Tag Archives: #love

Everywhere a sign….

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I am not a fan of the supernatural. Except for Ghost (I love the chemistry between Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze!) and Sixth Sense (What a great ending!), I shy away from any movie that smacks of the occult. And while I respect Stephen King as a writer, I rarely read his best-selling horror novels.But there is one area in which I AM a believer: signs from the other side. 

Several times in my life, I have felt that I have had “visits” from those I had loved and lost. Six weeks after my mother-in-law passed away in 1994, I strongly felt her presence at my daughter’s bat mitzvah six weeks later, literally seeing her sitting on the bima and smiling as Julie ran the service. Thirty-six years later, soon after my mother had passed away, I woke up in the middle of the night feeling someone stroke my shoulder and smelling the powerful scent of Bengay. No, Larry had not touched me, and we didn’t even have the topical analgesic heat rub that my father used in our house. I was convinced it was a sign from my parents that they were together and that they were okay.

So, it was not a surprise that I believe my beloved sister Laura, who passed away on August 29,2025, has sent messages to me in the past two months. Yes, many would write them off as coincidences. I know better. 

On September 6, 2025, I sponsored the oneg, refreshments served after the Friday night service, at Congregation Shalom Aleichem in my sister’s memory. I had spent the week baking cookies, brownies, and challah but waited until Friday morning to order the cake. When I called Publix, the bakery told me it was too late for a special order; I would have to use what they had in the store. The two choices were one with colorful balloons and one unadorned white sheet cake. White? How boring! I texted my niece/Laura’s daughter to ask what lettering I should use for the cake. “What’s her favorite color?” I asked.

“White,” Jen wrote back. 

“OMG!” I wrote back. “That’s the only cake they had left!”. Coincidence? Maybe? Or a sign??

The next “sign” occurred when Larry and I traveled Lake Champlain to spend time with my two surviving siblings and their spouses at my brother Jay and his wife Leslie’s home. Fortuitously, Laura had sold her fully furnished cottage, only a mile down the road, a month before her death, and my sister Bobbie was getting it ready for the October closing. I took one last walk-through and took a few items to bring home. A “Wine Down” towel (Laura LOVED her white Zinfandel). An apron our mother had sewn for Laura decades before. Her favorite flannel shirt. And a green floral tote bag. After throwing out some tissues and a plastic bag filled with Tylenol, I switched the essentials from my regular pocketbook to Laura’s tote.

The next day, I was rummaging through the tote to find my comb. Deep in a side pocket were two pictures: one of six-month-old Laura smiling from her baby carriage; the second, a formal shot of Laura and Will, her significant other, who had passed away 18 months earlier. “Look what I just found!” I said with tears in my eyes. “Laura is telling us that she is happily reunited with Will, the love of her life!”

One last sign: Soon after trip to New York, I called Dan Dembling, the architect and president of Capital District Jewish Holocaust Memorial, Inc, to ask if the governor had signed the bill to establish and create the New York State Holocaust Memorial. When he said it was still being reviewed and considered by the executive chamber team, I told him that I would knead prayers into my weekly challahs that the bill would be passed quickly, in part selfishly so that I could complete the story I wrote about the project this past spring. Dan then asked me a favor: Please knead in prayers for his mother, who had passed away Friday, August 18, at the age 87 years old.

“I’m sorry to hear this, Dan,” I said. “Was she sick?” 

“No,” Dan said. “She was doing great, but she came down with what appeared to be pneumonia and was gone ten days later.”

“Oh my God,” I said. “My sister passed away on Friday, August 29, with the same scenario! I promise I will knead prayers for her when I bake my challah! What was your mother’s name?”

“Frances,” Dan said.

I gasped. “That was my mother’s name! My three-year-old granddaughter was named after her…Frances June. We call her Frannie.”

“What a coincidence!” Dan said. “I have an interesting story as to how I got my name. When my grandmother was single, she was the secretary for her synagogue. During her time working there she also typed manuscripts for the rabbi’s wife, Sadie Rose Weilerstein, a prolific author who wrote several Jewish children’s books. One book was What Danny Did, a collection of short stories about how the protagonist celebrated each of the Jewish holidays. Growing up, that was my mother’s favorite book. When I was born, my mother named me Daniel after Weilerstein’s character. I have an original first edition of the book on my shelf, and I will text you a picture of the book and Sadie’s inscription to my grandmother that is on the first inside page.”

