Losing a friend of almost 40 years is hard. Even when the friend is in her nineties and has memory loss so severe that the same conversation happens thirty times in a thirty-minute visit. It was difficult to see her because I was over an hour away and had little business in Boston anymore, so the visits were few and far between, and I always felt a bit lost after them. I wasn’t sure she’d even know I had been there.

She was a saleswoman of great integrity in a sea of commission stealing sharks, and took this teenager under her wing.  And a shiksa in retail would never have survived without being able to sling a few Yiddish expressions, so I owe her a lot.

Fay Kraycer and I met when I worked at Sak’s Fifth Avenue during college. She was a saleswoman of great integrity in a sea of commission stealing sharks, and took this teenager under her wing. Her route to America was through Cuba, and her Yiddish words and Spanish accent were all new and wonderful to me. And a shiksa in retail would never have survived without being able to sling a few Yiddish expressions, so I owe her a lot.

She always called a spade a spade, and whether we wanted to hear it or not we always got the truth. I loved her for it. And as diminutive in size as she was she was fearless. I remember a flasher showing up in the lobby of her apartment building one rainy winter night, and after one look at his, ahem, equipment, she said to him in her Jewish-Cuban accent, “You’re going to catch a cold.”

My great friends Ursula, Fay and I worked together at Sak’s, and we remained close even after Ursula and I left the company. Fay was instrumental in getting them to hire me back for the Christmas season as a second job one year when I was having financial problems, and insisted I work with her in the 5th Avenue Club on the days we were both there. It was such a joy to assist her and spend the day with her again after so long, and the hours always flew by.

Ursula moved to Columbus, but we’d meet up when she’d return to Boston every year to visit family and we’d pick up Fay for dinner at Legal Seafood. We’d tell the waiter we were going to have the table for the evening and promised to tip him really, really well. We’d then proceed to talk and eat for three or four hours. The waiter always took a photo of the three of us with Ursula’s camera, and she’d send us a print when we got home. For one of Fay’s milestone birthdays I gave her a large multi-photo frame that held nine of those pictures, and I saw it whenever I visited her. She said she looked at it every day and loved seeing us all together.

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The last time I saw her was just before her birthday last year, on August 27th. I brought her a birthday card and had coffee with her while she ate her breakfast. She was as beautiful as always, with her hair done, her clothes impeccable and her lipstick perfect. I wondered then if it might be the last time I’d see her. I hugged her extra hard when I left.

She was always on my mind, especially so the day before she died. When I spoke to Ursula after we learned of Fay’s passing she said Fay had been on her mind a lot this week as well. I think she was flying around saying goodbye to us.

I will always picture Fay as she was the first day I met her, her white hair beautifully coiffed, wearing a designer suit, and her eyes missing nothing, funny, irreverent and forever to be my Jewish-Cuban grandmother.

I will miss you, dear friend. Godspeed.

Deborah

Fay’s obituary can be seen here.