It’s that glorious time of the year when the crape myrtle trees are in full bloom. I never saw these trees any place but Baltimore although they’re known to grow throughout the southeastern part of the country. Picture medium-sized trees laden with large tufts of blossoms in gorgeous colors. When we moved here, I was simply amazed when I first saw them. I’m used to seeing flowering trees in the springtime, long before their leaves first appear. Crape myrtle trees only start blooming in July but can continue into September. For a flower lover like me, they are truly a sight to behold.

I have a friend whom everyone likes. Know the type? She claims it’s because they like listening to her South African accent, but I know better. My friend Wendy has this wonderful way about her that draws everyone to her like a magnet. She is also known for the incredible amount of chesed that she does for her community. I remember when Wendy used to hold sheva brachos in her house for upwards of 60 to 70 people even if she barely knew the baal simcha. She did more than that. Wendy organized the events and helped cook the food too. Who does that? Wendy’s kindness to others was truly amazing but she always acted like it was nothing.

I got up in the middle of the night and noticed it was 3:30 a.m. For those of you who don’t know, this getting up at night business is a middle-aged thing. I went back to bed and couldn’t fall back to sleep – also not uncommon in my stage of life. It didn’t matter how tired I was or that I tried my usual mind-clearing, deep-breathing and muscle-relaxing techniques. Nothing seemed to work as 3:30 turned into 4:30 then 5:00. Once I realized that sleep wasn’t in the cards, I allowed my mind to wander and thought about my plans for when the sun finally came up. But until it did, I didn’t want to get up and wasn’t in the mood to start the laundry or put up a pot of chicken soup.

 Well, here we go. I’ve started making my Pesach lists as I sit here eating Purim chocolates, which I should have given away or thrown out but of course didn’t. Has a year gone by already? This has been the fastest year yet. I’d like to blame it on COVID which kept us constantly moving from one thing to the next. Maybe I’m just getting old because I’ve always heard older people talk this way about how time flies. Nah, I’ll just blame it on COVID.       

I remember Purim last year, when we all sat in shul listening to the Megillah. No one thought about “social distancing” as we broke our fast together in packed social halls. The term hadn’t been invented.. Those successive urgent email messages from the Agudath Israel hadn’t begun yet either. And masks and gloves were still primarily worn by doctors and nurses. But before too long, the world as we knew it had completely changed, and we started to wonder when it would ever be the same again. Remarkably, our lives began to transform in good ways, too. We became more focused on davening, and our learning had more meaning than ever before. We rose to the challenges that Hashem put before us and forged ahead.

I was eating a sandwich a while back when, without warning, I suddenly felt a small pebble in my mouth – only it wasn’t a pebble. Upon closer inspection I saw that it was a piece of my molar. I felt around the affected tooth with my tongue and discovered a small crater. I’m one of those women who belong to the petrified-of-the-dentist-No- I’m-NOT-going group. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t mind going to the dentist for my biannual teeth cleaning. I’m okay with everything from plaque removal to teeth polishing. I’ve even learned to tolerate – well, put up with – the occasional filling, as long as the dentist has strict instructions about Novocain and my need for it. But this tooth breaking-off episode clearly did not fall into any of those categories.