My Zeidy Lived with us...

Many of you know Moshe Yess' song. When I heard the news two weeks ago, this is the song that came to mind, and I have been singing it since.


Today, I was listening to my ipod on shuffle, and the song came on. I listened to the words. The memories flooded my mind.

"My Zeidy lived with us..." Ok, so I lived with him.

"He used to laugh..." Zeidy had a great sense of humor.

"He put me on his knee..." Who remembers when we would sit on Zeidy's lap and put barrettes in his beard?

"And Zeidy made us laugh." With his beautiful smile and that twinkle in his eyes.

"Zeidy made us sing." Was there one Shabbos or Yom Tov meal that wouldn'd be filled with singing? I remember even those times that Zeidy barely had a voice, and he would sing anyway.

"Zeidy made a kiddush Friday night." Not only did Zeidy make kiddush, but he gave us brachos first.

"Zeidy, oh my Zeidy how I loved him so, and Zeidy used to teach me wrong from right." Zeidy would teach is the proper derech, but always in a loving manner."

"His eyes lit up when he would teach me Torah" Nothing gave Zeidy more nachas than a grandchild learning (except maybe a grandchild cleaning :) ).

"And he taught me every line so carefully" Zeidy would have us test him with pesukim, we would read one word, and he would say the next from memory. He made games to get us to learn.

"I went to camp to run and play. And when I came back home they said Zeidy's gone." How many of us were in camp when we found out?

But there is a very important difference. In the song he sings:

"We just stopped being Jewish like my Zeidy was, and no one cared enough to shed a tear." But in our family, the opposite is true. If anything, our family has resolved to strengthen ourselves in out frumkeit. And many tears were shed while ensuring it.

I was on the subway the other day and I bumped into a Pittsburgher. She told me how the whole Pittsburgh is amazed at our family's strength. At first, I was surprised as well, but when I thought about is I realized that we cannot expect any less from Bubby and Zeidy's family. I cannot even to begin to describe them, but we know that any less would be unfair to them. I really think that we have this strength because of zechus avos, and that it is really their merit.


May we merit to be an honor to their memories, and may we merit to see them soon with the final redemption.

Good Shabbos.