I’ll never forget the first time I met him. He stood in the kitchen doorway of my grandfather’s house, slightly inhibited by the insecurity of youth. His tall lanky body leaned cockeyed on the door-frame. Though his golden brown hair was cut short, countless strays stuck out bursting for life.
His long black coat draped unevenly over his thin frame, his white shirt, grayed from overuse, laid limply and haphazardly on his chest. His wire-framed glassed fought hard to remain atop his nose, his skin a little slick with grease. He had the kind of unkemptness that befalls a teenager right before he becomes a man.
And he just stood there, quiet, grinning. Just grinning. His eyes lifting in sleeping half moons. His mottled pink cheeks protruding prominently in their attempt to keep up with this boundless display of happiness, emanating with the fire burning inside him. And I remember thinking, one day we’re going to be friends.
Six years later, on October 2, 2018, I sat at his funeral. On the first day of the Jewish New Year, a day of repentance, hope, family and rebirth, the day Jews beg to be sealed in the book of life, he succumbed to his battle with cancer.
He left behind a wife and two babies. We never had the chance to become friends. But his daughter recently came to my house. She sat on my lap babbling in the language of toddlers and I listened. And as I sat there, I stroked her round inflated cheeks and noticed a hint of pink.
