A Semi-Gloss Kind of Love

When I met my wife, Nina, a little over twenty years ago, we were dating exclusively. Ever the doting boyfriend, I bought her gifts, flowers, and took her out on expensive dates, even though I still lived at home with my parents at the age of twenty three. I had moved out of state for a while and lived with some friends until circumstances were such that I had to move home again to New York. My mom and dad were happy to take me back in not only because they were wonderful parents who would do anything for their child, but because I became their house boy. Still, Nina looked past all of that and dated me anyway. I'm a lucky guy to still have her, especially after a certain incident which occurred after we’d been dating for about a month when she saw me in my underwear. I should also mention that I was in my parent’s backyard at the time.

On the date in question, it was summertime and I returned home from work to my parent’s house. That particular evening I was supposed to take my Nina out to an expensive restaurant. My dad confronted me as I was about to climb the stairs to my old room with Led Zeppelin posters still hanging on the walls from high school, and told me I wasn’t going anywhere until I painted the outside windows. He meant the ones on the second story on the rear of the house. One didn’t argue with my six-foot tall, muscular, father with the deep voice which scared the hell out of all of my childhood friends. I think I said something like “But, dad, I’m going on a date.” And he replied with something along the lines of “You’ll have a date with the dentist if you don’t get on that ladder right now.” Maybe those weren’t the exact words, but I didn’t squabble over it because I didn’t think Nina would date a homeless guy.

Outside I sized up the daunting task of hoisting my dad’s rickety, aluminum, extension ladder up against the rear of the house. There’s a wooden deck under the window and the ladder had to stand on top of it. After moving an outdoor table and chairs, I grabbed the paint can, brush, and a couple of rags and began to scale, rather cautiously, this flimsy stepladder which I’d propped up against the eaves of our Cape Cod-style home with a rear-facing dormer.

It is at this point I must state that I actually like painting. I just don’t like painting in a spot where I would be safer doing the job while leaning out of a blimp. In that location, I would paint about a foot of space, climb back down the ladder, move the ladder, worm my way back up to the top, careful not to shake the aluminum frame too much, and paint another few inches of window frame. The sun was still bright in the sky at that hour. It was about six o’clock in the evening, Nina was due to arrive at about seven o’clock, and I was hoping to finish at least one window, change out of my cut-off jeans shorts and white tee shirt, shower, and be ready for my hot babe of a girlfriend to pick me up because I didn’t own a car. As I write this, I am still wondering why she stuck it out with me.

Towards the end of the job, I was becoming frustrated. The paint can dripped all over the new deck below which meant I had to get down there quickly and clean up the spots before they dried or my father would add my blood stains on the deck in some sort of morbid, Jackson Pollack, outdoor scene. As I held the open paint can in one hand, the paint brush in two fingers of the other, I began the decent from the ladder to the deck about ten or twelve feet below me. That’s when the ladder slipped. It stopped, caught at the edge of the extended eaves, the shingles of the roof barely holding onto the tiny safety hooks at the top of the ladder frame. I grasped onto the sides of the ladder for my life completely covered in paint.

When the paint can hit the deck, all of the paint inside erupted back up at me in a Warner Brothers cartoon style and splattered me from toe to forehead. My glasses became opaque. Paint found its way up the legs of my shorts and into my Fruit of the Looms. My tee shirt suctioned itself to my torso, cold and wet with Benjamin Moore’s Antique Semi-Gloss White. When I breathed, the ladder slipped a millimeter or two more. If it fell, I would have at least broken my arms and legs. My father would have finished the job and crushed the rest of my skeleton.

After what seemed like a day, but was more like five minutes, I moved in slow motion to the bottom step of the ladder, with paint dripping into my eyes and down my entire body. When I eventually reached the bottom, I picked up the ladder and threw it across the yard with all of my strength. My parents, who were always aware when I had the TV on at a whisper at three o’clock in the morning in my room, somehow were oblivious to my cursing and swearing as I damned the ladder and the paint can to an eternity in Hell.

My shorts and tee shirt were dripping all over and I had to strip them off and then run to the side of the house in my underwear and retrieve the garden hose. I gave the deck a good dousing and the paint came off better than I thought it would. When I was satisfied that no permanent stains were going to result from my near-death experience, I aimed the nozzle at my body and showered myself in high pressure, very cold water. That’s the moment Nina showed up.

