“We missed Father’s Day.” My son said the words derisively. Accusingly, in Sunday’s telephone call.
“No, we didn’t.”
“Yes, Mom, its today.”
“No, it’s next Sunday.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Well, it’s not like we have to celebrate it or anything.” And he changed the subject.
I wanted to say something more to him. I wanted to say, “What about me?” I wanted to say, “What about a card that says ‘Happy Father’s Day, Mom’?” I wanted to say, “Haven’t I been a good dad?” But, I didn’t. We chatted a bit more and hung up with the requisite “I love you” and “Be careful” and “I’ll call you this week.”
But, his question made me think of all the Father’s Days, all the other days when his Dad should have been here. All the other days when I tried to fill in, when I tried to step into those size 10, red suede, Chuck Taylor Converse All-Stars that my husband wore for pick-up basketball games at the law school. All the days when I slipped into the green-rubber-with-yellow-fleece-lining steel-toed boots he wore to shovel the driveway. All the nights I tucked my freezing toes into his scuffed brown leather Docksiders to let the dog out before bed. All the times when I tried to be the Dad as well as the Mom.
We managed after my husband died when the kids were 6 and 3. We stayed in our house. We still went to Cape Cod and Lake Placid on vacation. We got the Yellow Labrador retriever my husband always wanted. We installed the in-ground pool my husband and I had discussed on the very day he jumped into my sister’s pool and broke his neck. I did everything we had ever talked about, I followed every rule he had used – round up withdrawals and round down deposits so you always have a “float” in the checking account, change the oil at 4000 not 3000 miles, put batteries in the nightstand drawer (I never understood the rationale on that one).
It was the other stuff that stymied me. The stuff we hadn’t discussed in one of our four-hour long conversations on the drive to the in-laws on Long Island. The stuff I assumed he would always take care of, like car repairs and mowing the lawn. The stuff that Dads did, like putting the swing set together or teaching our daughter to ride a bike. Like teaching our son to pee standing up. He died before he could perform that task. How does a mom teach her three year-old son that boys and men pee standing up? I bought picture books. I bought targets for him to aim at. I finally enlisted my brother and gallons of apple juice in one marathon Sunday of non-stop peeing in the upstairs bathroom.
Little League. I knew the rudiments of baseball but I couldn’t throw and I couldn’t hit. My husband was a stellar baseball player but it fell to me to teach our son to throw, catch and hit. And our daughter when she decided to try softball. I spent hours in the front yard playing catch. I bought a batting “tee”, a pitching net, and shoved handfuls of quarters into the batting cages at the local miniature golf course. I felt as though I deserved one of the four trophies that still sit on my son’s dresser. I felt I deserved it for smiling instead of sobbing when my five-year old son, clutching his first Little League trophy, looked up at me with solemn eyes, making me promise that I would bury him with it when he died.
What do you do when your seven year-old son punches another boy in the nose? My first reaction was to spank him or take away video games or send him to bed right after supper for a month. It was mostly an accident, the boy grabbed for his baseball cap on the bus and my son raised his arm to block the grab and caught the boy across the bridge of his nose. The kid was a whiny brat, he bled like a pig and my son got hauled into the principal’s office. Fortunately, the principal had played golf with my husband, my son was very remorseful and I arrived to drive him home as he had been banned from the bus for week. But, how do you respond when your son tells you he was the hero of the elementary school boys for drawing blood, for roughing up a kid that no one on the bus liked, and he says it with a bit of a swagger? After hurried consultations with brothers and male friends, who were pleased that my son was not a “wimp” as they had feared he would be growing up fatherless with an over-protective mother, and the psychologist, I made him write an essay about alternative methods of dispute resolution. My daughter was disgusted.
Father-Daughter Dances. I couldn’t fix those. I enlisted grandfathers, brothers and friends and we got through the one or two that my daughter attended. I bought the corsage her father should have bought for her, just as I bought the bouquets for the dance recitals. I was better with flowers than I was with cars. Though, I bought those too. And I taught them to drive, at least initially, white-knuckling it in the big parking lot behind the high school when first my daughter and then my son maneuvered my mini-van between the yellow lines. Finally, after making all of us way too nervous, I sent them to Bell’s Driving School. And I paid for the lessons and the car repairs and the traffic tickets that followed.
I paid for everything that two salaries should have been sharing. Orthodontists, summer camp, piano lessons, riding lessons, baseball clinics, dance class. I did the taxes and I filled out the FAFSA forms and the college applications. All of the Dad duties that I had assumed my husband would be doing while I braided hair, baked brownies, pulled teeth (he was totally grossed out by pulling teeth) and supervised arts and crafts.
The Sex talk. I did that, too. Easy enough with my daughter, a natural segue from the “becoming a woman” talk. But for my son, I chose a drive to Long Island his first year in high school. He was a prisoner in my car for three hours until we picked his sister up at college. I told him everything I knew his father knew and I had been the beneficiary of, and then some. He was red-faced at first, and then peppered me with questions. Still, he sighed gratefully as we pulled up to his sister’s dorm. Jumping out of the car, he climbed in the back seat, muttering to her that I had made him have “The Talk.” He refused to speak to either of us for the rest of the trip.
There was more, much more. But, now, finally, over two decades after their father’s death, I am comfortable with my role as Father/Mother. I’ve made mistakes, but I’ve had a few moments of inspiration in guiding my daughter and son, a few moments when I did the Dad thing as well as my husband would have. Driving a moving truck from Memphis to Clifton Park to bring my daughter home to recover from crushed dreams. Driving to LaGuardia to send my son back to the West Coast to pick up the pieces of lost job and a broken romance. Offering humor, advice, guidance, common sense and some money, and letting them go. Just as he would have done, believing that he had done all he could and would do so again.
I think I deserve a card for that.

