HAS THE “FIVE SECOND RULE” GOTTEN TIGHTER?

My gorgeous red strawberry fell to the floor. What’s a girl to do? After washing it and contemplating soaking it in vinegar, remembering my mother’s advice won. “Make believe you ate it,” she would say before throwing away any inedible or spoiled foods.

First, counting the remaining strawberries in the carton of berries seemed to indicate there would surely be enough to eat before the rest of the crop developed that unhealthy sign of white mold, sure to come even when safely stored in the crisper drawer of the refrigerator. With that thought, it no longer felt as bad to throw away that regal-looking strawberry that hit the floor in these scary pandemic times.

“You’re having your stuff?,” my husband lovingly conceded as he glanced over at my blueberry/coconut pancake. He smiled as he watched me spoon some pomegranate seeds onto the plate next to the fresh replacement cut-up strawberry mixed with walnut pieces and pouring a tablespoon of maple syrup in for dipping. Yes, “like my mother,” I replied with a smile as I watched him take a bite of his plain pancake drizzled with maple syrup.

My senior cousin Lois says I’m talking to my mother in some of these blog posts. I think I’m listening.

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IN MEMORIAM

Lois Birnkrant (Birns) Farlon, Jacob, Rau January 26, 1953 Cleveland, Ohio

(November 26, 1931 - February 12, 2022)

Lois laughed at that punch line when I read this blog post to her last week. That was days before I received a text from her granddaughter and a call from her daughter telling me that my dear cousin was dying, and they would hold the phone to her ear so that I could say anything I wanted to her.

They said she could no longer speak but was not in pain. How happy I was to hear she was not in pain. She suffered so much pain. Yet, the pain was in me now for losing my dear cousin, who, her daughter said, “believed in you and your writing. She appreciated when you read your stories to her.”

Rest in peace Lois. You will be sorely missed and loved forever.

We shared so much love, laughter, and tears when I read my manuscript to her in the summer of 2016. She offered details of our Papa Harry, parents, aunts, and uncles. Those free-flowing conversations gave us much to chat about in the ensuing years.

You see, Lois, at 90, was 21 years my senior. She knew our maternal grandfather (he passed away months before I turned two) and many of our relatives from the years before I was born. Then, life got in the way.

With a characteristic laugh, Lois asked me not to write the story of her life until she was gone. I’m not writing it now but will share that she had three husbands and lost her only sibling in an accident when he was 15, and she was 17. Her parents were divorced, and she lived in 17 different homes while growing up and 14 later, when she was raising her four children, two from each of the first two marriages.

This will be a difficult adjustment for me. Lois was someone who I could ask anything, and she would tell me everything. She was encouraging, helpful, and motivating. One of her last good deeds was to push for me to contact the chaplain who visited her and share my writings and recent genealogy findings with him. She was behind me 100% and even paid for two advance copies of my book for her grandchildren.

Lois understood my writing and my reasoning. She got the meaning behind the ideas. For one, I discussed the series I am currently engrossed in writing, based on letters my paternal grandmother saved. Lois said, “You’re thinking like your grandmother. Somebody has to use these, they’re too good.”

Lois told me that she loved words. She showed it by helping me choose appropriate words for the pieces on which I was working. I’ll miss her for the advice and help, the patient listening, but mainly because Lois was one-of-a-kind. Speaking of words, one of the things I loved most about Lois was that she didn’t mince words. Was I ever lucky to have her in my life. We shared a special bond.

Some of the last things Lois told me the week of her passing included that she loved looking at the pictures of my adorable grandchildren, which she had hanging on her wall, and she wanted to go to sleep and not wake up. She was done.

On that last communication, when I said, “I hope you’re at peace,” I envisioned her reply, “I am, dear.” While I cry, that thought gives me some solace as a shining light in my life is extinguished.