“What the…” She walked into the backyard attracted by my yelling and cursing at the ladder, only to witness her boyfriend taking a bath with a garden hose to clean off several coats of all-weather paint. If the neighbors heard me hollering and cursing, they covered their ears when she laughed her head off. To this day, I’m still explaining this one; not to Nina, but to my father.

“Next time, anchor the feet with rubber.” He said. Dad wasn’t angry, but it wouldn’t have been in his character to not at least give me instructions on how to avoid killing myself the next time out. He waited until he was in the next room to laugh at me. I did take a lesson from all of this, though. I proposed to Nina so at least I can say “hey, you married me” if she decided to tell anyone the story later on in life, and as soon as I bought my own home, I invested in vinyl siding.

dating semi-gloss paint New York girlfriend ladder window Cape Cod house tee shirt vinyl siding

Red & White and Christmas Lights

Dear Readers,
I wrestled with whether or not I should post this on my blog. Briefly, at around 1:30 a.m. on December 2, 2007, I published this piece with a few more details than what is present now, and I received a very supportive and very insightful comment from an excellent blogger and new reader to Mr. Grudge. My reluctance to share this story overpowered me and I removed the post and graciously contacted the author of the comment and explained the removal. After further contemplation, I edited out identifying details and I decided to post this story again because I want to make a statement regarding the need for all of us to cherish what we have and to not take our lives or our families for granted. Thank you. -Mr. Grudge

December 2, 2007, 12:57 a.m.: It is late and I am writing this piece because I cannot sleep. I’m sitting across from our Christmas tree and the colorful lights are reflecting off the screen of my laptop, as well as blinking lights from outside our window. In order to try to fall asleep, I thought I would write about my day.

December 1, 2007, 10:30a.m.:
When my father heard me coming in is door of his home this morning with my children, he greeted us with the same giant hug he always did even when my mother was alive. Our plan was to help my father move some furniture and then eat lunch together while unbeknownst to the kiddies, my wife sneaked off to the store to buy the final, “big” present that Santa Claus will be bringing them this year.

My wife and I had a somewhat delicately timed plan to get the thing into our house. After leaving my Dad’s place, I was to take my daughter home first and then drop my son of at his friend’s house for a play date, and my wife was going to bring our daughter for her violin lesson, and I was to then go to the store alone and pick up present, and then high-tail it back to our house to hide the box in our garage. Then, I was to go back and retrieve our son, and we were all going to meet back home and then go out for dinner. Sounds like a plan, right?

At around 2:00 p.m., we said our good byes to my dad and my wife called on my cell phone to confirm, as only a wife would, that I understood everything I had to do, and that I had the receipt, and I wouldn’t be dopey enough to blurt out that I was going to pick up their gift which is supposed to be from Santa Claus to our kids.

I ended the call with her and decided to call her back and tell her that I would drop our son off at his friend’s house first and then take our daughter home so I wouldn’t have to crisscross the neighborhood and I could do everything in one shot. As my wife listened, she stopped me and said “Let me hang up, there’s something going on outside. I’ll call you right back.”

Moments later, my cell phone rang. She told me that it looked like there was some sort of accident in front of our neighbor’s home a few doors down from us. This particular family has children the same age as ours and our eight year old son is friends with their son. The same thought went through both of our minds as we feared that the boy may have been hit by a car. I asked a lot of questions, forgetting who my audience was in the back seat, and my son started to worry aloud. “Is that my friend, daddy? Is Jared alright?” I assured him that Jared wasn’t hurt, although I wasn’t actually sure, and my daughter chimed in with her own questions. I held my hand up to my daughter to quiet her down so I could hear my wife. Ordinarily, she’s pretty calm under pressure, but she sounded anxious.

“Hold on, I can’t hear you,” she said “there’s a helicopter, its right over the house. I have to go. I’ll call you right back."
It’s about thirty minutes to my father’s house from ours. The ride back is the same, of course; but after this series of cell phone calls, it was turning into a ten minute drive and I was cutting people off to get home. All sorts of images were popping into my head about someone’s poor child laying in the street and his or her parents in anguish. I tuned the radio to my kid’s favorite station and pretended everything as just fine.

About five minutes later, my cell phone rang again. I could tell that my wife was on her cell phone and not the cordless one in our kitchen. The sirens in the background were a dead giveaway that she was outside.

