Managing Bubbie, Russel Lazega
I loved this tender story. It was a nostalgic look back for me because I am familiar with the times and places mentioned in the book. The book will charm anyone who has had the good fortune to be born in the era of bubbies and to have had someone in their life that resembled one. Sadly, my bubbie was only with me for the first 7 years of my life. My mom was one of the youngest of almost a dozen children, so I met my bubbie as she neared the end of her life. Decades later, I still recall the warmth and the special feeling I had when I was with her. With her grey braided hair crowning her head, she was the embodiment of love as she would pull me onto her lap in the front parlor or ask that I sit next to her on the daybed and choose a candy from the ever present, always filled, tin of treats in the bottom of the bureau drawer.
Today, the idea of a bubbie, is almost extinct. Bubbies have had to make way for the more modern grandmother, one who doesn’t always even admit to being one, let alone being a great grandmother! The term is fast being thrown into the dustbin of history, replaced by more chic names that do not indicate age or wrinkling or their special charm! Today we have nanas, mimis, gagas and many more unusual titles that do not indicate in any way their relationship to their grandchildren. Also, mothers are older so the likelihood of even having a bubbie is diminished even further.
Russel Lazega has cleverly and wittily, defied logic, by combining the horrors of his bubbie’s Holocaust experience with her present day life in America, without making it too heavy a message to bear. His bubbie is a character who possesses both humor and sternness, who can be stubborn and yet pliable; but above all, is always thinking of others, always clever, always smart and also unashamedly manipulative in order to accomplish her goals, in order to survive. This is his story of Lea Winter Lazega, his bubbie.
His prose has a light touch which will sometimes make you smile at the antics of this old fashioned, determined woman who seems to be preoccupied by the effort to find him a spouse, and sometimes he will make you feel solemn as you read about the life she had in Europe, about how in the face of the worst possible consequences, she never gave in, never lost hope, and thus, survived and managed to carry others along with her, in that effort. She had courage and fortitude. Largely on her own, and without an education, she was able to lift herself up and make a better life for her family in America.
Going back and forth in time, he contrasts her life as she tried to escape from the clutches of Hitler and his followers, with her future, the life she made for herself in America. One thing that the book proves for certain to me, is that the absence of a bubbie in the lives of today’s young children will leave its mark, or perhaps its absence will leave a hole, an emptiness that can be filled by no other. A bubbie is a person who selflessly loves whole-heartedly those that she feels responsible for, and she surely helps to shape the future of those with whom she interacts. Hail to the bubbies, may they defy reason and continue to shine in the lives of others!