Zeda, I never knew you

In Memoriam Benjamin Amsel, April 16, 1904

This poem was written in tribute to my paternal grandfather, my Zeda. In my family my mom’s parents were “grandma” and “grandpa” and my dad’s mom was “bubby”, which was the Yiddish or Ukrainian word. There was no “zeda” – he had died in 1966, two years before my birth. Today would have been Zeda’s 103^rd birthday, had he survived the sweatshop conditions that destroyed his lungs, leading to his early death. My father, DesertPeace, posted a beautiful remembrance of his father, which is well worth reading, here. Below is a poem that I wrote, in memory of the zeda that I never had the honour of knowing.

Zeda, I never knew you

growing up with three grandparents
a child should feel lucky:
the opportunity to connect with the past through
those who were there,
to connect with those who understood the truths
that one couldn’t learn in school

to be loved by more than your parents,
to know the greatness of character that went in to
making up mom and dad …
making it easier to
respect, to honour what they say,
knowing the wisdom that gave it life

even so, now that the three have passed from this temporal world
one regret remains: only three were known to me

everything ever said about my Zeda – my “other” grandfather
is a memory … from someone else
having died before my birth
there is nothing that is known in my heart
save that there is an empty place
for where he would have been

there is no way that we cannot live in the past
though it may be tried … with varying degrees of success,
nor can we mourn the loss of that which we never knew
yet, had it been possible … to know the man
(still proudly called Zeda;)
is it possible to know how different my life could be?

by all accounts he was a man whose stature
far exceeded his height … one cannot appreciate the full
measure of a man by their mere appearance:
a simple man living to help his fellow man – regardless of their colour or creed,
losing his family in Medzilaborce was not an end to him,
it hardened his resolve – to live for the future and fight for change

he was a simple man who wanted simple things;
peace, justice and the fair treatment of workers …
a desire was to make the words “never again” resound throughout the world
with a meaning that was more than merely symbolic
a desire to see an end to the class distinctions
that strangled the poor

a man who had the courage to turn his back on religion,
but not, perhaps, his faith …
“I’ll never set foot inside a synagogue again as long as I live!”
after seeing the hypocrisy of the rich man’s son
jumping in front of him, buying his place
at the front of the congregation

he was a man with vision, who saw that the rich were trampling the poor
climbing the ladders of “success” on the backs of the weak
paving the streets of America with the gold mined from the sweatshops
tainted with the blood of their workers
unrelenting in their drive for more profits
not caring what happened to those who worked in the factories

he breathed in their poisoned air,
filled with the fibres from the garments he made,
filling his lungs for years on end until,
in the end,
he wasn’t able to breath at all and lost his final battle,
defeated by those whose profits come from the suffering of others

in the end, dear Zeda, it is true:
I may never have known you,
but in many ways, perhaps I did:
through all the stories, from Bubby and aunt Ruthie
from uncle Phil … and from your son …
the memories are there, as alive as any can be

there is a picture of a fisherman with a warm woollen hat
a picture that was seen often while growing up,
but it is not merely a memory of a man long dead:
it belongs to a man with a story, a history: a man who said,
“Do all the good you can, to all the people you can,
in every way you can, for as long as you can”

In Memoriam Benjamin Amsel, April 16, 1904

© 2007 by Peter Amsel, aka aCrazyComposer