“Try not to react,” she said in the same serious tone one uses to deliver bad news. “Some one was killed...murdered...across the street.”

The details were sketchy, but about eight houses down the block, a person, (I am not going to reveal names or my relationship to this family, and I am deliberately keeping out certain details) was dead, murdered apparently by an intruder. I was even queasier than when I believed one of the neighbor’s kid’s was hit by a car.

“Don’t come up our block,” she said “The whole street is blocked off. They’re still looking for whoever did it.”

In record time, I made it home, even after having to take a lengthier route though the crowded mall. In a bizarre scene in our quiet town, police were everywhere, swarming our yards, stringing up crime scene tape within just a few feet from our home, and several officers had police dogs which were sniffing the immediate area around the residence where the murder took place. All of my years of police experience meant nothing. This is my block, and they were folks I knew. Nothing can harden me to the fear of a killer stalking around my house evading the police.

December 2, 2007 1:31 a.m. update:
Around eight o’clock at night I called my father and told him what happened and he was shocked and frightened for us. I told him not to worry because there were an army of cops on the street and it was unlikely that anything would happen to us. My father said he’d pray for the victim; but, what surprised me was that he said he would even pray for the killer as he somehow has this evil within him, and that it is only right to help him with our faith. I am getting ready to turn off the Christmas tree lights now; but the red and white lights of the police car at the end of my driveway will flash all night outside.

Author's note: I am not in the habit of writing journal style posts like this of my every day life. Writing, as I've discussed often in this space offers a sense of closure, or therapy if you will, at times when one is in grief or turmoil. I did my best to leave out the pertinent details such as names and the particulars of the crime. There will be no further updates to this story. Thank you all for reading.

police police dogs Christmas tree radio killer news police car crime scene murder cell phone

New Design, New Domain Name, New Problems

Hi Readers,
I want to thank all of you for your positive comments regarding my new template. However, I am not happy with it for a number of reasons, but the main one is that it does not load properly into any browser. More accurately, it just does not always load on the first try. I've been experimenting with this theme and I have to hit the refresh button way too many times. I have no choice but to stick with this template until I can move over to something else. I appreciate your patience.

On a brighter note, I registered the domain name mrgrudge.com. As the Internet is the world's largest network, it may take time for this new domain name to propagate throughout all of the root DNS servers and various search engines. In the meantime, Blogger still resolves http://mrgrudge.blogspot.com to http://www.mrgrudge.com. It may take a while to iron out these wrinkles too. I had to re-submit my blog for review at BlogCatalog and I will be offline there for a short time. Also, I have to update my URL on a few more places on the Internet.

I want to thank all of you for taking the time to visit here and read my posts. I value all of the wonderful bloggers, writers, creators of art, and purveyors of information who have come here to see what I have to offer. This is a tiny bump in the road, but I look forward to a future of continued friendship with my readers. Thank you.

First Dance, Final Goodbye

A lot goes into choosing a wedding song. For many couples, they know right away what to play for their first dance, for others they don’t make a big deal of it, and for my wife and I, we chose something we thought would be special. We both knew the song “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack and thought it was ideal for us. We imagined ourselves at our reception, embracing on the dance floor and gently swaying as the band played our song. Just talking about it made my then fiancé teary eyed with anticipation

During our long engagement of almost two years, my bride-to-be kept a loose leaf binder full of all the details, orders, plans, and receipts and the like for our giant, New York wedding. There were to be almost two hundred guests, a big band, bridesmaids and ushers, and everything you’d expect for such a festivity. However, we didn’t know that someone very close to us would not be there for our nuptials.

My fiancé’s Mom and Dad were invited over to my parent’s home for dinner so they could finally meet. My folks were much older, but my father and my fiancé’s Dad bonded right away. They shared blue collar values and had similar childhoods as they each grew up in New York City, and they were both in the military. My father told me later after they went home that he noticed something wasn’t right when talking my future father in law.

“Here’s a man who worked hard his entire life, and he told me he just didn’t want to go to work in the morning.” he said.

“Yeah, but Dad, you say the same thing.” I told him.

He shook his head and looked away from me. “No, this is different. He kept holding his stomach.” Then he got up and went into the kitchen. To tell you the truth, I never gave his comments much thought.

Days later, my fiancé called me from work.

