Dream Keeper

B"H, 

Some Miracles Are Easier Than Others

How is it that Hadassah, Dassi for short, could live without eating.  Everyone wondered and marvelled and felt burdened by this miracle of life.  After Dassi passed away, her daughter, Penina, learned that their housekeeper had been visiting Dassi in the late evening hours.  That wonderful lady made the nursing home staff swear on the word of G-d, a big old leather bible in the chapel, not to reveal her late evening visits with Dassi to the family of Dassi.  Over the decades of working for Hadassah and Jakob, and then for Penina once she married and had a family of her own, they all had become dear friends.  More than an exceptional employee with exceptional employers, Carmela became a dear friend and confidante of Dassi.  And Dassi returned the loving friendship and confidence to her beloved companion Carmela. 

The Three Fates

B"H

A Real Job?

My first real jobs were dreadful or perhaps I was dreadful.  Don't really know or remember but I do recall that the library job made me nuts.  I had three supervisors:  the oldest was a retired military librarian; the middle-aged one was a spinster with the warmest heart who tried to help me with her smile; and the young University of Chicago Library School graduate who had no self esteem whatsoever, though we didn't talk about such things then, cried on my shoulder.  By the time I finished listening to all of their instructions and assignments I had nothing to do and no way to do it.  They stuck me in a little room in the bowels of the library.  I did sit at this magnificent old wooden desk well used, I could tell.  The new typewriter stared at me.  And I stared at it as I typed cards for the author, title, and subject card catalogue.  The cards apparently had to be perfect.  One mistake and I was instructed by the general to start all over on a fresh new card.  I was not allowed to correct a single mistake.  This puzzled me.  As a student I was using this card catalogue system.  The very oldest cards in the catalogue were handwritten in Old Librarian Hand, a very clean and clear script.  Some of those cards had corrections in the form of crossing out and continuing.  I suppose that in those olden days no one could afford to buy as many boxes of cards as surrounded me day-in and day-out.  What a task I had for the times when there was nothing else to do. 

The Bowling Ball

B"H

And the World Keeps Turning



Etti and Jerry have been married for sixty years.  ...

Jerry:  What's that? (He points to an egg shaped case, very sturdily made, with two strong handles.)

Etti:  Mary's bowling ball.

J:  Why is it in our car?

E:  They were tearing down the bowling alley, so we all went to pick up our balls.  No one could reach Mary.  We had to clear out our lockers.  So, we took her stuff, too.  The building is down already.  I figure that I'll catch up with Mary pretty soon.  But, I am worried.  Whenever I leave a message on her answering machine she always gets back to me.  Or ... if not Mary, then her aide will give me a call.  But we've heard nothing.    No one knows what's going on.  Who knows what her kids are doing with her? 

A New Book?

B"H

Chapter One:  A Mystery Unfolds?



The address book ...

Beatrice, the day you died I spent the entire afternoon and evening on the telephone.  Your address book gave me all the numbers I needed to call.  But, there was something odd about the entries.  Only one person was named, the blood relation, not the spouse.  Telli and Isidore, for example were married over sixty years.  Yet, Isidore was the only name that graced your entry for the family. 

Do you remember the day?  I was so hurt when you told me to my face that I was not family and never would be.  I believed your shunning me was unique and deeply personal.  But you shunned Telli also.  And she had more right to be called family than I ever did.  If you could dismiss Telli then I was in very good company.  Telli was a great and gracious lady endowed with exquisite modesty. 

And We Lived in Huts

B"H,


Wishing all the security and shelter of a good home filled with warm hearts as we learn the fragility of life by living in huts.  The wind will blow the roof off our sukkah and the rain will soak our table and chairs.  But we, thank G_d are still okay... still preparing for a very good and blessed note in this amazing Book of Life.

Now What?

B"H, 

A New Work Begins...

It is a very difficult task for us who have only known toughness in its abusive form to see it in its uplifting and elevating realm. By the same token, how do we visualize kindness as an evil killer when we have only been nurtured and tenderly embraced by those who embody its spirit.  Is it possible for toughness to save lives and for kindness to destroy them?  These are some of the dilemmas we encounter when our personal ways fail us...

What gives us a reason to learn other ways?  

Bashi Kohanchi loved her parents.  They were a most unusual couple.  Her father's family was Persian and had moved to Manchester, England.  Her mother, Leah, was Eastern European, from a shtetl where they said "chawsday" and not "chasdoh", as in "key l'olam chasdoh"*.  Don't know where that town was located nor what its name was; it is all ashes now.  

Happy 90th Birthday!

B"H


In this moment...a boy began to become a man.

A GOOD MAN 

A KIND MAN


AN HONORABLE MAN


A GREAT SOLDIER, AN AIRMAN