I should have known better. Attending any event at my temple was likely to pull me into some new assignment or responsibility. I am a sucker for a soft-spoken plea and have an inordinate need to be needed. How else would a nice Catholic girl converted to Judaism become a member of the Education Committee, then a teacher, then the Hebrew School principal AND Sisterhood president at a small Conservative congregation? I can’t say no: Catholic guilt and Jewish guilt are a lethal combination.
Even so, when the unofficial matriarch of our congregation mentioned at a Sisterhood meeting that new members were needed for the Chevra Kadisha, I hesitated. I had studied Judaism in college and then again when I converted; I had been raised in the midst of an active Jewish community in my small northern New York hometown, so I knew that some members of each congregation helped with preparation of the dead. What they did and how it was done was a mystery, even though some men, still unknown to me, had performed these ancient rituals for my young husband, gone so many years now. But, guilt niggled at my reserve when she told me and my stalwart friend that only she and another, even older, woman were providing this service now. She worried about passing on their knowledge to younger women in the congregation. At the time, I wasn’t young. I was fast approaching 50 and my friend was a bit older than me. But from the older woman’s standpoint, we were veritable children.
She explained that there were two aspects of the Chevra Kadisha: one was the preparation of the body, tahara, and the other was staying with the body until the funeral service. I admit to cringing a bit at the notion of “preparing” a body. But, because I had been with my husband and my father in the final moments of their lives and shortly thereafter, I didn’t think I would have a problem staying with the deceased. As a former Catholic, I had been to enough wakes that the sight or nearness of a dead body no longer bothered me as it had when I was young. I nudged my friend and said that we could surely sit together, with a coffin for a few hours now and then. What could it hurt? She looked at me skeptically, having been sucked into some of my more ambitious plans before. But, being a good friend and a good woman, she gamely agreed that she could be called upon as well.
I didn’t really think of it again for some time, the obligations of daily life requiring most of my concentration. So when I received the call from the matriarch, I thought that she was going to ask me to make sandwiches for Bingo. When she explained that she needed me and my friend to meet her at the local funeral home as part of the Chevra Kadisha, I was taken aback. Who had died? It was not until that moment that the realization hit me that a number of our congregants are much older than me. Which one of these kind and generous women had passed away? I was relieved to learn that the lady in question was quite old and had resided in a nursing home for some time; I had never met her. I agreed to meet at the funeral home that evening. The next call was from my friend. What had we gotten ourselves into?
Little did we know. We drove together to the funeral home in Saratoga Springs on a dark and rainy night in late October. The irony of being with a dead person that close to Halloween did not escape us and we made nervous jokes about ghosts and cemeteries as we headed up the Northway.
The matriarch is a kind woman, a very observant Jew, with a great sense of humor. Thank God, because she needed all three qualities to initiate us into the ranks of the Chevra Kadisha. Especially with other member of the Chevra Kadisha present. This woman was older than the matriarch and obviously had extensive knowledge not only of Judaism in general but of each and every aspect of each and every ritual. She was intimidating, but the matriarch was not easily cowed.
We entered through the back of the funeral home. It was cold and dusty, the area where the hearses park. Balanced forlornly on a wheeled table was a plain pine coffin. An unfinished pine box really. There was a little excelsior in the bottom and some holes drilled. The coffins are to reflect no indication of wealth and are to enable the remains to return to the earth as quickly as possible. There are no nails and no metal handles for the same reason. Wait. The coffin was empty. Who were we sitting with?
Through a narrow doorway, we could see the body of the lady, draped in a white cloth. A cold tremor, like the finger of Death, sneaked down my back. My friend and I cast one of those wide-eyed “what-the-hell-were-we-thinking” glances at each other. The older ladies handed us plastic aprons and latex gloves. Before we had time to protest, they were leading us in prayer. The prayer was on poster board, swathed in plastic. How many other women had said this prayer before us? We prayed that God would help us perform the deed with the right intentions. What intentions? We had planned to sit quietly through the night, watching over the deceased, already in her coffin. We had not planned on this! We were led into the small room. It must be the room used by the undertaker to embalm non-Jewish bodies, because there was a metal table, a drain beneath it centered in the ceramic tile floor and a large sink with faucets and hoses. And there was equipment. I looked away.
