Freda Needleman
1911-2008

Please forgive me as I’m taking a week off from educational blogging this week to remember one of my greatest teachers, my grandmother, who I called Mimi. She died this week, just thirteen days shy of her ninety-seventh birthday in her own apartment which she had lived in for over thirty years. We had an unusually close relationship. We spoke every day and visited once or twice a week. My father, her only child, died when I was a year old and so whereas other people had a mother and father, I had a mother and grandmother. This has meant that I’ve always sucked at sports but it has also meant that I have had two incredible teachers who have loved and supported me and taught me everything I know.

My grandmother didn’t want someone who didn’t know her to get up and speak about her and so my mother and I spoke at her funeral. I felt unable to speak in person and so no one was surprised hat I delivered my speech and accompanying slideshow via DVD. Here’s my speech…

I recently spoke at an educational conference in Palm Springs and Mimi listened as I practiced my speech. She gave me two pieces of advice. She said, talk loud and don’t touch yourself. Today’s a little harder than that conference so please forgive me if I forget one of her suggestions.

It was twelve o’clock midnight, just before my grandmother was going into hip surgery. She sent everyone else out of the room and called me close. I was crying. And she said, if something happens to me I don’t want you to cry and I don’t want you to be sad because what we had was special and you I have had some good times together. And we both said I love you.

And she came out of hip surgery and lived for six more years. She kept falling down, sometimes literally, and springing back to life, each time with more pains and bruises but each time alive. So it’s not a surprise now that she’s gone but on some level it seemed as if she was going to go one forever.
Ever since picking me up from kindergarten she was always teaching me lessons. She was always afraid that I wasn’t listening or that she hadn’t gotten through to me and so I guess what I want her to know is that I was listening and her voice has been guiding me in my head for years and that won’t go away any time soon.

She taught me to treat others how I wanted to be treated, how to make meatballs, and in second grade she taught me not to eat my own boogers. On one of our weekly trips to the market last year we were walking past the melons when suddenly she got all choked up and I said, “What’s wrong?” And she said, “I must have done something right. I must’ve taught you something because you’ve turned out okay. “ And I was feeling pretty good about my life choices and how often do you hear this so I prompted her a little, I said, “What makes you say that?” And she said, “Back there with the bread, you knew those rolls were bad. You wouldn’t buy stale bread.”

And another favorite memory at the market. We had just paid and I was pushing the cart. She was pushing the walker. We left the checkstand and we were walking behind an old man also using a walker. We walked slowly and politely behind him for about five feet and then I looked at my grandmother. She was walking so quickly herself but she shook her head and said, “Oh, come on!” and she pulled her walker out from behind him and pushed herself out the door in front of him.

And so I’m sad that she didn’t get to see me buy a house which might be happening soon. And she didn’t get to meet her great grandkids which won’t be happening soon. And she didn’t get to go to her funeral which so far is pretty nice.

But she was there and she was always there for everything from baseball games to birthdays and graduations, movie premieres, and play premieres. She came to school with me to help out one day when I was teaching kindergarten. And I think she was proud of my teaching. She kept print-outs of articles I’d written for my blog on her coffee table. She was very interested in my internet business and she even asked me about the day before she died. A couple of years ago she had seen a Dateline NBC program or something like it about pornography on the internet. She was very concerned that I was involved with something shady and couldn’t understand why random people were sending me money. So I tried to explain to her for an hour about how the business worked and at the end I said my business has absolutely nothing to do with pornography. Okay, she said I understand…but wouldn’t you make more money if it did?

And so she was right, what he had was something special and I am lucky to have had thirty one years with Mimi. My life has been better because of it. I love her and I will never will forget her lessons or her love.

I leave this message for [my father and grandmother also buried at the same cemetery] to say that I loved her, I took care of her the best I could, and I give her to you now. You take care of her, make her laugh, and bring her by the house, we live just down the street.