In May’s Long Wait, I mentioned that at my parents’ wedding on September 18, 1945, there was no wedding cake.
But there was a cake topper.
It was a small porcelain bride and groom—he in his army uniform, she in her wedding gown—carefully chosen for the cake that never was.
What I didn’t tell in the book is how the memory of that little figurine stayed with me… even when I didn’t know where it was.
Until I was five years old, we lived in Brooklyn, New York, in my Grandma Minnie’s two-bedroom apartment. She had a mahogany-colored china cabinet in the living room that held, among other things, my mother’s teacup collection, and the little bride and groom figurine that was meant to sit on top of a wedding cake.
My brother, Ira, in 1951, image restored by ChatGPT on 03262026
I remember asking my grandmother over and over to tell me about it. I loved hearing the story. She would explain that it should have been on my parents’ wedding cake, but there was no cake. They were married right after a Jewish holiday, and the bakery had no time to open and bake a cake. At least that was the story she told me.
My mother died in 1961. At that time, my grandmother was living in a nursing home, and we never went back to the Brooklyn apartment, even though my grandmother’s brother, my Uncle Harry, was now living there. We were too sad to revisit those memories, but I often imagined asking my grandmother about the little figurine, just like I did when I was a little girl.
My grandmother died in 1964. Uncle Harry continued living in the apartment. He would come to visit us but we never went back to his apartment.
Over the years, I forgot about the figurine. But after my father died in 1973, I suddenly remembered it and found myself wishing I knew what had become of it. I wanted so much to have it.
Not long after my father’s funeral, Uncle Harry and his brother-in-law, my Uncle Hilloh, came to New Jersey to pay a shiva call, the traditional visit to the family after a death. As we sat together om the living room couch, I could see how deeply sad Uncle Harry was. He had just given up the Brooklyn apartment and was preparing to move to Florida. I didn’t want to upset him further, and although I longed to ask about my grandmother’s things, especially the figurine, I held back.
For months, my siblings and I gathered on weekends in Teaneck, New Jersey. for the difficult task of closing our father’s home—the home we had grown up in. Aunt Mildred, Aunt Lois, and my husband’s mother often came to help us pack.
One day, as we were slowly and sorrowfully working in Pop’s bedroom, my brother, Ira, found something tucked in the back of a dresser drawer, carefully wrapped in tissue paper. He called me over. Together, we unwrapped it.
I gasped.
There it was—the little bride and groom figurine I had so dearly wanted.
I can happily say that after all these years, it is still in my possession.
Not just as a keepsake, but as a small piece of my parents’ story—one that almost slipped away, and somehow found its way back to me.
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