December 21, 2025 is a lot of things in my house. It is:
- The December solstice,
- The final night of Hanukkah, and
- The 18th anniversary of the day my father died.
The poetry of the shortest day of the year, when people start talking about “the return of the light,” coinciding with the day when the menorah will be at its brightest—it’s lovely. It’s easy. And I’ll take it.
Because, boy howdy, do we need all the light we can get these days, amirite?
Pulling the optimism and hope that light can deliver into the third thing on my list feels especially important right now. And much harder.
I kind of can’t believe it’s been 18 years, and that also helps explain why I increasingly struggle to remember his voice, his belly laugh. It’s been nearly 20 years—enough time for a newborn to be packing for college, to vote, to be considered an adult. He would have turned 90 this year, an age he surely wouldn’t have reached even if the cancer hadn’t killed him in 2007 (he was never the picture of good health), but maybe if we had had more time I could have done things that never crossed my mind two decades ago.
A few years ago, I remembered the Milt Gross books that he used to read aloud every once in awhile. It was a rare treat, and something like a magic trick, the way he could just breeze through that phonetic Yiddish-English mash-up perfectly.
He made it look so easy. It may not surprise you to learn that it is anything but. I have those books now, his books, and I cannot make them sing like he did. Hell, I can barely get a sentence out without going back over a word or two, and even then it’s stilting at best.
Lately, I’ve been recording my mother talking about all kinds of stuff—her childhood, her travels, her art, her family, whatever. If I think too much about why I’m doing it, it’s too heavy. So I just hit record, put the phone down, and we chat. I’ll think about transcriptions later.
Two decades ago, my phone hadn’t yet become so central to everyday life, so it never even occurred to me to record him reading those books.
I went hunting online recently for a recording of someone else reading them, thinking I would certainly find someone else performing the magic trick like my father had, that I could use them as a stand-in for the recordings of him that I didn’t think to make. I thought the internet would provide something, however pale in comparison, because the internet so frequently does.
I haven’t found anything, pale or otherwise.
Tonight, at the end of the darkest day of the year, I’ll light all eight of the candles on the menorah and marvel (not for the first time) at how much light nine tiny candles can throw around a room.
I’ll both wish (not for the first time) that I could get my politics- and history-savvy father’s perspective on, well, *waves arms wildly* everything, and be a little relieved (definitely not for the first time) that he didn’t live to see the ideology that forced his family to flee their country in the 1930s ensconced in the White House.
And I’ll be grateful (not for the first time) for this annual reminder from my father’s line that there can always be light in the darkness, even if—especially if—we have to make it ourselves.
Here’s to creating light, however and wherever you can.
I think I’ll postpone resuming the search for Milt Gross recordings, though, for a time when there’s a little more actual light. I’m not sure my heart can take the disappointment right now. And, hey, if you can hook me up? I would be forever in your debt.