2002-10-27 - 6:04 p.m.
A COSMIC JOKE
My mother-in-law is downsizing. She and my sister-in-law are going from a house to a condo where they will not have to shovel, rake or mow. Part of the process is weeding through belonging and deciding what to keep and my family and I went to Minneapolis to help with the packing. As we sorted through jewelry, my mother-in-law gave me two earrings with purple stones that had belonged to her mother. They will go perfectly with a dress I recently purchased.
�Oh,� gushed my mother-in-law. �Gramma would be so pleased that you�ll be wearing her earrings to Day-Hay�s Bat Mitzvah.*� I froze. Then I started to laugh. I can picture Gramma feeling a lot of emotions about Day-Hay�s Bat Mitzvah but pleased would not be one of them.
Gramma was an ardent Baptist. The family spin on her was that she was feisty, which I suppose is as good a way to look at it as any. She like me to a point�which is more than some in-laws could say�but there were clear limits. She liked me in spite of who I was.
�Plankton,� she would say while pointing a bony, arthritic finger at me (although she used my real name.) �You�re ...Jewish, aren�t you?� Now, in a single setting or in isolation, this question could be innocent enough but Gramma asked it virtually every time she saw me and long before her memory started slipping a bit and the answer was followed by a shake of the head. It wasn�t so much a question as a statement of disapproval.
She had had such high hopes for Mr. Philately before I came along. Never mind that he�d been brought up in the Methodist church and that it failed to take long before I ever entered the picture. Never mind that he mad it absolutely clear from the time he was twelve or so that Jesus was an interesting historical figure but not his personal savior. Never mind that Gramma and I both knew that Mr. Philately is one of the most stubborn creatures that God ever made (although Day-Hay has him beat.) Still, she had such high hopes for him�and I ruined him.
No, despite my mother-in-law�s rose-colored glasses, I cannot imagine that Gramma would be pleased if I wore the earring to a Jewish ritual for her great-great-granddaughter. She keep being pleased in reserve for when I wore those earrings to a baptism, preferably full immersion and preferably Mr. Philately�s, my children, or mine.
So now comes the decision. If I wear her earrings to Day-Hay�s Bat Mitzvah, my mother-in-law will be overjoyed. She�ll feel her mother is there and she�ll convince herself her mother is happy to too. Yet, if I wear them, I may be betraying Gramma.
Heck, let the dead bury the dead. Gramma�s been gone for a while. By now, she�s either ecstatic in the knowledge that she was right all along or she�s learned that she was wrong (although unless God intends to use all of the energy God has in the universe, she�s still not accepting being wrong quietly yet.) I�ll wear the earring and please my mother-in-law.
But I can�t help feeling the whole situation is a cosmic joke.
___
* A Bat Mitzvah is a ceremony marking when a Jewish child becomes an adult under Jewish law and becomes responsible for following the commandments adults must follow.
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