Eulogy for Hilda Meltzer
by Joy Borgos
her lifelong friend
It's hard to lost someone who has been a part of your life for over eighty years. The Komaroffs and the Rosenbergs lived three houses apart, and by the time Hilda and I were out of baby carriages, we were friends. In those early years we played library. Hilda had full sets of the Bobsey Twins and Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue, and I added Honey Bunch, and from my brother George, I added the Boy Allies and Tom Swift. We sipped champagne, that is lemonade, from Mrs. Komaroff's cut-glass punch bowl and glasses, with lifted pinky. Only three weeks ago we laughed about that.
Then came the Secret Seven with meetings in her father's office, and we seven learned a lot about life and sex from the illustrations in his medical books. We shared lovely summer weeks at my grandmother's house in Spring Valley where years later we agreed it never rained. We only remembered long sunny days. There was a memorable day I came home from a month at camp and ran into Hilda's house to tell her about it. Together we were at that camp the next year, and for many years after that, and formed friendships that continue to this day. In Florida, right now, she is being mourned by those old camp buddies.
Suddenly we were grown up and dating. In our early 20s we had our own gang which included Ez and his good friend Eddie. No one had any money but we had lots of fun ... parties, afternoons on a double decker bus up to evening concerts at Lewisohn Stadium ... up in the third tier where the orchestra was a blur but the music soared, and then ice cream ... maybe. After all the bus cost a nichel, but that concert cost 35 cents ... fifty cents if you rented a cushion.
Hilda was the first one to see my son, Michael, when he was born in 1944. She was a Biochemist at Brooklyn Jewish Hospital where he was delivered at 2:00 AM and before 7:00, she was at my door to say she had seen him and he was fine. Then the decades flew by. I saw her marriage to Ez, and apartment in Queens, two boys, and over forty amiable, close years in a house next door. But this final parting cuts deep. It's hard to think of my world without Hilda and Ezra, and I haven't really accepted it yet. I'll let you know when I do.