Episode - 075 - End Times

Stop Making Yourself Miserable

This is the last episode of a four-part series featuring the text and subtext of some excerpts from my memoir, “Wilt, Ike and Me.” The last two episodes dealt with two of my earliest conceptual encounters with aging and death. This next episode looks at them as well, but from a significantly different perspective.

* * *

In December of 1974, my father’s father, Zayde, finally passed away. He was eighty-four, a ripe old age for the time. He had lived alone since my grandmother had died a few years earlier. He cooked his own food and was in great health - never hospitalized or even sick. And every day, he would walk the two miles to his Orthodox synagogue, where he would pray, do a few chores, and tutor some bar mitzvah boys.

We had always been close and of course, we got closer after my father died. But one day in 1972, unexpectedly it went to a deeper level. We were watching a NASA moon landing on TV and he said it was a fake, and that they were really doing it in a TV studio.

When I asked him why he felt that way, he told me about a prayer they used to say in the old country on the full moon. Apparently, the ancient prayer got dropped and never made it over here. Then he recited it - “The moon is so far away from the Earth. And in the same way, God’s perfection is far away from man. But one day man will touch the moon, and when he does, know that the days of the kingdom of heaven on Earth have begun.”

I had never heard that prayer before and even though it intrigued me, I didn’t say anything. I had actually been keeping something from him and didn’t want to discuss anything to do with God or religion.

During my recent college years, I had gotten a strong dose of the hippie lifestyle, along with some of its some mind-altering components. As comedian Robin Williams once said, “If you can remember the sixties, you weren’t really there.” Well, I really was, and it really changed me. Recently, I had started practicing a form of meditation which was having a profound effect on me as well. I was simply outgrowing a lot of my childhood concepts.

But I didn’t want to talk to my grandfather about any of it. He was an old man and had been through enough Tsuris in his life. (Yiddish for trouble), and he didn’t need any more. I was certain that my expanding point of view would only upset him, so I stayed away from it.

“So, you see,” he said, pointing to the lunar surface on the TV screen, “This isn’t real. It can’t be. If they were really on the moon, the Kingdom of Heaven would on its way.”

“Actually, Zayde,” I heard myself say, “it is real.”

“What?” he asked, like he hadn’t heard me right.

“Yes. It is real. All the prophecies are coming true and the whole planet is moving into a higher state. The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”

I couldn’t believe those words had come out of my mouth. I hadn’t planned to say anything to him, but my tongue had been faster than my mind.

The truth is though, that’s the way I really felt. I had spent four turbulent years in college in Washington DC, front and center at the demolition of the American status-quo. It felt like my generation had been on the vanguard of a revolution that had transformed the world.

For baby boomers, since Woodstock, the old order of “might-makes-right” was crumbling, and a new awareness was arising. The stirring message was everywhere - in the music and the movies, on TV and the stage. It really did seem like the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, as they said in the musical “Hair.” Millions of us believed it, and the high times were global.

Still, I hadn’t meant to say anything to him. He came from another era, a distant time and place. He had been a Yeshiva student, and as a part-time cantor, was a full-time, orthodox Jew.

“What?” he shot back at me sharply, “What did you say?”

I thought he sounded angry and scrambled around in my mind to find a way out. But as I looked at him, I realized he wasn’t angry; he was hungry. And alive with curiosity. From that moment on, and for the rest of his life, all we ever talked about was higher consciousness. He was like a sponge and wanted to know everything I knew. The more I learned, the more he wanted to know.

And he had no conflict at all with what I was doing, which completely amazed me. He just wanted as much knowledge about God and the higher realms that he could gather. He didn’t care where it came from. I once asked him about it and he said, “Your religion’s like a car. You drive it to get somewhere, and when you get there, you get out. It’s the same thing with religion. It’s supposed to get you to God. And when you do get to God, you leave everything else behind and go straight to him. Never forget that, Davy. Go straight to him.”

As time went by, he was getting more and more otherworldly and I started visiting him every few days. He was always happy and cheerful, but the end was clearly in sight.

“Hi, Zayde,” I said when I walked in on one of those last days. “What are you doing?” I was referring to the fact that he was walking toward the dining room.

“Oh, I’m just waiting now,” he said. “That’s all I’m really doing. Just waiting.”

“What?” I asked.

“Just waiting. You know, I’m just waiting for him to take me.” He raised his eyes up, toward the ceiling. “I really don’t know why he hasn’t yet. Most of my people are gone, and there’s not much left for me to do here anymore. So, I’m just waiting for him to take me.”

He sounded like a passenger sitting in a bus terminal, whose bus had been delayed. He didn’t mind. He knew it was coming sooner or later. And he was happy to be finally going home.