“My dad has a doctor’s appointment.” She was worried, I could tell. Her voice lacked that certain confidence she always had. Sure, she had the right to be anxious when it came to her father and his health. But, she works in the medical field. Her job is to diagnose people with diseases; and her specialty is cancer.

I’ll never forget the day her father returned from the last battery of tests to diagnose his problem. For months, he’d been unable to eat or sleep, and he had a feeling of extreme “discomfort,” as he described it” My fiancé did her best to keep from bawling out loud when learning of his prognosis. Yet, it was difficult to hold back.

He had a very curable form of Lymphoma; but he went without symptoms for so long, it was too late to do anything. Because of his relative youth, he was only fifty two years old, they tried chemotherapy, but to no avail. Hope and constant care turned to grief and worry. Soon enough, we kept a vigil at his bedside. In September he lay dying, and we were to marry the next July. I asked my fiancé if we should marry in his hospital room and just have the reception which was already booked and paid for when the time came. She cried and hugged me and said she’s would run the idea past her Mom. The answer came the next day; and as only a father could put it “My daughter will have her day, and I will be there.”

On our last day on Earth, we all want something special to happen. Maybe we want to see angels in our final moments. Or, some look for loved ones who passed away earlier. My father in law quietly fell asleep with his family looking on. My fiancé hurried into the busy hallway just outside his door in tears. She held on to me and sobbed. It was at that moment I heard music.

“Do you hear that?” I asked.
She looked up, as the source of the song playing came from loudspeakers in the ceiling over our heads.
“Oh no,” she said. “Daddy, oh daddy…” Again, she fell into my arms and cried hard. I stood with my bride to be and listened to the last piece of music I never imagined would be playing at that moment; and that was “The First Time Ever I saw Your Face” by Roberta Flack, our wedding song.

We eventually chose a different song for our wedding day as neither of us could bear to listen to a tune which played at the exact moment my bride’s father passed away. After all of that, I like to believe something special did happen for my father in law at the moment of is death. As he arose from his body to his final place of rest, he looked down and saw his daughter embraced in the arms of the man she would marry, swaying back and forth to their wedding song.

wedding song bride groom lymphoma Roberta Flack band

Pardon Our Appearance! Mr. Grudge Is Having A Makeover

Pardon Our Appearance! Mr. Grudge Is Having A Makeover. I am adding space with a third column and should be up and running by the end of the day. Thanks for your patience.

An Amazing Blogger

Dear Readers,
Recently J.D., the author of the creative, as well as exceptional blog "The Uneasy Supplicant" gave me the "You're An Amazing Blogger" award. It is my turn now, and my privilege to hand this award over to a truly amazing blogger, Kristyn, who authors three blogs (Kristyn Writes, Ya Don't Say, Ya Don't Say at Vox) who is a wonderful and prolific writer. I have a difficult time as it is maintaining one blog, I couldn't imagine authoring three of them. She seems to do this with ease.

Kristyn was one of the first people to stop by Mr. Grudge on a regular basis and offer very insightful and valuable comments on my posts. Kristyn doesn't just drop in and write "great post," or "nice blog;" she adds to the conversation, and always has an interesting fact to go along with it. Her blogs reflect that sort of writing. She is grateful to her readers and writes from the heart. So, without anymore rambling, I humbly present Kristyn with the "You're An Amazing Blogger" award! Step up Kristyn, and take a bow.

No Dreamers Allowed

Three days ago I called a buddy of mine I hadn’t spoken to in a while to wish him a happy Thanksgiving. Though we don’t get to talk or visit each other often anymore, our friendship is such that we can pick up the phone anytime and pick up where we left off. I’ve known him for twenty six years, and we’ve experienced a lot together, and I’ve watched his two sons grown from mere babies to young men in their twenties.

During our conversation, we ended up discussing dreams. He told me that his oldest son’s girlfriend bought a book on dream interpretation and has taken to asking everyone, including him, about their dreams to analyze them. To know my friend Nat, you have to understand how he is and what he looks like. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, is in his early fifties (he’s ten years older than me), is very large with a close cropped beard. He looks like someone the director of a movie would order up from central casting to play a mafia hit man. Ask him his dreams? His son’s girlfriend is "lucky she’s good looking", he told me jokingly.

