Meeting Ana

On Thursday I went to the doctor for a yearly physical. Fun stuff I know! As I was waiting for my name to be called, an elderly woman (who I learn is named Ana) leaving the exam area walks past and stares at something on me. I'm thinking to myself..."hmm, she's a bit odd". She then walks up to me and points at my necklace, a CHAI. She says something to the effect of "Are you one?". I know you're thinking like I am...this lady is nuts! So she stands there and is suprised I'm Jewish. The coversation goes something like this:
"You don't look like a Jew"

"Well, what does a Jew look like?"

She laughs and squeezes my cheeks in that "Shana Punim" fashion.

"I am Jewish"

"Where are you mommy and daddy from?"

I explain that my grandparents were from Poland and Russia, she is beaming.

"I too wear one (chai), but I keep it hidden, I never wear it out" She pulls a chai necklace from beneath her blouse on a long gold chain, as if to share her membership in the tribe with me. I tell her it's lovely. She continues to explain how she doesn't feel safe when it's out of her blouse for all to see.

We exchange some small talk as she tells me that she is a French Jew. She was in France when the Holocaust erupted. "They took them" as she explains what happened to her parents. She says that her family were taken and lost in Auschwitz. I ask her how she was not taken and she says that goyim helped her and kept her. She was nine years old at this time.

Eventually I wish her a good Shabbos. She replies, "I don't keep Shabbos anymore". We exchange a few more comments and she's gone, hobbling of with her slightly hunched back and cane.

This was quite a unique experience while sitting in the waiting room at Kaiser. This woman was a bit odd, a bit quirky, but had all the makings of a warm and loving bubbe.