Photo by Cynthia Larsen

A self-indulgent tribute to my daughter

By Ed Goldman

I was a no-show for an Easter Brunch 40 years ago today when something came up—or rather, came into the world. My daughter Jessica was born.  

I almost always call restaurants when I’m not going to show up for my reservation—it really is rude not to—but this was one omission-and-error for which I’m sure I’d have been forgiven. 

When the grown child of people reaches a milestone birthday, many of them use it as a moment to reflect on how old they’ve grown. (For clarity, people in my chronological cohort can be characterized as too old for racquetball but too sane for pickleball.) 

I’m certainly not immune to vanity. Soon, my combovers will start at mid-neck. But I have to say that for me, Jessica’s birthday is, as people I don’t associate with used to say, a “win-win.” 

A talented singer, dancer and actor, Jessica makes a living as a prolific freelance writer and editor. When people see the similarities in her career path and mine, and are tempted to say, “The apple didn’t fall far from the tree,” I sometimes have to play back in my mind what that expression means.  

Oh, I’m very proud of both her work and work ethic. But if our résumés look a little alike, let me be the last to point out that though my earliest passion was for the stage, I could never sing nor dance nor act as well as she did in a number of professional and community theatre productions. And still might, I hope. 

All that aside, I think her greatest creative effort to date may be the collaboration with her husband: their son, who’ll be 15 months old this coming Saturday.  

I have truly never seen a happier baby, and I give all credit for that to her parents. Jessica’s mom and I were funny and playful with her, and she giggled pretty early. But she also wore a pensive look much of the time, as you’ll see in the photo of her at age four, wearing my dad’s New York City firefighter helmet to a pre-school event featuring local public safety workers.

The photo may say more about the importance and caution my wife Jane directed at her about wearing the helmet than my little girl’s seeming somberness of spirit. She was, in fact, very funny, very silly and ultimately, very witty. 

I’m the only one of my two brothers who was gifted with a grandchild, a statement I make from a standpoint of awe, not competition. My dad was the only one of his two siblings to have grandchildren (two, in fact) but he left the planet at the age of 60, so he didn’t have time to do a great deal of what my tribe calls “kvelling.” That’s Yiddish for “rejoicing”—though when our mom told my late brother Stuart that his straight-A report card “makes me want to kvell,” he snarked, “If you do, you’ll have to clean it up.”

Ours is not a pretty language. However, it excels at cute suffixes, such as when you add  “-ellah” to the affectionate “babe.” Like, when our mom was happy with me, she called me “Ed-ellah. (When not, Edward Bruce Goldman.) 

No parents raise children without challenges—and for many, some challenges can crop up later, when all of the parties are adults. One of the biggest challenges for Jessica (and her dad) was when her mom died at 56, after a nine-year illness. Jess turned 21 less than two months later. She had taken on a heavy class load at UC Berkeley in the hope of graduating in three years and having her mom still around to see it happen. But Jane died during our daughter’s third-year semester break, in early January of 2007. That spring, I drove alone to the Bay Area to watch our one and only kid receive her diploma. It was a mixed-bag experience for both of us, I’m sure. But I imagine that seeing the seat next to me at the ceremony unoccupied, just by chance, added an awful visual punch in the gut for Jessica.