Remembering Rose
REMEMBERING ROSE
Spoken at her funeral in 2002 by her grandson
Gaga was born the year Mark Twain died. This was a world in which a substance called “plastic” was merely a year old. The following things were less than 10 years old: the airplane, the washing machine, the World Series, Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams, Picasso’s Cubism, the Model T, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Queen Victoria’s death… The following things did not exist: the traffic light, the Oreo Cookie, Personal Income Tax, the Panama Canal… She was born before the Titanic, before World War I, before President Kennedy’s birth, before Charlie Chaplin became a movie star… William Taft was President. Edith Wharton was the age I am at present. The adults of her generation were as close to the Civil War as our are to the Korean War. Women did not vote and would not be granted this right for another 10 years. To quote Gaga herself in response to her 7 year old grandson’s question about when she was born: “it was the olden days”.
It was a different age. The actual length of time only tells part of the story. When one considers the staggering amount of scientific and technological knowledge that has been gained over the last 92 years — one might conclude that 1910 is as remote from the year 2002 as the Middles Ages are from the Age of Enlightenment.
To really understand how much changed in Gaga’s lifetime imagine one of the numerous civil war veterans leaning over Gaga’s cribbed being told this child would live to see an age where the United States would be helping to build an international space station (two decades after landing on the moon) and that most people would communicate via a pocket-size wireless telephone. He probably would look on news of our current state of affairs as a Jules Verne fiction — especially the part about Gaga being able to vote and United States working with other countries. Our imaginary veteran’s reaction to the future points to the difficulty of growing old and adjusting. People become set in their ways. People’s view of the world hardens to a point where every new invention of innovation becomes, “suspect”. The expression, “they’re old”, is synonymous with a sense of not being able to accept things that are new. This brings to mind Gaga’s husband, the man I knew as my grandfather… Pop-pop and his continual refrain of “miserable stinkers” which was liberally applied to a whole legion of innovators — from people who believed cars should travel over 30 mph or the new spokespeople on television — like Mohammed Ali.
Gaga was not old. She never lost the sense of curiosity about people and an unwavering Catholic (in both senses of the word) view of the world. This is not to say that Gaga wasn’t set in her ways. She didn’t care much for the offerings in contemporary popular culture. I’m not going to mention the results of a member of our family taking her to see the film, Leaving Las Vegas. She held fast to her routines that became more difficult as time wore on — the molten cup of black coffee metamorphosed into a molten cup of de-caf, which eventually became a boiling cup of water. The numerous holiday and birthday cars, which I’m sure every member of this room received religiously, became shorter and shorter until they simply revealed, “love Gaga”, written in a strained, arthritic hand. Gaga was an old-fashioned creature but she wasn’t OLD.
Being old suggests irrelevance. Old news fails to be germane… but Gaga managed to be relevant throughout our lives. The constant stream of visitors at Lincoln Plaza looked on their journey as a welcome pilgrimage, rather than a burdensome obligation. And it was not uncommon to have those visits interrupted by phone calls from scores of fellow well-wishers. I suspect if we all lived to the year 2300 we would still cherish those afternoons of cookies and soda and afterward the never-ending punctual greeting cards or whatever form they would take. It wasn’t what she said exactly, although there were many times I treasured her advice, it was more to do with the overall sense of reassurance. No matter how rough things got you could always depend on taking refuge in that small apartment. I was as if someone took you by the hand and removed you from the contumely of the world and the heartache of being an adult. Visiting her little “nook” you had the blessing of basking in the safe-harbor of her presence.
Gaga possessed a loving manner and an open view that superseded the never-ending superficial changes in the world around her. This is not to say she was “open” — friendly yes, but she kept her own counsel and wasn’t big on quaint socializing. I remember her special area where she would sun herself in East Hampton — away from the maddening crowd. Steve White did a water-color of her lying in her familiar spot. And then there was her explanation of why she refused to go the roof by herself and talk to the other people at 30 Lincoln Plaza. “You sit and talk…. and the next thing you know — they’ll be talking about YOU”. No she was very much her own person. But her cheerful manner and unfailing politeness masked a hard life and strong opinions. If you are going to be a friend to someone — you must be a friend — her life experience had not shaped her for casual relationships.
I am going to reveal something that Gaga quietly told me in one of those afternoons where I lay on her couch being plied with food. After graduating from teachers’ college she was not given a permanent assignment for over a decade. Despite the fact that she was widowed mother of two young children in difficult economic times, she remained a substitute teacher for the first quarter of her career. By the time she received her first placement, the men who graduated with her were already principles. I was horrified but she looked at me with a resigned confidence and said, “that’s just the way it was”. I also learned about her childhood in which her father collapsed and died during a family meal leaving her mother to act out the difficult role she herself would take-on years later. Gaga became the sole breadwinner and head of her household due to her young husband’s death by appendicitis on Christmas Day . I would remind everyone that Gaga lived in a “sink or swim” world that had social policies born out of the harshness of 19th century industrialism. It should be remembered that our entire Social Security system began with the idea of providing aid to widows. This group’s plight must have been extraordinary for the government place them first in line for such an accommodation. The suffering must have been unimaginable…. And yet Gaga was never one to raise her voice about her troubles or the lack of help. “That’s just the way it was”. She always mentioned her childhood in glowing terms and took pride in the accomplishments of her own two children — who both went on to raise families of their own.
The title “matriarch” comes to mind in describing Gaga’s role in the family. But somehow that word fails to capture her quiet stoicism and her warm comforting disposition. Matriarchs tend to relish being pampered and worshipped. Gaga was the opposite. In trying to make arrangements with her there was a never-ending chorus of “don’t go out of your way” or “I won’t call you at work — you’re busy” or “I don’t want to be any trouble”. Those years of caring and carrying the extra load had made her paranoid that she was somehow on the other side of the fence. On of her last acts was to compose a detailed list of what was to be done with her body including the person to call to transport her to the funeral home…. As if to say: I don’t want you to have to worry about making arrangements for me. Yes it was necessary to alter our routines and take extra steps — especially in these last few months. But this was a small welcome payback to a life dedicated to the people she loved. She never understood the joy with which we applied ourselves — her endless refrain of “I’m so lucky” as if she was somehow undeserving of our love. Matriarchs rule over a clan whereas Gaga’s soft-spoken, self- reliant, parental style was more universal. This might sound corny or even worse, but I think I speak for everyone in this room when I say, “we are all Gaga’s children”.
I remember years ago in Florida soon after Pop-pop died. She had just hung up the phone from a long conversation with a neighbor who was trying , albeit too hard, to comfort her. She turned to me and said in a stern voice, “people expect me to go to pieces” and she shook her head and laughed. I was not the laugh of joy — she loved Pop-pop dearly, but a laugh that marked a recognition that death is very much a part of life. It was the laugh of someone who understood that living is a struggle that is to be met with grace and enjoyed with family and friends. And so I imagine her response to the question: “why must you go ?” She would sit in that frumpy green velvet chair and look at me across the round table filled with scores of those knick-knacks and say in a stern, but reassuring voice: “That’s just the way it is”. Then she would laugh and ask me if I wanted a cookie.
