My grandfather, Reuben Berman, died in 2004 at the age of 96. He left behind six children, eleven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, with more descendants to arrive over the years. Reuben wrote extensively about all sorts of topics, including his career as a physician, his love affair with the clarinet and bassoon, his exploits in Europe during World War II, and life with Isabel and family. He helped found Mount Sinai Hospital in his hometown of Minneapolis, Minnesota, and later founded the Berman Center for Clinical Research. Anyone interested in writing a biography of Reuben would find ample source material.
Reuben is not the subject of this essay.
My subject today is a man I have come to view as Reuben’s opposite: Ted Berman, who was Reuben’s older brother by one year, and known to the greater family as Teddy, Uncle Teddy, or Great Uncle Teddy. (Note: Reuben also named his third son Teddy, but the two Teddys should not be confused.)
I mentioned Great Uncle Teddy in my previous essay—a long, rambling pastiche on all sorts of topics, including a childhood visit to Miami, Florida, where Teddy lived. One of my cousins thanked me for referencing Teddy, whom she had met perhaps once and had little knowledge of. It dawned on me that my knowledge of the man isn’t all that much, and most of it second-hand. But I was witness to one of his famous wedding speeches, and I remember his decline very vividly.
Teddy was the third child of the family. Eldest was Rose, then William (Bill), then Teddy, and finally Reuben. All but Reuben found their way out of Minneapolis, which means I saw them only occasionally and knew them only slightly. In the case of Teddy, he left for Miami, where he worked as a radiologist and, per the stories, partied and drank heavily .
A childhood story: Teddy was going to play the clarinet, but the flute arrived first in the mail, and as Reuben’s older brother he claimed it for himself. Thus Teddy became the flutist and Reuben took up the clarinet, when it finally arrived.
Teddy never married, and would be politely described as a confirmed bachelor. By reputation he had a string of girlfriends—and by one account, tended to take out two of them at a time.
Teddy’s wedding speech, which he apparently repeated at all weddings, was famous for its cringeworthy inappropriateness.
“You can still back out,” he would tell the soon-to-be bride and groom. “There’s still time, you don’t have to go through with this.” And so on.
The family made sure that the bride and groom knew what was coming, and everyone recognized that Teddy should not be taken seriously. Still, a pretty awful message for a wedding.
That’s it–that’s about all I know about Teddy, at least before he went senile. Those last stories are quite sad, as Teddy lost his memory and faculties quite rapidly. My grandparents brought him back from Miami to Minnesota, then installed him in the Sholom Home, which was the nursing home for the Jewish community. I recall times when he would wander away and the police would track him down. On my last visit to him at Sholom, he swore repeatedly and excessively at me, especially after I flushed his toilet.
Not a pleasant ending.
Today, I can think of a full laundry list of questions about the man.
Why did Teddy leave Minnesota for Miami? Did he want to escape the world of his brother and his brother’s family? Was he attracted to the warmth and sunshine of Florida? Did the Miami hospital offer him a wonderful opportunity to which he could only say yes?
Was Teddy a capable doctor? My family was proud and boastful of its academic accomplishments, especially in medicine. Teddy was acknowledged and recognized as a radiologist—and that was it. At least in my memory, when Reuben or my father would rattle off the physicians in the family, Teddy was either mentioned only in passing or left off the list entirely. Why? Was radiology in Miami too minimal a medical career? I have no idea.
And how did Teddy come to his standing resolve against the institution of marriage (as it was called then, perhaps even now?)
Which brings me to my last question, which I am not going to ask. I think further inquiry would be as inappropriate as the wedding speeches, as well as an invasion of privacy, even now, several decades after the man died.
Like I said, I am not writing a biography. Not everyone needs or wants a biography, you know, and I expect Teddy was a member of the anonymous camp. He lived and died, without many hosannas or much hoopla, at least from his family—and that’s perfectly acceptable.
My hope, which I come to only now, here in the penultimate paragraph, is that Teddy found someone to love, and who loved him back, whether for many years or only a short time. In the end, maybe that’s all that matters.
To close, I’m going to link to “Sweet Surrender,” by Sarah McLachlan. If Teddy could have heard this song, he may have found it powerful and haunting, which it certainly is. But I also expect the song would have left him feeling either puzzled or alienated, or some combination of both. Teddy was trained in classical music, a child of a hundred years ago and not the 1960s, nor the years that followed. Nevertheless, Teddy, this song is for you, or for your memory, or to honor whatever imprint, lasting or otherwise, you left on the world.
