Easter on Pinafore St.

APRIL 12, 2020

I think almost everyone who lived in our apartment building on Pinafore Street was Jewish. I really didn’t know what it meant, except I knew that my family was Jewish.  I also thought that anyone with an east coast accent was Jewish - and that they were also my relatives.  That fact took me many years to sort out, and to this day I have an over-familiarity feeling towards any New Yorker. 

I was just a little girl back then, the years somewhere between kindergarten and second grade.  1963-ish.  I definitely have memories of cooking and celebrating Passover, being excited about finding the Afikomen. The brisket, the jello-molds, and gefilte fish.  Boxes and boxes of matzah; egg, egg and onion, and plain water.  Everyone had a preference. 

Anyone without a place to go was invited to Seder at our tiny apartment. My mother’s talent for inclusion was achieved by simply adding a bridge table dominoes style.  But this is not a Passover story.  This is an Easter story, my Easter story and some of my best memories right after we moved to California. 

Today, on Easter Sunday, during this coronavirus lockdown, I keep seeing my grandma Sadie’s face. She always looked and smelled freshly washed.  Her white wavy hair cut short and set so the bangs would curl down on her forehead. She rarely wore make up, maybe a little coral colored lipstick, her skin was good, smooth, moisturized.  She wore metal glasses and had clear light gray blue eyes. She also had the softest most silky skin I’ve ever felt.  I don’t have her light eyes, but I have her silky skin. 

She was very sharp, but quiet and not too outspoken.  She’d mutter a comment under her breath, but mostly kept to herself. She had a funny habit of holding on to her purse, even at our house, it sat clutched on her lap. I have that same habit too.  Grandma Sadie was quick to laugh and jump in on any joke, often in Yiddish so my sister and I would not hear the dirty words.  But I would nag until they told me the real joke.

Her smile was quick and tight; I think she was self-conscious and didn’t often show a big grin. But the feeling I got from her was a beaming smile, along with a look of pride and the feeling of unconditional love. She hugged often, and when I slept over at their house she often laid down in bed with me until I fell asleep.  I was her first born grandchild, and she was smitten with me her whole life. That feeling was mutual. 

On Easter Sunday, Grandma Sadie and Poppy Harry would come over with Easter baskets.  The baskets were huge; one for me and one for my little sister.  They were hand assembled and lovingly hand-wrapped in Jewish cellophane (saran wrap). I’m sure that Grandma Sadie worked on these baskets for weeks.

Because I loved white chocolate there was usually a very tall boxed White Chocolate bunny standing on the top of the basket. The bunny’s box had a cellophane window so you could see the actual bunny inside.  None of these details escaped me.  There were several foil-covered bunnies, the bunny foil-stamped and wrapped in side view. And several in flat view, all wrapped in bright foil outfits. So much candy!

Robin’s egg chocolates were buried throughout the basket.  Jelly beans, unboxed, fat and brightly colored hidden everywhere.  Milk Chocolate bell shaped lollypops that came in a flat white box where each lolly fit into its own slot. These milk chocolates melted in your mouth and I usually ate one of these first.  As a little kid it was one of the highlights of my life. 

And the baskets were so heavy! There were always plenty of pennies hiding in the bright plastic Easter tinsel at the bottom. I’m certain there was some Hanukkah Gelt (chocolate coins) mixed in as well. 

The true treasures for me were those magical sparkly hard sugar-eggs with the little window scene preciously cut out.  These eggs were by far the prettiest candy I’d ever seen.  I can remember studying them in detail, just in awe of the cuteness of the little baby animal scene inside the egg. 

I loved the little peek-in window meticulously decorated in pink and yellow piping.  The raised adornments on the outside, peaked dots and flowers and textures and swirls and it was all amazing. I would save the sugar eggs for weeks, and only eat them when they had dried out and were starting to break apart. 

We ate Passover leftovers on those Easter basket days. I remember having plenty of time to take apart, trade, show off, admire, count candy, count pennies and reassemble the beautiful baskets.  It was a mixed message delivered with ease and no commentary.  Matzoh and brisket, yes, Kosher for Pesach. Easter candy--definitely not Kosher for Passover. But we were little and never questioned the Easter part of Passover.     

I was 29 when my grandma Sadie died. I wrote out a small story about what she meant to me, and what I received and learned from her.  I realized that she taught me about unconditional love. The gift of feeling totally loved, accepted and not judged. 

Something hard for our parents to give; they need to teach us, and so appropriate conditions need to exist. But unconditional love is almost a natural job for the grandparents.  I can see my grandma’s face as if it was yesterday. I can hear her laugh, and I can feel her love.  You never know the gifts you get from other people.  

During this weird social-emotional period of isolation, how lucky that I am feeling so emotionally close to my grandma Sadie. That is more proof that love never dies.

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