We said our goodbyes, and minutes later, Dan, as promised, sent me a picture of the old book and the inside leaf. It read:

To Miss Spieler

In sincere appreciation

from

Sadie Rose Weilerstein

March 25, 1928

 MARCH 25, 1928, exactly fourteen years to the day before Laura was born. Another message from heaven that Laura is okay? I don’t doubt it.

“While we may lose a person we love, their love is not lost to us,” Mary Louis Kelly writes in It. Goes. So. Fast. “It just simply finds its way in different channels.” Whether it be coincidences or “signs” or b’shert, the love we share has found a life of its own, its own channels. May Laura’s memory be a blessing. 

The oneg in Laura’s memory

My Romance by Frances Cohen

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My mother Frances Cohen wrote down her memoirs in her late eighties. This story, how she met my father Bill Cohen, is one of our family favorites. More of her stories can be found on this blog as well as in Fradel’s Story, a collection of her articles co-written with me.

Since today is Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d write about my romances until I met my true love. The saying goes, “You have to kiss many frogs until you meet your true love.” Well, I knew many frogs.

I was a senior in high school when I experienced my first romance. I thought that Bernie had the bluest eyes and the curliest hair. I was completely infatuated. The economy wasn’t the best. So, our date consisted mostly of walking and holding hands. Bernie was my date for the Senior Prom. Although he wore a very shabby suit and I borrowed a gown, I thought I was lucky to have a date to the prom with the guy I adored. Things changed after I graduated high school. I got my first job in a toy store for $10 a week six days a week. Bernie didn’t have a job, so in the fall when the leaves died, so did our romance.

That New Year’s Eve was not a happy one for me. Instead of giving me a gift on Christmas Eve, my boss told me he did not need my services anymore. Worse yet, I did not have a date!

Time passed. Both my girlfriends were going steady. Their problem was that their boyfriends did not have a car. Charley, one of their friends, did, so my girlfriends urged me to date him. I was not especially fond of him, but we all were fond of his car. Conveniently, Charley was able to drive the three couples around. The six of us even went to the midnight show at the Apollo Theater.

Financially, things improved for me when I finally got a good bookkeeping job that I loved. When summer arrived, I was given a week’s vacation with pay. I decided to spend it in a hotel in the Catskill Mountains. The hotel had all the ingredients for romance, including swimming, boating, entertainment, and dancing. The first night at the hotel, I was seated next to a tall, handsome guy named Harry. We spent the whole week enjoying all the activities, and by the end of the week, I was completely infatuated with him. We continued dating after I got back from my vacation. I was having a great time as I was dating Charley on Saturday and Harry on Sundays. That situation ended a month later when Charley wanted to get engaged. How could I marry Charley when I was wild about Harry?

When Harry invited me to a formal dinner dance at the Astor Hotel that his firm was sponsoring, I was delighted. I purchased a new black taffeta gown with a matching purse and matching shoes. When Harry arrived to take me to the dinner dance, looking handsome in a tuxedo with a corsage in hand, I was ecstatic. But shortly after the dance, he stopped calling. I was really hurt. I guess I was wild about Harry, but Harry wasn’t wild about me.

I didn’t date anyone interesting for quite a while. Now that I was almost twenty-two years old, my mother was eager to see me settled with a handsome, rich, Jewish man. Cupid stepped in to help. My brother Eli, our cousin Elliot, and their friend Bill Cohen were all working for my Uncle Paul, who had a chain of department stores in Upstate New York. The three of them came home one weekend to visit each of their families. Bill, who had seen my picture at my Aunt Rose and Uncle Ruby’s house, asked Elliot and Eli to fix me up on a “blind” date.

That night I finally met my true love. Bill and I were attracted to each other immediately, and there was instant chemistry from the first moment we saw each other that was to last for a lifetime. My mother’s prayers were answered—almost! Bill was handsome and Jewish. Rich he wasn’t, but two out of three was not bad!

