THE HOLIDAY OF LIGHT

The Holiday of Light

By: Yitti Berkovic

When my grandfather was nifter, my grandmother began to dread Chanukah.

Yes. She began to dread one of the happiest times of the year.

It was heartbreakingly out of character for her, and it always completely gutted me.

Bobby Esther was a gracious party host, an enthusiastic gelt distributor, always young beyond her years.

Her latkes were legendary – grated by hand and perfectly lacy in the pan – and she knew no greater joy than feeding her grandchildren, who waited in lines with their eager eyes and empty plates, for a latke with a dollop of applesauce.

Until she started dreading Chanukah, and everything changed.

When I was a kid, having Bobby Esther made me a novelty: I was the only one of my friends who had an American grandmother, the only one who had a grandmother who swapped book recommendations and competed with me to see who could finish a crossword puzzle first.   

But when I got older, I realized it wasn’t just the fact that she was young and spoke in an unaccented English that made her a novelty.

It was how strong she was too. 

She wasn’t a survivor in the way my other grandparents were. She had never been to Europe and she had been so sheltered by her parents, she had known nothing about the atrocities of the Holocaust, even as they occurred as she grew up.

But living the American Dream didn’t protect her from hardship. Certainly not in her adulthood.

She was only in her fifties when my grandfather suffered his debilitating stroke – just at the age when she was dreaming of his retirement and taking vacations with him around the world.

Overnight, her husband went from being a jolly and easygoing breadwinner – to a painfully quiet man who could no longer earn a living and needed attentive medical care.

But Bobby Esther would not be pitied.

More importantly, she would not allow Zaidy to be pitied.

With the grace of a dancer, she covered for the gaps in his memory, the gaps in his speech, the gaps in his social awareness.

I remember, back when I was in second grade, I drew my grandfather a refuah shelaima card, and delivered it to his hospital room soon after his stroke. I was expecting my warm, affable Zaidy to beam and gush over my artwork.

Instead, when I asked him if he liked it, he shook his head and told me no, shattering my aspiring artist’s heart.

My grandmother was quick. She laughed loudly. “He is just teasing you!” she chuckled, wrapping my grandfather’s arms around me. “Of course he likes it! He loves it! Right, Zaidy?” 

I was too young to catch the sadness in her eyes. Or maybe – it just wasn’t there.

She stayed strong, somehow maintaining her humor, her joie de vivre, even as she became my grandfather’s nursemaid at far too young an age.  

But she wasn’t a complainer and she wasn’t someone to retreat from a challenge.

In those days, even as my grandfather deteriorated, she still loved Chanukah, throwing parties and attending parties, always sitting beside my grandfather and making sure he was okay.

But then my grandfather passed away, leaving my grandmother a widow when she was still in her sixties.

She was a young and energetic widow – and she fought her loneliness with the same grace she had showed after my grandfather’s stroke. 

But on Chanukah – on Chanukah she fell apart.

“I can’t be alone,” she would insist to us over the telephone, her voice painfully childlike. “I can’t light Zaidy’s menorah by myself – in an empty house. It is just hurts too much.”

And, of course, we wouldn’t let her be alone.

She didn’t drive, so every night, when the sky grew dark, one of us was immediately dispatched to go pick her up so she could join us for candle-lighting.

For eight straight nights, she would lean in close as her son, my father, lit the candles, soaking up the warmth in the room as if it would sustain her for the rest of the year.

She didn’t mind the bustle or the chaos, the kids running around or the fighting over who got the shiniest menorah. Not at all. In fact, she craved it.

She loved standing on her aging feet to fry latke after latke after latke; she loved refereeing game after game of dreidel or kvitlach.

Only when the last candle burned out and the youngest child nodded off did she agree to be taken home, buoyed by the knowledge she’d be back the next night.

It was funny.

She didn’t feel that way about Sukkos, even though she no longer had to put up a sukkah after Zaidy was gone.

She didn’t feel that way about Purim, even though she suddenly had to distribute her mishloach manos alone.

There was just something about Chanukah.

Her loneliness just echoed too loudly in the silence of the flickering candles.

Her heartache was just too stark against the passion of the dancing flames.

She remembered too clearly the memory of how Chanukah used to be – how it was supposed to be – and it burned too deeply to let it go. 

It’s been several years now since Bobby Esther passed away, but ever year when Chanukah nears, I think of the ache in her voice when she thought about lighting the menorah alone.

It makes me realize that for so many of us, this is the happiest time of the year, a whirlwind of parties, presents, and family togetherness.

But for others among us, the family togetherness is a reminder of what they are missing, or perhaps, a reminder of what they once had.

Yes, Chanukah is the holiday of light, but it can also feel heartrendingly dark.

That is why I couldn’t help but think that Bobby Esther would be proud of me last week, when I took my tenth-grade class to the local nursing home as part of a pre-Chanukah school chesed trip.

As my girls sang, danced, and distributed Chanukah presents to the nursing home residents, I could see the light returning to the elderly men and women’s eyes, reigniting memories of sweeter times, of brighter times.

And in that moment, I made a vow that this Chanukah, my family and I would try to include someone in our festivities who could use a little extra light. Maybe we could invite our elderly neighbor to join us for a spirited dreidel game, or maybe we could invite a friend, whose parents are caring for a sick child, to join us on a Chanukah outing.  

There is a well-known expression that a candle is not diminished by giving another candle light.

And that’s the miracle of Chanukah too.

Just as a small amount of oil can burn for far longer than we ever dreamed, the light we share with others can warm a heart and ensure that Chanukah is the holiday of light for everyone.Wishing a freilichen and lichtige Chanukah to all of klal Yisrael!