Monday, September 18, 2006

“Rozhinkes Mit Mandlen”

Translation: "Almonds & Raisins," a Yiddish expression meaning to take the bitter (almonds) along with the sweet (raisins), the good with the bad.

· August 12th my family gathered to scatter the ashes of my Father
· September 7th my oldest brother was diagnosed with cancer of the stomach
· September 17th we celebrated my Mom’s 75th birthday.

Sitting at dinner last night, I was overcome with bittersweet emotion: many of the people gathered to share and celebrate Mom’s birthday were also gathered around the table August 12th sharing memories of Dad; my oldest brother was with us by cell phone as he could not be with us in person.

“Almonds & raisins” best describes my life right now.

1 comment:

Jim Wetzel said...

I started to wish you all raisins and no almonds.

But then, it occurs to me that if it's all raisins, maybe the raisins lose something. Does the sweet owe something of its essence to the existence of the bitter?

In any case, your life contains the mix that it contains. So, maybe what I'll wish for you is the wisdom to digest and distill that mix into ... well, I don't know, maybe "philosophy" is what can be made out of it. All the best to you, anyway.