I would love to know what she was thinking. On second thought, maybe not.
Oh, Kapusta, we KNEW what she was thinking. She was thinking it’s perfectly ok to be a yenta, and say whatever is on your mind, no matter where you are. To be honest, having been personally insulted at the shiva for my father O”H, I figured it was my sister’s turn, the next time around… We all had a good laugh after the initial shock wore off, and the woman had left. We then quoted Rabbi Akiva and simply said, “Neechamtanu.”
“other wise they wouldn’t be coming to be menachem the avel “
Well, actually, I have another story about THAT. My neighbor was sitting shiva and she noticed an unfamiliar woman sitting there for a long time. (The neighbor told this over to me, when I shared our own shiva story with her). The woman said not one word to anyone, but just sat. So she finally spoke to her and asked her if she had been a friend of her late mother. Nope. Did she know her from work? Nope. Had she ever been in any Jewish organizations with her? Nope. She went through every possible idea, but the woman finally said, no she had never met the mother. “Then would you mind telling me what you are doing here in my shiva house?” my neighbor asked. “Well,” the strange woman replied, ” I read the obituary notice in the paper, and saw that your mother was survived by your father, and I was thinking maybe he would be good for me!”