A Woman of Valor

 Our friend Jeannette is one of the sweetest people ever, loathe to ever put anyone out. So when Wifey asked her about a funeral for her mother, Inez, Jeannette made it clear it was a small service -- we really didn't need to attend.

So after the second huge meal in two nights, today we set aside to honor Inez -- a lovely lady who passed after a fall.

I learned a Jewish cemetery hack: bring your own rocks. It's traditional to leave a rock on top of a gravestone, to show you were there, and often the grounds of the cemeteries themself are strangely short of them -- I always take a few along.

We arrived at Lakeside in Doral just as the cars were assembling in front of the chapel, for the drive to the grave. We hugged Jeannette and her girls Sam and Erica, and their husbands. Inez was Sephardic, from Honduras -- came to the US when she was 16 and learned English, and worked hard, and met Dave, a Cuban Jew who's half Sephardic. They had Jeannette and Larry, and made a lovely life in Brooklyn, before relocating to North Beach in the late 70s, along with Larry, who suffered since late teenager-hood of schizophrenia. Jeannette and Bob moved here in the mid-80s, and had Sam and Erica. Erica is D1's age; Sam a few years older.

Larry was a burden. He would have periods of relative stability, but then go off the air. Inez and Dave were realists -- never hoping for more than relative peace -- they harbored no illusions that Larry would ever work or go to school. He died at 50 -- heart attack, maybe from the psychotropic meds he was on. As awful it was for them to lose their son, they finally had peace in their lives, to enjoy their granddaughters and Jeannette and Bob. They were a VERY close family.

I always really enjoyed talking to Inez. She and Dave were friends with a Cuban Jewish lawyer from their congregation also named David -- a pioneer advertiser in Spanish media -- he sent a LOT of cases to Paul and me. At Inez's husband Dave's funeral a few years back, Wifey noticed the TV lawyer's head stone -- we had lost touch with him and I didn't know he had died. In fact, he passed in 2017, at 74.

So about 20 of us gathered under a tent at graveside, as the Rabbi spoke. Airplanes were taking off from MIA just to the East. I chuckled when I looked up and realized one was El Al -- Inez would have liked that -- she was a fierce Zionist like us.

Wifey saw David the lawyer's grave and we placed stones we had brought. We also placed them on Dave's headstone, though it had been moved to allow for the fresh grave for Inez. We took turns shoveling earth onto the grave -- considered the highest mitzva, since it's one that can never be returned by the person being buried.

Inez lived for her family and community. She worked at the Sephardic shul -- the Rabbi recounted how kind to him she was when he came aboard as a young rabbi and she was a decades member.

Jeannette is still working in the flower industry -- Wifey got her started. She and Bob live with their daughter Samantha and are in house nannies -- the other girl Erica, in Hollywood, wants Jeannette to move in with her, too, to help with her baby boys. What a testament to Jeannette -- adult girls fighting to have her with them. Inez was, I know, VERY proud of that.

We drove back to Pinecrest and had a late lunch. This is a funereal week -- Friday we have Wifey's friend Alissa's interment at Mt. Nebo.

Hopefully that will be it for a good long while...