My grandpa Aaron was a man of punchlines. I knew him to be quiet -- certainly compared to my grandma -- but when he did speak, it was technicolor. His punchlines have worked their way into our family vernacular through the generations, from "You invited guests?!" to "Not everything I'm eating is chopped liver."
Grandpa Aaron liked to remind people he was the last male Akabas in the United States until he and my grandma created a tribe — and now, the 27 of us all speak a dialect of his own invention: stating “I’m luff” when we’re full, and of course, his classic about my grandma's spaghetti squash: "I've thrown up prettier things than that."
When people pass away, what lives on are the stories -- the brightest moments that are told and retold that become a metonym for the person. My grandpa has no shortage of those. Like the time he drove himself on a tractor to take his drivers license test. He had his quirks -- some benign, like his vast collections of books and bowties; others more eccentric like his penchant for pyrotechnics and his fearlessness while scaling the roof of his brownstone for the right sukkah schach.
As we gathered around him yesterday afternoon to keep him company in his final hours, he would go long stretches without speaking, waking up every once in a while to crack a gem like "well, this is pretty boring," which had us all laugh-sobbing by his bed. It's only been a few hours since he passed, and I've already heard my dad tell that story to multiple people. But we've been retelling our favorite quintessential grandpa Aaron stories for years; they all end with a punchline. Something quirky and memorable that could only have been said by Aaron Akabas.
Here's a story without a punchline: my grandpa used to go on long afternoon snorkels solo (much to my grandma's dismay) in Grand Cayman. He'd swim out to the deep reef, to what seemed like the farthest point on the horizon, tugging a small inflatable raft on a rope that bobbed gently along the waves behind him. When I was still young (around 10, maybe) he asked me to join him. I followed him, even as my flippers gave me blisters. It was the farthest I had ever swam before. The reef was teaming out there, and I remember feeling transported to another world where my grandpa was like the reef-whisperer, feeding fish out of his hand. On our first trip, he asked if I could see the shark that liked to hang out in this spot. I shook my head and he spat out his snorkel tube, took a deep breath, and dove down about ten feet to point out the nurse shark swimming alongside the coral on the sandy bottom. We lost track of time out there, he and I, feeding the fish, and when the afternoon was starting to wane, I followed him back to shore, exhilarated and exhausted. I didn't ask if I could rest on his raft — and while he hadn't offered that as an option, I got the sense that he was proud that I was able to keep up. When we got back to the house, we had a bowl of ice cream before dinner.
Most people remember the stories with punchlines, and, as writer, I understand why -- it's a nugget that's satisfying to tell and retell. It has a point, a takeaway, and so it crystalizes and canonizes the most unique and prominent aspects of a person's character. But actually, when I think of my grandpa, I don't think of the punchlines. I think of riding amusement park rides in the pouring rain at Hershey; counting pennies at the lake house auctions; playing water polo and paddle ball endlessly on the beach in Cayman. I think about my grandpa winking across the dinner table to me, the only family member who followed him to Penn, whenever Cornell was (frequently) mentioned; how he always showed up early to shul, wearing his father’s kippa for yizkor; how he led the sader past mightnight; how he gave me and Josh a cohen blessing at our wedding two years ago today.
Primo Levi writes of a departed friend, "I know that it is hopeless to try to dress a man in words, make him alive again on the printed page...he lived completely in his deeds and when they were over nothing of him remains -- nothing but words, precisely."
My grandpa's punchlines will live on in our family lore. One day, God willing, I can imagine my nephews will say a quote to their kids, not even realizing that the line started three generations earlier with their great, great grandpa Aaron. But for me, at least, my grandpa was the kind of person who lived in his deeds. Who charted his own small vessel out to the edge of the horizon, and sometimes, when I was lucky, he let me follow.