GRANDPA MISCHA
I have been researching to assemble a genealogy, and I just found out that my paternal grandfather who I never knew, Mischa Spiegel (b.1897 — d.1974) was a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic violin section from the 1925/26 season through the 1954/55 season. This news, however bland it may seem to the ordinary person, hit me over the head with a ton of sorrow. A 29-year veteran violinist of the LA Phil is not a shoe salesman, or a city clerk, or a plumber. A violinist with the LA Phil is someone who must have soaring talent, excruciating musical passion, and a view of life unmatched by the everyday citizen. Especially coupled with his life experience at a very young age; born in Russia during political turmoil, immigrating to the US and travel to the West Coast. Bland information to the ordinary person, however I am overcome by grief that I was not allowed to know this person, who might have been inspirational, who might have been a door to another world, who might have been a loving Grandpa willing to show me a way of life unbeknownst to anyone else. I am suddenly furious that the circumstances surrounding my young life forbade me knowledge of this gentleman and all his worldly awareness. I have always felt like a fatherless child, but now the burden is doubled knowing that his Father must have been a miraculously interesting person; someone whom I long to have known.
In this moment I feel a deep, stubborn pain, welling up to my consciousness. A lost and forlorn desire to know what I missed in life. An ache that permeates the whole of my existence, wondering what might have been. And the unavoidable “why” of it all. Pop psychology says to acknowledge that “everybody does the best job they can”; so “be with it”. But not knowing my Grandfather who was a musician, a violinist for god’s sake, for one of the world’s most premiere orchestras ever, shakes me with sadness. I don’t need to know why my mother and father did what they did, or why my grandparents behaved the way they behaved, or any other family members followed the lemmings. . .
I have one photo of me and my Grandpa Mischa taken on September 11, 1954. He was standing, wearing a Hawaiian shirt; I was fourteen months old, in his arms, holding what must have been my mommy’s pocketbook, taken in a backyard near a clothesline. I will frame this, with whatever memories I can conjure up. I will meditate on this image, and imagine what might have been. I will lovingly embrace this information, and allow it to permeate my current existence, knowing it will make me a better person.
by Janet L. Spiegel 7/2007
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