We prayed again, entreating God to forgive the deceased and to welcome her into Heaven. That prayer and all the ones that followed were written in someone’s long ago hand, faded blue cursive on plastic-wrapped poster board. My job was to hold up each prayer to be recited and then to move that poster board to the back of the pile. My hands shook, the letters wavering as if written on water.
The ritual first involves cleaning the body, trimming nails, and then rinsing the body with a continuous flow of water. In other times, that meant two women pouring from pitchers that were continually refilled by other women. Now, a hose kept up a continuous flow, while we poured water over and over the body. Throughout, the older woman was efficient and silent. The matriarch was gentle and murmured to the deceased woman, apologizing for an awkward movement. She reminisced about card games the lady had hosted at the temple, sharing quiet stories about how beautifully this woman always dressed, what gorgeous hair she had, how everyone had always wanted to sit by her because she was the most fun. With each of her words, I felt a sense of loss at not having known the deceased, a vibrant loving woman now reduced to a frail, almost weightless vestige of herself.
We then dressed her in the burial garb. Made of pure white cotton or linen, her final garments were not the fashionable silks and satins she had worn to weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. Ritual requires that every woman returns to her Maker in white trousers with the hems sewn shut, a white tunic, and a white over-tunic with the sleeves tied shut, like booties and mittens. The pieces have no buttons or zippers; they are closed with drawstrings, twisted to form the three branches of the Hebrew letter shin, the first letter of one name for God, El Shaddai. After that came the bonnet and the apron. I balked at the apron and muttered, “What? We have to wait on them in Heaven, too?” I immediately covered my mouth at my lack of respect at such a solemn time. The words had just slipped out. Then I saw the smile in the matriarch’s eyes as she replied, “No, it’s for modesty. Like the bonnet.” I glanced at my friend; a small smirk was playing across her lips. Our eyes met with the mutual promise: I will not put an apron or a bonnet on you when your time comes.
Our silent lady had been so cold when we started but now she was warm and dry. All that was left was to move her to the coffin. We wheeled the plain pine box in from the garage and positioned it next to the table. The room was narrow and the gurney the coffin rode on was hard to maneuver. The matriarch was adjusting the table when she hit the wrong lever and the table tilted. My friend caught the lady in her arms as we all rushed the table. There was silence and then the matriarch murmured to the lady her apologies at our clumsiness. We gently eased her into the coffin and wrapped her in the white linen shroud, covering her face at last. A small cloth bag, like a pillow, containing some of the dirt from Israel that had been sprinkled in the coffin, was placed under her head. We pushed the coffin back into the garage and put the lid on, carefully aligning the wooden pegs with the holes. We said the final prayers and stripped off the wet aprons and gloves. The older women thanked us and we left.
Outside, it was raining, the sky cloudy and starless on this late October evening. We were cold and damp and tired. We looked at each other, silently communicating our awe at all that we had witnessed and done. I would like to be able to say that we felt the grace of God surround us as we solemnly acknowledged the mysteries of the universe. But, no. We collapsed in helpless giggles, holding onto each other as waves of laughter swept through us. It was the near hysterical laughter of people who had come close to death. It was the giggle of female friends who have shared an experience that no one, not even themselves, would ever believe. It was the humor that humans rely upon to remind themselves that they are still alive.
It was a long time before we could speak to each other of our experience without giggling, without reiterating our promise that there was no way we were going to be buried in aprons, without gasping at our almost unforgivable breach of etiquette in almost dropping the deceased. It was a long time and a few more taharas before we could speak about the profoundness of our shared experience, before we came to understand why participating in Chevra Kadisha is the greatest mitzvah, good deed, a Jew can perform. It is a gift that the recipient cannot acknowledge, a gift for which she can never offer her gratitude. The only thanks can come from G-d.

