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Thursday, December 15, 2016

Mom

Barton's Bonbonniere, Brighton Beach Avenue, Brooklyn

source: shorpy.com 


Bright city lights remind me of Christmas and Hanukkah when I was very young. I remember baking cookies and sweets with my mother. We had a cookie press with an array of different plates to create different forms upon the cookie baking sheet.

My mother passed away on December 12, 2016.

Bright lights and December remind me of her. That was before the city went dark and the great department stores closed; that was when immense toylands downtown beckoned everyone to come and be amazed.

The photograph above is dated March 10, 1952.
If you could see the detail (original at  http://www.shorpy.com/node/21457?size=_original#caption)  you would see a sign for  "Passover confections" and another for "gay Purim gifts".  In 1952, Purim started on the 14th Adar or March 11, and Passover - or Pesach - started on 15th Nisan, or April 10th.

Barton's Bonbonniere stood on the verge of the whole Megillah!
We are all on the edge of infinity.
When my Aunt Ann passed some years ago, I discovered that although I was sad, I did not feel as if she had passed forever from my life. Ever since, I do not feel my loved ones are irretrievably gone. I am saddened by my mother's death, but I do not feel the link has broken...

The day before she passed, my wife and I were visiting and I said the rosary with my mother, holding onto her arm, patting her arm, feeling the human skin between us... I suppose like when I was helpless and a babe...
Anyway, at about the third decade I could not remember what Glorious Mystery was applicable (I could never remember the Mysteries of the rosary. I never really tried to). I talked about resurrection.

Matthew 27 says that at the third hour when Jesus died on Good Friday:
51  Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52  and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53  and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
So many rose from the dead. And not on the day of the Resurrection, but three days before. Of course, there was also Lazarus being restored to life even earlier than this.

I said that Resurrection is not focused on one point, but spreads widely in space and spreads widely in time. This is what Matthew 27 indicates. I said I believe that Resurrection already began when she was born. Birth and Death are conjoined in the act of Resurrection.
I do not believe in the Resurrection; I expect it minute to minute.

"Let's meditate on that mystery," I said.

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