Hespedim (Eulogies) for my father, Sam Simon z"l

My father, Sam Simon, died on Saturday night. Today, at his funeral, my brother, Steven, and I each gave a hesped (eulogy) in honor and appreciation of his life. Here are both of our hespedim:

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Hesped for Dad
by Steven Simon
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How do you summarize a man’s life in 5 or 10 minutes?

I’ll start with a recent story. It’s a story that Dad told me just about 3 weeks ago. Just before New Years, 4 weeks ago, Mom and Dad visited the casino at Foxwoods. Michael and Claire were away in Israel. Wendy and I had taken the kids down to New York City for an overnight. A bit uncharacteristically, Mom and Dad decided that they would take advantage of our absence, coupled with an “off day” from dialysis, and hopped on the bus from South Station. When they lived in California, their favorite escape was always Las Vegas, trying to get there at least once every year or two. Not big gamblers by any definition, it was an escape for them. In Dad’s typical storyteller’s voice, he told me that they enjoyed a delicious lunch, and soon after, he headed for the 25 cent slot machines. After playing for a while, Dad said he moved to a different machine, and all of the sudden, the machine starts spitting out quarters – a lot of quarters. He didn’t know exactly what he had done, but the woman next to him pointed out that he had won about $400. Never before in his life, he said, had he hit a jackpot like this. It turns out, though, that he did hit the jackpot – at least metaphorically speaking – and all of us were the beneficiaries of his good fortune.

Dad was born on August 14, 1925, in Kansas City, Missouri. He was the first of two sons born to Ruth and Dave Simon, immigrants whose families resided in Lithuania, Russia, and Poland. Dad grew up in a modest Kansas City neighborhood – racially mixed, with many Mexican-Americans. This experience no doubt taught him a lot about differences and tolerance.
His mother and father nurtured a traditional Jewish-immigrant household. Sammy loved his mother’s cooking. When he was six or eight or eleven years old – the current ages of his grandchildren – our country was in the midst of the Great Depression. Dad grew up in a time of modest consumption and rationing, and this experience certainly led him – and many of his generation – to be a careful spender.

As a child, he worked in his father’s haberdashery, which later became an army surplus store.
In 1943, at age 18, Dad was drafted to the Army and was inducted two years to the day after Pearl Harbor. Legend has it that our grandpa Dave – his father -- knew Harry Truman. Dad often wondered whether this or some other acquaintance led him to be assigned to the quartermaster corps, responsible for supplies, rather than in the infantry. This good fortune notwithstanding, his military service was no walk in the park. We learned through Dad’s storytelling that he had to march and carry backpacks that were so heavy that they left impressions on his shoulders that lasted the rest of his life. Mom can verify this.
He loved to tell the story of how, in preparation for landing at the beachhead in the Philippines, his commanding officer instructed him to climb down a rope ladder from a large ship – maybe a battleship – to a raft or similar small craft to take him and his fellow soldiers ashore. Since Dad never learned to swim – before or after this landing – the climb down the ladder was especially harrowing. This act of fortitude – for him it must have been gut-wrenching – foretold other occasions when he would dive into situations that demanded courage and guts.

Dad never once bragged about his achievements in the military—his stories were always filled with humor and high jinks. But in truth, he was a decorated soldier, having served to maintain peace during the occupation of Japan and the Philippines during and after World War II. After two years of army service, he received a medal for good conduct and an honorable discharge. He remained proud of his service to country for all his days.

After the War, he returned home to Kansas City, but soon thereafter, he and his family moved west to California, where the family bought a liquor store in the town of Cudahy, adjacent to Los Angeles, on Atlantic Avenue. He took some courses at the Community College, but there was no doubt that his mother and father expected Sammy to work in the store, which is what he did. If he was nothing else, he was a dedicated son, respecting his parents, and later, caring for them as they aged. For twenty years he worked with his brother and his father in the family business, usually working 7 days a week.

