Joyce Zonana and Her Last Dream Home

A woman I fell hard for. A woman I barely know.

I just read that giving a eulogy¹ doesn’t only have to be for someone who's died. So, with that knowledge in hand, I offer you my eulogy for a woman still very much alive.

She’s a woman I barely know. A woman who might, in different circumstances, have been a lifelong friend. I want you to know her before she leaves us.

Please make the acquaintance of my friend, Joyce Zonana.

I first saw her from behind, seated in a black wheelchair in the large dining room of my mother’s independent living residence. I saw her as my mother and I approached her table. I groaned to myself, “oh, she’s sick, I hope this isn’t too hard.” It was a judgment made with no knowledge of her situation. She was a stranger to me. I felt my hesitation, the resistance on my part to take another step toward a new experience, eating with strangers on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.

I’m uncomfortable meeting new people until I find my footing. My reaction to her wheelchair surprised me. I’m not usually uncomfortable around illness. Not knowing what I was walking into is what put me off balance.

I recalled the core Jewish value of welcoming the stranger; it’s a value I hold close to my heart, even though it’s challenging sometimes. I reminded myself that in this situation, we were strangers to each other, but I was the outsider; this was her home, not mine.

And my hope that it wasn’t going to be too hard didn’t begin when I first saw her.

That hope was already deeply planted when I accepted my mother’s invitation to celebrate this sacred holiday with a roomful of alte kakers in various states of health. I’d already attended their Passover seder earlier that year and it was somewhat disappointing. Oh, “alte kaker” is Yiddish for “old coot” or “old person” and from the German, it literally means “old poop.” My mother doesn’t think of herself as an alte kaker, even though she’s 86. At 63, I was the youngest old poop in the room.

I fret ahead of every visit with my mother, our track record is filled with conflict and disappointment. It often doesn’t go well.

Mom promised me we’d have fun; we were being matched with a couple whom she thought I’d enjoy. She excitedly told me that one of them was a writer, though she wasn’t clear about who was who and she didn’t know their names. She’d never met them either. But she was sure we’d have plenty of things in common.

As we said our hellos, I got a better look at the woman sitting in the wheelchair. She wore a funny knitted cap, a slouch of sorts, rakishly tilted to the right, and I could see that she was covering a head that lacked much hair. Her face was somewhat bloated. It reminded me of the side effects that steroids can cause. A moon face. Her hands were delicate, fingernails done in a light pink polish that was badly chipped by time and wear. I could see the former beauty that was evident in her, only slightly disguised by the ravages of illness. Her beauty radiated out, brimming from her eyes, her smile. Her softness and her intensity.

I chose the chair at her right hand, settled in, and pushed my judgments to the side. Scolding myself for my reticence, I leaned into the evening and showed up as my true self. Unguarded, curious, outgoing, and friendly. We talked, we ate, we toasted the new year to come, even though it was foreshadowed by impending loss.

Know that this story is partly a projection of my imagination, my desires, my magical thinking, my regret, and quite a bit of longing. It’s not wholly based in fact or the history of a long friendship, because I barely know Joyce. I’m writing about her because I’m sad. I’m writing about her because I feel angry. I’m writing about her because I want to honor her memory before she dies. I’m grieving in advance of her death; I’m missing the person I’ll never get to know but imagine her to be. I want the world I occupy to know her, even if I’m a little late to telling this story.

Joyce is the writer of a memoir, a gorgeous book called Dream Homes. It’s a wonderful read, lyrical and filled with love and the honest contemplation of her life and her relationship with her family, her Sephardic Judaism, her Egyptian origins. It’s about her love of food, the food of her people, and it’s about a period of wondering and wandering from one home to another. The book is as delicious as the traditional Sephardic recipes she shares in the endnotes. She’s a devoted literary translator of works in French by authors Tobie Nathan, Henri Bosco, and many others. She’s expert at her craft. She told me she resents that some readers don’t regard translating as a literary art unto itself. A retired educator, a former college professor with a flaming spirit, a voice that speaks truth with passion, and a stunning intellect evident on every page she pens.

I know this because of the time I did spend with her. I know this because I raced home the night of our first meeting and hungrily ordered her memoir. As soon as it arrived, I swallowed it in tasty bites, devouring it as quickly as I could. Then I wanted a second helping, so I read it again. An appropriate response because she wrote so lovingly of the foods of her culture. They are the dishes she learned to prepare as the immigrant daughter of Egyptian Jews who fled Cairo in 1951 to Ellis Island to escape the rising anti-Semitism her family endured after generations of belonging that was evaporating as each day passed. They left their country to survive, to avoid harm.