For Susie

I have written nothing creative in days, weeks, seems like months. Editing the works of others or crafting legal documents has wrung every word, every consonant and every semi-colon out of me. Or so I thought. Then I read “The Tiger’s Wife” by Tea Obrecht and decided to give up creative writing altogether. How could I ever hope to match the imagery of her seemingly effortless prose? I would shut down the blog, tear up my manuscripts, never write again….
But, a pair of flamboyant heels started me thinking about shoes (and heels) I have known and loved. The approach of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day brought to mind images of fathers braiding the long curls of motherless daughters and mothers who never hit a ball or scored a run pitching softly to nervous Little Leaguer sons before an important game, praying he would at least learn to swing the bat. A trip wrought mostly from duty brought dusty treasures from the past wrapped in new memories of cherished moments. And, finally, from a silly singing competition on TV, the soft cello notes, voices weaving in and through poetic words, came tears and sighs of remembered lost loves and the words began to form, to flow….and suddenly, here I am, writing again.

I love driving up the Northway. I love the moment I enter the Adirondack Park. Today the tiny leaves on the white birches were emerging in their lime green glory. Mist hung low on the cliff faces. Cold foamy water gushed from crevices. Rain splattered against my windshield while I sang along, badly, to a mix my son had made me.

All the way to Plattsburgh, then onto the Old Military Turnpike, heading to Malone. I’ve been in Malone several times over the last few years, mostly to work on my mother’s estate madness. Usually, I am driving with Brother Bob; he prefers the road through Dannemora and along Chazy Lake, down Lyon Mountain, edging by Chateaugay Lake, into Brainardsville, then down the hill into Malone. Today, I chose my old standard route from Plattsburgh to Ellenburg to Chateaugay. I have not driven it alone in a long time. It is my road of broken dreams.

