Today was my mother’s birthday. Gone are the flowers, the gifts and the birthday cards. All that is left are memories.

Today was Shabbos Parshas Noach – my father’s bar mitzvah parsha. Long gone are the stories of his first minyan bar mitzvah and his identical twin’s second minyan bar mitzvah. All that is left are distant memories.

Today, five months ago, I began saying kaddish.