My grandmother didn't particularly like men and that might be an under-statement. She let my boyfriends come in and go out of her house. She never seemed impressed by their existence in my life or by their disappearance from my life.
She saw me when my heart was broken.She watched me when i cried. She told me that i should stop thinking too much when i thought too much. She never encouraged me to marry. She had been married at the age of 12 or 14 to a man older then herself, of course. She is from Yemen. She buried many babies and toddlers there. Her husband died there just before many of the Yemenites were brought to Israel. She had two healthy children, a six year old and a three year old. And she was pregnant. She was a beauty. The type of beauty that every man dreams of holding in his arms. She never re-married. She had to work cleaning bathrooms for years. Then she moved to working in a hospital lab. She was meticulous. Compassionate. So sensitive. And caring. She spoke little. She loved deeply. She was my best friend. She was my angel, my love, my family. She was Israel and the whole life that I lived and chose to live there. Going to Israel at the age of seventeen meant being near my grandmother. I was ready to have that, forever.
Really, my grandmother is my hero.
And  I am her granddaughter.
She loved me through it all. Through the boyfriends that came and went. Through the tears, the heart-breaks, the excitement. She was always there to return to. From Africa, South America, India. From Egypt and Jordan and Greece. From nights in the desert and weeks in Sinai. From Tel-Aviv, the Galil, Haifa....Jerusalem was where my Savta lived and where she was was my home.
She was there when a huge Egyptian worm came out of my butt. I felt the long slither and wondered what kind of food could have slithered like that for so long and when i looked down to see what i saw was a long and brown and squirming worm...

I screamed and ran and jumped around her tiny house shouting "It's a worm. It's a worm. In the toilet. Out of my butt." And flailed my arms up and down, terrified that there were more inside of me just waiting to come out.

My grandmother and I were so different. She was meticulous. She cleaned  till her everything shined. I was messy. Dirty. I brought sand from every desert in Israel into her home. I went to sleep with dirty feet. She woke me up and sent me to the shower. I was physical, she kept her hands to herself. I grabbed her hands and I hugged her and squeezed her until she gave me a little slap. That never stopped me from having my hands all over her. It did not matter how many times she slapped me, my hands were always groping for her. She was quiet. She did not talk about the past. I talked about everything. She did not use the phone much. I spent hours on her tiny kitchen call talking to boyfriends and girlfriends.
We were so similar too. I used to go with her to the shuk, the open market. I would help her carry the bags of fruits and vegetables home. I never saw her walk by a beggar without opening her wallet and giving him a piece of her savings. She was generous and welcoming to guests and to visitors. There were always cookies and fruits. I am the same. She adored babies and small children. A baby could bring the hidden laughter and joy from the crevices of her saddened heart. I love children with a passion and a security that magnetizes them to me and me to them. She was an artist, precise, exact, focused and beautiful. The Challah covers that she sewed were a blessing to the Shabbat table. She was a best friend, a loyal and devoted grandmother, a soul-mate....a stable and constant presence in my life, her granddaughter. I like to think that of all of her grandchildren I lived most with her. I lived with her through many summers. I spent Shabbatot with her, delighting in the food that she cooked and the Yemenite breads that she baked. The cookies and the cakes were there for me to enjoy. I departed from and returned to her home through all my journeys and discoveries. Her home was my home. That was as clear as her windows. I never doubted it. I knew exactly where I belonged. With her, by her side, always.

She taught me love in the simplest of ways. We played love together. Only that she always won. She taught me to accept love. She taught me unconditional love. She taught me patience. She taught me gratitude. She taught me compassion. She tried to teach me to save money. That was a lesson that I was not so good at learning. When I came home with a new skirt or a new blouse, she told me to enjoy it. When I bought her flowers she told me not to waist my money.

Sometimes I felt like we were the same person existing in two separate bodies.

She stayed very calm when i told her about the worm. She went to look. She called my aunt. My aunt explained to me about the different worms. My grandmother flushed the toilet.
It was the same with men. She had a practical eye when it came to them. They come and they go. Like with the worm there is no real reason to get too excited over them. She helped me flush a lot of toilets.

My grandmother and myself, the same soul-spirit projected into bodies that can fly like space-ships into other people's heads. Or hearts. The same soul-spirit inhabiting two separate bodies


Savtah

My Savtah