tangentially cf-related

[Guest guest]

It was handy and rather amusing to have my husband's

German born mother-in-law (nee Rosenbaum) and my German hubby around for rearing

the kids ( and doing other

things). My mother-in-law spoke flawless English with an

accent (Koln) that made Henry Kissinger seem intelligible.

The kids adored all 4' 10 " of her, and I patiently put up with

her strange notions of baking. One day we went out in the

car, always her secret and sacred place and she began to

talk about her own family and I learned for the first time that

she had lost a younger sister at age seven. I have a more

clear idea of what it might have been now. She cried, and I

mopped her up with Kleenex and on we went to the store.

She told me that she had never really believed in God since

her sister died, but that she did pray. So I took her to our

Rabbi, and he listened patiently and said that God was very busy with a huge

universe which he had allowed to " go its

own way, " and had left us more or less to our own devisings.

So, when the youngest was born with cystic fibrosis, she felt less that God had

" done it to the kid, " and more that it

was a fluke of the Universe as God was so busy. We did not quite get into

discussing evolution, but she figured out

the hereditary factor, and when I told her that there were

children, for example, my mother's brother, who had died,

most likely of cystic fibrosis, she felt, she told me, that we

were all in it together. There was no blaming of either family, for which I

oved her so much, and am grateful to this

day, many years after her passing, which was peaceful. The children mourned her

as did we, but were thankful, as

were we that we had her in our lives.

Love to all on these lists, coping with cystic fibrosis, as best

we can,

n Rojas, whose husband, Hans Steinkellner, died of

cancer 19 years ago, when our children were in adolescence. Thbat is twelve

letters, gang! M.