Passage...

This picture jumped right out at me. It's from our Thanksgiving gathering this year at the Strauss home in Scarsdale, NY. 

First of all, it's really funny - always the mark of a good photograph, right? Secondly, it poignantly illustrates the cycles of life. 

Diana's grandmother Miriam (Mate) Ginsburg was 99 3/4 years old when she came to Thanksgiving dinner with her whole family around her. She looks terrific, is playfully engaged with her 5 great-grandchildren (here's she's got Charlie, who looks perfectly comfortable in her lap), and is a force of life in the family. Two days after this she slipped away in her Manhattan apartment, much to the surprise of all of us. Lucid and bright-eyed to the end, it seemed the right way to say goodbye, although not easy.  She'll be missed by all of us.

Meanwhile, the 5 kids of that generation will soon be 6. Here is Diana, 6 1/2 months on with the Bump (as our friends in the UK like to say), and Charlie getting a big kick out of his weird looking aunt.