Joyce moved to the United States when she was eighteen months old and was raised in Brooklyn, New York, and as a child, often served as translator for her parents as they assimilated into American life.

The time we spent together added up to two dinners, the Rosh Hashanah meal with her husband, my mother, and me. And the second dinner, an invitation from Joyce and her husband Mike that was just for the three of us. We shared a brief phone call or two, and an email here and there. I attended a lecture she presented at the Shalom Space, a gathering of Jewish residents that meets every Friday evening to celebrate Shabbat.

The winter passed and on the arrival of spring, it was time to celebrate again, this time, Passover and another invitation to dine with my mother. I’d been out of touch with Joyce and Mike, but hoped I would see them at the seder. But they weren’t there. I texted Mike to express my regret at their absence, and he told me that Joyce was in hospice, and had been since the end of January.

I began to visit her in her hospice room, every week. Each time I visit, she’s asleep; she quickly fades after lunch, right before my arrival. She’s buried under illness and meds that sedate and calm her anxiety. Or maybe she isn’t sleeping. Maybe the glioblastoma has obscured her ability to speak, to open her eyes. Maybe she’s aware of me when I sit by her bed, talking softly, holding her hand, her fingernails a freshly painted pink. They take good care of her there. I chat with Mike, and I met her brother, Victor, who visits from California every couple of weeks. Maybe she hears me as I sing along with Joni Mitchell, who plays in the background––just the old songs––the ones we know by heart as if they were a shared part of our DNA.

When she first entered hospice, she was still well enough to make an important request. A bat mitzvah, a ritual denied her at the appropriate time of 12 or 13 years old, because it wasn’t in keeping with her family’s beliefs and customs. So, she came of age at 75, in her hospice room, with friends, and not one but two rabbis, to witness this life event just in time for Joyce to prepare to leave the many people who love her and have known her so much longer than I.

At our first meeting, that first meal, I told Joyce and Mike that I was a writer, too. I told them about the essays I published each week, and what a wonderful time I’ve been having finally telling my stories. Mike became a paid subscriber, a surprise I discovered when I got home that night.

They would read every essay I published and when that became difficult, Joyce listened to me narrate them because I record my stories, too, and it became her preferred way to “read” my writing. I think Mike still plays them for her when they arrive in his inbox.

I watch her sleep and reflect on the first thoughts I had the night we met in October of 2024. I was right. This is hard. There’s a perverse irony that a woman as gifted and accomplished as Joyce Zonana could have her brilliance stolen by a brain tumor. A reminder of just how merciless life can be.

Here’s my magical thinking. I imagine her as my mentor, a person who would push me forward in my work, asking me the questions that would help me grow as a writer. She would become that person who supports my goals, seeing with her writer’s eye, hearing my writer’s voice with her writer’s ear. A true friend.

Here’s the not-so-magical thinking: we are connected at the level of our hearts. I often think of her as I write. I remember the rhythm of her sentences, her lyrical command of language, her deep emotional insights, the brilliant metaphors that bring her readers close. Our heart connection? I’ll carry that with me, always.

Joyce and I met too late. Too late for me to know her well and for her to know me. She’s going to die––probably soon––and I think of her and wish the illness would remit, that she’d be restored to the life that she knew and loved, would be restored to the man she married, the man she loves, to be able to keep doing the work that informs her life. But selfishly, I wish her restored so that I could spend some greedy time with her, asking questions and listening to the wisdom I know she’d convey.

She’s a teacher, she can’t resist.

I meet people and I fall in love with them all the time. Those strangers become cherished friends. I see their complicated lives, their joy, their love. Life is precious and filled with gifts if we pay attention, if we’re in the game. Life is fragile and goes by so quickly. Life is imperfect and very often cruel. We have to stop needing things to be perfect as an excuse for not living the very imperfect lives we’ve all been given.

Joyce’s words will always be available to me in the books and essays she wrote and translated; in the stories her loved ones will tell, her sensibility is alive in the body of work she’ll leave behind and the relationships she cherished.

It’s not the same as having her here, but sadly, it will have to do.

Joyce and Mike on their wedding day.

Dream Homes, a memoir by Joyce Zonana

The Passover Seder: The Eternal Journey from Bondage to Freedom

Rosh Hashanah and the Goddess – redux – by Joyce Zonana

To Sit on the Earth by Tobie Nathan, translated by Joyce Zonana with Janet Lee

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1. Eulogy. The literal definition of the word, from the Greek, means “good speech” or “high praise.”