Incredible.
“Chaya Rojza? Well, my name is Chaya
Rojza,” Irene announced, to the surprise of even her own granddaughter,
who was also listening on speakerphone from Irene’s apartment in
Massachusetts."
“That’s what I was called until I was 10. Then I said,
‘No more of that. My name is Irene Rose.’ ”
Chaya Rojza. Frieda’s eyes fluttered closed. She reached out
for me to hold her hands. And we sat silently like that for a moment or
two, the past and the present suddenly seamlessly connected."
"I thought of a favorite Sharon Olds poem."
"Upon hearing the news of
the death of her first love, Olds writes that she wanted to “close
myself like a door/ as you had been shut, closed off, but I could not/
do it, the pain kept coursing through me like/ life, like the gift of
life.”
