The Candlesticks

This was a letter sent to Rabbi Dan...

On Rosh Hashannah I read the book, and on Yom Kippur, I mentally wrote this story, which is completely true. I had been wanting to write it down for along time, and finally put it on paper.

I met them in Philadelphia many years ago, about 1962. I was in the hospital. When they walked into my room, I was flabbergasted. The older woman looked exactly like my late Great-Aunt Bessie, who had passed away years before. I was thinking “I don’t believe in ghosts,” and “I am not hallucinating.” What came out of my mouth was “You can’t be Aunt Bessie”

She was Bessie’s sister, Sophie. Her daughter Gertrude was with her. They were both very nice, and I enjoyed talking with them for several hours. I didn’t know how they knew I was sick. Unfortunately, no one in our family seemed to know their address or phone number, and I was never able to see either of them again.

Two years later I got married. And several months after that, a package arrived in the mail from Gertrude – Shabbos candlesticks made of solid brass. The note said simply that she hoped I would light them on Friday nights, which I do to this day.

My mother’s cousins, Lil and Freda, were my Great-Aunt Bessie’s daughters. When they visited our home, they stopped in the doorway, stared at each other in amazement, and said in unison: “the candlesticks” They were the very same candlesticks that had belonged to my Grandmother’s Grandmother, who brought them from Russia. The family is large, and my own Grandmother had never seen them before I got them. Lil and Freda were the only family members to recognize them.

I am writing this down for my family. I can only imagine how much my great, great grandmother was able to bring from Russia. She must have considered the brass candlesticks to be a great treasure, as I do.

Doris Stamper