Everything Tastes Better Shared

Passover is about optimism, rebirth, and faith.

Here is what I learned from the many Seders shared with Aunt Ruth and her friends:

1.  Dress beautifully-this is the Greatest Generation of men and women who do not leave the house without looking their best, so forget that this night is about slouching and being casual!

2.  Listen when others are speaking-remember that while it is tempting to interrupt, you learn more when you pay attention.

3.  Encourage storytelling-if you are lucky enough to have so much wisdom on either side of you, ask questions.  

 4.   Take pictures.  You will want to remember this wonderful night, and it is nice to send the photos to the guests as memories.

Aunt Ruth believed that everything tastes better when it is shared.  May your Passover surround you in love.

Always Make Sure You Have Love in Your Life

Please click on image to enlarge.

Daddy Cake

Let's offer your followers a Valentine's Day recipe. 

That's easy!   My Dad said, "Nothing tastes better

than Daddy Cake," and my mother made it for him

every Friday.

I love this photo of Aunt Ruth admiring a cake from one of our many shared holidays.  She is still recovering from her autumn challenges, but she hasn't lost a step when it comes to loving her friends and family.  Aunt Ruth and I relish reminiscing about her children, my grandparents, cousins, and my sisters. These talks always include what my grandmother, my mother, or she cooked.  Photos and recipes blanket her recovery room, and you can almost smell the love.  You know the book, Love, Loss, and What I Wore?  My family should change the last part to What I Ate!

When Loving Aunt Ruth finds its publisher (yes, we remain hopeful!), there will be many recipes from which to choose.  After all, this is a story about love, and in my family love is spelled, f-o-o-d!

Until the book release, Aunt Ruth wants you to have her mother's recipe for Daddy Cake.  After all, it's Friday, so she hopes you'll make it for someone you love!

I Think I'll Have a Party, and You Can Meet My Friends

My mother wrote in a journal, "My brother, sister, and I lived in a lovely world when we were growing up.  We never knew of Freud, sibling rivalry, drugs or depression (except the financial kind)."  Mom has been gone for over a decade, but this idea of "lovely world" was driven home to me in the years I photographed Aunt Ruth, videotaped her, and most recently, sat in her bedroom as she recovers from her autumn fall.

When I asked Aunt Ruth if I could photograph her, she responded by saying that she would have a tea party, so I could meet all of her friends.  I had no idea that friendship, food, socializing, compassion, and even dressing up is as much a part of my legacy as my camera.

The world that Mom and Aunt Ruth grew up in and aged into is quite lovely, because they make it so.  Aunt Ruth's phone never stops ringing with friends of all ages checking her progress or making dates to bring her food, flowers, and laughter.  Yes, you read correctly...her PHONE rings.  There is something real, something beautiful, and...well....lovely about listening to the conversations Aunt Ruth has with family and friends.  It is grounding and reminds me of my deep gratitude for  my camera. Photography made it possible for me to meet Aunt Ruth's friends, brought Aunt Ruth and me closer than we would have been, and it brought us to YOU.

So, have a party and invite all of your friends.  Pick up the phone right now and call someone you love.  Remember what Aunt Ruth always says, "Make sure you have love in your life."

I am so glad I have hers...and the photos...and you in mine.

Aunt Ruth and Father Kevin O'Neil

Yes, you were right.  Aunt Ruth and I wanted to say something about the end of 2012.

 As blog followers, you know this has been a difficult year for us.  Maybe, it has been for you as well.  We thank you for believing in Loving Aunt Ruth ( earnestly being marketed  at a time when publishing photo/inspirational books is tricky).  We were anxious about expressing year-end thoughts, until we read Father O'Neil's words in  Maureen Dowd's column in the December 26th edition of The New York Times. Father O'Neil addressed the "why" question in the context of Christmas and Newtown.

 I wish Father O'Neil and Aunt Ruth could share some of my grandmother's soup in Aunt Ruth's kitchen, because as Father O'Neil says (and Aunt Ruth has taught me), "Loving presence brings us back, makes us belong."

Father O'Neil wrote:

One true thing is this:  Faith is lived in family and community...

I will never satisfactorily answer the question "Why?" because no matter what response I give, it will always fall short.  What I do know is that an unconditionally loving presence soothes broken hearts, binds up wounds and renews us in life.  This is a gift we can all give...

Aunt Ruth, an ordinary woman of ordinary means had 165 people to her 90th birthday party of all ages, faiths, ethnicities, and political beliefs, because she understands that love is the greatest gift of all.  I am grateful to my father, an amazing photographer, whose piles of photographs taught and inspired me to document my own family.  Photographing Aunt Ruth and her loving presence has definitely brought me back, and so have each of you.  

 From my ever-loving Aunt Ruth and me, remember to make sure you always have love in your life...thank you, Father O'Neil for reminding us that it "brings us back, makes us belong." 

Happy New Year to you All!

love, Aunt Ruth and me

Things

I just returned from Connecticut and sorting through my recently deceased sister's universe of things.  As you might imagine, the process of sifting through a lifetime of letters, photographs, perfumes, and earrings is not an easy one.

Which brings me to Aunt Ruth....of course.  Aunt Ruth never disappoints with her concise and precise wisdom.  Yesterday, I visited Aunt Ruth who despite feeling more tired at 93, despite feeling her own sorrow over losing her nieces, my sisters, and despite burying many friends and her own siblings, greeted me with a hug, laughter, and the need to mark our calendars for sharing the upcoming Jewish holidays.  She has already made the kreplach.

Imagine having so much love and life experience on which to rely?  I am quite fortunate.

This visit ended with Aunt Ruth holding my head gently in her hands and saying, "Honey, things change."

Fortunately, for me, Aunt Ruth's love hasn't.

It is our hope, that Loving Aunt Ruth and this blog inspire you to reach out to your own Aunt Ruth or become someone else's Aunt Ruth, because....well....things change, and when they do, love keeps us whole.

Waiting...

Aunt Ruth and I have been waiting for a publisher.  It is a hard time to sell a book of photographs and thoughts about love, life, aging, and ideas of how ordinary people can make a difference in the world.

Aunt Ruth is used to waiting.  She survived the loss of her husband, her children, and all of her siblings.  She waited for 3 years for me to finish photographing her.  We waited for my son's wedding this past May, to see my sister, Jane.  Aunt Ruth hadn't seen her niece in 3 years.  Travel is hard for both of them.  Aunt Ruth is 93, and Jane's 30-year siege with rheumatoid arthritis confined her to a wheelchair.

The wedding was beautiful; the reunion incredible.  The wait was over.

 My sister, Jane, died recently, and I have now lost both of my sisters within the last 10 months. Phyllis passed away in October.  I didn't wait for Aunt Ruth's arms to hold me. She offered them immediately.  She understands what my friend, the artist, Karen Sandstrom, wrote to me:

It is a humbling and reeling thing to lose the witnesses to your childhood, and to feel the shrinking of family. I have no wisdom for you -- not that you expected it. But I send hugs. 


Aunt Ruth and I are each other's witnesses.    The richness of Loving Aunt Ruth is deeper for me the longer we wait for publication.  We thank all of you readers for waiting with us and hope that the recipes for a life well-lived have meaning for you as well.


As Aunt Ruth says, Life is for the Living.  


Stop waiting...


(photo taken in Aunt Ruth's temple, where she was honored this past summer for being the President on the tenple's 100th anniversary  when Aunt Ruth was in her 40's. she is still an active member)