Life began for them as sisters growing up
in the Pale of Settlement where Jews were
sent to live lest they contaminate other
Russians with their direct presence.
Sisters but unalike in every conceivable way.
One married a Ukrainian peasant the other
married my father. They were together as
man and wife for over thirty years raising
four children together. Cancer took him at age 53.
It wasn't cancer that took my mother though
she had entertained colon cancer twice.
Eventually thirty years past my father's death
my mother was placed in a communal setting
for elderly patients with dementia. My aunt
an inmate, greeted her sister on arrival but my
mother failed to recognize her. She did though
mention the long-dead man she always referred
to by his family name planned to drop by
sometime later that evening, and smiled.
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