grandma braff

When I was young, my Grandma Braff was alive and spent a whole lot of time at our home. She lived with my one unmarried aunt, but during the day and for dinner my Grandma would spend time with my mother and her family. When I was young, it seemed that my Grandma, unlike other Grandma’s did not have a first name and to even call her Grandma Eva somehow seemed rude and disrespectful. So to us we referred to her using her last name only. It is what we knew and thought was normal.

My Grandma was born in Breylia Romania, and came to this country as a teen age girl. And by the time I was old enough to interact with my Grandma, she, had become very much Americanized, but somehow remained very Romanian when certain circumstances prompted a Romanian reaction. Her grandchildren knew something was uncomfortable, something seeming disingenuous, something was plain wrong when my Grandma would either speak in Yiddish, revert to Romanian, or start reciting some proverbs or curses when addressing situations she did not like or people she did not trust.

My father, whose Dad came from the Ukraine, would say that most Romanians were a bunch of Gypsies and whenever his mother-in-law, my Grandma would start her verbal whirling dervish, would say beware she doesn’t land that curse on you. He of course was kidding; we of course thought my Grandma had some very supernatural powers.

My Grandma was not one who took her time in deciding who she thought was fair, kind, real or honest. She was immediate in her summation and many times it was scary how correct she was in describing the positives and negatives of people’s personalities. Many times we all would just ignore my Grandmas dire predictions of someone being flat or phony or a manipulator and often times we would have to recant our own words finding out that indeed Mr. or Mrs. X was not what they presented themselves to be.

My mother had a first cousin, my Grandma’s niece named Bernice. Bernice was the oldest child of the 12 kids my Grandma’s younger sister had born in this Earth. Bernice was brash, bold and many times bigger than life. She could walk into a room crack a joke, make a wise ass remark and even the men of this machismo male Romanian family would sometimes cower in the distance. She was a presence to reckon with and someone you would have rather been on her good side or just remain invisible.

Bernice would walk into the middle of someone else’s story try to take it over and provide an ending. She would start an argument, talking fast, repeating words over and over again as if saying them over and over again made her fact real, and she would always challenge anyone who challenged her fact as being fable by disarming them completely and accusing them of bias against her. She hated being called a bully and like most bullies, blamed everyone else for making her say and act as she did.

Bernice was a popular lady at the Saturday night Family Poker Games, and no one who cared an ounce about their happy lives would ever send regrets to a dinner or a party created by Bernice. Bernice seemed to be the person who was right, just based on bogus, bull shit and a bag full of excuses and insults.

My Grandma would speak of my cousin Bernice and then spout out sayings like… the devil loves to hold your tongue so he can permit his voice to be heard through a louder mouth… the more someone rattles on the less truth they tell…more than one excuse only means truth was never the intention…the more you describe the bad things other people do, the most likely you have done nothing better. And she would say the most empty of people are the first to try and fill up your life, it is you who keep them from just floating away, just let go! Eventually Bernice had a fall from grace. She collected the dues from the Family Club for the once a year party, and somehow said she lost every last dollar. The next day she was driving a brand new Cadillac.

My Grandma was a bright lady. She had some kind of sense to smell out dishonest, disruptive and debilitating behavior. I just wonder how my Grandma would describe the self-serving, greedy, careless word and deed that Sarah Palin as brought to this nation? I wonder what advice my Grandma would use to describe the lemmings that need nothing more than show and tell to appease their intellect, choosing Sarah as their ring master. I wonder what kind of a Romania curse would be necessary to stop the madness made by Sarah as she advances her life at the cost of those who think she even cares about their lives. I wonder if cousin Bernice was reincarnated as Sarah Palin?

My Grandma would always give a hearty pooh-pooh before ever mentioning the name of those who lie, steal and cheat. A pooh-pooh to those who always spoke a bigger game then ever played and a pooh-pooh to those who had little substance but whole lot of blow hard.

Here is a pooh-pooh to both cousin Bernice and her newly appointed clone Sarah!