"Uncle Jack is dead." "Jack died" or a variant. My father came into my room in the morning and spoke directly. By then he must have recovered his composure and managed his grief so that we did not see or I do not think we saw his sense of extreme loss. When he learned that his younger brother died, I do not know. Jack was a lawyer, I knew that. He lived in the Bronx near the County Courthouse and also near my grandparents Rose and Morris Rosen. This was the first time that death had occurred in my memory and that was a memory of eleven years, assuming that an infant has recollection. Uncle Jack was fun-loving, jovial and imposing. He was so tall; the tallest member of my family. I recall the funeral which shocked me. Unmitigated unrestrained grief: my grandmother tried to throw herself into her son's grave. My grandmother and her younger son had a loving relationship and his loss was a terrible wound. I do not think that she ever recovered from his death. And when Jack's son, my cousin Frank decided to move from California to New York City, he lived with my grandmother, in a sense carrying forward in time the sentiments felt for the father to the son.
The two brothers appeared to have had some sibling rivalry. Comments on the back of photographs that were exchanged while my father was taking his degree in medicine in Berlin indicate that. And an example is included here.
A mere 39 years. A massive heart attack and then silence except for the family.
He is so far in the past I cannot recall him in detail but as in a dream he emerges distinctly and then subsides and the essence the piquant sensation vanishes. Photographs serve as prompts. After his death over time I learned a little more about his life, mainly from my mother. My father was silent. To speak must have been too painful.
Jack is dressed in a fashionable suit photographed on a roof. Many family photographs were taken on roofs because at the time -1930-light was insufficient indoors. The distant buildings can be identified, but I have not undertaken research to ascertain where he was living, indeed, where my grandparents were living. Probably in The Bronx.
A detail from a photograph that was probably taken at about the same time. Movement of the camera emphasizes the ephemeral nature of the moment of the, time's slippage, yet what is preserved is my grandfather Morris's joy and his love for his son as his gestures' indicate: one arm encircling his boy's waist and the other placed over his shoulder, indicative of companionship, coming of age and tenderness of fatherhood
The two brothers appeared to have had some sibling rivalry. Comments on the back of photographs that were exchanged while my father was taking his degree in medicine in Berlin indicate that. And an example is included here.
A mere 39 years. A massive heart attack and then silence except for the family.
He is so far in the past I cannot recall him in detail but as in a dream he emerges distinctly and then subsides and the essence the piquant sensation vanishes. Photographs serve as prompts. After his death over time I learned a little more about his life, mainly from my mother. My father was silent. To speak must have been too painful.
Jack is dressed in a fashionable suit photographed on a roof. Many family photographs were taken on roofs because at the time -1930-light was insufficient indoors. The distant buildings can be identified, but I have not undertaken research to ascertain where he was living, indeed, where my grandparents were living. Probably in The Bronx.
A detail from a photograph that was probably taken at about the same time. Movement of the camera emphasizes the ephemeral nature of the moment of the, time's slippage, yet what is preserved is my grandfather Morris's joy and his love for his son as his gestures' indicate: one arm encircling his boy's waist and the other placed over his shoulder, indicative of companionship, coming of age and tenderness of fatherhood
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