It was to be a long-distance romance. Bill made the eight-hour trip to see me as often as he could, but we only saw one another less than ten times before we married. We wrote every day—I still have his letters in a blue satin bag I keep in my dresser! We had so much in common: our love of reading, our respect for education, our desire for children, and our large, close-knit families. We soon realized that our family trees even had connecting branches as both our families came from small villages near to each other in Lithuania.

Even more astounding, we had actually “met” over twenty years earlier as children through those connections. In 1919, when I was two years old, I contracted the Spanish flu. When my lungs filled up with fluid, the doctor saved my life by cutting an incision into my back to drain them. It was recommended that I spend time away from our tiny apartment in Brooklyn and breathe country air. My mother Ethel quickly made arrangements for the two of us to visit her stepmother’s sister Ittel [Levinson] and her husband Archik Perelman, who lived on a farm in Burlington, Vermont. While there, Ethel and I were visited by Archik’s brother and sister-in-law, Itsik and Sarah Perelman; their daughter Annie [Perelman] Cohen, and her six-year- old son, Bill. There is an expression “My father married my mother. Why do I have to marry a stranger?” Well, Bill didn’t feel like a stranger to me.

On Valentine’s Day, 1940, Bill made a special trip in to see me. We went to the movies and then went out for sundaes at an ice cream parlor. After spending three hours watching Gone with the Wind, Bill must have thought I was Scarlett O’Hara, and so he asked me to marry him. I must have thought he was Rhett Butler, because I said yes. We were married that summer and have spent the last sixty-six years celebrating Valentine’s Days, our anniversary, and our love for each other.

This story, along with others my mother shared with her children, is found in Fradel’s Story, available on Amazon. 

Love in time of retirement

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Ah! Young love! This is the time in life where two individuals cannot get enough of each other! Each moment away from one another is agony, and even when they are together in the same room, there is a desperate need to touch and hold and talk. Their wish is to share every waking moment together.

Yes, my husband and I were like that once. We met, we courted, we married, and we spent the next thirty-six years of our lives juggling our relationship with children, jobs, and outside commitments.

Then, Larry and I retired, and we got our wish. We were together twenty-four/seven, but we weren’t young anymore. As a matter of fact, living under the same roof resulted in a period of major adjustment.

Please don’t get me wrong. I love my husband dearly, and I am so grateful that we have had the opportunity to retire in good health. It is just that—well —love in the time of retirement may test even the closest relationship. 

Our first battle took place soon after Larry retired. We were in the kitchen, cleaning up after dinner. As was our usual routine, Larry was putting away the leftovers while I was putting the dirty plates in the dishwasher. He looked over while he was closing the refrigerator door and offered, “Here, Marilyn, let me show you how to load a dishwasher.”

I stopped mid-dish and stared at him. “What do you mean by that?”

“You’re not doing it right. I can show you how to do it properly.”

“So you mean to tell me I have been loading this thing WRONG for the last three decades?” 

“Yes, my way is much more efficient!” We had a brief, spirited discussion as to whether he wanted to accept my tried and true way of doing it or if he wanted to wash dishes on his own for the rest of our married life. Thankfully, he saw it my way.

The second conflict occurred six months later when I retired. I planned to set up my calendar and some files in our home office. When I tried to find room on our computer desk, not an inch was available. “Larry,” I said, “do you think you can organize all those piles on the desk so that we can share the space?”

“I retired first!” was his response. “I already claimed the desk. You will need to find another spot.”

Initially, I managed to carve out a few inches of blank oak, but it wasn’t worth the fights that ensued when I moved any of his piles, which he referred to as his “filing system.” I eked out a two-inch crevice between the computer and the printer that allowed me to prop up a few folders. It took three years to have the sense to get my own lap top so I could have the flexibility to work on any surface in the house. 

Over the next few months, we played an uneasy game of adjusting. Larry spent a great deal of time following me around closing cabinet doors and drawers I continually left open, a bad habit I had had my entire life. I learned to accept the fact that he was king of the television remote. He could watch several television shows simultaneously, including a couple of basketball games, reruns of The Big Bang Theory, and a showing of a favorite movie. I found this tolerable as long as I was multi-tasking on the couch—doing a crossword puzzle, checking emails, reading a book, and cutting coupons—while he ruled the remote. My annoying habit cancelled out his.

