Staying the course, day by day
By Lauren Matthew
The Jewish State
It's harder, not easier.
It's harder every day, actually. But that doesn't mean I feel any differently.
I've reached a point where I'm just setting my jaw, staring everything down, and running full-speed ahead.
My mother is in remission; remission may be the most beautiful word in the English language. She's done, God willing,
with all of the things that made her feel weak, helpless, and like the world was going to come crashing down around
her shoulders.
I've spent the past month and a half or so back and forth between Highland Park and
Pennsylvania because she asked me to be with her. I've done it, and been glad to do it, but it has meant putting my
life on hold. It's meant packing up and leaving my apartment at odd hours because she wanted me with her. It's meant
missing my classes, and it's meant spending Shabbos with her and my father instead of with friends or in a synagogue.
But I only have one set of parents.
That's all I'll ever have.
During my most recent trip, which will be the last for a while, now that things are calmer, a few interesting things
happened. One of them was more than a bit painful.
My mother bought me potato pancakes, the frozen kind, because
she saw the OU on the package. She's got separate pans, utensils, sponges and dishes for when I come there; I even have
my own oven. It's not a bad setup for kashrut, especially considering that my parents do not keep kosher. I was
sitting at the kitchen table, eating them, and she told me she remembered her mother making them. But, she said,
they were different. Less regular, less round, made in olive oil.
And she'd put applesauce on them.
"They were really good," my mom told me, crossing her arms and sitting back a bit in her chair.
"We'd put sour cream on them, too."
"Latkes," I said. She just looked at me. The fork was halfway to my mouth.
"Your mother made you latkes."
"Is that what they were?"
I just smiled at her, and shrugged. She remembers hearing kiddush, too. We've talked about that before. She remembers
being in the small apartment building her family started off in, being small and in a little green dress, and hearing
people say something, standing around, everyone standing, and a relative she has no other memory of holding a metal
goblet and speaking Hebrew. She remembers. It makes me wonder when everything stopped, for my family.
Everything, all the pieces she has in her head, only goes so far.
Sitting there, eating, she told me that she'd gotten a phone call from my sister's brother-in-law, Joe, and his wife,
Maria. Joe and Maria recently became the proud parents of triplet girls (and they are so adorable, it's not even funny;
all three are healthy and happy, thank God). The phone call was to ask if I would like to be a godmother.
They're Catholic. It's not even a question.
My mother had to explain to them that yes, I was working with a rabbi -- even if things had been put on pause because
she was sick. She had to explain to them that I would not, should, God forbid, something happen to the two of them,
raise a child to be Christian.
Now and then, these things really hit home with me, and they hit me hard.
A friend of mine got married on June 10. There was a small program sitting on each chair facing the chuppah.
It explained the ceremony, and everything prior to the ceremony, in detail for those attending that were not Jewish.
Sitting there, reading it, I realized that, one day, I may need one of those. I should just photocopy theirs and save
it, really.
There is a degree of culture shock with working toward anything new. Freshmen in college go through a period of
adjustment. New graduates do, too. For me, the culture shock comes in spurts.
It isn't weird to me that I dress differently than I did a year and a half ago, or that I won't drive on a Saturday
anymore. It isn't strange that I pray every morning and every night, or that the first thing I think when I wake up
in the morning is not even in my native language. But these things my family forgets.
My sister turns 30 this year. She's having a party, a big BBQ-poolside thing, and she wants me to be there. I'd love to
be there. I told her as much, before she told me the date. I told her I'd bring my own food, I'd use plastic ware and
disposable cups, and it'd be fine.
Her party is on a Saturday at 4 p.m. I found that out yesterday, and shook my head.
A friend of mine from college recently told me that I was "the only person ... who set out to find herself and actually
did it." I'm different. I understand that now better than I did even a week ago. And yes, this is hard. It's always
going to be hard. I'm not intimidated by it. I'm just setting my jaw, staring everything down, and running full-speed
ahead.
At the wedding, I received my first ever brachot from my friend and his bride. The first thing out of his mouth
actually made my eyes well up.
"I hear great things about you," he told me, "and finding where you're supposed to be. I hear that you're working so
hard, and I see that you're working so hard, and I hope that you find new things to learn every day. I hope that you
get to where you need to be very soon."
He smiled at me. "And I hope I can come dance at your wedding."
Lauren Matthew is the editor of The Jewish State.