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Question?
EdItoR's NoTe
Do you know a child who will be age 5 by December 31?
Answer:
If yes, then you must hear about our
Award Winning kindergarten Program
Thursday. January 15, 1998
7:30 - 8:30 p.m.
KINDERGARTEN INFORMATION NIGHT
Congregation Shaarey Zedek
Applebaum Jewish Parenting Center
4200 Walnut Lake Road • West Bloomfield
(at Green Road)
Call Rena Weintraub, Director. for further information or to R.S.V.P.
(248) 681-4235
STUDENT ENROLLMENT IS LIMITED
remember, and remembering is the'
n the bookshelf in our den
only gift I can give these children.
is a collection of stories
Today, I look at Caps For Sale
whose titles would be
and know that it was Pamela who
familiar to almost everyone, but
read it. Sometimes I would like to
whose particular association here
call her parents and say, "I think
means something unique to me.
often of you and your daughter, and
I have Caps For Sale, a book
how one evening you let me into
about a horse named Bonny and
your lives and told me everything
another about a bear. Each of these
about her life and death."
represents - a memory, but a memory
I want to reassure them that I did-
that is alive.
n't just write a story
Throughout my 10
and then forget every-
years as a profession-
thing. But of course I
al journalist, no stories
won't. It's not that I
troubled me more than
think I can begin to
CAPS
those in which chil-
understand these par-
"- FOR SALE
dren died. I spoke to
kel
11:sle ,,f a Poltler.
,
ents' grief; I cannot. I
9 mid Their
parents whose sons
don't even think there
and daughters had
are words for such
been killed accidental-
anguish. But there is
ly or murdered, some
such power in memo-
whose lives ended in
ry, even from a
disease. Often after
stranger.
these interviews I
An elderly woman whose life wa.---/\
would wake in the middle of the
coming to an end once told me, "It's
night and, like a restless ghost,
not my impending death that's so
haunt my own house — walking
hard, but the fact that everyone else
back and forth across our wooden
in my family and all my friends are
floors, numbed back into sleep only
gone, and I didn't have children.
after an hour or two of television.
No one will remember me."
I never hesitated to ask questions,
Sometimes I drive past a cemetery
and parents never hesitated to
that's the final resting place of a
answer. They wanted, they needed,
baby about whom I once wrote. He
with a kind of desperation I have
died when he was only months old,
never seen before or since, to talk
leaving little memories for his parents
about their children. Details were
who, in any case, have long since
key: the kind of music their son or
died themselves. I don't have a
daughter loved, their hobbies, their
book to remember this baby. I know
favorite vacation spots and, invari-
so little of him, but I think of him —
ably, their favorite books.
a lonely song of memory — when-'
I would immediately go out and
ever I drive by the cemetery.
buy these books. If it was impossible
These days, few stop by at the
to secure them right away, I became
child's grave. His most regular visi-
agitated and impatient, calling
tors are the cemetery caretaker and
friends and family, asking them to
the birds who perch atop his snow-
go in search. At first it seemed to
covered tombstone, their tiny voices
make no sense whatsoever, and I
calling to one another in the thick
became angry with myself for my
air, piercing the terrible silence.
desperation — but still it persisted,
like something heavy across my
heart.
Over time, I came to understand
that it wasn't the books themselves
Elizabeth Applebaum
that were so important but rather
AppleTree Editor
what they did. They helped me
S111.111 . N1911
Winter Walden
Ski It Snowboarding
Club for Children
* Professional instructions
* Classes For all skill levels -
beginner to expert
* Special program for the younger
skiers (ages 6-9)
* Small classes
* Adult classes too!
* Charter buses Saturday & Sunday
winter walden
W
ski club
(248)
855-1075
Teaching Kids to Ski
is Our Business
Celebrating our 23rd Season!
aTOM
Get Results ...Advertise in our
Entertainment Section!
Call The Sales Department (248) 354-7123 Ext. 209
QIN
DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
1/9
1998
GO
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