International Women’s Day

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In my last post (Costa del Sol), on the purpose of work and the corresponding need for a vacation, I wrote at some length about my grandfather, for whom work was not work, but a calling. To be fair, I did mention my grandmother (Lia), but almost only in passing. She was the ballast for my grandfather, but also a lot more.

Grandma Lia, as she was known, was a force of nature. As intimated in my last post, she was whip smart, finishing at the top of her medical school class, and then practicing for twenty five years in the former Soviet Union, before our immigration. Upon arriving in San Francisco, she landed a lab job at UCSF and then an operating room (anesthetist) job at San Francisco General Hospital. She had the early morning shift, and I can still imagine her getting out of her blue Volvo at five or so in the morning for the walk from her parking spot to the actual hospital. SF General was, and remains, the top trauma hospital in San Francisco (and probably the greater Bay Area as well). It is also in a rough part of town, even more so in the early 1980s, when the gap between the north and the south (sides of San Francisco) was even more pronounced. Many of her co-workers at General were Black; I remember from group pictures and conversations. They accepted her, a new immigrant, and she embraced them.

After that job, Grandma Lia managed my grandfather’s medical office for more than twenty years, retiring only due to her health, which had been poor for some time. She passed away more than five years ago, and while I do not visit her often enough, clearly she is still in my thoughts.

It had been a hard life. She lost a number of family members, including her father, during World War II, but persevered. Her mother, my great-grandmother, was a force of nature as well, although, as far as I can recall, of different temperament. 

If anything, Grandma Lia was inquisitive, usually too much so. On a vacation to Italy, Sorrento to be precise, passing a produce store, she asked, in all seriousness, if the fruit there was good. The answer, as one might guess, was an overwhelming “yes.” At that time, when I was a teenager, we lived in a duplex, in the outer Richmond District of San Francisco, less than a mile from Ocean Beach. We lived not far from a fire station, and one day a fire engine was racing down our street. She opened the window and yelled, again in all seriousness, “where’s the fire?” Lastly, many, if not most, interactions with her were like a game of “twenty questions.” Except that, she usually had more than twenty to ask and to her almost no topic was off limits. Once in a while I protested, and her response was, yet again in all seriousness, “I’m a doctor.”   Of course, I had to draw the line somewhere with these interrogations, and there were no hard feelings. 

Grandma Lia was also kind, loving, inclusive, a prolific worrier (call me as soon as you arrive, whenever and to wherever), and practically on a first name basis with most of my college roommates, due to her not infrequent phone calls (this was before cell phones, etc.). In college, classes started in September, and in October (of my first year), she was already visiting me and asking her innumerable questions. I recall taking her to La Jolla Cove (pictured above from nearby La Jolla Shores Beach), our (Southern Californian) version of Sorrento, just a few years after that memorable trip.

Grandma Lia was also highly opinionated, demanding, obstinate, judgmental, critical, but usually, but certainly not always, right. She was a staunch Republican (when that still had clear meaning), with a framed photo of Ronald Reagan, her favorite president (and, like her, another warrior and strong leader).  Closer to home, if I did not earn an “A” on an assignment, the first question was, “why not?” Of course, she meant all of this in a good way, and I do not resent any of it. Still, strength was required to deal with her strength.  More than all of this, however, she was, as you can probably gather, the matriarch and leader of the family. Put simply, for better or worse (and usually for better) she steered the ship. 

In the former Soviet Union, there were no hallmark holidays, no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day or Valentine’s Day. For this reason, I surmise, birthdays were always a big deal. International Women’s Day (March 8), foreign to most, it seems, outside of the former Warsaw Pact countries, was a big deal as well. I would call her dutifully on that day, as well as on her two birthdays (she was born on the first night of Passover, which, of course, moves from year to year, and then there was the actual date of birth). In calling her on that day, I acknowledged her as a woman, but, fundamentally, she was my grandmother and a force of nature. 

As time passed, I was able to reciprocate more and more. As the first lawyer in our family, and the first one to go to college in the United States, I was given the opportunity to assist on a number of varied assignments, including a demand letter from a U.S. based attorney representing a hospital in Prague where my grandmother received care during one of her trips. Working with her travel insurance carrier, I was able to resolve that one, and to provide support, although usually Grandma Lia did not need more than to have a conversation with me, with her twenty (and usually more) questions.

Comments welcomed.