How do I say goodbye to the person who gave me life, who gave me love, who taught me values, who showed me the beauty of the world, and who demonstrated, by her example, the courage and perseverance to face a world that was not always kind? Anyu, I have loved you from my earliest days and I love you beyond your last. Let me say goodbye with some of my favorite recollections of your past.
You were the favorite, youngest child of Samuel Angyal and Frances
Weiss, the first girl after nine boys, born when my grandmother
was
44, and the apple of her eye. You only knew three of your
brothers,
as only three lived past childhood -- a reminder of the difficult
days
at the start of this century. Béla, the oldest, with ambition and
family support to study medicine abroad, and a beacon to your own
ambitions. Lajos, the prankster, full of joy, who encouraged your
humor and occasional bite. Imre, the solid citizen, a model of
endurance. They are all gone now, Lajos in the holocaust, Imre
nearly
two decades ago, and Béla just last fall. And with you and them,
gone
the first hand knowledge of your father, the self-satisfied Eger
shoemaker who enjoyed comfort among bouts of tragedy, and of your
mother, the vibrant little woman whose passion was books and
people,
as became true for you as well. I laugh still at your story of
going
home to visit your mom when you were already a young woman, when
she
told you to wait just a few more minutes before coming in so she
could
finish the last few pages of Gone With the Wind.
You too had plenty of intelligence and ambition, and had it been a
different world, you would have become a medical doctor. Despite
the
numerus clausus that excluded Jews from education in Hungary, your
intelligence and the kindness of a school of nuns allowed you to
graduate from a Catholic high school. With your brother's help,
you
went to Paris at 19 and started medical school at the Sorbonne.
What
excitement it must have been!
But with Europe heading over the precipice of war, and your
brother's traditionalism about women in medicine, that dream fell
apart, and you returned to Hungary, to marry in haste, move to
small-town Polgar, reduce your plans from treating the sick to
selling
them shoes. Whirling into the abyss, you lost your husband to a
Jewish labor battalion, and were left alone to run the store and
watch
with growing fear the war, hate and persecution that led to
deportation and Auschwitz.
Though they broke your body, your optimism, your confidence, and
your
faith, you were one of the few who survived, combining
determination,
courage, and, as you always said, a lot of chance. The Swedish
Sisters nursed you back to health, and you returned to Hungary to
pick
up the pieces of your previous life. Armin, having lost his own
family, became the bedrock on which you could rebuild. His
intelligence and determination were the equal and complement to
yours,
and you were able to face the next fifty-two years of life
together
with skill, courage, and love.
I marvel at a picture of a thirty-two year old woman holding baby
me,
facing the camera with a jaunty, confident expression on her face,
eyes bright with excitement and knowledge and determination. How
amazing that you got there at all. After the holocaust and the
beginnings of communism in post-war Hungary, it took a little
prompting from Imre and Panni to convince you to have me. Thank
you,
thank you, thank you. It is a miracle that you had the spirit to
conceive life after the horrors that came before, and the proof of
your goodness that you could give love and strength to a child,
after
seeing the depravity of man.
Later life hasn't been a picnic either. The fears under Communism: fear of my dad's big mouth, the police to see my visiting uncle in the middle of the night, long lines for non-existent meat, zealous officials who wanted to turn our house into a tenement. The fears of escaping Hungary: losing our guide, arrest on the railroad, uncertainty. Your determination and spunk finally won the day (aided by a big bribe and Apu's radio), and we were out!
Two years in Vienna: Communists only recently gone, 60 miles from
us. New language, poverty, one room and a hot plate, sewing to
gather
savings. Delay and rejection by immigration officials, but finally
we're in! LA: cleaning toilets for a buck an hour. Chicken necks
at a
nickel a pound, and long walks to the market with the cheapest
bread.
Work, scrimp, save. Work, scrimp, save. But little to fear,
finally
in life! Opportunity, a better job, a better apartment, whole
chicken
at 19 cents a pound. Insurance clerk, underwriter, hard-working
store
owner, open 91 hours/week. You worked hard -- very hard -- for
fifteen
years, but finally you had financial security, pretty good health,
a
love of travel, good friends, and the satisfaction of knowing that
you
had taken life's tough challenges and made good from them.
You lost your religious faith, and some of your faith in mankind
during the brutality of the holocaust, but you never lost your
determination to be good, and to teach goodness. I hope I have
learned, and that I could meet your standards under the sorts of
adversity you have faced. 
I hope, too, to pass this quality and this
strength to my children and through them to future generations. I
know that would please you; our last conversation was about the
children and their education -- a token of our culture, something
to pass
proudly down through the generations.
I asked Apu if he would say a few words, but he feels better to
have me say them. He remembers the love that everyone felt for
you,
and the many ways in which this showed. You joked about being the
trash can that could hold everyone's private stories of joy or woe
-- a
confessor who loved to listen to the most human in people, and who
could do so with sympathy, insight and understanding. Apu also
recalls often being the last to leave a gathering, because people
so
often had just one more thing to talk over with you. Today, your
voice is stilled, but we still have so much more to say to you
that
your absence is grief.
We've said "Goodbye" many times. My first day at school. My first
trip to camp. My moving to college. My moving to the country's
other
end. My wedding, making my independence official. Some were tough
goodbyes, but they were good -- signs of growth, portents of the
future.
Recently the goodbyes are scarier. The "will I ever see you again"
goodbyes since you fell off your feet. The goodbye after your
second
broken hip, when I thought depression would directly snatch you
away.
But this goodbye is final. You are but a memory -- a powerful,
positive
memory, but intangible nevertheless.
I love you as only a son can love his mother, and I am sad beyond words. Thank you for life, love, courage and guidance. Köszönöm és szervusz.