ברוך דין האמת

 This has been a week tinged by sadness. Those of you who are regular readers here may remember the posts tagged "Vivian treasures".

Vivian was a member of our synagogue community. When I first moved to New York and became a part of the synagogue, the demographics of the synagogue were probably 80% exactly my husband's age, about a dozen years older than I was. Vivian was one of the first people I met who was roughly my age.

Vivian was vivacious and funny. She loved accessories. She worked at the jewelry counter of a wonderful vintage store about ten blocks south . This was before her long career in the city's department of urban planning.

Many of us in those days---who were in our 20s were someplace between being students and starting on our real lives. For many of us there were marriages, children and careers that took place between then and now.

Vivian for a constellation of reasons stayed in that suspended space between adolescence and adulthood.  Vivian was in many ways wonderful but was also completely exhausting.

Vivian died alone in her apartment a week ago. 

Her funeral was Tuesday. Over the last few years, Vivian, who used to wear all color, began to wear turquoise nearly all the time. She loved turquoise so much that she wore a heavy line of turquoise eyeliner on her eyelids nearly every day.

Normally at funerals people wear sober colored clothing. At Vivian's funeral so many of the attendees wore turquoise. I wore a turquoise lace skirt. My husband wore a turquoise kippah. So many women wore earrings or necklaces or pins in the color that Vivian liked best. No one had suggested that we do it, but we all knew that it was the right thing to do.

That evening there was an evening of Shiva at our synagogue. A dear friend from those early years in New York was there. I think of my friend as being my roommate-in law because she married one of my housemates from the giant group apartment I live in just before I got married. My friend brought an envelope of photos from her Sheva Brachot thirty five years ago.   I was heavily pregnant with my first and completely moon-faced. My husband looked so young. And there was Vivian, dancing of course, looking so young and so beautiful. 

After Vivian's parents died Vivian had the difficult task of cleaning out her parents' apartment. She gave me bags and bags of old textiles because she knew that I would love them. So many of these treasures have become a part of my life. 

I have learned so much from these bits of textile history, each one with with it's own personal history of mends and repairs.

While there are many bits of truly spectacular bits of handwork in my giant stash of Vivian treasures there is one small piece that I am particularly fond of.

It is a little tray liner. It was probably made by someone, perhaps a child, learning how to embroider. It is so very pretty and yet every single thing about it is just a bit off kilter . The piece isn't exactly round. the design itself is off center and every carefully stitched eyelet is a different size.

In the past when I used this piece I used to think of the child who made it struggling to get things right. Now this piece will remind me of Vivian, so beautiful, so vibrant and trying so hard.

ברוך דין האמת