My Zeidy Gluck 

Nechama Sternberg

He was born in Serench, Hungary in the early 1900s, but in his words, “I was never born. They just opened the door and I flew in.” My grandfather Menachem Mendel Gluck was the second child to his parents. He had an older brother Yosep, and he was followed by a brother, Pinchas, whom he was especially close to and loved, twin brothers Dovid and Amram Yishai, and a baby sister Malka. A smallpox epidemic swept through the area, and in one night, Pinchas, the twins, and the baby were gone. Most of the victims were the elderly and the young. His mother couldn’t handle the grief, so his father told them they would go to the U.S., where there were vaccines against these diseases, and one could hope that one’s children would grow to adulthood. Before they left, his brother Gedaliah was born, and youngest brother Heshy was born in America.

My earliest memories of him include the top drawer of his armoire where I could rummage through his socks and handkerchiefs to find the sesame candies and the colorful sugar candies that you could almost look through and see on the other side. I remember the musty sweet smell in the armoire too, and wish I could inhale that scent again, but my mother has been gone for nine years, so I can’t even ask her which detergent she used.

I recall his humorous comments as if he just said them yesterday. When asked how old he was, he’d say, “I’m eleventy-seven or eleventy-nine,” and when asked how he was doing, he’d say, “Fair to muddy.” Or, when in a more pensive mood, he would say, “Don’t be a yokel.” 

His was a gentle face and warm smile framed by his gray beard, a welcome presence in my parents’ home that spoke of love and acceptance. In my childhood mind, he was the person to find after getting off the school bus. With my father’s parents across the ocean and my maternal grandmother passing away when I was just a toddler, he was the only grandparent I would know until my teenage years, when my paternal grandmother came to visit. 

I recall his firm stance between two of my brothers engaged in a sibling battle, and how he stopped it just by standing there. 

So when my older son was born, my husband and I tossed his name back and forth between ourselves in the hospital room, but agreed that the name didn’t suit him. Because Menachem Mendel is all about seriousness tied with a lively personality, and my older son is more about spreading justice and light all around. When baby boy number two came and cried for the first fifteen minutes after his arrival in this world, I knew that he was the one to carry the name. As per one of my sisters-in-law, the child you name after someone will most likely carry their personality and mannerisms. And I strongly believe that you can already see some of that after they are born. 

Interestingly, it came to light after some of my older nephews were also given his name that his given name at birth was Menachem, and he was nicknamed Mendel, the Yiddish version of the name. That is how he was named at his bris, was called to the Torah at his Bar Mitzvah, and was married. His ketubah (religious marriage contract) says Menachem Mekhuneh (nicknamed) Mendel. However, all his grandchildren named for him were given both names, and are called by different nicknames. 

And when our baby was two weeks old, my mother passed away, and he was a source of comfort to me and my sisters. I am so glad that I had the privilege of naming a child after him in the time when I needed that tangible reminder of my grandfather and my mother the most. 

There have been so many times that I’ve been asked if he is named after the Rebbe of Lubavitch, and I then gently remind people that Menachem Mendel is a common eastern European name. And in my grandfather’s words, “The Lubavitcher Rebbe and I were probably named after the same person.” 

Later in his life, he had Alzheimer’s disease, and would often be brought home by caring members in our community who found him wandering around several blocks away. This is before cell phones and social media. I recall how frantic my mother would be as she stood by the door waiting for him. 

As the story goes, he passed peacefully in his sleep on the couch in our basement. My older brother found him lying there so we never got to say goodbye. It was the first time in my young life that I encountered loss, and I didn’t fully understand that he wouldn’t be coming back. It was also the first time I recall having a babysitter stay with younger siblings and me while all the older ones went to the funeral. 

I wonder if I would be able to find the candies in the grocery store, and what would they taste like today: fair or muddy?