In 1988, my husband lay paralyzed in the intensive care unit of CVPH in Plattsburgh. My children were in the care of my parents in Malone. I lived on the nursing home floor of CVPH, but I spent 18-20 hours a day in the ICU. The staff gifted me with my own raspberry scrubs, I had become almost a fixture. I cleaned his tracheotomy tube, I did his exercises and one warm July night, I washed his hair while a team of nurses held his head, unattached from the halo that kept his spine in traction.

I tried to slip away from the hospital on good days to visit my children. I hated for them to always see me, tired and worn with worry, in the hospital cafeteria or lobby; they were not allowed into the ICU. I would hop in my suburban mom mini-van and head down the Old Military Turnpike to Malone. There were no cell phones in those days, no laptop computers. I drove in isolation. My thoughts kept me company, but my daydreams were turning to nightmares. Invariably, I would arrive in Malone to find a message from the hospital to return immediately. One day I walked in to a ringing phone, I never even saw my kids before I turned and walked out the door to speed back to CVPH.

I found my old favorite radio station from Montreal, SHOM-FM for musical respite on those lonely trips. That summer, they kept playing “The Legend of Jack and Diane” by John Cougar Mellencamp. He sang “Oh, yeah, life goes on. Long after the thrill of livin’ is gone.” I fiercely sang along because I could not imagine life continuing if my husband’s did not.

He died and I survived. Life went on. John Cougar had it right, though, the thrill of living was gone. Today’s drive brought me back to those desolate times, with the grey skies, the damaged landscape, the broken pavement. But, if the thrill of living has not returned, at least time has given me the ability to find in each day something, some blessing, some gift, some reason to go on. To live, not just to exist; to move forward. No thrills, perhaps, but small joys, like the glimpse of a hawk winging over the pines. It is enough.

Everyone has one. Some have two. Many have the same one. Born in the 50’s, your name is Mary, Sue, Ann or Debbie. No Courtneys, Jordans, Elisas or Apples. Plain Jane American names. Find your individuality in a nickname, pet name, pen name or pseudonym.

Men started as Bob, became Robert; Tommy became Thomas and Jimmy became James. Strong names, plain names, no-frill names for no-frills boys. Solid as the foundations of our two-story houses, our chrome-encrusted cars, our impenetrable borders, Fort Knox.

Six Stevens, eight Eddies, two Tommies and more Jimmys than I could count inhabited my young years. Roll Call in elementary school was a list of first names and last initials to sort us out, sit us in our seats, put us in our places. How could one Bob or Jon or Don stand out amongst all the other brush-cutted, black-shoed, shirt tucked in, freckle faced white boys? None did for me, not in my young years, not really. Well, maybe. Maybe Jimmy the altar boy with the angelic face and impish eyes. Maybe Denny the neighborhood bad boy with the Beatles haircut and the space between his front teeth. Maybe Peter the nice Jewish boy with black hair and the sad brown eyes of the race of survivors.

Not so when my young years became my middle school years became my high school, roll-up my skirt, cut-off my ponytail, change my chap stick for lipstick years. Not so when I traded a bottle of grape Nehi for a bottle of root beer mixed with some strange, dark, foul-smelling, potent potable, that gagged me, burned my throat, watered my eyes, made my knees so weak that they fell open at the touch of a hand. But just one hand, his hand. Jimmy’s hand. Jimmy, sometimes Jim, sometimes James Thomas, sometimes Sully, a nickname not a description of what he would do to my reputation. Poor little girl, poor little innocent girl, poor little smart mouth, smarter than you, smarter than anyone, so smart about books, so dumb about boys. Dumb enough to let him, dumb enough to want him to do whatever he wanted to do, to make me want whatever he wanted, to want to want him the way he wanted me. Wanted me against all the rules, all the Catholic, nun enforced, priestly preached rules, finger-shaking, tsk-tsking rules that we had been taught by rote, rule and example. Bad girls with big bellies broke the rules, trashy Lower Park Street girls broke the rules, girls with no fathers to watch them, warn them, whip them if they stepped out of line broke the rules. WE didn’t break the rules, I didn’t break the rules. He wanted to break the rules, I wouldn’t, couldn’t, should have let him but didn’t and lost him to the red-headed younger girl who looked so good, so nice at Church but let him so I lost him and would never have him back not for years and then it was too late because there was another Jim, another James, not ever Jimmy.

