By Bill Simons

Nana Kahan gifted me with grounding. Copies of my diplomas and awards hung on a living room wall in her modest apartment. When I traveled, she put 36 cents, double chai, in the tzedakah collection box that hung to the right of her kitchen sink. 
Nana read widely, including “Burr,” “The Boys of Summer” and “Mr. Sammler’s Planet” during her final year. We discussed antisemitism and intermarriage, amongst all manner of things. By sharing her past with me, I experienced family and American history that preceded my birth. Confronting marital and financial challenges, she modeled resilience and courage. 
Afternoons, Nana managed a second-hand Hadassah thrift shop surrounded by a neighborhood in transition. At her shul, she was more likely to attend the rabbi’s weekly discussion group than Shabbat services. As my odyssey took me away, she sent weekly letters. Nana disappointed me only once: she died – with her tzedakah collection box half-filled, a great-grandchild’s afghan blanket in-progress and a book unfinished. 
Nana tried to prepare me for her Kaddish. Since the birth of her youngest child, Nana avoided doctors. In June 1974, armed with two degrees and teaching experience, I confidently anticipated commencing a doctoral program in history at Carnegie-Mellon University that summer. Before departing, I had a long talk with Nana. In retrospect, she wanted to say a final good-bye. Nana confided that she had undergone several blood tests in recent months. Dismissing her tone, I blithely told Nana that she would live to be 100. Looking me in the eyes, she said, “Remember me. Don’t mourn me.” 
In mid-July, a card arrived in Pittsburgh from Nana wishing me a happy 25th birthday. The handwriting was distorted. I called my parents. Nana had suffered a serious stroke and she had struggled to write the garbled words on the card, attempting to shield me from worry and interruption of studies. I immediately drove back to Greater Boston. Nana died on July 29, 1974. 
With family and friends, we gathered at the house of Aunt Lucille and Uncle Ben for Nana’s shiva. We waited for my Great-Uncle Max before reciting the Kaddish. Uncle Max was the most spiritual and religiously learned person I have ever encountered. 
If not for the disruption to his religious studies from World War I, the Soviet Revolution, the Allied intervention and immigration from Russia, Max would have completed his rabbinic studies. In Lynn, MA, Max, his head always covered, prepared boys for their bar mitzvahs when not pumping gas at the Texaco service station his brothers and brothers-in-law purchased for him. 
According to our tradition, God does not destroy the world because of 36 righteous ones whose identities are unknown. I believe, however, that I did know one of them. So, I coaxed Uncle Max into a quite corner and asked, “What happens when a good person dies?” Sensitive to my emotions, Max, drawing close, hesitated before responding with slow, deliberative words, “Bill, our greatest sages tell us – we cannot know.” 
Uncle Max’s wisdom emancipated me from a search for life’s greatest mystery, its aftermath. My strong Jewish identity has not prioritized a quest for salvation. Life after birth, not after death, continues to provide focus. As Rabbi Sam Stahl observed, Judaism emphasizes deed over creed.
Over the years, I developed an aptitude for providing comfort at bedside vigils and times of mourning for family and friends. 
My wife Nancy and I had a robust five-hour discussion with Dad on the last night of his life. A few hours later, he died in his own bed in his own apartment on the cusp of Father’s Day. Nancy and I returned, and I sat with him until I helped the attendant from Stanetsky-Hymanson funeral home carry him to the hearse. My sister Jo Ann and I resolved to proceed with the Father’s Day gathering, featuring an ice cream truck, allowing children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to honor Dad’s life. 
My parents both lived into their mid-90s, and I appeared to thrive on a busy schedule. Then, in 2025, the Ides of March morphed from literary expression to personal experience. I had a heart attack, followed by double bypass surgery. A few months before, a canoe and kayak business featured me in their advertising. Now, connected to tubes and wires, I struggled, even with a walker, to navigate the length of a hospital hallway. I thought of family and friends, taken by time, whom I missed. And I recited the Shema: “Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.”
The medical care and New York state health insurance were good. My brave and loving wife Nancy did more than words can express. Despite his own serious medical issues, Armand, my dear friend, came from Arizona to support Nancy and me when most needed. Akin to a younger brother, Rob, with whom I led a union for a generation, became the first man to present me with flowers. Matt M., once a student and now a close friend, pushed my wheelchair. Driving from Boston to Cooperstown, son Joe and grandson Isaac brought legacy into the hospital room. A few days later, daughter-in-law Lynette arrived with grandchildren Lily, Hannah, Dan and Eva. 
I worked hard at rehab and came to understand that recovery was a marathon, not a sprint, requiring diet, exercise, medication and work/respite balance. At my weakest, I continued to write. By late May, I was able to return as co-director of The Cooperstown Symposium on Baseball and American Culture. Then, I taught courses for Chautauqua and the Center for Continuing Adult Learning. And I resumed my duties as a union officer. By mid-October, I had kayaked the Susquehanna River 26 times. When the cold came, I became a gym rat. 
I reviewed beneficiary arrangements, worked on a will and, with Nancy, considered our final resting place. Accompanied by Joe, Isaac and Dan, Nancy and I visited the Simons family plot off Lowell Street in Peabody, MA. Nancy and I walked up to the interfaith section of the cemetery. Then, returning to the task of placing stones on the graves of the relatives who preceded us, I shared our family history through biography. 
From a talmudic story, I find direction: ‘“Old man, why are you planting these tree seeds when you will not see or taste the fruits of your labor?’ The old man responded, ‘I eat the fruit and take shelter from the trees of my grandfathers. So, I plant these trees for my grandchildren’s survival.’”