My Grandma Braff was not always the warmest, kind of Bubbe, but she was if anything a resilient, survivor and a lady who knew that she could find her way around in this world using her own road map. My Grandma Braff never left the house without her red lipstick, and just a pinch of red lipstick rubbed between her fingers, placing the residue on her cheeks. A lady looks good and the world notices she would say, a lady lets her self-go, and there is no telling where she may fall. Until My Grandmother passed at age 90, she never was EVER without her makeup.
My Grandma Braff also brought with her from the old country Romania, many superstitions, and often times felt it necessary to relay the “old wives tales, “to her grandchildren, not to scare us, but to protect us. Because, as she often would say, you must beware, before it’s too late, better be the boogeyman than eaten by one. She also reminded her grandchildren of the Pooh-Pooh People. These were the ghouls who hung around in case you didn’t pull your ears when someone sneezed if you were talking about the dead, these were the golem who just waited for you to be too cocky and seize your reward if you didn’t throw salt over your shoulder after giving yourself a Kena Hora, and these were the creatures that waited for your vulnerabilities to overtake you unless you found that ability to first be a little more humble.
My Grandma Braff cheated at Gin Rummy, always had some Peach Schnapps when she was a bit overwrought, and she would ask the cameraman to focus on her, first, then let the rest of the family settle in around her for any family pictures. But my Grandma Braff never ever stopped telling her grandkids she loved us. But there is ONE important lesson, my Grandma Braff insisted we learn. When she arrived in America at age 15, there was to be an arranged marriage. She was to have nothing to do with it and told her parents NO. My grandmother, instead, married Max, the love of her life. And the moral of that story was: “Decisions are difficult, but having them made for you, against your own heart, is cancer, be proud of who you are and what you want. I did not want anyone else but your grandfather Max. Had I not been so loud about it, none of my current grandkids would be here. I did not know the plans for the future, but I made certain the future followed me instead of me its puppet! During this time of Trump and the tremendous torment of terror and treason, treachery and tyranny, I think often of my grandmother’s words of caution. Be your own future, don’t let the plots and plans of others guide you forward, you take the lead! I shall resist Trump now and until I stop living!
