FEATURED JOBS
Sometimes in our busy, chaotic existences, something happens that shakes us out of our dusty zones and reminds us that something else may be going on in the cosmos. It extracts the cynicism and fear that tend to dominate these times and makes you think about what some people like to call “the bigger picture.”
That happened to me recently when writing a news article about a young lady named Hannah Schlessinger.
In March of 1998, Hannah, a beautiful, vibrant 7-year-old Bolton Street Synagogue religious school student, was on her way to a ballet class with her mom when they got into a three-car collision near Greenspring Station. Hannah didn’t make it, and one look at her beaming face in the family photos tells you that the world lost a major ray of light that day.
Hannah’s parents, Andy and Kitty, her sisters and Bolton Street recently dedicated a memorial sculpture—by Baltimore-based, internationally-renowned sculptor Rodney Carroll—in the back of the Roland Park synagogue, near its playground, by the Stoney Run stream. The sculpture, a bench and Chai-shaped arch with 18 chimes to signify Hannah’s intense love for life and Judaism, was dedicated in honor of what would have been her 18th birthday.
When I started working on the article about the memorial, I went into the Jewish Times’ Web site archives, just to check if our publication ran an obituary on Hannah in 1998. I found the article, but also noticed in the archives that Hannah’s name was mentioned in a piece dated about six weeks earlier. When I looked it up, there was no mention of Hannah, except for a caption.
I then looked up the article in our bound volumes from that year, and I found a profile on Bolton Street. Sure enough, Hannah was not actually mentioned in the story, but there was a beautiful photo taken by former JT photographer Kyle Bergner of a smiling Hannah and a proud Mrs. Schlessinger, the mother’s arm lovingly wrapped around her child. For some reason, the article never mentioned the Schlessingers, but a photo was taken of them and published.
I found the original picture in our photo files, had it scanned by our art department, and emailed it to the Bolton Street folks, to see if it would be OK if we ran the picture with the article on the memorial. They, in turn, sent it to Hannah’s parents. Andy Schlessinger immediately wrote, informing me that they were overwhelmed since they had, for some reason, never actually seen that photo before. It surfaced out of the blue for them.
As a parent myself, I can only imagine how emotional and moving seeing that photo must’ve been for the Schlessingers, especially since it was likely one of the last pictures ever taken of their daughter. And to boot, Mr. Schlessinger told me that that day itself happened to be Hannah’s actual 18th birthday.
The story doesn’t stop there. Mr. Schlessinger asked if they could have a copy of the photo, and of course, it was sent to them. A few days later, I got an email message from him. It seems that a few days before the official dedication ceremony, the sculpture was transported from Mr. Carroll’s studio and installed on Bolton Street’s campus. Mr. Schlessinger dashed out of his house, grabbed his mail and raced to the synagogue, to oversee the installation with Mr. Carroll and the workmen.
After getting there and watching the meticulous unpacking and placement of the sculpture, Mr. Schlessinger said he scanned his mail and opened the envelope with the Jewish Times logo. As he pulled out the 11-year-old photo of his wife and daughter, he said a gust of wind suddenly began ringing the chimes and made all of the workers stop in their tracks. It was almost as if Hannah’s soul was passing through, making its presence know.
“Everyone stopped what they were doing and gathered round, looking at Hannah and hearing those chimes,” wrote Mr. Schlessinger. “It was a moment that could not be staged or repeated. … It remains something of an epiphany for me: it was Hannah saying, yes, this is the way I want to be remembered, forever part of children’s lives, their play and their dreams. It all made sense.”
Now I know that some of you might read this anecdote, shake your head, roll your eyes and call it hocus-pocus or wishful thinking. But to quote the immortal bard, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Perhaps, in her own way, Hannah was telling us that she never really left our midst after all.
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