So far I have received about 100 holiday cards from friends and family from every part of the country. My tradition has been to tape them on the walls at the entry to my house, and I have continued that tradition in my new house. It makes me smile to walk into the house and see the smiling faces of friends and their families. I leave them up through January which makes me feel connected to people far past the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.
I have been so happy to see that just a small percentage of the cards referenced the pandemic in a less than positive light, or had everyone in the photo with masks on.
For me, 2020 turned out to be a fantastic year. As I’ve heard many people say, there has been a “silver lining” from the pandemic.
My silver linings included selling my residence of 17 years and moving to a new house with the love of my life at the beginning of the year.
It was so sad that my mother Frieda passed away in January, but the silver lining was that we were able to have a Celebration of Life on February 22 with more than 1,000 friends and family in attendance, just a few days before the coronavirus caused large gatherings to be limited.
Because I was forced to work from home for most of the time since March, instead of spending 90 minutes a day commuting, I was able to use that time to start running and taking hikes in the hills of San Clemente and upping my fitness level. I would never have been able to do if I was commuting to work every day.
But, definitely, the highlight of the year happened this week.
And that was the birthday of my grandson.
Shortly after my mom’s memorial, my eldest daughter Alex and her husband Ben became pregnant and shared the exciting news with me in June (most couples are told to keep the news a secret until they pass the three-month mark). I’m not quite sure how Alex kept it from me, as we work together and I would see her daily via our Zoom business meetings. I did notice a kind of glow and a big smile on her face but was so preoccupied with the business challenges of COVID that frankly, I didn’t give it a second thought.
When Alex was born on October 17, 1989, it was the last day of our big annual produce convention (the Produce Marketing Association). I remember when I found out I was pregnant and they told me my due date. I was so naïve about things that I asked the doctor if he could change my due date as I planned to be at a convention that day. My doctor chuckled at me and said things don’t work that way.
October 17, 1989, was the day of the big San Francisco earthquake. For anyone who is a baseball fan, you will recall the earthquake that happened 30 minutes before Game 3 of the World Series was scheduled to start with the San Francisco Giants vs. the Oakland Athletics. I was in a hospital bed in Long Beach, Calif., and remember the earthquake well. I thought to myself, well this baby is going to shake up this world!
Both my parents were in the delivery room with me and my husband when Alexandra Nicole Caplan Jackson came into this world. And just a few days later, my mom, in her weekly produce “Hotsheet,” decided to describe the play-by-play of Alex’s birth, instead of promoting our latest produce products. It was a bit shocking to me and to many of our male customers when they received the purple newsletter in the mail the following week to read about the birth of a child. But it still brings a smile to my face when I think about the joy my mother felt to see her first grandchild born.
Now, that child is 31 years old, and as we entered the last week of the year 2020, our family anxiously awaited her turn to give birth. Although it has been 31 years since I gave birth to my first child, it seemed like just a short while ago. I was able to talk Alex through what to expect and she had a bit of that same naïveté that I did. When I awoke on Tuesday morning, there was a text from my son-in-law Ben that they had been at the hospital since 2:30 a.m. I got continual texts during the day from him keeping me updated on the contractions, the epidural, and of course when Alex was fully dilated.
I was on pins and needles all day, and frankly found myself quite distracted during my normal course of Zoom meetings and calls during the day. So, my partner Jack convinced me to go for a beach run in the afternoon to help distract me. Just as we were leaving the house, I received the most amazing news via text:
My grandson, Eli Fredaric Berkley was born at 2:53 p.m. weighing 6 pounds, 12 ounces, and was 20.5 inches long. Tears of joy streamed down my cheeks. At first, I thought that Ben had made a typo with the spelling of the middle name. Then he explained to me, in the Jewish tradition of taking the same first letter of a deceased family member and using it in the baby’s name, Eli’s middle name “Fredaric” was after my mother, Frieda.
One of my mother’s favorite sayings was “Technology is just amazing these days!” And during my beach walk, when I saw a FaceTime call coming from Ben, I stopped and answered, and was able to see Alex and Eli just a short while after he was born and to talk with them. Technology IS amazing these days!
So, in the next few days, as you reflect on 2020, and look forward to 2021, I hope you will look for the silver lining in your year. What connections did you make? What new habits did you form? What did you learn about yourself?
There are always silver linings. And that glass . . . well, it is more than half full.
Happy New Year!
Grandma Karen
