Sophia Greenberg Adelman, 1911 - 2009

What I learned from Grandma Sophie was, strangely enough, spirituality. She put up a small Christmas tree every December, and she lit the menorah for Chanukah as well. We're a Jewish family. That's not to say that every member practices Jewish ritual, or believes the same things about G-d. From day to day, I don't necessarily believe in Anything. But in technical terms, maternal lineage, we're a Jewish family. Grandma Sophie was halfway famous for leaving the synagogue due to an argument with the Rabbi about Kosher dishes. She started taking her kids to the Unitarian church. Her favorite philosopher: Baruch Spinoza, one of the few historical Jewish excomunicatees, a pantheist. G-d was not a separate entity from the world; G-d was to be found in nature. Nature was one of the most important things to Grandma Sophie. Plants, birds, her cats and dogs. Her backyard seemed like a tropical, mystical world to me, with the pink tulip tree arching over a gate that led to a creek - which was down a steep eight-foot incline. The point is, it's really all the same... but whatever it is, it's still there and worth acknowledging in some fashion.

She always said she'd watch over us after she died, just the way she believed that her father did, and later her husband, Grandpa Joe. If she would watch over my garden this summer, it might grow something (I'm not great with plants). She has quite a few people to watch over, of course, but even just a little bit would help.

Heaven has nothing to do with what happens to your soul. It's what you want the people you leave behind to think is happening to you.