Bubby remains well enough to delegate the work. She just can’t quite do all of it. That’s where family — in this case anything but a small one — comes in a family whose love for their matriarch is supported by a home-aide program that allows Bubby to feel independent. “Like a mensch” says a daughter. “Like a mensch.”

I

t was in the immediate aftermath of World War II.  She had staggered out of Auschwitz alive somehow; he from a “family camp” as a daughter describes it. Their shidduch was redt in postwarBudapest. They were engaged.

By the late 1940s the couple-to-be had successfully immigrated toAmerica. Their new life began with their marriage onU.S.shores.

First inManhattanand then inBrooklyn the young couple kept up all their proud Chasidishe traditions.  Their first child was born in 1949. More blessings in the form of children came along.  Their youngest was born in 1969.

“So it’s a large family with a few dozen eineklach?”

“That’s an understatement!” chuckles a daughter.

*

Well into her high 80s she receives any number of treasured grandchildren and their own children and grandchildren at her well-kept residence with dignity and pleasure. In particular four daughters rotate as aides each putting in two or three hours every day at her side.

The first which begins at 8:00 a.m. is marked mainly with coffee and a schmooze each morning. The second shift begins at 11:30 as another of the sisters takes the reins of daily household chores—cooking baking washing the dishes and squaring away the laundry. For the afternoon shift another daughter arrives around 3:00 p.m. to help her mother retire for an afternoon nap and prepare dinner together. A fourth daughter arrives in evening. All four are certified by HamaspikCare as CDPAS aides allowing them to be paid by insurance to care for their mother. Walk into her house on any given day and you’ll find the matriarch surrounded by the loving attentive care that only family can provide.

*

The run-up to the Yamim Tovim finds the kitchen a beehive of challah baking and turning peaches into compote. Thursday afternoons are marked by production of that stalwart apple “kigel” and come Friday afternoons Bubby is covering her dining room table with a pristine white tablecloth that has been in the family for decades. 

Shabbos arrives and Bubby’s emunah and bitachon spill over to touch the entire family shares a daughter.  Shabbos with her is different than with anyone else.