Actually better because of Covid 19

 

It is pretty safe to say that Covid-19 has made pretty much everything in our lives worse. However, tonight Covid-19 made one thing better.

 

Tonight is my mother's sixth yahrzeit. Normally, my two sisters in Boston attend evening services together and I mark my mother yahrzeit here at my home shul. 

Tonight we agreed that the three of us would say Kaddish together at Zoom services at KI Kehillath Israel) in Brookline.  It would be nice for all three of us to be together.

As the screen filled up with faces we soon realized that another Quincy family had joined together to say Kaddish as well.

Marcia Cohen, a longtime Quincy friend had died several weeks ago. Her family, her widowed husband, and four daughters gather at the KI Zoom service every day. The service ended and we all just hung out for another hour and more, talking and laughing and remembering the two women who were so fond of one another and catching up on all of our lives.

Just before we said goodbye, three of the four Cohen daughters showed us an object they had received from my mother either before or after her death, a ceramic hamentasch that is also a grogger, a strip of pretty Turkish tile, a Hebron glass vase.

I took this photo of the Hebron glass vase around the time of my mother's death. During that time taking photos of my mother's things felt like a way to hold on to who she was.

I was just so touched that my mother's things-- and the memories they spark live on in their homes.

וְנֶאֱמָן אַתָּה לְהַחֲיוֹת מֵתִים: בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה מְחַיֵּה הַמֵּתִים

And You are faithful. Blessed are You, God, Resurrector of the dead.