In 1965, Dad met Mom. One Mrs. Crosner knew both families and gave Dad Mom’s number. We’re told it took him several months to call her, but once he did, he moved fast. They first dated in May, and a week later, Dad proposed, and that August, in 1965, they were married. The pace continued, as I was born a little over a year later. Life was good, until two near-tragedies occurred. Late one night, a confused man high on drugs tried to break down our front door, thinking we had drugs. Dad held the door back, may have wielded a kitchen knife, and protected us from harm. Some months later, while Mom was pregnant with Michael in 1970, another drama ensued. During the middle of the night, while all of us were sleeping, flames erupted in our living room and spread rapidly throughout our home, ultimately burning it down to its wooden frame. Mom always said that it was Dad who smelled the smoke, woke her up, grabbed me, and led us all safely out of the house through the thick haze. Dad almost never talked about the fire, but it’s not too far of a stretch to say that he saved our lives. Jackpot.
In the early 70s, he left the family business and set up his own liquor store – Stagecoach Liquor – in Anaheim, California. Like climbing down the rope ladder on the side of the ship, this, too took courage. Dad always said that he could never have done it without the love and support of Mom and, in particular, the mentorship from his father-in-law, our Grandpa Marvin, z’lvracha. He worked 7 days a week, usually 10-12 hours each day, and always succeeded in what was clearly his main objective, to provide for his wife and children. Always encouraging of Michael’s and my academic and extra-curricular pursuits, he attended these events whenever he was able. It was through his hard work to earn a living that we were able to continue our education. He insisted that one of the first things I did when I went to college was to send him a sticker so he could put it on his car and tell all his customers and others in the store how proud he was of his son at Stanford. This pride continued for the last 25 years – and we are deeply indebted to his tireless work that both grounded us and enabled us to fly.

In the early 90s, Mom and Dad sold the store, and Dad tried retirement for a bit. He loved being home with Mom, but he missed the contact with the public. Turns out, he really liked to talk to people and help them. He took a part-time job selling shoes at a store in a mall, recalling a job he had held for a period of time many years before. Eventually, Dad entered full retirement in the mid 90s, and he easily occupied himself with reading, television, even helping Mom with chores around the house. But what he loved the most – what he had been working toward for the past three decades – was the opportunity to spend time with Mom. It didn’t matter what they did – whether it was shopping together, going out to eat, or just sitting around the house – Dad’s greatest pleasure in life was being with Mom. Like many men of his generation, Dad was not the most verbally expressive guy, but he always – always – told Mom how much he loved her, how she brought joy and happiness to his life. This love – the kind that you only read about in story books and fairy tales – became even more apparent to us over the past two years.

In early 2007, Dad suffered a heart attack, developed heart failure, had some internal bleeding, and was hospitalized. During the hospitalization, he was found to have a shadow on a chest x-ray that turned out to be lung cancer, a surprise given that he was never a smoker. Many 81-year-olds would have folded their cards, grateful for the many years that God had given them, but Dad – and Mom – surprised us. They agreed to move temporarily from warm and sunny Southern California, arriving in a March snowstorm at Logan Airport, initially to spend 3 months here for cancer treatment. To our surprise – jackpot – they quickly decided to move here permanently. This transition – really a renaissance – must have made climbing down a rope ladder look like a piece of cake.

To our surprise, Dad chose the most aggressive treatment of his lung cancer, which meant undergoing surgery to remove most of the tumor followed by 6 weeks of daily radiation. Through all this, his spirits remained high, buoyed by a love for each day of life with his wife, and the experience of getting to know his grandchildren. Soon, with the cancer under control, Dad was ready to face new health challenges, including hospitalization for gastrointestinal bleeding and then kidney failure. Here, at age 82, he faced another opportunity to give up, to pull his pieces off the board, and no one could have blamed him. But he chose life – embarking on hemodialysis. Dad never complained about the hassles, headaches, discomforts of dialysis – he was a trooper, much like he must have been during World War II. He continued, from September 2007 until this month, without a hospitalization or major medical problem.
To say that Dad made the most of the last two years would be too much of an understatement. He experienced life from a new perspective, opened up and connected with his wife, his sons, his daughters-in-law, and his grandchildren in ways that we never could have predicted, and we are eternally grateful for that gift that he and God have given us.

Dad, Grandpa Sam: We love you and thank you for all you gave us.


