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"I believe that there are semblances between seemingly disparate ideas, . . . if we can stand back and see a larger picture." Terry Tempest Williams

Oct 18, 2008

Grandpa Shares Sukkot Tales


My weekly Friday night dinners with grandma and grandpa offer endless insights into their relationship and windows into fading memories of a life in the old country. Just as my grandfather tries unsuccessfully to weave branches of palm fronds to be used in decorating the lulav we waved together (fulfilling a commandment recorded in a three-thousand year old text), so his storied recollections wistfully fray at the edges; no matter how hard he works at weaving a coherent tale, the details spiral apart, forcing him to circle and repeat, circle and retell, circle and revise. . . but ever concluding with the self-assured statement, "I used to be able to make it everything."

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