Brooklyn, NY

My Aunt Rita died yesterday. This photo was taken on her 86th birthday back in 2013. Kimberley and I drove out to see her in New Jersey to deliver our best wishes in person. A few months before this, Chris Ernst, Kimberley, a handful of cousins, and I visited Rita to interview her about our family’s past, about growing up Sephardic in The Bronx during the Depression. We came away from that visit with something like 3 hours of footage I have yet to edit in any way, shape, or form. Shortly after her birthday that year, Rita suffered a partially-debilitating stroke that restricted her movement and speech if not her cognition for the rest of her life. I’ll say more about her later, no doubt, but am posting this, my favorite photo of the two of us, in her memory, which will surely be a blessing for us all.