Since Mom’s death, I keep running into a recurrent theme: sometimes it takes a death to flush out and reconnect estranged/feuding/out-of-touch cousins, and it reveals a lot of unfamiliar/hidden family history, sordid or otherwise. Death can have positive, or at least enlightening, side effects. You learn all sorts of things you never knew, including about yourself.
I spent the night at Avdi’s, and will again tonight, so we can go to services on Shabbat to say mourner’s kaddish for Mom. As usual, in the morning I found the garden had been ravaged by varmints overnight. Probably raccoons. As fast as I plant, they harvest. They’re like garden thugs. Kind of frustrating, all that work for nothing, but we press on!
I did the usual erev routine, preparing the meal (SW chicken, homemade cole slaw, and rice) and baking challah. Avdi worked. I drove over to my apartment briefly to pick up clothes, etc. and had a pleasant conversation with my landlord, who also had a recent death in the family, and commiserated. He agreed that a death can bring out some bizarre facts about people, but also reconnect family. His story was stranger than some I’ve encountered lately!
We’re in serious iris season now. It’s hard not to take repetitious photos of them! So ostentatious! But we’re equal opportunity flower-lovers here. Even the lowliest flowers are essential to nature’s world wide web. Force one to go extinct, and the whole network suffers, including us.