I never knew my grandmother, Ernestine Kornmehl Rosenbaum. She died long before I was born. And, try as I might, I can't recall a single interesting -- or uninteresting -- thing my mother might have told me about her. You can't force memory, I suppose -- and those Freudian free-association sessions are expensive. But you can work on genealogy. Although Judaism is a
Mother's Day
A Labor Day Tribute to My Mother
I often think of my mother, who died more than 20 years ago, sometimes in ways I didn't anticipate. I was always irritated at having to call her on Sunday at 10am, no matter where I was and with whom. Now I'd love to check in with her. No one is as interested as she was in the boring, mundane details of my life (granted, I withheld a lot of the good stuff from her, so she had