* * *

The last time I saw him, he was sitting at his dining-room table, about to eat lunch. He began every meal with a small glass of schnapps. He had one on his plate and downed it like water. He started eating, but soon, after just a few bites, he fell sound asleep. His head was resting on his chest, and I wasn’t sure if he was still breathing. He had a faint smile on his face, like a baby, listening to a lullaby.

At that moment, I could really see the family resemblance between him and my father. And as I looked at him, smiling in his sleep, I remembered my father’s face, as he was lying in his coffin. He was smiling too. Of course, he was dead, but he still looked like he was having a great time.

I had often thought about that smile and wondered - was the reason he looked so happy because he actually was? Had he made that glorious transition into a higher reality, like the psychic said in that letter that was found in Abraham Lincoln’s desk? I wondered if there really was such a thing as a higher reality. And if there was, do you really have to die to get there? It didn’t seem to make sense. Why can’t you know that joy while you’re still alive?

After another minute, Zayde started to move a little. He lifted his head off his chest, opened his eyes and his slight grin turned into a happy smile. “Well, it won’t be long now,” he said cheerfully. Obviously, he was referring to the fact that he was about to die. But if anything, he was glad. He went on with his lunch, but when he finished, he looked at me somewhat seriously.

“Listen to me, Davy, and pay attention now,” he said. “We came to this Earth to learn. And not just about anything. We came here to learn about the highest. And I’m going to tell you something important. When we leave here, we actually get to keep what we learned. In fact, that’s the only thing we get to keep. All the rest just goes back to dust.”

He got up and started walking me toward the front door. I figured he was going to take a nap when I left. “So, learn what came here for, and don’t get too distracted by all the other stuff. You know what I mean? Most of what’s here isn’t really real.”

We got to the door and he turned and looked at me. “In the morning, always say to yourself - I want to accomplish what I really came here for. And then, at the end of every night ask yourself - what did I learn today that brought me closer to God? Remember, it isn’t what happens here that really matters. It’s what you learn. That’s what it’s all about.” With his soft, contented smile in the afternoon sunlight, he really looked like the embodiment of a learned soul.

“The higher your understanding gets, the more gratitude you feel in your heart,” he said. “And when you leave here with a heart filled with gratitude, you’ve done your job. Then the journey was worth the trip.”

He put his right hand on the crown of my head and said some prayer in Hebrew that I didn’t recognize. His pale-blue eyes were lit by a warm, steady flame, and he gave me a soft stroke on the cheek. “So long, Tot-a-la,” he said. We hugged each other, and I left.

A few days later, as he was giving a bar mitzvah lesson in the synagogue, he died peacefully among the ancient texts.

***

And so, ends the written description. Now for the subtext, which for me, is quite profound.

By way of background, in his world, my grandfather had become known as being a “Tzadik,” which means a “righteous one.” He had been educated as an Orthodox cantor and had spent a considerable amount of his life engaged in study, prayer and service to his religious community. He also had a mystical temperament, was an deep admirer of the eighteenth century rabbi called the “Bal Shem Tov,” and had been a student of the Kabbalah. And as he was nearing the end of his days, the rarified effects of having lived such a life were unmistakably obvious.

Being with him during these last days was deeply meaningful to me.

Even though he was quite old for his time and had outlived most of his contemporaries, he wasn’t facing the end of his life with any sadness or regret at all. If anything, he seemed excited about it.

And not only was he verbally giving me his perspective about what really matters in life, his example spoke far more than words could ever say. Listening to him, it seemed that when you know that you have fulfilled your true purpose in coming here, you can face the end with gratitude and fulfillment, which seemed to be much more appealing than grappling with a heart and mind filled with confusion and regret.

From that perspective, it seemed clear that many of us spend the majority of our lives chasing after passing, man-made illusions that ultimately bring little in the way of real fulfillment, which suddenly seemed like a colossal waste of time.

Although this final encounter with him took place almost fifty years ago, the light that it generated still illumines my path and inspires me to keep on growing throughout all of the rest of my days, no matter how few or many more I get. As he said, it’s only what you learn about the highest in this life that really counts.

So, this marks the end, not only of this episode, but also of the four-part series. It started out with Wilt Chamberlain taking his epic walks around Peter Widener’s palace. Then it went to Davy Crockett’s valiant fight to death at the Alamo, followed by my meeting with Cousin Agnes, the former glamorous flapper from the 20s. And now, we conclude with witnessing this elevated state my grandfather was in as he contentedly faced the end of his life.

As with all things in the field of inner growth, it’s up to each one of us to draw our own conclusions and extract our own benefits. Again, that’s the end of this episode and as always, keep your eyes, mind and heart opened, and let’s get together in the next one.