میدونی چقدر دوستت دارم?

“Do you know how much I love you?”

A lot! I respond in English. 

מאוד!

I say to her in Hebrew, although I have never been sure if she still speaks it. 

April 2022

Growing up, I heard sporadic and random stories about the grandeur of my mother and grandmother’s life in Iran. I only listened to these stories from my mother, who was around ten years old at the time, never from my grandmother, or her mother, Behye (بتی), or Betty. For the first ten years of my life, everything was focused on my dying great-grandfather, Sion. I have vague, unclear memories of him, but the one constant constant for him was the couch he used to sit on. You would see the center couch as soon as you entered the living room. He didn’t speak much, just slow and quiet grunts and hums, but his eternal presence on that couch is everlasting. He was in that same spot for years. I remember younger me not thinking he ever left it, and to this day, I still imagine him in it. The room smelled of disinfecting soap mixed with cardamom and rose water and the faint smell of sesame seeds on his jacket. When he fell ill, which was before I could remember, the topic of conversation was always about him; I don’t remember Maman Behye during the tending and caring of my great-grandfather. I remember her in the kitchen making herself busy by brewing چای (chai or tea) or making these sesame sugar snacks that never had a name to them. I don’t remember her face, her smell, or her voice while her husband was dying. I remember her hands, always ready to slip me Persian tea or gaz, a tasty nougat, which I would eat carefully around the pistachios due to my allergy. I never refused the gaz, although I was one bite away from a trip to the emergency room. She used to melt the sugar and bake it, which turned into these toasty, crunchy sugar bites to put in tea, except I used to eat them straight. I would only go to her for those sugar treats, waiting by the oven, feeling the warmth of the boiling syrup and smelling the scent of toasted sugar. And then, all of a sudden, once my great-grandfather died, there were no more pots of tea brewing on the stove, toasty sugar treats, or roasted sesame morsels. I never knew how to deal with grief. My mother always made sure that we were close with her grandfather. She always ensured we sat with him before Shabbat dinner, exchanging nothing but silence and the long breaths we would take due to boredom. We would listen to Persian soap operas and the sound of backgammon dice rolling around from my uncles playing and the occasional “OPA” or “vah vay lah” (oh my god!).

I didn’t go to his funeral. If I did, I don’t remember it. After the funeral, we went to sit shivah. I still don’t know what that means or what that entails. I remember that all the mirrors and paintings were covered in black cloth. My brother and younger cousin were given food to shut us up, and we were sent to the backyard. After returning, I remember chanting in Hebrew and bowing our heads a lot, and then we left. Although I don’t remember much, I remember that the large living room with the huge dining table and extravagant couches became small, minuscule, and unimportant without my great-grandfather there. I never realized how much of an effect he had on their house and our family until that moment. That room my cousin Jordan and I used to sneak into to peer over the counters at our great-grandmother’s wigs suddenly became small. The world I knew immediately shrunk, and I became larger than it. I remember seeing that pink tub with the white, foreign, and out-of-place chair latched onto the wall. A large pit in my stomach would form thinking about my great-grandfather because he could not care for himself. I felt sick thinking about it, then guilty for feeling sick. 

