shabbat shalom Dad

Dad.

Sometime last September, I started calling you every Friday night to say Shabbat Shalom.  It sounded to me when you picked up the phone and heard my message, that you liked that.  There were not too many times when your voice picked up after mom died, but your response to my shabbat shalom, was always a strong shabbat shalom in return.  I think I may get back in the habit.  I don't think I will hear much in return, but it might feel good.

One thing I was thinking of today was how you would say that the problem with going to high holiday or any religious services is that there is too much God in it.  The first--actually every--time you said that I would smile at the irony. But I get it.   Services should be a place where we refocus and get back on track if we've detoured, or stay on track.  Instead in services there are a whole lot of pleas to this notion of God as a body of some sort, as opposed to the embodiment of truth.

The marathon went off without a hitch on Monday. The Heat are up 2-0 in their series. They play again tomorrow.  They don't look so extra.  Nobody does really.  Even the Spurs and Thunder have lost games. The Thunder are down 2-1, but I think they will come back.  Red Sox got walloped by the Yankees last night. We had to bring in a position player to pitch the ninth.

I got a note from Bernie and Marlene today. They had donated to a charity and the charitable organization was notifying us of their thoughtfulness.  For some reason this message hurt more than the flurry of others we got right after the funeral. I think we were so busy with the preparations, then the immediate needs of stopping this credit card and that, and then answering the dozens of initial sympathy notes, that I must have steeled myself to avoid the pain in order just to get through the first weeks. This note from Bernie coming several weeks later, just reminded me that I cant pick up the phone and talk about whatever, or hear your clever jokes.

Your quips still make me laugh. I was thinking today of what you said when I came down to visit you for your birthday one year.  You, as always, wrote me a check to defray some of the plane costs. I told you I could not accept money for coming down to visit you for your birthday. You said that you weren't giving me money for coming down, you were giving me the money to leave.  I smile every time when I recall that.  Or the time I bragged that I had gotten a cape-jacket for a bargain price of a buck. Then you looked at it and asked me how much change I got.

The ceremony at the Yiddish Book Center that Ona arranged is a go for May 11th in Amherst.  We'll be there. Not sure what is involved, but you and mom will be honored.

Shabbat shalom, Dad.

avrum ben mayer.