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Hesped for my Dad, Sam Simon
by Michael Simon
1 Shevat 5769 ~ 26 January 2009
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My brother just spoke beautifully about the long and rich life of our father, Sam Simon. I want to spend a bit of time discussing gratitude. I connect deeply with the Jewish concept that gratitude is wrapped up in the very fiber of our beings, and embedded into the name of our people: Yehudim, those who embody the verb l’hodot, the act of being grateful. One of the songs of our tradition that speaks most sweetly to me, in times of great joy but also of great sorrow, is called “Tov l’hodot l’Hashem” – it is good to be grateful toward God.

Three months ago today, I celebrated my wedding with my beautiful bride, Claire Sufrin, and, just as importantly, with so many of you – our wonderful family and friends and community. I felt – and continue to feel – such immense gratitude for this experience, for the relationships in my life. But perhaps my greatest amount of gratitude that day was directed toward my mother and father, who gave me the gift of life and so much more – in particular, I felt special gratitude that my father was simply alive, relatively healthy, and able to be there, beaming with pride and joy as he and my mother sat like royalty under the chuppah, sharing in our simcha.

In Pirkei Avot – “Sayings of our Fathers” – the collection of mishnayot that contains the ethical teachings of ancient sages, there is a famous line from Ben Zoma in 3:1: “Eize-hu ashir? Ha-sameach be’chelko.” Who is the one that is rich? The one who is joyful in his portion. My father did not have extravagant wealth, nor did he have extravagant tastes – he was a man who was satisfied with simple, good things. As my brother would say, my dad was happy on his throne in his kingdom – on a comfortable chair watching television in the den at home.

As I thought about my dad’s life over the past few days, and about Jewish narrative, I came up with a seemingly neat “box” to place my father into: that of Yitzhak – Isaac. Like Isaac, my father spent most of his life in a fairly static situation – after a powerful experience in his youth (his army service in World War II), he settled into a life in California as a husband, father, and storeowner. His own father and mother, somewhat like Avraham and Sarah, had followed their call of “Lech lecha” – to go forth toward new horizons, and had come to the United States from “the old country”. His own sons, somewhat like Ya’akov, were the restless strivers, both seeking educational attainment, Jewish learning, and travel experiences beyond those that animated our father’s aspirations.

Yitzhak – the one who dwelled in his home. The one who had a lifelong love affair with his bride, just as my father had with my mother (in fact, yesterday our mom brought out our dad’s wallet to show us that he always carried around with him – for over 43 years – one picture: our mom as a bride – his bride – in August 1965).

But, in the end – literally, toward the end of his life – my father moved out of this box. He demonstrated his capacity to evolve, to stretch, and even to be transformed. The past 22 months that he spent in Boston with our mother, and with us, were an incredible gift – I describe it as an “extended play” of the sort you get when you perform well on a video game; my brother describes it as “playing with house money” – a metaphor my dad would appreciate, given the fun and pleasure my mom and dad had in their many trips to Las Vegas and, more recently, to Foxwoods. This gift of life that my father experienced – and that we enjoyed with him – was made possible only because he and my mother uprooted themselves and moved out here to be closer to us, a move that neither they nor we imagined they would make. This gift enabled him to reconnect with Steven and his wife Wendy, and to develop, really for the first time, a special relationship with each of his grandchildren, the brilliant and beautiful Benjamin, Devorah, and Netanya.

For me, well, these past two years with my father can only be described in the language of bracha – a true and complete blessing. During this time, of course, my relationship with Claire blossomed into our engagement and now marriage – and it has been so meaningful and special for Claire to get to know my parents in ways that wouldn’t have been possible if they still lived in California. Two brief anecdotes – one seemingly mundane, and one most assuredly not mundane – illustrate this, but also say a lot of other wonderful things about who my father was overall, and especially who he was in these past couple of years.

