Nanowritemo 26 / these hands

Spirit / Jewel











While I have often heard the expression, ‘his eyes were like saucers’; I had never actually seen it before M’s face as we entered Mother’s condo. We’d traveled the five feet from the door, down the hall to the living room. That was where the path stopped.



The room was blanketed with a foot and half of stuff, mostly paper. But every surface was covered, piles had shifted, fallen and then been piled on again. I’d seen it before. M. had not.


“Is this what you grew up with?” He asked, pale and his voice horse. M grew up in a normal household where everything had a place. A house where even the mundane paper and detritus of life, like newspapers and mail, had a home squirreled away out of sight. We often argued as he complained our house was out of control and I looked about blankly not having a clue what he was talking about, seeing only a little pile of mail.


“Pretty much.” I said with a resigned sigh.


With a shake of my head, I climbed over piles and wove my way around on the foot spots to get to the upstairs where I knew there was a lock box. It was where I thought it was and fortunately, not locked. In it was the birth certificate. Given the piles of paper everywhere, I think M. thought it was magically that I had found it.


Following the wire from the wall, we located the phone and I called Mister, the funeral director. He actually sounded happy to speak to me. We took care of our business and then he indicated one more thing, with the same pregnant pause as earlier. What had B. done now, I wondered.


“Do you know Rabbi J?” He asked cautiously.


Rabbi J. I knew him. I despised him. He was the man that made me consider the concept that a person could be evil. I had spent many dinners at his house listening to him preach and say horrible things about everyone. Once, as a belligerent teenager, my mother tricked me into going to talk to him. She told me we were going shopping. Then suddenly, she just had to drop something off, it would only be a minute. She wanted me to come in with her, and I did, and then I was in Rabbi’s J’s office being told to sit. She left without a word. I was of course mad about the deception, but then stuck in the man’s office. I remember feeling I was locked in, but I doubt that was the case. And despite my mother’s opinion of me, I was too polite to simply walk out and too stunned. I remember the conversation vividly though. For over an hour and half I was yelled at about my behavior, my lack of respect for my mother and him, though I didn’t know where that was coming from. He cited so called behaviors of mine that I was unaware I had ever done. He spoke of “us’s” and ’them’s”. Us being those who followed him and them, being all others. “They” should be used, could be abused and it didn’t matter, even if it was illegal, as long as you weren’t caught. I was not dismissed until I repeated back the doctrine that I was being bombarded with. I was appalled.


I left his office that day more furious then I had ever been before or since. I told Mother I was not only never going to dinner again, I was never going to speak to him again and if she EVER blind sided me like that again, I would never speak to her again. I meant it and she knew it.


“Yes.”


“He’d like to perform the service. He is an Orthodox Rabbi…. What do you think?”


I don’t know how the affiliation between him and my family started. I just knew he’d been around forever, and my mother adored him. Before the discussion in his office, I was dragged to his house for dinners and holidays. After, Mother still went to visit, dropped everything to take his calls, wrote him notes.


I always suspected something not quite kosher in their relationship. He was married with several children and grandchildren. And though his wife was in the picture, there were things that didn’t add up. Mother could only call him at certain times. When I totaled my first car, we located Mother at his house. She was giving his grandchildren a bath. My mother who appeared to lack any maternal instinct, whose own child at that point was old enough to have kids. Though I had a concussion and four stitches in my knee, she told me she had stuff to do there and my best friend’s family could take care of me.


“Um… I think my mother would be fine with that.” I answered trying to think of her, not me.


Mother visited him weekly at least. She’d bring little presents, often telling me she had to sneak them in because they were things he liked to eat, but his wife wouldn’t let him have. While Mother also visited with his wife, drank tea with her and ate dinner, she bad mouthed the woman at ever turn. Usually she offered derogative comments about the wife’s treatment of the rabbi. I, on the other hand, really liked his wife. She made those early visits bearable, was a charming woman, kind and quick to be helpful My one complaint of the woman was that she was a traditional wife, horribly subservient to her husband, who was quick to point out the lesser status of women.


I never understood my mother’s acceptance of the Rabbi. She was an independent, professional woman. She was divorced and in a career when that was almost unheard of for a woman. She raised a child as a single parent. She was a smart woman. Why she cared for this arrogant, sexist, prejudiced old man was beyond me. He was twenty years her senior.


“There is just one thing…” Mister said to me, a little hesitant, but not as much as our earlier conversation. “He’s…well, do you know him? He’s…”


“The man is older than dirt.” I filled in for Mister. It was true. At that point, the Rabbi was in his 90’s. When I declared I would never speak to him again he was in his 60’s. It made Mother’s relationship with him all that much more creepy to me. Still, this was her event.


“Ah, yes.” Mister answered with relief. “I’m thinking we should put up a tent at grave side, and maybe have some water. It’s supposed to get up into the high 90’s tomorrow and we’re scheduled for 1:00 in the afternoon. Is that okay?”


“Yes.” I said with a smile, thankful Mister was a thinking man.


“Good. We’re all set then.” Again I heard the smile in his voice. We finalized some meeting places and cost and he said he’d see me the next day.


I had felt a little badly that I had not thought to call the Rabbi. My suspicions of Mother’s relationship to him might have been unconfirmed, but regardless of whatever that relationship actually was, she was involved with the man’s life. My guilt was short lived however, as I not only despised the man so intensely, but as I reminded myself, I was the last to know. Surely, he knew at 7 am along with the rest of the free word.