Long hair, long legs, short skirts, short memory, freedom in the 70’s, freedom at college to learn, live, leave the past behind. Not another Jimmy, not ever another Jim for me, too many nights crying for Jimmy, too many regrets, too much pain, so cross that name off the list, don’t dance, flirt with or kiss a Jim, Jimmy or James.

Until there he was, in my room, in my life, in my soul; in a heartbeat, in a breath, in a glance. Brother of my friend, mate of my soul, lover of my body. James Thomas IV. Rich boy, smart boy, sweet boy, Catholic boy who followed the rules. Who got me, wanted me, needed me till there was no Jim and Debbi but only JimandDebbi in one word, one phrase, one life. Three years. Three years, four months, a smattering of days, and an eternity of moments, apart and together, away but near, separate but joined until we were one and then no more. Until I wanted him, needed him, loved him, I did, I did, I did and then I didn’t. Broke my heart, broke his, our lives in ruins, our dreams shattered, tattered like the lace on my unworn wedding dress, tarnished like the metal of my unaccepted engagement ring, done and done because the wanting wasn’t enough, the loving wasn’t enough. Because in three years, four months and a smattering of days I grew, I changed and he didn’t, but I did, I did and then I didn’t want to change back into the future Mrs. James Thomas. I didn’t want to be “Mrs. my husband’s name” and not my name anymore, because what’s in a name but everything.

So no more James, Jimmys or Jims for thirty years, four months and a smattering of days. No more broken hearts because there was no heart to break, no more tears because that well had run dry, bone dry, dry as dead leaves, matted hair and empty vaginas. No more Toms, Dicks or Harry’s, No more Mitch. No more husband, friend, lover, father, beshert, mate, soul mate, no more, no more, no more. Nothing. No name. Not even his name was left to me because I didn’t take his name, so I was and am and continued to be just me. No Mrs. anyone anymore or ever again.

Jamie. Not James Thomas. Not Jim and ohmygod not ever a Jimmy. Not this tall, broad-shouldered big-boned man. Not this elegant, graceful, sophisticated, polished, cosmopolitan, rich, elite, Socially Registered man. Not this soldier of fortune, warrior, gutter-fighting, knife-wielding, hard-drinking, wife-stealing, fast-driving, Scots. Not those tortured eyes, troubled soul, frozen heart that captured me at the first touch, first kiss, first taste of that sad, slender mouth. Not Jim. Not James. Not Sergeant or Captain or Sir.

Jamie. Jamie. Jamie. What’s in a name? His name? Never to be my name. Given too often, too casually, with too much cost to four others to get it back and give it to me. Me who always wanted only my name. Only me. Ms. Esquire. Your Honor. Attached to my name, the one my father gave me, not a husband’s name. Just my name.  Just me. Now when I wanted to be Mrs. James Barry, now at the end of the game, the end of the road, end of my patience. Now, I am just my name again. Not a Mrs. Jim, Jimmy or James.

What’s in a name? What’s in a name if no one ever says it? If no one ever says it with love, with longing. If no one whispers it in your ear, shouts it across the street, writes it on your Valentine’s Day card? If no one ever says your name with passion, with pleasure, with pride, what’s in a name?

You, just you.

Gird your sword upon your thigh, O hero,

In your splendor and glory,

In your glory, win success.

Ride on in the cause of truth and righteous humility,

And may your right hand lead you to awesome deeds.

Psalm 45:4-5

Finally home is the soldier, safe at last.