The subject of dreams hit a nerve with me. Nat fully knows after over a quarter of a century of friendship that I’d rather visit a dentist than hear someone tell me their dreams. He bought up the dream book his son’s girlfriend toted around because of an incident at his house over twenty years ago when me, Nat, my friend Mike, my other friend Mike, and my late friend Wade were seated at the kitchen table in Nat’s house playing cards. Yes, there were three "Mikes" in our group. Another guy, Danny showed up to play, but he came to the game late and to wait for a new hand to be dealt before he could join us. I really didn’t know Danny that well and he seemed like an alright guy, and we let him hang around because he always brought beer with him.

During the hand Danny sat next to me and tried to look at my cards. That annoyed me and I shifted myself to hide my hand. I had a full house and the stakes were pretty high. I’d say there were about two bucks in nickels in the pot (hey, it’s better than playing for matches) and I didn’t want to be disturbed as I felt the need to concentrate. Danny wanted to feel included so he started to talk… a lot. Worse yet, he started to tell us all about a dream he had the night before. Nat, Mike, Mike and Wade all buried their faces in their cards and Danny turned himself and talked directly to me, as if I gave a damn what he dreamt about. I was playing poker and I needed to place a bet and Danny was becoming annoying. Normally, I’d let it slide, but he was killing my concentration and I was becoming frustrated. After clearing my throat a couple of times (ahem) Danny didn’t get the hint. Right around the point where he was telling me about the creepy house with the crooked steps and the weird lights inside, I snapped.

“Hey look Danny,” I said, dropping my cards on the table. Nat, Mike, Mike and Wade chuckled as they knew what was coming. I didn’t want to be rude, but he couldn’t keep quiet; and besides, he bought Meister Brau. That’s the kind of beer you’d buy at a dog fight.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t listen to you tell me about your dream, okay?" I said. "I don’t care what’s it’s about, I don’t care if I’m in it, and I don’t care if you have a vision of me getting killed by a falling safe and you want to warn me. I just don’t care. Dreams don’t mean anything.”

Surprised at how harsh I sounded, I smiled a bit and smacked him on the shoulder in a playful kind of way.

“But, I think this dream does mean something. My Grandfather was in it and he died five years ago.”

“Tell me later.” I said.
“But, I think you’d appreciate this Mike, you know about like, psychology.”
“Hey Dan, what I know is that we’re trying to play cards. I need to concentrate. I don’t know anything about psychology, and I can’t stand to listen to other people tell me their dreams, okay? The only time I will listen to anyone tell me about their dreams is if her name is Heather Locklear and she dreams that we're in a hot tub together, and we're both naked."

To this day, Nat still laughs about that because his wife, Angie walked into the kitchen at the exact second I said “we’re both naked.” It was a bit awkward explaining to her what I was talking about.

My thoughts on dreams stood for decades, including all the way up to that phone call and in spite of my slight awkwardness in front of my friend’s wife. That was until the other morning after I woke up my eight year old son to get him ready for school. He came downstairs for breakfast after getting dressed looking a bit glum. I was on the couch with a cup of coffee and the newspaper and I called him over. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he had a bad dream and it was bothering him. My typical response to an adult would have been to immediately hold up my hand and warn them that they were entering hostile territory. Dreams aren’t welcome here.

I sat up listened to him talk. He told me that he had a dream about Grandma and it was really sad. My son has had a tough time dealing with the loss of my mother and there have been more than a few times where I had to cuddle him in my arms as he cried to sleep. That morning, after hearing him tell me he had a bad dream about my mother, I pulled him close to my side.

“I dreamed that Grandma was dying, and all of the doctors went away, and I was alone with her. There were all these machines and I didn’t know how to use them and I told grandma not to die, but she did.”

This little man of mine had so much love for his grandma he dreamed of wanting to save her. He leaned on me and cried muffled sobs as he pressed his face into my side. I held him and stroked his hair and kissed the top of his head. My boy, my son, he was breaking my heart.

I thought back to my phone call with Nat, his son’s girlfriend and her book of dreams, and Danny asking me what his dream about is dead grandfather meant. I was rude and immature back then. With my young boy’s tears falling on my shirt next to my own, I told him that his grandma loved him so much; and that she was in his dreams because he missed her. It was okay for him to dream about her, I told him.

