Sunny Auslander 1920-2013

Selma Goldsmith was born on April 13, or 14 1920 in the Bronx, NY, to Isidor and Anna Goldsmith. She was always cheerful, even as a baby, so her nickname became Sunny. She always thought her birthday was the 13th, and said 13 was her lucky number. But years later, when applying for Social Security, the records said the 14th was the correct day. Oh well -- my Dad always said she was a woman of mystery. Sunny was the 3rd of 5 kids in a typical NY immigrant, Eastern European household. The family was the classic "poor but we never knew it" variety. Sunny's early memories were of picnics to the country, keeping the food warm in the engine compartment, and tons of cousins, aunts, and rakish uncles wearing Zoot Suits and probably invloved in the Underworld. The family was happy to be away from the pogroms of Russia, and free of being drafted into the Czar's army. Sunny adored her sisters, brother, and parents. Sunny was VERY pretty, and as she grew had many suitors. But the one she liked most was a tall, dark, handsome, and bookish boy who lived right across the street, and was a year ahead of her at James Monroe High -- famous as the alma mater of Hank Greenberg, the Jewish Jackie Robinson. Sunny graduated in 1938 -- an average student at best, but one who fell in love with one special book: Pearl S Buck's "The Good Earth." The book led to a lifetime love and admiration of all things Chinese -- culminating with 2 trips there. The bookish, self taught intellectual boy was Hy Auslander, who wanted to go to college but couldn't afford it. He was working pushing dress carts through the streets of the Lower East Side, when the city stopped to listen to a radio broadcast announcing a "Day of Infamy --December 7, 1941." Hy, who became my father many years later, knew he'd soon be drafted, and he was. He wrote Sunny from Pasadena, where he as based, and asked her to come to California to marry him. Sunny agreed, and embarked on the first adventure of her life. This young girl who had never been out of the NY area boarded a transcontinental train, and a week later, was met at the LA train station by one very happy GI. Years later, he told me he couldn't believe how gorgeous she was when she stepped off that train. He took her to the little bungalow he had rented, and they retired. My Dad made a move, and was told not so fast, buddy we're not married! So Hy had to wait another day... That next day the base Rabbi did his thing, and Sunny and Hy were married. The marriage would last nearly 40 years. Sunny got a job as a secretary to the Dean at Cal Tech. My mother spoke to me often about him -- how he was an elegant Southerner, from Vanderbilt. He was Protestant, but surprised Sunny erev Yom Kippur -- telling her it was a very HOLY day for the Jews, and since the Jews were Christians' older brothers, she better honor that day. My mother loved working for him, and his buddies -- many of whom later ended up in the New Mexico desert working on the project that would finally end the war... Sunny got pregnant, and since Hy didn't know where the War would take him, told his young bride to return to NY to have the baby. She did, and in January, 1945 my sister Trudy was born. She didn't meet her father for nearly a year. Sunny joked that one day she saw a soldier in uniform in front of her building. He was a black man. Trudy smiled, reached for him, and said "Daddy!" Sunny knew it was time for Hy to come home. The War ended, and Hy manipulated his way out of being sent to Japan for occupation duty. He returned to the Bronx, where Mom had found an apartment to share with a lady named Hannah, her boy Arnold, and husband Julie -- returning from the Navy. After several months, with my Dad working 3 jobs to save money, they moved to their own place, on Dyckman Street, in Northern Manhattan. My sister Susan came along in 1948. Dad started doing better, as a salesman. Soon the family moved to Queens -- the upwardly mobile boro. By the late 50s, they even joined a country club -- the Roslyn Country Club, just over the City border on Long Island. I'm told they were probably the poorest members, but Trudy and Susan got to swim among the nouveau riche set, and a new creature of American culture -- the JAP... The girls were teenagers, and Sunny still felt young, so she asked her OB if it was ok, at 40, to have a child. He said yes. So she got pregnant, and then miscarried. Still ok to try? I like to think the OB said yes -- but no more than 3 packs of cigarettes per day! Mom got pregnant at 40, and I was born when she was 41, in 1961. A year later, the 2 bedroom garden apartment in Queens had become too crowded, with my baby stuff and all, so my Dad asked his boss Mr. Katz for a $3000 loan, and they used it as a down payment on a house on Long Island . We moved to South Central (Nassau County, not LA) in 1962. Trudy commuted to college in NYC, and Susan attended Levittown Memorial High School. I played with Tonka trucks, and GI Joes, and then Little League, and then girls. Sunny gave me the most wonderful, secure, and loving childhood. She taught me to be loved and adored by a beautiful woman -- something most men never learn. As a result, I never lacked in the self esteem department. As the 70s passed, and I was ready to graduate high school, Sunny's hatred of cold weather became more apparent. The winter of '77 was a particularly brutal one --with record snow and freezing temperatures. Mom went to South Florida with her sister Lorraine to move my grandmother from her Miami Beach hotel to a West Palm Beach nursing home. She returned in the Fall of 1978 and announced she had put a down payment down on a condo, in Delray Beach. This was totally out of character for Sunny -- my Dad did all the financial decisions. But Sunny was adamant -- Dad would retire, and they would live among her sisters Lorraine and Dorothy --and brother Marty -- all of whom bought in the same concrete block development in West Delray. Dad sort of shrugged his shoulders and acquiesed. The problem was me -- his adored son. I had no plans to move South -- Stony Brook with my Regents Scholarship awaited, with my career as a doctor to follow. But Dad applied to UM for me, and I won a 1/2 tuition scholarship. I graduated MacArthur High, went to a surprise going away party my girlfriend Alison threw for me, and left the next day for Florida. Dad died 4 years later. My mother filled the next 30 years with travel to China, Israel, Europe, the Carribbean, and all over Florida. She volunteered over 3000 hours driving disabled people to appointments, and later as a candy striper at Delray Hospital. She enjoyed 6 grandkids (the youngest 2 are my beloved Ds) and 4 great grandkids. She loved and savored her life. She drove until she was 89, and comically wrecked 2 cars by describing a backward circle in a local parking lot. She steadfastly refused to leave her condo -- even when it was time to -- about 3 years ago. Finally, last year she had a bad fall, and her hospital blood test showed she was near starvation -- she wouldn't eat on her own. So we moved her to Miami Jewish Home, so I could be closer to her. She flourished at first. She gained weight and grew stronger. But about a month ago, she declined. 2 weeks ago she had all 4 great grandkids, and 3/6 of her grandkids gather for her 93rd birthday. One week ago, she began to slip into a sleep. We got hospice to come and give her morphine, and this am her struggling breathing stopped. A wise man said it was all about the dash. The dash is what's on the gravestone between the dates of a person's birth and death. Sunny had one full, wonderful, loving and being loved dash. But no funeral. My father didn't believe in organized religion, and thought the funeral industry was one of the worst there was -- preying on grieving simpletons. So he was cremated and buried and his ashes spread at sea. Same for Sunny. She prepaid her deal 15 years ago, and reminded me each year of that fact. 10 years ago Mom was with me at a funeral. When we shovelled the earth and rocks on top of the casked -- she cringed. My brother Paul was next to her, and she said "Oh Paul -- I HATE that sound above all others!" To Sunny, earth on a casket was the ultimate nails on a blackboard... So rest in peace, my beautiful Mom. Grandma Sunny. Edith Bunker, as my father lovingly called her. Brava for a life very well lived.