As a major holiday approaches, one that everyone in my extended family and friends' circle loves, jews and non-jews alike, and the family makes plans to gather together, this year with two new baby boys, my new grandsons, I contemplate my passage into old age. Maybe my age is not so old, but when your parents (the previous generation of grandparents) are all dead and your children and grandchildren look to you as the prevailing "expert," it feels pretty old. Maybe we're not like our grandparents and our parents, maybe we are in better shape, maybe we do more and go more places, but we still have limited time to create a lifetime of memories for our grandchildren.
They are still very young, and no where near able to say the four questions, but what can I do to make this holiday, this family, this view of the world, an important part of their lives? How can I link them to me and my beliefs? Is being their bubby just symbolic, or does it signify a connection that will sustain me and sustain them all of our lives? As we have discussed so many times, why do we care whether our grandchildren are jewish? Why are there so many questions and so few obvious answers?
This being a bubby is not for sissies.
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