[Ghoulish Delight]

When my grandmother, my mother's mother, passed away in December, most of my mom's cousins came to the funeral. She grew up very close with them, spending summers living and working with them in close quarters at the family resort in South Haven Michigan. But my mom was a bit of an outsider from the group, being very much her father's daughter (i.e., less boisterous, outgoing, and generally brash). So in adulthood she was not nearly as close with them, and my sister and I grew up barely knowing them. Recently we've been reconnecting with them a little bit, and have heard some stories from the resort days, but it's still very distant from me.

Which is all a lot of background, just to bring up the video tape one of those cousins brought with him. It had video from the early 80's of my grandmother, my parents, and the cousins simply talking about the family, who was who, and some of the family history. The biggest chunk was my grandmother recounting what she could remember of her parents and grandparents and their path from Russia to here.

It was 30 minutes of magic. Particularly since my grandmother had really lost her light years and years ago, it was something else to see her alive, vibrant, an animated again