A Tale of Young Love and Loss:revised

                          Sandy and Esta: A Tale of Young Love and Loss
                                                                            By Marty Livingston
Prologue.

         Sandy was born about a century ago in Russia.  He was my father.  He was extraordinary and wonderful.  He had an unquenchable thirst for life. He loved very deeply.  In my gut, I can almost feel his presence and love, but only almost.  Unfortunately, this story about his life and premature death is not a biography. It is largely a work of fiction.  It is a fantasy that I have developed over decades to fill in the gaps in my sense of who he was.  It is my struggle to create him from vague memories and stories that I have heard.

      This creation has been a lifelong struggle for me, a striving to extract what I have needed from pieces that were there.  Children create fantasies when the reality is painfully unsatisfying. I created my sense of Sandy as I grew up, wishing that I had a daddy to protect my mommy and me and to serve as a man I could want to be like. My reality was that I never got to know him.

      This book is a tale of Sandy and Esta, of how they met, loved deeply, and lost.  I began the book with a wish to “create” more of a sense of Sandy, my father.  I think I have succeeded.  However, in the process of writing, as you will see, the story became more than an account of my creation of Sandy.  It became a tale of Sandy and Esta, of my experience of them, of young love and tragic loss.  It is also a story of Esta’s quest to re-find herself.

      A boy's relationship with his father helps him find himself. How does a little boy form a sense of what it is to be a little boy?  Without a father, how does a little boy become a big boy?  What does it mean to become a man?  Essentially, who am I and how do I belong meaningfully in this world of boys and men? And what role do women play?  As I write this tale, it is sometimes hard to tell what is a fantasy created out of a young boy's need for a father, what is my own struggle, what is my sense of Sandy’s struggle, and what are bits of reality gleaned from those who knew him.

      Finally, it is the story of my loss of both parents and my effort to rebuild and reconnect.  My mother survived. I did not lose her to death in the way I lost Sandy.  I lost her in a different, perhaps equally devastating, way. Once Sandy died, Esta’s heart was hidden.  It was always clear to me where it was buried.  I just couldn't create a way to uncover it anymore or to make her smile.  Only Sandy could do that, and he was gone.

Sandy and his parents.
                   Sandy was born in Russia in the early nineteen hundreds.  His parents immigrated to Brooklyn shortly after he was born.  He grew up in the era when young men wore knickers.  It was in the days before television, nuclear power, and sadly the development of dialysis for the treatment of nephritis.  Dora, his mother, was from a wealthy Russian Jewish family.  She had a quiet sense of aristocracy combined with a gentleness and warmth.  She loved babies and, once she came to the states and had to earn money, she earned a living as a baby nurse.  She loved to sing Russian lullabies.  She was never interested in translating them.  She wanted them to get through on an earthy primitive level and felt that English could not convey their meaning.  Once he was old enough, Sandy asked once or twice what they meant. Dora would just smile and sing a chorus. Sandy would smile along with her. His body totally relaxed.  He had his answer.  "Syam bom bom momma’s baby. Syam bom bom."  The words often rang in his head as he grew up.  They comforted him and when he became a father he would sing them to me.  I have also sung those words to my children as I put them to sleep as babies.

                   Dora and her husband Yussel came over from Russia when Sandy, or George as they called him, was a baby.  The nickname "Sandy" came later as a teenager both in his friends' reaction to his sandy brown hair and to his last name, which was Sandelman.  All three of them learned to speak English together.  By the time Sandy was ready for kindergarten, English was the primary spoken language in the household.  However, at certain times, just when Sandy wanted to know what was happening, Dora and Yussel could slip into Yiddish or Russian.  Punch lines also seemed to come in Yiddish. 

    Yussel was a Talmudic scholar.  He married into Dora's wealthy family as he was raised to do, expecting to be fully supported in his studies.  He had no inkling of the idea of making a living.  He knew Talmud and he knew how to play with children.

         He would sit at a small table in the kitchen with big books opened before him.  When Sandy was old enough, he would sit on the floor next to his father with a book of his own in hand.  Every now and then he would interrupt Yussel's intense involvement with a question.  Yussel almost always patiently listened and replied.  “Questions are good,” he said.  “What is it that you really want to know?”  “I will tell you a story and we can figure out the answers together.”

      Yussel also often broke from his studies to play on the floor with Sandy.  Anything in Yussel's pocket could become an instant toy, a thing to be woven into a fantasy and enjoyed.  Young Sandy loved these tales. He sat entranced by them and came up with unceasing questions.  He wanted more and more and his father loved it.

                   Yussel was great with children and with the world of play and exploration.  That is what he brought to Talmudic study and what he brought to his son.  He was not so great in the grown up world.  His mind just could not embrace the ideas of profit or earning.  He had family in Manhattan who tried to help him start a business.  An uncle who was very successful in the fur business tried to teach him the craft and to provide the essentials to begin a business.  He learned rather quickly the skills of hand tailoring furs into garments.  He could begin to work out of his home so there was little overhead.  His uncle provided the furs at a very low cost.  It should have been easy. 

                   Yussel put together the garments eagerly.  He loved to learn and this part of the business became, for him, a process to study and learn,  His Uncle Joe is able to send  a regular flow of customers his way.  Yussel is delighted to display his new skills, his learning.  The customers are also very happy with his work. “Yussel, This is great.  I will tell all my friends about you,” they promise.  Within a short time other customers call and ask Yussel to make things for them. Yussel makes capes and coats.  He makes jackets.  He works hard and long, but he never seems to have any money to contribute to the household. 

