Financial intensity

Living is like tearing through a museum.

- By AARON KATSMAN

Not until later do you really start absorbing what you saw, thinking about it, looking it up in a book, and remembering - because you can’t take it in all at once. - Audrey Hepburnhis time of the year is a roller coaster of emotions in our family. A few days ago, my wife and I celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary. Then we celebrate our youngest child’s 15th birthday.

Sandwiched in between, we will commemorate the second anniversary of my father’s passing. Then, two and a half weeks later, the family will again gather at the cemetery to commemorate my mother’s passing 29 years ago, and we have the happy holiday of Purim thrown in just for fun.

In synagogue a few days ago, while waiting for the evening prayer to start, we got into a discussion about Mishloah Manot (giving food to friends and family).

I mentioned that I remembered Purim as a child, and how everything was prepared at the last minute. My mother, peace be upon her, baked all of our Mishloah Manot, unlike the gifts we receive here that are, for the most part, all packaged and processed.

My parents would stay up all night baking hamentashen, and then in the morning, the brownies and oatmeal cookies would go into the oven. When delivering the Manot, you needed to be careful how you carried them as they were piping hot, right out of the oven.

For the lucky recipients, it was amazing. How often do you get hot, super-tasty homemade baked goods? For many years, I just assumed that that was normal, and then it hit me, 99.9% of the population didn’t do it this way! What a letdown.