Strung string stirring
Wednesday March 31st 2010, 10:28 pm
Filed under: "Wrapped in Comfort",Family,Life

I got an email that made me very wistful; I had hoped to see him one more time.  I wrote about him here; Time Magazine interviewed him here.  Goodbye, Uncle Richard; we miss you.  My children remember your kindness.  Rest in peace, and say hello to your brother and the grandparents for me.

It was a day.

Remember this? Prove you’re married or we drop your wife from the health insurance, etc.

We finally got the kid’s transcript in hand; deadlines are wonderful things. So.

Off to his office to fax everything in. Reading the fine print after I got there that I should have paid attention to earlier, marriage and birth certificates in hand, I realized, wait–they want our tax return too?  And, just in case we got divorced since last year, they want a bank statement or utility bill with both our names on it that’s not older than two months?  But what if those don’t put both our names on them?

Back home, growling at the lost time and the utter stupidity of it all.  Growling at myself for forgetting to hit “save” on my *Turbo-taxes yesterday (the software later restored the files for me when I finally dared look at it)…  Trying not to let it all get to me.

The only reason I found what I needed is that, on a whim, yesterday I’d gone to City Hall to pay my utility bill in person as long as I was running an errand nearby.  Meaning I hadn’t torn off the top of the bill, the part you mail in–and the only part that had both our names, the bank being of no help.  Small favors that are everything in that moment; thank you, dear G_d.

Back to the office.  I was almost there, driving along–when suddenly I noticed it. Somehow I just simply hadn’t before.  It was instantly clear to me what it was.

The eruv.

I am not Jewish. But this is Passover week and Easter week, and those who’ve read my book know that our first day in our new house here, the day of the moving van, a day that was completely overwhelming with boxes erupting constantly from the truck while I tried to manage three kids ages four, two, and crawling, we were invited to come to a Seder as soon as that van left.  Just because we were friends of friends and Nina knew what moving was like.

We were the strangers at the gates.  She and her husband warmly welcomed us in.

That line overhead had never called attention to itself.  It was just the simplest reminder on Earth that G_d is here, too.  It brought me up short and completely turned my day around at a moment I greatly needed it.

A piece of string. It healed my world in that moment.  My thanks to those who put it there.


6 Comments so far
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A piece of string that symbolizes how we tie our heart to G-d. Oh Alison. You’re good. But then again, we all knew that.

Comment by afton 04.01.10 @ 3:23 am

I’m so glad Turbo Tax wanted to recover your files! And you know I don’t believe in coincidences. Little miracles, but not coincidences. 😉

Comment by Channon 04.01.10 @ 7:15 am

Such a time you have had!

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 04.01.10 @ 7:49 am

I agree with Channon – no coincidences. And thank Heaven for recoverable Turbo Taxes. (Don’t you have a backup program?)

Humor —

I was always taught to respect my elders, but it keeps getting harder to find one.
~~~~~
Every morning is the dawn of a new error.

Comment by Don Meyer 04.01.10 @ 8:55 am

Oh boy. Don, you nailed it…every morning a new error indeed. (I work in manufacturing… a lot of that is conducting the post mortem on the errors.)

And I recall having to get my husband’s name put on a bunch of the utility bills when I got married. Because the city wouldn’t let him register his car without proof of residence… of course the utility companies never asked me to prove he lived with me. I just asked them to add his name and they said, ‘sure! it’ll be on the next bill’. Shh..I won’t tell the insurance company if you won’t!

Glad it’s getting sorted, but wow, what a hassle. I hope the rest of the process goes smoothly!

Comment by RobinH 04.01.10 @ 2:11 pm

I’m sorry to hear you didn’t get to visit in person with your uncle once more. How wonderful to think of all the people remembering his kindness. Kindness is very high on my list of noble traits.

Comment by twinsetellen 04.01.10 @ 5:19 pm



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