Excerpt from Part One: A Box of Letters – Page 31

Love, Bill: Finding My Father through Letters from World War II by Jan Krulick-Belin

Excerpt from Part One: A Box of Letters – Page 31:

Long Island, New York
June 2002

Mom died almost a year after moving to Florida. At the time, Jim
and I were as remote from Florida as anyone could get, capping
off an Australian vacation on Lizard Island in the Great Barrier Reef,
and we weren’t due to return to Phoenix for another three days. Alan
tried in vain to call me, but with the time difference, he couldn’t reach
us by phone. Instead, we came back to our room from dinner one
evening to find the fax informing us of Mom’s death sitting on our
bed. Its business-like presentation made the news seem surreal. Over
the next three days, we made a flurry of phone calls, trying to make
arrangements to get ourselves to New York for the burial. It was
impossible to change our flight arrangements to get off the island any
earlier than our original booking, so we all agreed that God would
have to forgive us for burying Mom one day after the normal threeday
requirement dictated by Jewish custom. Following twenty-two
hours of flying on five planes, Jim and I arrived back in Phoenix only
to turn around six hours later to catch another flight to New York.