Pages

Tuesday, June 4, 2024

Cultural Differences

My mother and father reveled in the fact that my husband held doors open, pulled chairs out (should've warned G'ma about that before she came to the table and tried to sit down), laughed at their foibles, and loved their daughter.  His Protestant heritage was a mere after thought, a problem only for Daddooooo's mother and that only until her dementia labeled him as safe.  

Daddooooo and Nannie had a special relationship.  He'd badger her to move it or lose it and she'd counter with an order to relax, for cryin' out loud.  They both felt better after they hung up the phone.  There is some evidence that her mother (TBG's maternal grandmother, if you've lost track of the genealogy along the way) was Jewish, but that's really irrelevant.  

Though she has a long history to belie it, I've always thought of her as the ultimate Jewish Mother.

Queen T, who grew up in an SSR as the Berlin Wall fell, was surprised to know that her husband's family considered the Cossacks to be the bad guys.  They were the heroes who rode in to save her and her playmates, slaughtering bad guys as Good Trounced Evil.

She's nothing if not open to new experiences and ideas.  She sings over the Hanukkah candles and hosts monthly Shabbat dinners.  This year, one of those dinners became a spur of the moment Passover Seder, the extremely abbreviated version of the Haggadah, according to my son.


I'm enjoying imagining the sparring between my father and his only grandson's beautiful, blonde, confident and smart wife as he teases and she gives back as good as she gets, while listening and learning and looking past the bombast to the story below.  

G'ma is wondering about the construction of those napkin roses and admiring the Seder plate I gifted Queen T because Little Cuter is right: She's the only one of us likely to ever host a seder.

I'd love to see my angry grandmother's face were she reading this right now.  

I wonder if any of them notice Big Cuter's Diet Coke, up there in the left corner

No comments:

Post a Comment

Talk back to me! Word Verification is gone!