I am not the only person who has experienced post-retirement angst. One friend, whose son had been in a playgroup with our son over thirty years earlier, told me that her husband had acquired this overwhelming need to be with her wherever she went. Grocery shopping, dropping off mail at the post office, running to the drug store for a prescription, was now regarded by Steve as a two-person outing. “If Larry isn’t busy,” Fern suggested, “maybe we can arrange a weekly playdate between our two husbands. Then I can get out of the house by myself for a couple of hours.”

My friend Judy commented that only after they were both retired did she realize how ‘uber-organized’ her husband was. A week before they left for their two-month stay in Florida, Judy was haphazardly stacking clothing on her bed and throwing cosmetics and toiletries into a bin. Charlie strolled into the bedroom and opened up his file marked “Florida.” It included a detailed list of everything he needed to pack, including the number of pairs of socks, shirts, and shoes he was bringing. Another list included restaurants in Naples, with notes on ratings and menus. He even planned their drive down to Florida in minute detail: He had researched hotels and restaurants en route on Trip Advisor, printed out weather forecasts from weather.com, and created a chart of estimated travel times between stops from Google maps. “He researches every single detail and isn’t willing to leave anything to chance,” Judy said. “It’s driving me nuts!”

Quite a few of my friends have commented that their retired husbands, who managed people all their working life, feel the need to manage their wives. “Marty loves to come up with projects,” Melanie shared with me over coffee. “He suggests these projects on a weekly basis, pointing out, for example, that the linen closet needs to be reorganized or the bookshelves in the fourth bedroom need to be cleaned out. Of course, Marty is the idea person. I am the person who is expected to implement his projects.”

When I talk to couples about adjusting to retirement, I find that the wives are much more forthcoming about their experiences. The men I spoke to, for the most part, were oblivious.

This is not just part of our generation. Joanne, a friend from North Dakota, remembered mediating a fight between her in-laws. After many years of farming acres of wheat and soy, the husband had decided to help his wife with her vegetable garden. While they were cutting up potatoes for planting, he insisted that each potato mound have five eyes. The wife explained that she had always limited the mounds to three eyes. When he tried to drag his daughter-in-law into the discussion, Joanne demurred, saying, “I am sure it all depends on the year.” Joanne said, in the end, they decided on four eyes, a nice compromise.

Compromise—the bottom line as two people learn to live their dream, to spend most of their time together. Maybe love is relearning give-and-take and embracing each other’s quirks.

My favorite piece of advice came from a man who held a high position in the federal government for many years before he and his wife retired. “I get to make the big decisions,” he explained. “Who should run for president of the United States. Whether or not we should go to war with Russia. And she makes the less important decisions, such as where we live, what we eat, with whom we spend our time, when and where we are going on vacation. It works out really well for us.” As I hope it works out for all the retired love birds I know and love.

The retired lovebirds 2022

A version of this article originally appeared in the Jewish World News, a bi-weekly subscription-based newspaper in upstate New York.

A High Holiday Romance–or Two

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Marilyn and Larry in 1974
Sarah and Adam 2019

The High Holidays are a special time, but it is even more special when family—and a little romance—are part of the season. 

In 1951, Larry’s father Ernie, a World War II veteran, was called back into the US Army. Larry’s mother Doris, along with Larry and Larry’s older sister Anita, moved from Schuylerville, New York,to Syracuse,  her hometown, to live with her mother Rose and brother Asher during Ernie’s deployment. 

Larry, who turned three shortly after their move, remembers riding the family coal truck with Asher and tagging along with Bubbie when she went to her card games. Relatives and friends, filled the house, including meal times, as Bubbie was a wonderful and plentiful cook. 

This was especially true during the Jewish holidays, a tradition that continued after Ernie returned home. Doris, Ernie, Anita, Larry, and later Marilyn and Carole would pile into the car before each holiday to share huge meals around a crammed dining room table in the flat on Jackson Street.

