An Elegiac Ending

This past weekend revealed irreconcilable differences between me and Itai. We both enjoyed and appreciate the time we spent together, but it is not to be.

Right now, I'm reminded of the most important story my mother ever told me. As a little girl, my mother was once with her mother in a grocery store. When they got to the check-out line, the clerk at the register glared at them with a nasty scowl, replied to my grandmother's questions with curt, resentful answers and sharply impatient gestures, and responded to any attempt at friendly conversation with a vile sneer. As they were leaving the store, my grandmother turned to my mother and said, "Poor woman. She stands up all day. Her feet must be hurting her so terribly."

The most important rule for relating to your fellow human beings is to expend every possible effort to see them as ultimately good at their cores. Dan et kol ha-adam l'kaf zechut. דן את כל האדם לכף זכות.

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