My great-grandmother Carrie
and I shared a December 9 birthday,
But she was 80 years older.
I remember her in an emerald green jacket and matching skirt.
My mother, herself a beautiful woman, would
admire Carrie’s legs, fantastic for any age,
remarkable in an old woman.
But what entranced me about Carrie was her magic.
When my mother took me to visit
her in the elegant Pierre Hotel,
with its grand lobby and nattily dressed guests,
I felt as if I’d entered a fairytale by Charles Perrault.
During visits, Carrie would take me inside
her voluminous closet to pick out a present: a jade
pillbox with a tiny sapphire to open and close it,
a mustard seed preserved in crystal.
Her gifts became treasured keepsakes.
While I sat on her lap, Carrie
read me the tale of the wise and beautiful Esther,
who dressed to impress the King.
Esther asked him to grant her a favor. “Up until
half my kingdom will I give you,” he said.
Esther revealed that she was a Jew;
She and her people were sentenced to death
by Haman, the King’s advisor.
Esther asked the King to spare
her people. Not only did he agree,
he hung Hamen on the
gallows he planned to use
for Esther’s guardian, Mordecai the vizier.
“It is important to help other people,
especially your own,” said Carrie.
For her 90th birthday, we gathered to celebrate
at The Pierre. Eighteen of us great-
grands assembled around our venerable matriarch.
She was the root to our flowering tree.
Her mementos remain on my hall table.
Though she has been dead for decades,
her magic continues to possess me.
When I had an adult bat mitzvah,
I recited a section of the Book of Esther
from the Megillah in Hebrew. I
pictured Carrie smiling.
Kim Bendheim 