By the time Larry had completed his bar mitzvah, Bubbie Rose found making the huge dinners for the entire family for High Holidays was too much. Doris took over responsibility for not only the meals but also for opening up her house to friends and family. Doris spent weeks preparing the food, and the table showed it. Matzah ball soup, chopped liver, brisket, chicken, kishki, potatoes, kugels, several vegetables, honey cakes—it was a feast that was repeated on the evening before Kol Nidre. Then Doris would outdo herself with the Break Fast.

The 1973 High Holiday season especially stands out for Larry and me. In March 1973, Larry and I met at Jewish singles Purim party. We both knew fairly quickly that the connection we made over hamantaschen was special. We dated throughout the summer, and six months after our Purim meeting, we were both ready to commit. On a beautiful day Indian summer day. Larry took me to  romantic overlook at the Saratoga National Battlefield. As he was about to pop the question, he got stung by a bee. Man plans; bees sting. Oh well! Larry felt terrible, but I was clueless. 

Rosh Hashanah fell only a few days after the bee debacle. Larry and I turned down offers for a ride home from services. While walking home, Larry talked hypothetically about where we would live, how many children we’d like, our future dreams together. I finally kiddingly asked him if this was a proposal. He said “Soon.”

When we got to Larry’s house, we said hello to the family who were about to sit down for dinner. Larry and I went into a bedroom to drop off Larry’s tallit and my purse. Larry said, “Will you marry me?” I said yes. We started to kiss when Corky, the Shapiro’s wire haired terrier, jumped up and licked my face.

As I wiped Corky’s saliva from my lips, Larry and I made a pact: We would keep our engagement a secret until after the holidays. Larry’s father’s birthday was on Yom Kippur. We would announce our engagement at the Break Fast.

The next week  went by slowly, especially for me, who wanted to shout our news from the rooftops. After Yom Kippur services ended, Larry and I called my parents to tell them of our engagement. We then sat down with Larry’s family for-the-Break Fast dinner.

We brought out dessert and birthday cake. Ernie blew out the candles and opened a couple of presents. Then Larry was ready for our big announcement.

“Dad, I have a present for you too!”

“What?” said one of his sisters. “Another stupid tie?”

“No,” said Larry. “I am giving you a new daughter-in-law. Marilyn and I are engaged!” Everyone was thrilled. My now future father-in-law regarded it as one of his best presents ever. 

Larry and I were married on September 8, 1974. A few weeks later, we attended High Holiday Services with Larry’s family. After the last shofar blast we went back to the Shapiros  for their annual dinners, a tradition we maintained for almost twenty wonderful years. 

When Larry’s parents passed away only eight months apart in 1994, Larry and I hosted a Rosh Hashanah dinner at our home in Upstate New York for over twenty years until our move to Florida. Since our move so far from family, we have shared Rosh Hashanah dinners with our friends at each other’s homes. and our Break Fast with our fellow worshippers in the synagogue.

This year, the High Holidays are about creating new memories and celebrating another romance.  On a visit from his home in San Francisco this past January, our usually reserved son told us that he was “kinda sorta seeing someone,” a woman whom he had taken out for Chinese food on December 25. As Larry and I had similarly experienced many years before, Sarah and Adam both knew fairly quickly that the connection they had made over fortune cookies was special.They dated throughout the winter, and only six months after their Asian dinner, they were both  ready to commit. On a beautiful summer’s evening, Adam took Sarah to a romantic overlook in Bernal Heights. Fortunately, no bees ruined their moment. Adam proposed. Sarah accepted! They were engaged!

Adam and Sarah will be getting married in San Francisco in October 2019,on the same day as the 46th anniversary of the day Larry and I announced our engagement and what would have been Ernie’s 100th birthday. Life has come full circle. 

After the wedding, Larry and I will remain in San Francisco to attend Yom Kippur services with Sarah, Adam, andSarah’s parents. The six of us will share a pew in the synagogue. After the last shofar blast, we will all go back to Sarah’s parents’ house for their annual Break Fast, an event that will include Sarah’s Grandma Minnie’s blintzes. “As we prepare for this time of reflection, renewal and rebooting of our spiritual lives,” read their invitation, “ we wish you L’Shanah Tovah Tikatevuh!” And we wish our newlyweds much health, love, and happiness.