We sat for a while before I carried him to the kitchen for breakfast. If I had to do it all over again, I still might not have listened to Danny. I was a young man who wasn’t very touchy-feely and didn’t want to get emotional during a card game. But, over two decades later, Danny managed to teach me a lesson although he wasn’t around to watch me learn it. Dreams do mean something. They mean something to the person who experienced them. Still, I’ll only listen if you’re a child of mine who wants to tell me about the scary house with the creepy lights or if a safe is going to fall out of a building on my head.

dreams cards phone call psychology

Honored & Thankful

Dear Readers,
To say that the following announcement is an honor is an understatement. Those who know me personally are aware that I have been writing since I was in elementary school. I can remember the first story I ever wrote in vivid detail, including where I was when I put pencil to paper, who was with me at the time, and what the weather was like outside. Writing is more than my past time; it is my passion. With that said, within the past twenty four hours, two very special and extremely talented writers have honored me with the above pictured awards.

J.D., the author of the creative, as well as exceptional blog "The Uneasy Supplicant" has given me the "You're An Amazing Blogger" award. Let me say that J.D.'s blog is the place I go to when I want to read something that is written beautifully. His poetry is enigmatic, yet spiritual, his fiction is full of drama and emotion, and he is a fabulous photographer. For J.D. to find me worthy of any award, and for him to read my blog on a regular basis is humbling to me. I thank you J.D. for this award. Because you're one of my readers, I will always strive to maintain high standards and deliver quality writing and not get complacent.

Lisa McGlaun, who is the author of the inspirational and life-affirming blog "LifePrints", has honored me with the above pictured "Shibumi" award. Shibumi - The Japanese concept of effortless perfection, a state of mind in harmony and awareness, a noble cause. In her post announcing her own acceptance of this award, Lisa names me as one of "a few bloggers who I think are lights in the darkness." I cannot imagine how it is that my humble works here have had a positive influence on Lisa, a person whom I consider to be such an influential writer. LifePrints is a blog I visit when I need to find hope in the world. She has the uncanny ability to find inspiration in even the darkest tragedy, and find heroes in a world of villains. To me, Lisa is a journalist, a story teller, and a teacher rolled into one; and her blog, LifePrints represents that to me. I am deeply flattered that you gave me this award, Lisa. Thank you.

Both Lisa and J.D. have become two important bloggers in my life, and I only hope my relationships with them continues to grow. For this Thanksgiving, I have two more reasons to be thankful. Happy Thanksgiving to all of my readers, and, as always, "thanks for stopping by".

Sincerely,

Mr. Grudge

award blogger Blog inspiration poetry Writing writer journalist announcment Thanksgiving

Kindness Has A Ring To It

Lisa McGlaun, who is the author of the inspirational blog,"LifePrints" has inspired me to write this post. After reading her article "New York Wedding Ring -Do It Yourself", I recalled what a bittersweet experience it was buying my wife her engagement ring so many years ago. In this week of Thanksgiving, I have a special story to tell. Ever since this happened to me, I've been inspired to be a better person.

In July of 1989 I was a raw recruit in the New York City Police Academy. It was then that I decided to propose to my girlfriend. New officers in the police department do not make a lot of money, especially back in the late 1980’s, so finding a decent engagement ring proved to be a bit of a challenge. The meager savings I had up to then went to paying upwards of $250 a month in train fare to commute back and forth every day from Long Island to Manhattan where the academy is located. By chance, I had a conversation with my brother in law Mark’s step-father at my sister’s home. We were seated at the dining room table for dessert.

“So, you are getting engaged?” he asked in a heavy, Polish accent. Ziggy was in his early seventies, and in ill health. I’d known him for many years up to that point, and he was a gentle, affectionate man who enjoyed family. My parents and my siblings all loved Ziggy and we were are close to Mark’s family, sharing our Catholic and Jewish heritages from one holiday season to the next.
“Yes, I’m excited. I’m shopping for a ring.” I said.
“Where did you go? You didn’t go to the mall, did you?” I noticed a look of alarm on his face.
“Uh, I was going to?” I said, almost as a question. Also, I think I gulped.
“No, no, Michael. You go see my friend. He’ll show you what to do, how to buy a diamond. Don’t even buy from him if you don’t want to. He’ll just make sure you don’t get taken advantage of.” He took a piece of paper and produced a pen from his shirt pocket.

In moments, I had a lead for a jeweler in Flushing, Queens who was described by Ziggy as “a man I play cards with every Tuesday.” After thanking him, I put the paper in my pocket.

