Goodbye Peg

My grandfather, known to one and all as "Pompa" remarried in 1982, at the ripe old age of 72. His new wife was named Peg. My mother always called her "Aunt Peg", since that's how she knew her as a child. She married Pompa's brother. Subsequently, she married and survived three other husbands. The family made many jokes about Pompa's long-term prospects, in light of her track record.

Peg was 88 and was diagnosed with lung cancer last summer. As often happens, the cancer took root in her brain and over the course of the past year sapped her of energy. and this morning, it took her life.

It takes a special woman to go through what she did. She lived an often-difficult life with grace. Not the she was a saint. None of us is, but she was to the end a gracious woman, one who learned to take life in stride, to face the challenges presented to her, and to move forward.

I'm praying for her, her family, and for the 92-year-old husband who did -- in fact -- survive her.   

Bloggers won't be surprised to hear that NPR did a story this morning about the poll of Palestinians that I quoted yesterday. We're usually two or three days ahead of the mainstream curve.

And I love this from the comments about the original post in Little Green Footballs:

The funny thing is, many Jews who lived in Europe in the 30s remember being taunted as children, "Go back to Palestine!" Until Israel was created, "Palestinian" always meant "Jew living in Palestine."

I'm glad they decided to call the new nation "Israel" however. "Yisra-el" actually means something in Hebrew - it's the name the angel gave to Ya'acov after they wrestled. It means "one who wrestles with God" ("El" being one of the many Hebrew shorthand names for God). ("Yah" is another one, as in "Hallelu-yah", literally "Praise God.")

"Jew" and "Yid" come from "Yehuda" a personage in the Bible and one of the 12 tribes and later one of the Jewish kingdoms. This name has a root in common with the Hebrew word for "giving thanks," as in the phrase "Hodu l'adonai ki tov" which shows up in many of the Psalms ("Give thanks to the Lord, who is good.") So one could loosely translate "Yehuda" as "someone who gives thanks."

Compare this formal historical and theological self- identification as "the people who both thank and wrestle with God" to Muslims' self-identification as "the people who submit." ("Islam" meaning "submission.") Then compare Judaism's survival, creativity, humor, and adaptation to modernity to Islam's.