    Dora remains the sole financial support for the family along with some further help from Yussel's Uncle Joe.  In fact, even years later, once he is old enough, It is Sandy who is the bread-winner in the family rather than his father.  He asks his father, “Why is there no profit?  You do such good work and everyone is happy with what you make for them.  What happens to the profit?”  The answer to the puzzle of where the money went lay very simply in Yussel's core nature and sense of fairness.  He answered his son, if I pay $30 for the furs I use to make a coat, it would be unethical to charge more than that to a customer.”  “What about profit? Sandy asks again.”  “I don’t understand that word,” Yussel replies.  “It would be wrong, like cheating someone.”

      In effect, he was selling everything at cost and could not digest the idea of business, profit or earnings.  He was wise, even brilliant in some ways, and quite naive in others.  As a father, that can be both a wonderful quality and a disaster.  Sandy admired his father, humored him at times, but also internalized the sense of learning, teaching, and fairness for its own sake apart from profit and supporting a family.

                   Yussel and Dora named their son George and that is how he is known through his early years.  Later, his friends nicknamed him Sandy and it stuck.  In telling you about his early years, I will also call him George.  Young George and his father loved to play together on the floor.  Yussel would pick George up from kindergarten and, after cookies and milk, they would find a comfortable spot on the living room rug.  As they sit together Yussel  empties  his pockets in search of a suitable toy. 

    A clothespin appears and soon is given the name Moe.  Moe is a wise and thoughtful clothespin who leads a whole group of younger clothespins to the playground.  At this point Yussel produces several more clothespins  from the washroom, He explains, “Moe watches the younger ones and protects them as they climb on the ‘monkey bars’ and frolic together.  When the other clothespins are unhappy, Moe comforts them. If they fall down, he helps them up. He also talks with them when they got into fights with each other over whose turn it is to go down the slide or to throw the ball.”  George loved to listen about Moe.  Moe encouraged the other clothespins to play together with warmth as well as fun.  Fun was important.  Moe wanted the clothespins to be free.  He wanted each one to tumble and run as they pleased.  He was much more fun than most of the mothers who set down rules and worried about the clothespins getting hurt or being selfish. 

      George was especially curious about this idea of freedom.  His mother was very concerned about his not becoming "selfish." He wasn't sure what it meant except that you were not a good boy if you were selfish.  Moe tries to help the clothespins play together and work things out without the danger of being called "selfish."  Yussel emphasizes the importance of freedom.  “Freedom is one of the most important things we have.  That is why your mother and I left Russia to come here.  The freedom to believe in God is very important.  Another freedom that is important is the freedom from being labeled bad  or selfish when you don’t behave the way someone tries to tell you to behave.”  Yussel tells George, “Moe understands that the clothespins can only be free to play and explore the playground if they know that they are wonderful children.”  George can’t quite follow the whole story, but he knows that Moe loves the other clothespins and that Yussel loves him. 

                   Sometimes they play with a rubber ball.  Yussel pushes it to George and George throws it back.  Yussel doesn’t catch very well, but he enjoys the way George gets excited with the ball.  Sometimes Yussel's pocket yields other wonders.  One time it is three walnuts. George is amazed at how Yussel can squeeze the three walnuts together and one of them would open up and yield the great tasting stuff inside.  Other times the walnuts are characters in a drama just like Moe and the clothespins.  Once one of the walnuts is an angel who comes down and fights with someone named Jake.  Jake was a handkerchief pulled from Yussel's pocket just for this story.

      It seems that the walnut is an angel of God and that he attempts to defeat Jake.  Jake holds him tight and won’t let him go.  The angel struggles to get out of the hanky wrapped around him, but Jake holds fast and refuses to release him.  George is very excited and roots hard for the walnut to get away.  Then he switches and cheers for Jake the hanky to hold on.  Finally, Jake insists that he will not let go until the walnut blesses him.  George is very involved with the struggle throughout, although he isn’t really sure what a "blessing" is or why it is so important.  Finally the walnut gives in and blesses Jake.  He also changes his name to Israel.

                   George can’t follow any of the import of the blessing or the name change, but really enjoys the struggle.  When the story is finished and both Jake and the walnut are back in Yussel's pocket, George climbs up on Yussel's lap and puts his arms around his neck.  "Now I am going to wrestle with you.  I won't let you go until you bless me.  I want to wrestle you to the ground.  I want us to fight like that."  Yussel was caught off guard.  He was not at all comfortable with this.  He hugged George briefly and put him down.  George protested, "No!  No! I want to wrestle with you like Jake and the angel."  "Maybe another time," Yussel replied.  George quietly walked off looking down at the ground. He had learned something about playing, closeness among men, and being a big boy.  It felt empty and lonely.

                   Then there was the time that Yussel asked George to create the story.  He gives George a bunch of coins to work with and waits.  "You tell the story," George said returning the coins.  Yussel stays firm.  It is time for George to create the story.  He puts the coins in front of George and waits.  After what feels like an eternity, George begins.  "Okay, this shiny coin is Gary.  Gary is bright and shiny.  Most of the other coins are not.  Gary is not sure which one is a penny and which one is worth more, like a quarter.  Gary is very concerned about what each coin is worth.  The ones that are worth more will be liked better and can do more.  They are not shiny because they have been doing things like playing tossing games or buying things.  They are rougher and tougher.  They can wrestle with each other, but Gary has no one to wrestle with.  He wants to play with the other coins, to wrestle, to win and lose, to bang up against them.  He knows that he is shiny and bright, but doesn't think that is worth much.”

                   "And how does the story end?  Yussel asks. "I don't know," George replies.  "Maybe an older coin will teach him how.  Maybe he can find a big brother to wrestle with."  Yussel understood that George was unhappy about not wrestling, but could not find a response.  He did not get the meaning of all this wrestling and banging into other boys.  He touched George tenderly.  George wished it were rougher and stronger.  Yussel was a loving tender father with a lot of understanding.  He was never one to wrestle.