After a couple of weeks, I remember my mom taking me to my great grandparent’s home to clean out some of Baba Sion’s old things, pieces of him left behind for her to pick up. She would take me up what were once those large, grand steps but were now small stepping stones to get to a house. We went there almost every day for what seemed like hours, and I only remember her eggs. Maman Behye’s kitchen, from the eyes of Judah as a child, was magical; I remember the beautiful beads of light coming through the window and the flowers on the windowsill. Her kitchen smelled strongly of rosewater, with a nutty undertone, similar to most Persian goodies that she carefully used to place in front of us. I remember, to the right, there is one cabinet with lots of notes and instructions in Farsi, including pictures and stickers of fruit. I would peek inside and see hundreds of orange bottles, each with a different name too long and difficult for both my great-grandmother and me to pronounce. After seeing that cabinet, seeing those orange bottles immediately made my heart sink because I associated that bright and loud color with sickness. I never fathomed that those many orange bottles could belong to Maman Behye; there was no way that she was truly “old.” She could walk and talk (some). She was still smiling and laughing, so I never imagined her becoming ill like my great-grandfather. Although I greatly appreciated that kitchen, I still remember it seeming small and quiet. I tend to visualize things with sound, and when I am given just sound, I tend to visualize, and this kitchen was quiet. Like in Israel, I could hear the Cicadas chirping from ten houses down. It felt so quiet, so peaceful, but also starkly empty at the same time. The kitchen felt so intimate and familiar; even though a couple of months before, it would have been bustling with people carrying hot plates and large aluminum tins filled with stews and rice, feet shuffling and legs becoming intertwined, I would have been pushed out. Except here, at this moment, I was there alone, with Maman Behye, listening to the bustling of my mother cleaning and the humming of the dishwasher. I remember she asked me something in Farsi, but I did not understand. She said in Hebrew, אֹכֶל (eat), putting her hands to her lips, insinuating one taking a bite of food. I shook my head but then immediately regretted it. Was it shameful to ask her to cook for me while she was in mourning? I then realized that I had never tasted her real cooking before. In Persian culture, food is a huge deal. I have constantly been hearing, “Oh! Judah - le! You need to eat!” That plays simultaneously with my heartbeat; it is continuously in my head. I never visit my Mamani and Baba’s house without a plate of cucumbers and salt or some dates and peaches. But I had never been to my Maman Behye’s house without my grandmother there to hand me slices of fruit or oranges from the tree. Unclear about what she would make me, I sat at her plastic-covered breakfast table. I remember the huge window next to me, and at this time, I began to realize how unfamiliar she was to me. I had never had a moment with her that was like this before. She asked me if I wanted something in Farsi and then held up an egg. I nodded and said to her, כן (yes) in Hebrew. I didn’t even want eggs. I said yes, not because I wanted eggs but because I wanted to see what she would make me without me asking. I wanted to get to know her after not knowing her for ten years prior. I heard the eggs crackling in the pan, and I remember sitting there, unsure what to expect from two fried eggs in her sun-speckled kitchen. She pulls out a spice bottle; it’s bright orange, and I have never seen it before. I remember trying not to look at the sizzling pan too strangely because it was so foreign to me. I didn’t want her to think I was judging her, but she silently stood there, waiting for them to cook. I remember her catching me staring and smiling, carefully and slowly dusting the eggs with the powder. I asked her what it was, and she responded with a sly smile. I don’t know if she smiled in response because she didn’t understand my American-ish question or didn’t want to tell me. I began to study her tablecloth again. I wondered why she covered its beauty in plastic, shielding it from the world’s harshness. In the same world that tore apart her family, I wondered if that plastic was also there to protect us from it. My mom walked in a couple of seconds after she plated the eggs, smiled, and said turmeric! I told them I had no idea what that was but began eating it anyway. My mom always said that I wasn’t a picky eater and was the most adventurous, but this seemed like something I should’ve learned about; this seemed like something she should’ve made for me before. As I began eating the eggs, surprisingly enjoying them, I focused more on the kitchen itself. I tried to absorb every single detail and burn it into the back of my brain. The flowers on the windowsill, each chicken figurine on her counter, the texture of the grout in between the tiles, the wear and tear on the cover of the refrigerator, and even the smell of the sink that smelled just like that green Palmolive dish soap. I was a little nervous about eating those eggs, scared that if I didn’t like them and they meant a lot to her, I would hurt her. It was the first time I tried anything she had made that wasn’t those sugar treats or sesame snacks; I felt terrible as I realized I hadn’t appreciated her in the past. While waiting for me to eat the eggs, she looked so small and fragile, and I realized how much me simply joining her in her kitchen eating these turmeric eggs meant to her. Her heart had been broken and shattered, and I didn’t realize it then, but my brothers, cousins, and I had helped heal it. Now, my great-grandmother is beautifully aging; the world she once knew is slipping away from her as she battles dementia. There are times when we have to remind her who we are, but there are moments when she laughs, and we still see the sparkle in her eye that was once there years before. No matter what, she always reminds me that she loves me, and I do the same.

I always wondered if these eggs reminded her of her husband. I wonder if it reminded her of his scent, maybe of a day in the sixty-plus years. Perhaps it reminded her of his laugh or smile that I never saw. All I know is that the simple task of her frying and serving those eggs changed our relationship and how I saw her. Although I will never really know if it meant something to her, I still hope and pray that irepresentednt even a fraction of what it meant to me, to her.