Catching up - Part I

I've been finding "real life" quite hectic lately, to the point where this space has been ignored. But I see from my viewing history that there are still friends and family that return regularly for updates and they are also entitled to be kept up to date.

Sunday evening was the start of the Yom Kippur observance. I think that this year's spiritual reawakening may have something to do with the fact that my parents are aging, and beginning to complain about their aches and pains. It's gotten to the point where, for the first time, I'm not taking their continued existence for granted. My dad is 82, my mom, a few years younger. I consider myself lucky, at the age of 50, to still have both my parents. Sitting in the synagogue, playing the games we used to play in my childhood (interlocking his fingers with mine, comparing hand sizes, administering discreet therapeutic back massage during the boring sermons), it occured to both of us that these memories were still fresh, pure, and liberating. For the hours on Sunday and Monday, I actually forgot that my house is a wreck, and I'm unemployed. For those hours, I was a little boy again, sitting in shul with my father, and celebrating my Jewish heritage.