“One of her trademark sayings was: ‘Hodu l’Hashem ki tov ki l’ooooolam chasdo…’ — with that pronounced emphasis on l’olam… forever and no matter what” recalls Rabbi Schiff wistfully

Days later there you are looking skinny and I figure you’ve had the baby. Mazel tov! The next day I see you again... back in your ninth month in just 24 hours! Am I crazy or is it a medical miracle?”

For our 20th anniversary the kids made my husband and me a mug with our wedding picture. Trouble is at our wedding Miriam wore a dress with a lacy white top (don’t worry the bottom half was colorful!) and the picture was from the waist up. If not for my sharp-eyed daughter who spotted it at the last moment my anniversary mug would have sported a picture of my husband... and his sister-in-law! Twenty years after the chuppah the kallah — me — would have been tempted to break the cup!

And finally the phone call story. Miriam calls me sounding anxious. “What happened?” she asks.

“Happened? Nothing happened ” I answer mystified.

“Then why the urgent message?” she continues irate. “You had me really worried.”

Turns out Miriam had called her husband at home that morning and left a message on their machine: Call me right away it’s urgent. Hours later she returned home. Apparently things that seem urgent in the morning can be entirely forgotten by afternoon. Miriam turns on their answering machine and hears my voice: Call me right away it’s urgent. Yes it had finally happened: Miriam had mixed herself up! The only thing she had to worry about urgently was a severe identity crisis! (Excerpted from Family First Issue 538)