My mother’s grandparents came from Ireland; from Dublin and County Cavan and County Cork, it is said. I have Irish in me. My father’s family was English and French Canadian and, even though Dad was a red-head, my mother insisted that my childhood red hair and freckles were from my Irish ancestors. As far as my mother was concerned, it was our Irish heritage that defined us.
No one in my family had ever set foot in Ireland, not since my mother’s paternal grandmother, Mary Berry, left County Cork to travel with her sea captain husband and land on the shores of Connecticut about 100 years ago. So in the summer of 1974, when I was all of 21, I set off for England to work for three months in the offices of the Vice-Chairman of the Conservative Party. The first of my immediate family to take flight over the Atlantic Ocean, I boarded British Airways in Montreal late on a May evening with two classmates from college. One was a hearty Irish lass of the clan of Halloran from Rhode Island, the other was a stick-up-her-ass daughter of WASP patricians, but we were the sum total of the college’s political science majors, so off we went to study parliamentarian politics.
A red-eye transatlantic flight in those days brought you up toward the North Pole and down again just off the coast of Ireland. Ireland seen through a small round airplane window just as dawn is breaking on the western cliffs is like looking through the peephole of a kaleidoscope of green. “This isle, this emerald isle, this Ireland,” I murmured, the phrase playing though my mind as we crossed over Ireland, the Irish Sea and Wales, to arrive in the misty fog of a spring morning in England.
After settling into our lodging and our jobs, we began our weekend jaunts around Great Britain. Out to Stratford-On-Avon, round to Salisbury and the great Stonehenge, down to Dover’s white cliffs. A train ride to Edinburgh and two damp days traversing the Royal Mile and climbing Arthur’s Seat, to gaze down on wet grey stone and green so green that it should have been a color all its own.
Then, on to Ireland. Too poor to fly to Dublin from London, almost penniless students working for the privilege and not the coin, we opted for a train to Wales in the late afternoon and an overnight cruise over the Irish Sea on a merchant ship. With only our backpacks to cushion us, we huddled on the deck, only the midnight blue sky to cover us, only a million stars to light our way. Gathered out in the open with us, a group of sons of the Olde Sod pulled up boxes and barrels and broke out their instruments: accordions, harmonicas, mouth harps and guitars. And spoons. Through the night, their Irish voices serenaded us with the songs of Ireland we had never heard at home on St. Patrick’s Day, except perhaps for Molly Malone and By the Rising of the Moon.
I sat enthralled, transfixed by the music as I had never been before. I could play no instrument and dared not raise my voice in song; so paltry a voice as mine had no place among these musicians. So, I sat, I listened, I hummed, I tapped my foot, I laughed and I wept. To this day, some 36 years later, I can still feel the salt spray on my face, taste on my lips the dark Irish whiskey that they passed around, hear the music ringing in my ears, playing in my soul. I never thought to feel the like again. Until a Sunday in June 2010.
We drove up from Lynchburg into the Blue Ridge Mountains in a light mist. Low clouds hung midway up the sides of the mountains, their pale grey a stark contrast to the vivid green of early summer in Virginia. My high school sweetheart, Tom, and I were on our way to a house concert at the home of Jim and his wife, Wendy. Jim is, in Tom’s estimation, one of the finest musicians in America. Tom is no slouch himself in this department, playing guitar, banjo, mandolin and, my personal favorite, Irish whistles. We were off to hear Paddy Keenan and John Walsh play for a group of 30 or so Irish music aficionados and musicians. A house concert:  we brought food and drink and instruments and a few dollars for the musicians.
Jim and Wendy’s house sits on the side of a hill, with an unimpeded vista of the Blue Ridge Mountains spread out like a feast from their back deck. The walls of the simple concrete block house are covered with photographs of Jim in various bands, Irish and Southern ancestors and musical instruments. The living room had been largely stripped of furniture and was filled with folding chairs, in rows before the fireplace, an amplifier and a bass. The voices were softly Southern and the hospitality warm. Excitement was a low buzz in the air as we awaited the arrival of the two Irish lads making their way through the hills from Roanoke after a whirlwind weekend that brought Paddy from Boston to a concert with John in NYC on Friday and another concert in Roanoke on Saturday.

