The 8th of Elul is the yahrzeit of my beloved aunt, Anne Freed, Chana bas Meyer Eliezer, a”h.
There is a saying, “The righteous say little and do much.” The following story about my Aunt Anne exemplifies this.
My aunt had been through difficult treatments for cancer, but was a survivor. When she retired from her work as a civilian employee of the Navy, she and her husband, my uncle Richard, z”l, volunteered at a nearby hospital. My uncle would bring a book wagon to the hospital rooms inviting people to make a selection.
My aunt, with her long history in office work, volunteered as a bookkeeper. But in my daily calls to her I heard rising frustration in her voice as she got macular degeneration, and with its worsening, it made it harder and harder for her to do the bookkeeping. She would tell me how guilty she felt that she did so little and they gave her a free lunch for volunteering.
I would reassure her that the little she did was still very helpful.
Until one day she told me she couldn’t do any bookkeeping at all.
“I just sit for an hour and a half. Why should I get a lunch?” she told me.
After a few days of hearing how she was doing nothing, I decided to explore that “nothing” further.
“Aunt Annie,” I said, “You can’t just sit there for an hour and a half and do nothing. You must do SOMETHING.”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “They take me over to the room where women are getting chemotherapy and they sit me down next to one of the women. And I tell her, ‘I beat this thing and you will too.”
I was astounded at this tremendous mitzvah she was doing. She was dispensing HOPE in a big dose.
I told my beloved aunt, “They shouldn’t just give you a lunch, they should have a banquet in your honor.”
The righteous say little and do much.
May her memory be a blessing.