Friday, December 1, 2023
I wanted to sift through my memories before writing this note. What I realized over the course of the last day and a half was that all my memories of Barry are inextricably linked to family: Barry and Karen's family, my family, and our larger extended family during the years I was growing up. But, most especially, to Barry and Karen's family, who lived a few minutes from our home and with whom we spent the most time: I remember them as a twinned family with ours, and Barry and Karen were like second parents to me. As I listened to Jerome, Michael, and the rabbi's eulogies, I smiled and cried thinking yes, yes, and yes. Barry and Karen are so like my parents in all the ways that count. The last memory I have of Barry is illustrative of this. We were sitting in Karen and Barry's Denver apartment. I had asked him if he had Grandma Miller's recipes for kreplach and sour milk pancakes. He did. He shared his own embellishments on the kreplach recipe. But for the sour milk pancake recipe, he not only shared the written recipe, he taught me the step by step technique. I could not have reproduced this recipe without that instruction. And I could not have unlocked the memories of Grandma Miller the exactly duplicated taste of those pancakes evoked for my father and me. Nor could I have introduced my family to the taste of that memory. Rest in peace, Barry, after a life very well lived. I love you. Holly
