Sylvia Spector, 1912-2012

Aunt Sylvia, sister of our father Bernard Duhan, was a familiar member of our nuclear family. But through my childish eyes, she seemed exotic. Her home was filled with ornate antique furniture and little animal sculptures. Her Shabbos candlesticks were silver works of art. Her two-dozen decorative saltshakers made great toys. Her best friends, the three Levinson sisters, were outspoken and outrageous. At the Gem-Bilt Container Corporation, where she was office manager, all staff desks circled around hers.

Reflecting back through my adult lens, it wasn’t really Sylvie’s environment that made her seem unconventional; it was her temperament. Her matter-of-fact, no-nonsense attitude seemed so different from our parents’ impulsive, emotional personalities. Her strict, loving presence showed us another way of being.

One evening Sylvie said we could have ice cream in fifteen minutes. Hands down, these were the longest fifteen minutes of my life. Every ten seconds I insisted that the time was up. Sylvie, of course, sat looking at her watch and laughing. Trivial as it may seem, for me this was a deeply formative experience. After this, I developed a very precise internal time sense. And I got my first glimpse of the gulf between objective and subjective reality, my first push into becoming a philosopher.

Sylvie was a fan of my little brother Dave. She burst with pride the day he learned to tie his shoelaces. One year, Dave and I baked awful chocolate cakes for her birthday, and she clearly preferred Dave’s cake. But she was also one of my fans, and when I became a pre-teen, she consciously cultivated my intellectual interests. She took me to art museums, taught me how to look at paintings and inspired me to read about art history. She took me on two sightseeing tours to the Washington DC area, bringing to life things I had only imagined from textbooks and novels.

Sylvie couldn’t stand when my nails were dirty. She would make me soak my fingertips in a little shell-shaped bowl, and then give me a mini-manicure. Once during a manicure she told me she had been engaged, but her fiancé lost his eyesight and they decided not to go through with the marriage. The decision is still mysterious to me. Was he afraid he couldn’t earn a living? Did he back out? Did she? Was it a mutual decision?

Sylvie’s beloved mother Flora had died in the early 1950s, and Sylvie lived with her father Morris until he died in 1970. Not long after that, Sylvie and her widowed cousin Max decided to get married. Sylvie asked twelve-year-old me, “What do you think of the news?”  And they took me along to pick out wedding rings. At the synagogue ceremony, Sylvie wore a short white dress. Afterwards, we partied at the home of Max’s son Stephen, enlivened by his art collection and five Scottish terriers. It was Halloween, so cousin Susie – Max’s granddaughter of blessed memory — and I slipped out, rode the elevators to different floors, and knocked on doors saying “Trick or treat!” We didn’t score a single candy.

Sylvia and Max were great companions, both down-to-earth, and interested in a million things. For almost two decades, until Max’s passing, they teased each other with jokes that were part of their private understandings. Some months after Stephen died, Sylvie and Max took me to the Guggenheim Museum. At one point, Max cracked a mischievous grin, pointed down a hallway and said, “I think I see Stevie there!” Sylvia made a face, and scolded, “Quit making fun of me!” They didn’t explain; I didn’t ask; but I have always wondered. Had Sylvia asked Max if he was emotionally up to visiting the museum because he might metaphorically “see Stevie everywhere?” Or had Sylvia, queen of common sense, uncharacteristically seen a ghost?

In 2001, Sylvia’s beloved brother Bernie died, and in 2002, Sylvia moved to assisted living at the Atria.  At first, Sylvia complained. “Too many people here have lost their minds,” she said, “you can’t even have a conversation with them.” A month later she said, “I’ve learned there’s more to people than just their minds.” A few years later, she relaxed into the social scene, and would often say, with a twinkle in her eye, “I can’t stand it when everyone brags about their kids, so I just say, ‘I’ve got two Brandeis grads and a lawyer!’” She decorated her apartment with photos of her great-grandsons, grandniece and grandnephew.

Sylvia remained extremely close with her sister-in-law Ruthie, our Mom. Every night, they talked on the phone, enjoying edgy girl talk, even as old ladies. They shared a lifelong interest in mystery novels, starting with Agatha Christie classics, moving on in the 1960s to the Harry Kemelman rabbi series, and in the 1990s to the Native American-themed Tony Hillerman books. They also loved TV crime dramas. Sylvia knew the genre so well, we could watch Law and Order without the sound and she could narrate the entire plot.

When Mom died this summer, it seemed Sylvia’s heart had all the loss it could bear. Despite the excellent care and companionship of her aide Comfort, her health declined. At the wondrous age of 100, she had outlived her parents, siblings, friends, and even some of her stepchildren and grandchildren. In late December she said, “I guess I’ll go on to the next thing. There has to be a next thing, doesn’t there? After all, there’s a reason why we’ve been Jewish all these years.”

Three weeks later, she went on to that next thing.

Sylvia will be deeply missed by all who loved her, especially my brother Dave who spoke with her daily and managed her affairs; her grandson David, his wife Sherry and their children Matthew and Jacob who kept in close touch with her; my husband Charles and me and our children Hillary and Eli, long distance admirers able to visit only a few times a year; and by the caregivers who shared her daily life the last few years, Comfort, Linda and their circle of friends.