Today, July 29, 2007, was the unveiling for my father in law (OBM). We have been planning it for several months, and it had come down to two dates, June 24 and July 29. In the end, I cast the deciding vote for July 29 2007 in consideration of schedules, camp, and convenience considerations.
My father in law, obm, lived 84 years. He was married for 61 of those years, 46 to my mother in law, my husband's mother, an Orthodox woman who was nifteress in 1987. In 1989, my father in law, who loved life and was determined to live, remarried a lovely non-observant woman in 1989. At the age of 42, my husband acquired a stepmother, a stepsister and a stepbrother. This lovely woman was the grandmother of my children. My children never knew my husband's mother. My father in law was the grandfather to her grandchildren and they both very much valued making our families blended and close. She passed away two years before my father in law from cancer, which surprised us all because she was younger and because my father in law had had such a serious health issue 6 years ago.
Right before September 11, 2001, my father in law collapsed early in the morning from a ruptured stomach aneurism. My stepmother in law called Hatzala and my father in law was brought back on the operating table by a determined surgeon. He spent the next 8 weeks in ICU, with my stepmother-in-law there for him every day. No one thought he would live. It was literally like watching techiyas haMaisim, watching him recover. He then spent a month in rehab, which was about when we told him about 9/11. We were all so grateful to my stepmother in law for her commitment and care and love for him, and she earned a special place in our hearts for taking this on so lovingly. For the next three years, they resumed their happy marriage until she fell ill and passed away in 2004.
My father in law is buried between his two beloved wives. Today, July 29, the 14th of Av we unveiled his headstone and spoke movingly about him. Our cousin who is a Rabbi stated in his speech a story about my father in law's grandfather in law, who took him by bus and train to my father in law's father's grave so that my father in law could ask permission of his deceased father to marry my mother in law. Coincidentally, the 14th of Av is the yahrtzeit of this man, my husband's great grandfather.
But there was something else, which is the focus of this story. It wasn't until the very end of the service that we noticed...my stepmother in law's yahrtzeit was the 12th of Av and on the English calendar, she died on July 29, 2004.
I am ashamed that I did not remember this and intentionally plan the unveiling with this in mind as THE primary reason. But there we all were, her children, our family and extended family. July 29, 2007, the 14th of Av.
We were all amazed, as none of us had realized it beforehand. Had it not been for the unveiling on that day, her yahrtzeit would have passed unnoticed, I am ashamed to say. We will not forget it again. |