I was also quite confused. You see, Grandma was in the hospital for eight days. Had she set the table like this before she left? I remember she’d fallen and pressed the emergency call button she wore around her neck.
The ambulance took her to the hospital, and the attendant told me they found her on the floor, exactly where she’d fallen.
So, when did she write the note to me?
“I miss you,” I whispered.
I wished she was sitting across from me at the table, her bright eyes laughing at me, her gray hair pulled back into a shoulder-length ponytail.
She’d say, “Don’t be silly. I’ll always be right with you.”
I glanced up, convinced she was sitting there with me. I nodded, pretending to see her, and then I looked at the other items on the table.
Beside the envelope welcoming me was a file folder that had about a half inch of paper inside. Then there was a hardcover book with odd writing on it.
The next item that caught my attention surprised me. It looked like a hand-drawn family tree.
And finally, the document I had expected to find: her last will and testament. It looked short, only two or three pages.
“You were very prepared,” I said.
“Of course.”
I smiled. “Not that I’d expect anything less of you.”
I thought I heard her chuckle, and that made me smile again. It was the first time I’d smiled since reading her text earlier in the day.
Man, that seems like a million years ago.
Because it was the most visual item on the table, I reached for the family tree.
At the bottom in a small rectangle all by myself: David Colby Abelman. It listed my birthdate.
Above that was a box holding my mother’s name: Molly Ann Abelman with her date of birth and death.
Remember when I said about somebody being truly dead when nobody thinks about them anymore? I felt tears come to my eyes when I realized I hadn’t thought about my own mother in many, many years.
That wasn’t right. But, it was true.
I shook my head to clear my thoughts and looked at the rectangle above my mom’s. Grandma. Ariela Holdman Abelman.
The date of her death was accurately filled in.
“Who added that?”
I glanced over to the invisible ghost across from me. She was silent.
Then it hit me. Grandma must have given all this stuff to somebody to put on the table whenever she died. Whoever that mysterious stranger was would have been directed to fill in the date of her death.
My theory collapsed as soon as I thought of it. I knew with certainty that there was nobody she would have trusted with this. Nobody except me.
In the family tree, it showed Ariela had six brothers and sisters. One sister, Julie, died the same day she was born. I wondered if she was stillborn or if my great grandparents had held her and heard her cry at least once before losing her.
Grandma’s other five siblings all listed 1944 as the year of death, with no specific date. Underneath each was a caption in tiny letters: Murdered at Auschwitz.
Ariela’s parents were both listed in the chart, also with the same note: Murdered at Auschwitz, also sometime in 1944.
Eight of my grandmother’s aunts and uncles were listed on the chart, and they all had the same sad commentary.
This was a tiny slice of my history. On this one sheet, I had thirteen ancestors who had been killed in the Holocaust. I’d never known how the genocide had swept through my own flesh and blood.
The chart fell through my fingers.
They’d all be dead by now, anyhow. Does it matter that they died in the war? That’s the idiotic thought that went through my mind. Of course it mattered. Some of them died when they were little kids.
Of course it mattered.
I grabbed a tissue and blew my nose, then rubbed tears from my eyes.
“This day has been awful.”
“Worse for me than you,” I imagined her saying.
Hard to argue with that.
“You needed to see our family tree. That’s your heritage.”
I nodded but decided not to look any more at the family tree. There was another generation listed above, but I decided I’d look at it later, when I could manage it better. At a glance, at least I could see there were no other deaths at the concentration camp.
“Why don’t you get a drink, David?”
I nodded and went to the refrigerator. There was no milk or anything else that could go bad. The fridge had been totally scrubbed neat.
There were a half dozen Coors Light.
“My beer, Grandma. You really prepared for tonight.”
“Sure did.”
I smiled, thinking I was so close to actually hearing her say those words.
I didn’t want to sit again right away, so I walked around the apartment, almost pacing, wasting time rather than see what else Grandma had left me. Again, to no surprise, her bed was neatly made, and the toilet was clean and bright.
When I grabbed my second beer, I sat down again at the dining room table, and I ripped open the envelope that had my name on it.
Dear David,
It’s time for me to go. Everybody has their own time, and I’m just very grateful to have lasted this long, so don’t feel sorry for me. I certainly don’t.
Earlier today in the hospital I said good-bye to you and asked you to come here. You’re probably wondering how I could have prepared this letter for you after that. Have you thought yet that maybe I had some accomplice who watched everything and then snuck back here to place this letter here? Of course you have.
(And, yes, I did write this letter earlier today.)
The answer is complicated, as all the most interesting things in life are. It’s like your photos. I remember when you published some photos of Jupiter through some telescope or other. It showed the bands of color swirling around the planet, and every time you looked closely, more details arose. More complexity. A chaos of fractals.
Once again, I stared at the empty chair across the table from me. I could hear her voice reciting her letter.
“What the hell does that mean?”
I know you’re the science guy in this family. Everything run by logic and some exact clockwork thought up by Sir Isaac Newton and his cronies. But, David? Science isn’t everything.
There’s an ancient type of magic called Shelljah, which I’m sure you’ve never heard of. Not many people have. It’s Jewish magic, and it’s all but disappeared now, but it was a powerful tool for thousands of years.