The Shabbos Queen...Revisited

Last year I wrote a poem and posted it on my blog.

Last month I submitted that poem for consideration to the Annual Passover Literary Supplement of the Canadian Jewish News.

The Shabbos Queen has now made her presence known, and appears this week in the literary supplement...in a center spread, noch!

I am rather pleased to be published again...just because it doesn't happen all that often!

I've already had a couple of people tell me that they saw and read the poem and that it's lovely. My mother reminded me of a cousin's wife who would look specifically for my name in the supplement each year.

Unfortunately, we buried that woman just over two weeks ago. She was sixty-two years young. Pancreatic cancer was the culprit, but our cousin fought with all her might and survived for nearly two and a half years with the raging disease.

At the funeral, aside from the rabbi speaking, the woman's two children spoke beautifully. Then her husband, my mother's first cousin, got up to do his own hesped...composed in spite of the difficulty of doing so.

He spoke of his wife's love for Shabbos, how each week was punctuated by preparing for Shabbos and hosting Shabbos. His wife died on a Friday afternoon, before she could welcome the Shabbos Queen again. He said that Shabbos would never be quite the same in their home.

I now dedicate my poem The Shabbos Queen to our cousin Rochelle Muller, a Shabbos Queen in her own right.

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Wishing everyone a warm and wonderful Shabbat Ha-Gadol.