Ethel Lunin (Ranz)

(as remembered by Lloyd Brass):

I'm sitting here holding a photograph of my Grandma, Ethel. She looks good. She's smiling. In fact, her whole face looks aglow... kind of... I don't know... uplifted. This picture was taken in her mid-70's. Her hands are in a kind of weird position, but... hmmm. Oh, I see. I'm holding the picture upside down. Or, rather, she is. This is a picture of Ethel standing on her head doing one of the classic yoga postures. Yes. Somewhere in her 70's. She was taking a class at the time. That's what I remember about Ethel. Very physical.

I think of her and the beach as one unified Gestalt. As far as I know, she always lived near "the shore". From the time I was 7 or 8, we went to that hot Jersey shore. The boardwalk smelled of salt and tar - something they must have used to keep the boards from their inevitable dissolution into the sea - a sea that was never contained by sand, but infused itself into the light, into the air... into my Grandmother.

Early sixties. On the beach at Asbury Park. Jersey. Very hot in the summer. And the surf, very rough for an 8 yr. old. We had an apple, but my sister and I both wanted it. So hot... I just want that apple. "But we don't have a knife, Grandma." Ethel dug her thumbs into this apple and gave a mighty twist. It was torn asunder, to the wonder of both me and my sister. She loved the beach, that's for sure.

Ethel - age 75 There are these cravings, these compulsions we get as children. We absolutely must have... whatever... or we will die!" I had this. I had this about a boat ride in Asbury Park. Yeah, right there at the shore. One of those amusement parks that, once in while, had a really classy little ride. This was across the boardwalk. A series of mysterious canals created by 2 by 10's running up and down a little portion of a little lake. But the boats, you see, the boats! You could control them yourself! There was no track running underneath, guiding every unconnected movement you made with an ineffectual steering wheel. No! You turned right, it turned right. You turned into the 2 by 10, that's where you went, Bang! True control! This was an expensive ride, though. Even at 7 or 8, I knew that. I don't know. If I ever become a parent, I'll remember that the kindest memories children have of adults surrounds amusement park rides. I lobbied hard and heavy and, Grandma, YES, she came through. I almost peed my pants, I was so excited. My brother Robert, my sister Lorna - they were just too LITTLE to drive a personally controlled boat. But not me. I drove proudly, little shrieks of laughter and pleasure filling my grandmother's soul.

Grandma was always up for a walk at the beach. 60, 70, 80 years old, and still up for the beach. I remember walking along with her one time. This must have been in the 70's because I was very into reincarnation and the multidimensional self living countless existences, this one being a brief human experience. I wanted to know what she thought about this. Had her years given her any great insight into the mysteries of existence. She paused for awhile. And then answered, "Well... I guess you have to be in a certain state of consciousness to appreciate that." Of course you did. I was blown away.

When I was in my early 20's, Grandma was a walking compendium of Old Wive's Tales. Little did I know that year after year, her "quirky" dietary habits would be published in Science.

"Have something that'll stick to your ribs. Here. Have oatmeal."

"Grandma, how can this stick to your ribs?"

"Never mind, this is better for you than that frosted... frosted... what is it?"

Oatmeal shown to actually reduce serum cholesterol. Yep. They actually discovered that it mangles cholesterol and drags it right out of you. And that sugared kid's cereal... makes my Pancreas throb just to think about it.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away."

"Fresh fruits and vegetable proven to lower blood serum cholesterol." This advice from Ethel, by the way, did not work so great with my mother.

"Chicken soup, it'll cure your cold."

"Complex organic molecules in 'Chicken Soup' found to have anti-biotic effects."

"If you eat right you won't need to take those vitamins."

The AMA has been saying this for 20 years.

And speaking of the AMA... My dad had a difficult time convincing his family that he'd be able to be a doctor. He still remembers that Ethel didn't even think twice about it. To her, it was a given. "Do you get good grades?" "Well, yeah, sure I do, gee willikers, Mrs. Lunin!", I imagine my father saying. (I imagine anyone in the 40's speaking like Wally Cleaver.) "Well of course you can be a doctor. You can be anything you want, you make good grades." This was a revelation to my Dad. She didn't doubt. She didn't even try to convince. It was a fact. Phil wanted to be a doctor, that's what he would be. I think my father took this confidence to his heart... and look at the results. Thirteen years later he's chasing me around my bedroom with a big 'ol 12 gauge hypo full o' penicillin: "I'LL GET BETTER THE SLOW WAY!!!", I plead. But I know it's hopeless. Dad gives me that understanding smile... but... I'M GONNA GET THAT SHOT.

