It was a long time ago, 19 years, toward the beginning of our lives together
It’s marked on our wall calendar every year: Sivan 22, also known as the yahrtzeit of Abba’s fingers. Macabre humor, I know. We try using other words like “the anniversary of the accident” or “the day we make a seudas hoda’ah,” but it often comes back to “the finger yahrtzeit.”
It was a long time ago, 19 years, toward the beginning of our lives together. This was before we had kids, and teaching was everything to me: meaning and comfort and the wonder of a class of six-year-olds learning Bereishis for the first time. On the day of the accident, I was giving over perek beis to a roomful of wide eyes when the knock on the classroom door jolted me. I remember being frustrated. What could anyone want? What could be more important than this?
A close friend stood there, a nervous look on her face. Before I knew it, a substitute took my place in class, and I was ushered into her car.
“I don’t have good news,” Briny said — and my mind flew to my mother, who had been sick for a while. “Deborah, Emmanuel had an accident.”
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