It’s a new baseball season and even though the Mets had a rough start, it’s a long season full of cheers and jeers. I personally hope the Mets can sign Pete Alonso to a long-term contract. I hate to see guys I follow on their way up through the minor leagues and turn into big stars only to leave the teams they matured with for more money.
Sometimes you have to move on, whether you want to or not. I’m at that point now. Like too many of you, I lost a spouse and I’m leaving my beloved hometown Jewish community of Detroit in which I spent all of my 80-plus years. As regular readers of this column know, my amazing wife of almost 54 years passed away last summer after a week or so in the hospital.
As you may recall, after being notified that tests revealed she had only a short time to live, her first words to me were, “I accept Hashem’s will and I’m ready to go.” Less than two weeks earlier she looked radiant as she walked down the aisle at the wedding of our granddaughter. And, Baruch Hashem, we still have five more grandchildren to walk down. Instead, my wife focused on my future, not her sickness.
“Come closer,” she said as I brought a chair close to the hospital bed. I was advised to give up our apartment in Oak Park (a suburb of Detroit) when the lease was up in December and go to our little condo in the frum area of Century Village in West Palm Beach for the winter. “Then since you don’t know your way around the kitchen, you should go to that place in Lakewood, as they give meals and there’s a shul in the building.”
As you read this, I moved into that building a few days ago. But as I write this, I’m leaving for the airport shortly, to start this new chapter in my life. As of yet, I haven’t met anyone living or working in the building, or the full-time rabbi of the shul, or anyone living in the neighborhood of the building who come to the shul regularly. I’ll let you know in the next column how I like living there and what kind of people populate the place. I assume they are all orthodox and wonder about how many are married and how many are men and how many are the better kind. Do I have to sit at the same table with the same people for all the meals?
Another thing I wonder about is what team I would see on television there. After more than 70 years of watching the Detroit Tigers what team do I get to see now. Lakewood has the Blue Claws, the low minor league team of the Philadelphia Phillies, but I don’t expect that their games are televised. I hope to report on my findings next month as we all, unfortunately, have to face changes after the loss of a spouse.
The winter went fast and I was invited for every Shabbos lunch meal and most Friday nights. When I arrived last November, everyone I eventually ran into conveyed their heartfelt condolences and all meant well. All of the aforementioned fell into three categories. One group said, “we’ll have you for a Shabbos meal,” None of them ever invited me in the five months I was there.
The second group said, “let me know when you’re available for a Shabbos meal,” I’m not an asker and didn’t let them know. The third group, about eleven couples invited me via phone and some numerous times. It was much appreciated as the food and conversation was good. Now I know what singles go through and how important it is to extend a meaningful invite.
I hope to let you know how things are in my new dugout in Lakewood and I have a bedroom and bathroom under construction in the garage of my grandchildren in Michigan to hopefully come back for simchas.
The big simcha we should all see is the hostages being released and the elimination of the Hamas terrorists.
