Ash Wednesday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday

It's Holy Week. Happy Earth Day to all today, and if you are Christian not sure if saying Happy Good Friday is correct? Good Yontef? I remember all the images in Sacred Heart Catholic Church being covered with purple velvet on this day, the day that Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. Easter is hopping right along this Sunday; the purple cloth will come off. We all celebrate renewal, rebirth, and forgiveness. But for me, a lapsed Catholic who would most likely describe myself as an anti-any-organized religion type, who once converted to Reform Judaism but is now considered an Agnostic married to a Jew (in secular terms only), well I have the whole pilgrimage to my MILs for the Passover Seder to discuss.

My 87 yr old MIL has been putting on this holiday ever since her older sister, Mary, now dead, became too ill and incapacitated to do it, which means about 20 years. I've been making the charoses for 32 years, since my own wedding. Everyone is assigned a dish to bring, so I guess you could call it a pot luck Seder! My hubby is her eldest son, he gets to read the Haggadah (the book of the exodus from Egypt) and lead everyone in the tradition - washing hands, hiding matzoh, talking about the fear of change and the wandering around the desert with Moses in order to escape slavery, etc. Jesus was a Rabbi, the Last Supper a Seder, and there is a hard boiled egg on every Seder plate. The similarities are endless because of course Christianity grew out of the Jewish monotheistic faith, just as Lutherans sprang from the Pope. The food that is served, in strict order symbolic of the holiday, is pretty much the same all over the world - gefilte fish, matzoh ball soup, tzimmes (carrots and beef), chicken. You are supposed to clean out all the bread and leavened products and only eat matzoh for eight days (7 for Reform) to signify the wandering around the desert wilderness part, with no time to let bread rise. But it's not the food that gets me.

It's the drama. 35 people show up, some as early as noon last Monday when the Seder begins right before sundown. Aunt Mary's single daughter from NYC comes to my MIL's house six days ahead of time to get the place ready. She brings folding tables, silverware and linens. along with her latest addition, gravlax, which is like a fancy lox for the appetizer table. They make ancient, disgusting food from Yiddish ancestors that maybe a few people will eat, like eggs in chicken aspic (p'cha) or burned chicken fat and feet (gribbenes). And a long time ago I learned that it doesn't matter how early I get there (I used to go up 2-3 days early to "help") when we lived an hour's drive away instead of 8 hours - there is nothing for me to do, except chop up the apples and nuts of Charoses. We drove at dawn on Sunday, the day before the Seder, in order to pick up the Bride at the airport. The Groom had to work. But my son was coming and indeed he arrived before noon on Monday.

The Flower Girl bit her Aunt Becky; my MIL called me Sheila when she remembered to thank me; the NYC cousin insulted my sister who came out from NYC; the 55yr old disabled brother-in-law, who is still living with my MIL and her husband, showed up rarely and did nothing, which means he was "...having a good day." When I got there I was informed that 11 people out of the 35 were Jewish, and they didn't count me as one, I'm only half...which I had always half suspected. We did get to meet the 5 month cousin who was born in Iowa and is adorable! As usual, I was happy to get home, to passover the Mason Dixon line and return to my flowering dogwoods and mountain serenity. But I can't complain since my daughter's pilgrimage beat mine for its level of complexity and confusion.

The Bride's plane was 4 hours late from Atlanta. First, there was something wrong with the crew and they had to get another crew to come in. Then, while sitting on the tarmac, a lady had a nose bleed. Paramedics were called and my exhausted ER doctor didn't bother to get up. Then, after packing the nose, they were actually taxiing to take-off, when another tumult was happening in the back of the plane. Someone said a passenger was having "...difficulty breathing." Magic words to an ER doc and so my daughter tended to her patient, who was not the nosebleed. The flight attendants brought her a stethoscope, and said the pilot wanted to know if they could take off. She said, "No." Imagine, she had the power to stop a plane? I'm sure the other passengers loved her at that point. Back to the gate, paramedics were called again and the patient was transported directly to a hospital. The Bride received a free ticket to anywhere Delta flies, though they did want to see proof that she was indeed a doctor.

"Once we were slaves in Egypt," and now I refuse to be a slave in the kitchen. It's important to know when the time is right to gracefully give up the things of youth, and pass on your wisdom to the next generation. In this family, we seem to have jumped that shark long ago.