I’ve been looking at U.S. death certificates recently, noting that the genealogical information in them could be mistaken, depending on the person reporting that data. But what do you do if you can’t find a death certificate? Here are my recommendations: Check the website of the state health department for…
This definitely should’ve been in Dad’s eulogy. And it applies just as well to the rest of the family. Books to the ceiling, Books to the sky, My pile of books is a mile high. How I love them! How I need them! I’ll have a long beard by the…
It’s been one year and one day since Joe passed. It was yesterday, around 10am. Chanel and I spent a good part of the past two days cleaning out Joe’s basement office. It seems like he saved every scrap of paper he scribbled on over the past thirty years. He…
Dennis said that one day, you’ll just wake up and realize you’re dealing with it better. I thought I’d hit that day months ago. I thought the eulogy I delivered had helped me grieve. When Mom and Chanel talked about dreams and memories of Dad, I felt I’d moved passed…
A brief addendum to my post about selling my Dad’s stamp collection. The man saved everything. He even saved an envelope I sent him when I was in the West Bank. Now, before I left Ramallah, I had planned to buy a few blocks of Palestinian Authority stamps, because I…
I’ve been debating about putting my last name and hometown on my blog. Identity theft is such an issue. Anyway, still won’t mention it in the blog, but it’s sorta obvious from the name of the newspaper… But my resolve evaporated with this interesting article by Marjorie Censer in one…
That’s what this fellow, Wayne Gehret, said of my father’s stamp collection when I sold it to him today. Joe started collecting as a kid in the 1930s, steaming canceled stamps off of envelopes and pasting them into a hand-made book. For many of the stamps, he had actually cut…
When I got in to P——-n last night, mom and I talked about my recollection of Dad’s last moments. Much to my surprise and amusement, she had a completely different take on what happened, even down to how much time elapsed (she thought it couldn’t have been two or three…
Ever since October, I’ve been going over my Dad’s last moments in my mind. Over. And over. And over. Can’t get ’em out. Probably never will. But maybe writing them out will make them run through my head less frequently. Be forewarned: this post is about the death part of…
