The Jewish holidays inevitably make me miss my mom. The same way the first Pats game of the season makes me miss my dad. If we are lucky, only the good memories stay present after our parents are long. I am very lucky.
Thinking about my mom and the High Holidays inevitably leads me to thinking about my mom's jewelry. She loved jewelry, and all things sparkly. My mom grew up in a working class neighborhood in a working class town, her father was a tailor, but died when she was in High School. I have the last present he ever gave her, for her sixteenth birthday, a moonstone ring, saved for my daughter. I love it, but I can't wear it, because she wore it every day of her life, so it seems too much like her for me to put on. My daughter was only three when my mom died, so she will be able to wear it someday without the pain of the loss.
My grandmother was an immigrant who never learned to speak English all that well. Money was tight after my grandfather died. My grandmother had some money from my grandfather's social security. My Uncle Sam was ten years older than my mom and was already established working a factory job, so he helped support his mom and baby sister. After High School my mom got a job as a Secretary in that factory and helped support the family as well. She worked there even after she and my dad got married, while they waited to have children, and then later, while they waited to adopt. She loved pretty things, but mostly sparkly things. Jewelry was an outward expression to the world that she was taken care of, that she was safe. The cultural history of the Jews and portable wealth is well documented, and that was part of her feelings of safety as well. "If it all goes down the tubes, we can run for the boarder with all the jewelry sewn into the hems of our clothes." I never understood her, never thought I could feel that way, we were Americans, but here we are, America 2019, and I understand her now.
Some time after my mom and dad got married, they started a small business, and moved from working class to middle class. Although I don't think either of them ever felt secure there. But my mom was always striving to be appropriate to her station, and wore her nice quality, solid, one-carat engagement ring, alongside her wedding band, pretty much every day (except in summer, when she had a special white, enameled, summer band that took the place of both). But for the holidays the big guns came out and she would wear her twenty-fifth anniversary diamond to shul. Rosh Hashanah services were interminable for me as a child (because they ARE!) and my reward for good behavior was getting to play with my mom's rings, moving them back and forth on her finger to catch the ceiling lights in the Synagogue and sometimes even catching the lights from the Bimah. I could feel the waves of contentment coming off of her as she watched her little girl as entranced by her jewelry as she was. I sometimes find myself playing with my own rings like that now. Even without the synagogue lights.
I am not an observant Jew. I don't believe in God, or that organized religion is a good thing. But I am a fervent believer in cultural traditions. So for Rosh Hashanah although I don't go to shul, I do make a brisket the size of a Buick, apples and honey, and cheat and buy the tzimmetzes already cooked from Whole Foods. I very much like the idea of taking a couple days to reflect on the past year and apologize for my mistakes. I miss my mom, and I am glad that I can look back to the last conversation we ever had. It was about a fifth anniversary ring Peter was getting me. Because I know that conversation made her feel at peace, knowing I was taken care of and safe. We sad our "I love yous" at the end of the phone call, not knowing we wouldn't have another chance. She had not been written into the Book of Life for another year. But we got to say it.
My New Years wish for all of you is that you are able to say your "I love yous" hoping you have more time, but making it count if you don't.
