My grandmother's funeral was on Tuesday.

I went to work on Monday and by about lunchtime I was wiped out, just felt exhausted.

I went to work today. I felt totally out of sorts, and was very glad that all I had to do today was administer a test.

Both days I was also covering for a colleague who was out for various different reasons. Tomorrow I will be doing the same.

I really hope that tomorrow is better from the out of sorts front, I have too much work to do to be so totally unfocused.

We'll see how it goes.

At my grandmothers funeral, all of the grandkids were offered the opportunity to speak if we wished. I went back and forth a lot, as of Tuesday morning, I had only written down some ideas and nothing else. I sat down Tuesday morning and typed out the following, which I read at her funeral.

We spent many evenings at my grandmother’s apartment celebrating various Jewish Holidays. Passover seders, Yom Kippur break fasts, and others.

I would like to share with you, some of my memories of those times. They all jumble together so I mostly don’t remember which ones go with which holidays.

Whenever we visited, the TV was on. I suspect that she often times had it on for the company as she lived alone. My most specific TV memory was that if Wheel of Fortune was on, it was watched, plain and simple. As grandma got older, her hearing started to go and the TV’s volume got louder and louder and louder. I only hope that her neighbors liked Wheel too. I also think I learned how to read the TV guide at grandma’s house.

I HATE liver, absolutely hate it, I don’t care if it’s cooked in bacon grease with onions (how kosher is that?!?) or made into chopped liver, I just don’t like it. Chopped liver was one of my grandmother’s specialties; it was there as an appetizer with crackers for most meals. I was always forced to at least have a taste so that grandma would not be insulted that I didn’t have any. I’m pretty sure that I pushed the limit of how small a speck of chopped liver I could put onto a cracker.

Family traditions were big for Grandma too. There is one that I never paid that much attention to as a child, but as an adult I have no idea how she and my father managed to be functional at all after it. I will admit to never trying it, not even when I was in college. Before we began our break fast meal at the end of Yom Kippur, my grandmother and father toasted “L’chaim” and each had a shot of schnapps. I’m not much of a drinker, but I can only imagine how hard that hit their empty stomachs.

Grandma lived in a tiny apartment with an even tinier kitchen. She used every nook and cranny for storage. What I remember best about this is that she used to have tins of cookies that she stored in the oven.

There seem to be lots of food centered memories, ah well, we are a good Jewish family aren’t we?

Two of my favorites that she made were her barley soup, which Aunt Skippy made this year for Thanksgiving, and kasha with bow tie pasta. I can’t eat either of these without thinking fondly of my grandmother’s cooking.

Another traditional pastime besides watching TV at grandma’s was to play Rummikub. I don’t know when I learned to play it, but it seemed that whenever Grandma was there, Rummikub was played. This happed at her house, but also at my Aunt Skippy and Uncle Phil’s house. My strongest memories are not of actually playing the game, but of the ritual of putting everything away. The tiles had to go into the box (three to a stack with the two extra tiles tucked down the side) and then tile holders had to get stacked together just right and their supports put together perfectly, otherwise it all wouldn’t fit back in the box.

After dinner at Grandma’s apartment, my dad, Uncle Phil, and my cousin Aaron and any other men who wanted to join them would go for a walk. This usually happened when Wheel of Fortune was on ( a coincidence, I think not!). This was ostensibly to work off some of the food and get some fresh air. It wasn’t until well into adulthood that I learned that these walks also involved the purchase and consumption of candy bars. Why, oh WHY did I not go on more of those walks?!?

The last memory that I want to share is much more recent, this one is from after grandma had moved into the assisted living facility. She used to hoard food in her room; I think she wanted to be sure that if they ran out of food in the dining room, she would still be able to eat. My son, Bernhardt and I would occasionally visit her. Her small room did not hold much interest for a 2 or 3 year old, however, every time we visited, she had a banana for him which he gladly devoured.

In closing I would like to say that, I only hope that my grandmother is happier in death than she often seemed in life.