Oh. Here's another good one about my Dad and Ethel. My Dad was an extremely serious student. When he was in high school biology, he decided to examine the skeleton of a cat to better understand its underlying engineering and bio-dynamics. So, well, you gotta get the skeleton of a cat. You'd probably get that, oh, well, by finding a dead cat and then, um.. oh, I guess... BOILING it. In a big pot. On the stove. Ethel comes in, and something smells like stew. "What's this?" Phil rushes up to the stove, "Uh, no, no, Mrs. Lunin, that's..." But it's too late. She's seen it. She's kinda, oh - freaking out is the best way I can imagine it. But my Dad says she took it pretty good. After all, he was on his way to medical school. They needed to know anatomy. Isn't that great?

Grandma arrived a week or two before my Bar Mitzvah to help prepare. She was RELENTLESS regarding my Bar Mitzvah speech. Over and over, time after time, reading this thing I had written about some battle described in the Torah portion I would read. And we kept coming back to one word, over and over: "Fought." Yes. They had "fought" this battle and... I knew it was coming. Grandma would stop me. Not "fought", "fu-awt". I didn't get it. This was before I knew about dialects, but WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HOW I WAS SAYING THIS?! Over and over. "Fought" "Fawwwt". "Fought?" "No, faaawwwwt". What was it? Then, like an epiphany (Bar Mitzvah and all) it came to me. To Ethel's New Jersey ears, a normal pronunciation of "fought" sounded like "fart". In fact, "faht" is how someone from New Jersey would say "fart". So there it was. She didn't want them to fart a battle. I confirmed this with my mother, who was embarrassed by the entire thing. So Ethel's only solution was to force me to bend the word "fought" into her own twisted New Jersey diphthong - something like "Fu-awt". Boy... talk about being fixated on a minor part of the proceedings. It's like that old joke about the kid who wanted a fountain pen so bad for his Bar Mitzvah, that when he got to the end of his speech, he said, "Today, I am a fountain pen!" Only in my case...

One of the last times I talked to Ethel, she was still living at home, but had suffered a series of mini-strokes. I was trying to tell her something, but she was getting more and more confused and uncomfortable. Just before she gave the phone to her caretaker, I said, "I love you, Grandma." Her response was so... well, Ethel. "Of course, dahling."

I actually had a dream about Grandma just a few weeks ago. I had pulled over near a school which was out of session in order to play a very strange looking violin-like instrument. I didn't want to disturb anybody or attract attention, and this looked like the perfect spot. Well, no sooner had I started to figure out how this thing was played, than who should I see coming up to the window but Ethel. She was beaming and I rolled down the window. "Grandma... you look great!" We hugged. I was really glad to see her. Of course, I knew that she had died. I was very curious. "So... what was it like to, you know, go over?" "What are you talking about," she asked, genuinely puzzled. "Well, don't you remember how you were just before you died?" At that, she started to metamorphose right before my eyes. Becoming sunken, paralyzed, but still aware. Just like that last time I saw her. I grabbed her. "Grandma. You can have any kind of body you want or imagine now." She rejected this out of hand. "You can't make yourself a young girl just because you imagine it!" There was that New Jersey sense of practicality. I countered: "Yes, when you were human that was true. BUT YOU'RE NOT HUMAN ANYMORE, GRANDMA!" I hadn't noticed all the older woman who had crowded around us, but they seemed to be friends of hers. They chimed in, a Yenta Chorus: "HE'S RIGHT, ETHEL. YOU'RE NOT HUMAN ANYMORE!" Darcy turned in her sleep and sighed. And I was out of it and awake. But I felt that I had left her in good hands.

In all the current research of Near Death Experience, there are numerous reports of "experiencers" meeting those near and long departed to help them through their transition to the other side. Certainly, I hope Ethel will be there. "Here," she'll say. "Eat this, and calm down. You've been through a lot. You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you, dahling."