“If I don’t make it,” he whispered to her, “name the baby after me”

It’s Erev Rosh Hashanah, and we are four proud siblings,

noses gleefully pressed to the windowpane, awaiting Mommy’s return from the hospital with Daddy and baby. Grandma and Grandpa puttered in the background, readying the house for the arrival of their daughter and newborn grandson.

Suddenly, cries of distress distracted me from my window-side vigil, and I swiveled to the stairs to determine its source. It was Grandpa. He was sprawled on his back halfway down the stairs clutching at his stomach, his face contorted in the most fearsome expression of pain.

“Where’s Grandma?!” I heard someone shout. (Was it me?)

Grandma rushed to Grandpa’s side and kneeled beside him, her expression a mirror to his rising terror. “Someone call Jerry!” she commanded, and we hurried to summon my father’s close friend to assume the physician’s role in Daddy’s place.

Perhaps it was minutes later, perhaps it was more, but eventually the house filled with medical support. Just as Hatzalah escorted Grandpa down the stairs with Jerry and Grandma trailing protectively behind, Mommy, Daddy, and baby stepped over the threshold.

I’m sure they were stunned. I’m sure they were utterly horrified at the specter of infirmity and affliction that hurtled past just as they hurried in, clutching a bundle of newness and hope. But all I remember is my grandfather’s voice, hoarse with agony, as he passed my mother cradling the baby in her arms.

“If I don’t make it,” he whispered to her, “name the baby after me.”