Uncle Jonas

It's Purim, and I've been thinking about my Uncle Jonas. Perhaps I'm the only one who ever thinks about him. He died on Purim a little over three decades ago. He was about seventy – I'm not precisely sure what his age was. And I didn't know him very well. But still I remember him.

Uncle Jonas my father's younger brother. He was short and bald. He played the violin, though I can't testify as to how good he was. He never married and lived with his parents (until they died – then he lived alone in the same apartment) on Tenth Avenue in Brooklyn. As I think back, he always struck me as being a little retarded. That may have been the case, but I'm not sure it was always the case. I was told that he had been very bright as a child but was hit by a car and wasn't the same after that. I don't know the full story, but I know that he was friendly, and happy to converse with anyone who talked to him.

Obviously I can't imagine what his life was like. I don't know if he was happy and I don't know if he was contented with his lot. I don't know if he even thought about it. But he was friendly. I simultaneously liked him and, because he seemed slow, I was reluctant to interact with him. That was my problem but, I suspect, not mine alone, and he was left isolated. Now he's dead and I can only think about him. I can only remember.

Remember.

You can only remember those you knew – whether personally or by reputation. And those by reputation you really only “remember” about. Many hope to leave a heritage of accomplishments that will cause them to be remembered, not only by their families but by others as well. Perhaps others hear about them, but they don't remember them. You can't remember those you never knew, or about whom you never heard. So I don't remember the generations of my family – even the famous ones, and there were some – who died before I was born, and those who were never famous. So a few years from now, after I'm no longer in the picture, no one is likely to remember Uncle Jonas.

Does it matter? Not really. We're all forgotten. Equally. Whether accomplished, or living alone in Brooklyn, we're all equal. Whatever the cause of Uncle Jonas's mental slowness, he was human like the rest of us. Who gets remembered? To a degree, we all do. Who is forgotten? Eventually we all are.

So for a little while, I'll remember Uncle Jonas. We may have been different, but we were both made in the image of G-d. And He will remember eternally.