The man in this picture standing on Beach Haven in New Jersey is my grandfather, Herman, who is in his early sixties. He is hovering over his three-year-old granddaughter, Rebecca, with the curly hair in the striped shirt.
In the photo, Herman is wearing an uncharacteristic scowl; uncharacteristic because his favorite part of his day is being with his two granddaughters, Rebecca and Samara, just 14 months younger, as he rushes home to help his daughter-in-law, Eleanor, care for them.
In this photo Herman is exactly where he wants to be—up early with the morning sun and wild surf and sea. He knows in this photo his young granddaughter Rebecca may not yet appreciate his reverential love of nature, borne from his earliest days running around the estate his grandfather Paul managed, outside Kiev in the old country.
In this photo, Herman is no longer tied to the long series of jobs he never loved, but took on to feed his family.
He did not realize when he landed off steerage to the United States in 1904 that his first job would be at a carpet mill, where he would work a whole week on a trial basis before he knew if he would be hired.
He did not realize then when he was hired at the end of the week that the foreman would change his name from Jaroshevsky to Jarosh because it fit better into a pay ledger.
He didn’t know when he came to the new country—the youngest of 10 children—that his life would be ruled by a series of factory jobs he found monotonous; that if he arrived a few minutes late to a job, the factory door would close and he would lose a day of work and pay.
He didn’t expect to find love at the age of 36, but he did, one day passing by a 26-year-old young woman named Bessie who was sitting out on her stoop.
Though her sister Elizabeth was thin and beautiful, there was something in Bessie’s eyes that drew him in. He asked if he could take her picture—he had developed a love of photography from one of his many cousins who were artists.
He didn’t realize that that photo would lead to a long courtship and that he would marry Bessie and have two children, Henrietta and Paul, named for his grandfather.
Herman didn’t realize that to support his family he’d need to get a job outside the factory. After working 10 hours a day, he went to school at night to become a bookkeeper.
He didn’t realize then that trying to work, study, and be a father would cause him extreme fatigue and disabling headaches that left him feeling depressed and broken.
He didn’t realize that the only therapy that would heal his headaches would be chiropractic care.
He did not know when he sold cleaning supplies to movie theaters and grocery stores that he would pursue his passion for the healing arts and healthy living through another set of classes that would not, until very late in his life, lead to a license in chiropractic care.
He didn’t know he could only get to practice that care on the customers he sold supplies to and his daughter-in-law, Eleanor, who swears until her late nineties that his adjustments prevented her from ever getting colds and the flu again.
In the photo, Herman is standing on the beach with his granddaughter, because he adores her and his family means the world to him.
He will go to work and come home early to help his daughter-in-law and son, who have moved into his house, care for two young granddaughters.
He will eventually feel the same way about his granddaughter Fay, who is not yet born when this photo was taken, but he will not have the same energy to chase after her on the beach two years later when he is diagnosed with stomach and then esophageal cancer.
He will not be able to catch that girl then who loves to run outside on the beach and in her neighborhood with her clothes off.
Herman does not realize that his sense of family will grow from unexpected places and perspectives. He will find it with a Catholic family named the Hinkles, who live on one side of his rowhouse in West Philly across the street from Fairmount Park.
The Hinkles will not only fall in love with Herman, but years later will continue to invite Paul and his children to Christmas Day dinner for years to come.
Herman also will find that kinship on a shared patio next door with an orthodox Rabbi Lezerovski, a Holocaust survivor, who despite his broken English, manages to understand and develop great affection for Herman, an atheist.
A few years after this photo is taken that rabbi will stand up in a memorial service—one the rabbi finds lacking in religious traditions—and speak through his tears about his next door neighbor.
He will tell that crowded room—of cousins, neighbors and customers he gave adjustments to—that despite Herman’s distaste for organized religion, he was a man with a good family and a good heart.
Herman does not realize before that memorial service that his superpower in life is not the healing power of chiropractic care, per se, but rather his ability to show kindness and an uncommon interest in people who are very different from him.
Herman does not know that his kindness for others and reverence for family will be passed along to his son Paul and his daughter Henrietta, who will pass that along to their children as one of the most important values in life.
Herman does not realize as he is standing on the beach with his granddaughter that he will show her by example that simply caring for another person—even getting up early to share the glory of the morning sun and the faint ocean breeze—is the greatest healing gift he can offer. Indeed, it is how he heals the world.
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