Dad's First Yahrtzeit

Dad's first yahrtzeit came and went, uneventfully.  I said Kaddish last shabbat, though the actual observance with candle began the Wednesday night before.  AKSE never put it on their calendar, so no notice went out.

For my mother's observance, which will reach forty years this winter, I have received a notice from the JCC of Spring Valley or its current incarnation every year, at least since residency and maybe as far back as medical school.  I send them a check each year, a small one, but enough to maintain me on the notification list, even though I've not been a member in decades.  Then again, she has a memorial plaque there.  At Beth Shalom, I received a reminder each year of my membership there and same for AKSE.

But AKSE has no organized mechanism for entering new data.  Presence of mind would probably suffice as Dad's passing was announced from the Bimah on the day of death and they held two shiva minyanim at my home.  But nobody had the presence of mind to enter it on their computer data base which meant nobody had the awareness to request a donation or ask me if I needed assistance in assembling a minyan.  In the absence of thought, automated procedures become a reasonable surrogate.  This apparently does not exist.  My kids never have their birthdays announced in the Shofar, nor do anyone else's kids, even though a number of namings and bris ceremonies have taken place there, to say nothing of Bnai Mitzvot that where dates are assigned years in advance.

The consultant a few years back commented in his official report that many of the procedural aspects of AKSE's operation seem random when they should be consistently predictable.  Entering dates may be one of them.