My Neighbor Died Last Week
Last week, the elderly woman who lived on the other side of this wall for 25 years, passed away.
She had been ill for two years, and seriously ill for several months. In fact, I never even met her until the day she died, when her husband asked for my help picking her up from the floor after she had fallen from her bed.
After she died, one daughter told me, “My father and mother were married for almost 60 years. They were stuck together like glue. It will be very hard for my father without her.”
Another daughter told me, “You have no idea what an incredible mother I had. She was always giving, to everyone. I worked, and my mother raised my children for me. Such a gorgeous woman she was. What a beautiful smile she had.”
At the funeral, one daughter sobbed loudly. Another nearly fainted from grief.
On Sunday, I stopped by the shiva house on my way to the supermarket.
“I’m going to do a delivery from the supermarket. Do you need anything?”
“No,” the younger daughter told me, “we aren’t lacking anything.”
Except for one thing, I thought.
The most important thing of all.
Eema.