The meeting with the jeweler took place that Saturday. I couldn’t wait to see what my options were, and though I had a modest amount of money to work with, I was still a bit cautious as I didn’t know how much of a favor this was going to be, and I did not want Ziggy to feel beholden to this man on my account.

“So, you know Ziggy? I better treat you right, then.” The man said as soon as I walked in. “Ziggy told me to look for a cop, a strong, young man with a crew cut. You must be Michael.” He shook my hand vigorously and welcomed me into his shop. We spoke for a minute or two about Ziggy and it was apparent that the jeweler had immense respect for him and that they did more than just play cards together. He repeated what Ziggy said about not having to buy from him, and that he just wanted to teach me about buying gems, diamonds in particular.

“You never buy a ring that’s already made. You buy the diamond first, and then have the ring made from the stone.” His voice was authoritative, and I listened to him because Ziggy trusted this man. I was given a lengthy tutorial on choosing the perfect stone, then I was told that I didn’t have to make a decision that day. So, I left his store, grateful for the knowledge I picked up from his lesson and returned to what was left of my brief weekend and another grueling week at the academy.

The next Saturday, I arrived early at the jeweler, cash in hand, to buy a stone. After at least two hours examining diamonds with a loop, and comparing them to the ones I already picked out, I found the perfect, one carat, white diamond, nearly flawless; and then I chose the setting and the smaller diamonds for the setting. The ring, which was made within the week, is gorgeous. To this day, my wife is complimented on the quality of the stone and other jewelers have said that I got “one hell of a deal” on the diamond.

I remember thanking Ziggy profusely and he waved me off as if he did nothing. But I also recall one scene which played out at my sister’s home, shortly before Ziggy passed away. It was Thanksgiving. The conversation was about family and what we should be thankful for, and I mentioned to Ziggy that I was grateful for the help he gave me in finding a reputable jeweler. His intervention was important in making our experience perfect. The ring, flawless and more valuable than what I paid for, is a cornerstone of our marriage in both symbolism and value.

Ziggy listened to me and challenged my assertion that anything he contributed was such a big deal. After a few more protests on his part, I saw him become soft in his composure, resting his arms on the table.

“That is why I tell people that whatever they do they have an effect on somebody. Who would have thought that this small thing, this little phone call I made to a friend would have this lasting effect and would have brought this much happiness? You’re welcome Mike, It was my pleasure.” It was then that he turned to the rest of the family and began to speak.

“I need to tell all of you this, because it is important. I have seen horrors, lost everything. And we all need to learn that just a little kindness…” he paused just to wipe his eyes.

You see, Ziggy survived the Holocaust. His family lived in Poland before WWII and he was a young man forced into hiding in the countryside with his family to escape the Nazis. His younger sister, who was sixteen years old at the time, was taken in by a Catholic family who hid her in their home. The townspeople informed on the family to the local authorities. When Ziggy learned of the betrayal, he watched helplessly from the woods as the family, his sister, and the family’s two year old daughter were executed in front of their home. When he, his parents and his brother were later cornered and arrested after a search by the locals looking to root out the “Jews” who were hiding in the forest, they were all deported to Auschwitz. Immediately, Ziggy was separated from his family and put to work only because he was a baker, and he was used as slave labor in the camps. The rest of his family all were murdered.

At Ziggy’s funeral many years later, a Rabbi told us all of the many acts of kindness and generosity Ziggy performed throughout his life. After immigrating to the United States after the war, he moved to the Bronx and worked for a baker and saved enough money to eventually open his own shop. If, as the Rabbi explained in his eulogy, Ziggy learned of someone who needed glasses and could not afford them, somehow they found the money for glasses through Ziggy. The same was for folks who could not afford heat, food, medicine, and even life saving surgery. He was a man who lived through Hell and still had the faith in mankind to help all those in need. We were told by the Rabbi that in the camps, Ziggy risked his own life to smuggle crusts of bread to the dying for sustenance. In the Bronx, with his own bakery, he continued to provide for those who needed help, giving from his own plate, if you will, to make sure others did not suffer or live in need. The man was a model of kindness which was born not of misery, but in spite of it.

I learned something after Ziggy told us his story that day, and I had my faith in humanity re-affirmed upon hearing the Rabbi offer his tribute to such a wonderful man. During this week of Thanksgiving here in the United States where Ziggy made his home, we all need to take a lesson from an unselfish man; a person who saw his small acts of kindness as inconsequential, but recognized that even a crust of bread can save a life.

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