I´m finally able to get internet service at a neighboring village. Bear and I brought down the photo of Safta from years ago surrounded by her great grandchildren (way...pre Amanda and Leon.) It´s usually on a shelf in our bedroom, and now sits prominently on the kitchen table. The Safta stories are flying! Thank you so much for your call, Ami where we were able to cry and share our memories of this remarkable woman. This is the story I promised Safta I would tell AFTER her funeral. It feels like she´s standing behind me as I type (certainly not as fast as she was able to with her lightning fast fingers and faultless keyboard memory....even numbers!) I was visiting her in the Recovery Section at Lincolnwood after one of her hospital stays. We got the ok to take her to her apartment in the main building in her wheelchair. I think Hillary had dropped by earlier to put in some laundry. Safta´s enjoying being in her apt, we´re kibbitzing and she asks if I could check on the laundry, (a few short steps away.) In that brief moment, she made a run for her walker and it didn't work out so well. There´s Safta on the floor. I immediately run to the phone to call for help with her shrieking, "No! No! No!, They´ll make me go back to the hospital." After determining that she was ok, the crazier part of me agreed to help her get back to the wheelchair. I wish I could pull up a video. Imagine about THREE HOURS of various maneuvers while we TRIED to accomplish getting her up (both of us laughing so hard we were crying.) Finally I said to her, "We´re out of time. If you´re not back for dinner, someone will come to see what´s happened to you, let´s just call for help." She begged for one last try. I removed the cushions from the couch and she, somehow, got up on the hide a bed springs where I was able to lift her enough to make a lunge for the wheelchair. VICTORY! (...and was there anything Safta loved more than "victory against all odds!?") Wheeling her back to the Recovery Section, she made me promise never to tell anybody about our adventure until she was in heaven. An easy promise, as I didn't want to publish the fact that she had fallen "on my watch." She assured me that I would have the best story at the funeral! I am so sorry I´m not there to share this and many other memories of her in person. At 10:30 Chicago time Bear and I will be down by the Rio at a special, very private spot with lovely small rapids, being "with you all" as best we can, in prayer and tears. When I met her for the first time (and she was TOTALLY GRACIOUS, and above all, curious...her son having just married a shiksa!) I couldn't have imagined the the depth and richness of the relationship we would share. Her insight on everything from being married to raising kids, to being a woman was almost always EXACTLY what I needed to hear. From her scheming up ideas about whatever was on her radar at the time, to dancing the Hora at 4am in Israel at Tal´s wedding, she was A FORCE! She could definitely be demanding, but she was THERE for me (and everybody else in the family) one hundred and ten percent. Her determination, strength and zest for life is the legacy she leaves to us all. We are blessed beyond measure to have her as a role model and an ongoing inspiration. Hallmark has a card: You Are A Human Sparkler, You Are! I can´t say it any better. All my love (and Bear´s too) Noela