Dad (Paul F. Vang) wrote this remembrance of a darned sweet black lab, whom I named (see below) and will always remember as the best lap-lab ever. There was nothing quite like relaxing in a recliner with Flicka stretched full-length on your lap. We miss you, Flicka.
Category: guest essays
Essays by members of our listening and reading audience.
Dad wrote this remembrance of his mother on her Yahrtzeit in an email to the family last week, and he agreed with my suggestion to post it here.
This is for Kimba. It might seem strange to have a kaddish for a dog, but she really was a part of the family. For more than 15 years, she was my companion. I lived with her longer than anyone except my mother and Kimba saw me through the heartache of three relationships as well […]
My friend Cori Kesler wrote me a few days before I made this recording for her, and I’m really sorry that I got so far behind in posting these daily Kaddishim that I’m only now sharing it with her almost a month later.
A guest essay from Lori Jennings-Emery, who knew Steve Jobs from her eleven years working at Apple: The past few days, I’ve read a lot of stories about Steve Jobs and the kinds of memories folks have of him. I’ve been thinking about my various encounters with Steve, trying to decide which story to share.
Don’t assume rabbis, or any Jewish people for that matter, will be mensches when you need them to be.
Here is the speech we read at Grandpa Hy’s funeral. Hy (his full name was Herman) Glantz was born February 22, 1924 and died July 2, 2011 of mesothelioma. Most likely due to asbestos exposure while working in the Brooklyn Navy Yards in the 1940s. In the Glantz family there is a tradition started by […]
A good friend died this week. He took his own life. We are all shocked and saddened by his passing and we are all asking ourselves – why? Which is to say, we are having the normal human reaction to such an unnecessary loss. I am not going to praise him here, you did not […]
It’s been 7 months since my mother’s passing on September 19, 2010.
Dad and I were talking about the “kaddish in two-part harmony” project the other night, and he muttered something about spending a career dealing with death. I’d never quite put it together that his thirty years in the Social Security Administration had had him dealing with death all the time—well, duh! So I asked him to write a guest essay about what that was like.