I\u2019ve written about and edited the Mysterious Ways stories of so many people these past few years, but the ones that have impacted me the most are the ones I\u2019ve heard from my own family.<\/p>\n
My grandparents Morey and Rita, \u201cPop\u201d and \u201cNana,\u201d were both dynamic, powerful presences in my family. Every year they took me, my mom, dad, sister, my aunt, my uncle and my two cousins on summer vacations throughout the world: a Mediterranean cruise, a tour across Italy and the Amalfi coast, a house on Nantucket island to name a few.<\/p>\n
Their generous, gregarious natures endeared them to everyone they met. They lived in northern New Jersey, we lived an hour away, and my aunt lived in Boston, but we all saw and spoke to each other often. About the only family disagreements we ever had were about whether the Red Sox or the Yankees were the best baseball team (I, of course, sided with Pop rooting on the Yankees). \u201cMiss you,\u201d we\u2019d say to each other on the phone, even if it had only been a week since we\u2019d seen them.<\/p>\n
When Nana got sick and passed away, there was a gaping hole left in our lives. I remember standing at the gravesite, staring at the ground where she was laid to rest, and thinking it impossible that someone who had been so vibrant, so full of life and joy even a few short months ago could now, so suddenly, no longer be with us.<\/p>\n
In Jewish tradition, the tombstone isn\u2019t placed at the grave until a year later. My dad and my aunt struggled to come up with a message to write on it. What words could possibly sum up what we were all feeling? They finally chose two simple words: \u201cMiss You.\u201d<\/p>\n
The evening my dad and aunt chose the message, my dad, my mom, and my older sister went for Chinese food. At the end of the meal, the check came along with three fortune cookies. Dad chose one and opened it. Just one of your run-of-the-mill fortunes. Then he turned it over. Along with some lucky numbers was a Chinese word, with the English translation:<\/p>\n
\u201cMiss You.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those words comforted all of us. The message we wanted to send to Nana, seemed to have already been received.<\/p>\n
It was a little over a year later that Pop too, passed away, shortly after his 90th birthday. We wished that he also could send us some message. But weeks passed, and we hadn\u2019t gotten one.<\/p>\n
One day, late that summer, my aunt, uncle, and my cousins went to a Red Sox\/Yankees game, the first baseball game they\u2019d all been to since Pop died. When they sat down, my aunt noticed that the family of die-hard Red Sox fans who usually sat in the row in front of them wasn\u2019t there. Instead, it was four guys. Three of them wore Red Sox caps, so she knew they were rooting for the right team. One guy though, had a different cap on. She couldn\u2019t see what it was.<\/p>\n
Around the fourth inning, my aunt saw the fourth guy turn around. And she looked at his hat. Stitched onto the front was an oval patch with three letters inside. MBH. Pop\u2019s initials.<\/p>\n
My aunt didn\u2019t ask the man what it stood for. She knew what it meant to her, and that was enough. Pop wouldn\u2019t have missed a Red Sox\/Yankees game when he was alive. And she was sure that he wasn\u2019t missing one now.<\/p>\n