My heart started to pound as Bobby looked at me searchingly and said in a broken voice, “Did you hear the news?”

W

hen I was a teenager, my grandmother, Mrs. Pearl Benisch, wasn’t famous. She was still working on her book To Vanquish the Dragon. The world and I didn’t know yet of her heroic stories of how she risked her life to help others, and fiercely held on to mitzvos, to an unwavering emunah.

Even so, there were little clues trickling into my subconscious here and there making me aware that my grandmother was different, living on a higher plane. Like the time I stopped off at her house on my way home from high school one day. I knocked and knocked. It took a long time for her to come to the door. When she opened the door, her turban was askew, her eyes red with tears. I was surprised, as my European grandmother always opened her front door with her short blonde sheitel affixed to her head.

And her red eyes! Why was Bobby crying? What was going on? Was everyone in the family okay? My heart started to pound as Bobby looked at me searchingly and said in a broken voice, “Did you hear the news?” I felt dread creep over me. Who got hurt? My parents and my siblings’ faces flashed in front of me. I couldn’t talk, and I stared back at Bobby.