Today was a strange day. Traffic was light because people are still on holidays, and I was listening to music while driving to work. I had a bunch of different thoughts that I wanted to write about. I think I need to buy a tape recorder so that I can record my thoughts while I am in the car. I have a lot of thoughts during my commute to work and by the time I am somewhere stationary, other things are going on and I forget to write them down.

Today’s thought had to do with being the end of the year and thinking about what I wanted to share about my year. I will get to what I wanted to share in a moment, because when my co worker came through the door, the focus of my day shifted.

When my co-worker came into the office she looked really out of sorts. I knew it had been a busy weekend with our Christmas departures, but then she said, “oh you don’t know about the phone call last night”. No, I didn’t. Well, if you saw on the news about the accident on the 401 near Milton the other night, it was her very good friend’s daughter that was in the accident. And she didn’t survive. And she has a four year old daughter.

Hearing about the car accident, of course led me to tell her about my car accident, which of course led me to Aviva, which of course was what I wanted to write about today.

I wanted to talk about the memorial service that Aviva’s family had for her this past September. This year was ten years since she had passed away.

Her family invited close friends and family to Guelph to a memorial service. I remember being in the back seat of the car and thinking, I have never been to a ‘memorial’ service. Well of course I have. On Yom Kippur I always stay for the Yizkor service.

It was a beautiful sunny fall day and it was at the cemetery in Guelph, where the family lives. Family friends spoke, read poems, and the Rabbi said some warm and loving words. He explained how Aviva’s name is a palindrome and how when we all first came to the cemetery ten years early it was to mourn for her and now, ten years later, we can come back to the cemetery and take away Aviva’s lessons to the world.

Her oldest friend (since they were babies) spoke about all the different groups of people there that day. They even though we all didn’t start off knowing each other, that it was Aviva who brought us all together. I often feel like a connector between different people in my life, and I know she was one as well.

A week after her memorial service, I went to see Wicked with some friends. There are so many different messages in this play. I think it is a wonderful play, about friendship, diversity, the differences and at the core, sameness. There is a song at the end of the play, called “For Good”. It is a song about friendship and what people learn from each other. Friendship is a hard thing. Sometimes like in Wicked they have to walk away from the friendships. Sometimes you have choice, other times, you don’t.

“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better, but because I knew you.
I have been changed for good.”