First – the olive oil cake story. When Claire first met my dad, it wasn’t immediately clear to her (or, frankly, to me) whether and how they were going to connect. But on one Shabbat afternoon when we walked over and had lunch with my folks at their apartment, we found out. Claire brought homemade brownies. Now, my father LOVED dessert. Any dessert, really, but, as we would soon discover, he especially loved any dessert that was made by Claire Sufrin. So Claire served the brownies, and my dad said, “Mmm. Do you bake…pies?” And Claire said, “Actually, not really,” My dad seemed a bit disappointed. But Claire quickly continued, “I do bake cakes!” Dad, now fully re-engaged, followed up: “What kind of cakes? Do you make chocolate cake?” And Claire responded, “Yes, I do, but one of my specialties is an olive oil cake”. Now, I must insert: I’m sitting there thinking, ‘Oh no, she didn’t just say olive oil cake, did she? First of all, that sounds disgusting; and second, my mom and dad are going to think, Who is this foodie who can’t just make a good old chocolate cake?’ But then my dad turned to my mom: “Olive oil cake – isn’t that the cake that what’s-her-name made on the Food Network?” I was shocked, on two levels. First of all, my dad seemed interested in the olive oil cake – he didn’t think it sounded disgusting. But on a more fundamental level – what was my dad doing watching the Food Network? I asked him, and he said, “Well, I watch it sometimes when I’m flipping the channels.” Now, that might have been true, but the next thing I know, he turns to Claire, “Will you make me an olive oil cake.” This became a running joke between them, as they got to know each other both through their shared love of food and so much more. Months later, Claire finally served it at the Shabbat lunch at which my parents met Barry and Irene – Claire’s parents – for the first time. And, while I still prefer chocolate cake, my dad seemed quite content with his olive oil special.

Before I share the second, and last story, I want to put it in the context of another text from the Jewish tradition – in Breishit/Genesis 24:1, near the end of Avraham’s life, we learn that “Adonai beirach et Avraham ba-kol” – God blessed Avraham in all things. I think that this verse would resonate with my father, especially during the past two years, when he expressed his appreciation in ways that he had not demonstrated earlier. During the past week, as my mother looked back over their many years together, she repeatedly returned to the same memory that in many ways sums up my father’s perspective: He would wake up every day and say to her, “Honey, I have everything in the world, because I have you, and I have my children, and I have my grandchildren.”

And so, I’ll close with the second story, and return to three months ago today – at our wedding. Our bandleader had asked us if we were going to have a mezinke tanz – the special dance done by Ashkenazi Jews at a wedding to honor parents who have just married off their last child (I, of course, being that last child). A wreath of flowers is traditionally placed on the parents’ heads during the dance. The parents sit on chairs in the middle of the dance floor, as friends and family dance around them in a circle, with each person kissing them as they pass. Claire and I had asked my parents whether they wanted us to do this, and they said, “Whatever you want.” So we followed up: “We’d love to do it, but only if you want to.” And my parents said, “OK – whatever you want.” So we planned to do it. But on the night of our wedding, it was getting late, and there had been lots of dancing and speeches and meal courses, and we were nearing the end of the evening, running a bit short of time. Our bandleader asked us if we were going to do the mezinke, and we said, just a minute, we’ll check. I went over and asked my folks, “Do you want us to do that dance that we talked about, or should we just skip it?” My father, in classic form, said, “Whatever your mother wants to do is fine with me.” My mother said, “Sure, we’ll do it – whatever you’d like.” I realized – a tiny window of wisdom opening – that maybe they really did want this. So we brought out the chairs and they took their seats. Remember – my father was using a cane, and was a bit frail, so he had not been on the raucous dance floor at all earlier in the evening. But here he was, sitting alongside my mother, holding her hand. We put the wreaths on their heads, kissed them on their cheeks, and began to dance around them, first very slowly, and then a bit faster, a bit faster, until the entire crowd was dancing around them and enveloping them in joy and dance and song. As we danced, Bernie Steinberg, my boss and mentor and our mesader kedushin, leaned over and said, “I have never seen your parents look so happy.” And it was true – during my entire life, I don’t think I had ever seen such unabashedly, completely joyful smiles wash over my father’s and mother’s faces. For my father, it was a moment of simply and purely basking in it all. It was a moment of being both a recipient and source of bracha ba-kol – blessing in all things.

These past two weeks have been filled with sadness and pain as we accompanied my father during his last days and hours of life. But they have also been filled with comfort, and even joy, as we savored the life that he was privileged to live, and the love that he was able to experience and to give. Sam Simon, in the end, was beirach ba-kol – and so, too, are all of us who were privileged to know and love him deeply.