Thirty minutes late, they arrived in the light rain. John was introduced as one of the finest guitarists in the world, one whom a guitar company is naming a set of guitar strings after. He resembles any collegiate American guy from any mid-size town in America, until he opens his mouth and County Kenny spills out. Paddy has the look of the performer, slouched under a black leather hat, a black leather cord tied round his neck from which hangs a huge sculpted piece of silver, loose grey shirt and soft jeans. With dark eyes and a graying mustache, he wears the years of touring, drinking and singing sad songs on his face. Paddy may be the premier uilleann piper in the world.
The uilleann pipes, originally known as the Union pipes, are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. The uilleann pipes bag is inflated by means of a small set of bellows strapped around the waist and the right arm. Some pipers can converse or sing while playing as well. Paddy doesn’t sing but he does tell tales.
Laughing at Jim’s introduction, Paddy kicked off his shoes, asked for a beer and thanked us all for coming along, from places near and far. It was pointed out, then, that I had come all the way from New York. A look of surprised amusement in his eyes, Paddy stared at me and asked in his Dublin drawl “Now, really, darlin’? And why would you be traveling so far when we’ve just come from New York?”
“It was no great feat, as I was headed here for other purposes as well.” I blushed at the attention. “But, I believe I win the prize.”
“Ah, well, that’s it then. We’ll have a bit of music for you and make sure the trip was worth it.”
They began with a trio of jigs, then some reels. Uilleann pipes sound to me like Irish whistles but with more range and depth, a hint of the roughness of bagpipes echoing in the background. Difficult to describe but delicious to hear. I did not know any of the songs, though Paddy and John talked about each set, in their gentle lyrical voices, touched with humor and real affection for each other and the music. They seemed as much in awe of their attentive audience as we were of them. Paddy played a song he had written for his daughter, Sabrina, to teach her to play by ear; John played a waltz he had written as a Christmas gift for his daughter and together they gave us the ballad of Lord Franklin, lost at sea, exploring the Northwest Passage.
After two hours, they called for the other musicians to join in. Almost everyone began unpacking fiddles, banjos, guitars and whistles. They gathered around Jim and Paddy and John and began to play. The music filled the small house. It floated in the air, enveloping me in a camaraderie that should have excluded me, but instead, drew me in. I was back on the freighter to Dublin, once again on a journey to Ireland. Jigs and reels brought out spoons and a bodhr`an, the Irish frame drum. Jerry started to play the dobro, a resonator guitar played across the lap, which prompted everyone to urge Warren to sing Maggie as he strummed a gorgeous acoustic guitar. Tears came to my eyes. John was heard to say, “That was fucking beautiful.” Paddy agreed. “Lovely, just lovely.”
We were among the last to straggle out. I played the groupie and sought autographs from Paddy and John on their CD’s. They promised to come north to play again at Café Lena’s in Saratoga. Standing in the driveway, twilight coming in, Tom and Paddy had one last discussion about Irish whistles. Paddy asked to see one of Tom’s instruments. When it was drawn from the bag, Paddy’s eyes lighted and he brought the whistle to his lips. Recognizing the song, Tom pulled out a smaller whistle. The two played The Tar Road to Sligo. Conversation died. The notes drifted around us as we stood still, caught once again in the spell of the music, drawing us together, touching the Irish in us all.

What could be better? A holiday where everyone dresses up in costumes, goes to parties, eats delicious holiday goodies, gives out treats to friends and family, and drinks themselves senseless. Halloween? No, Purim.

Purim is a Jewish holiday, commemorating the defeat of Haman, the wicked Prime Minister of Persia, who sought to annihilate the Jews living in Persia and confiscate all their money and property for his own. Was Haman beaten by the force of G-d? By legions of Jewish warriors or daring rebels like the Maccabees? No, Haman was defeated by wiles of an old Jewish man, Mordecai, and his lovely cousin, Esther, the Queen of Persia.

Esther was an orphan, raised by Mordecai, in ancient Persia, where the Jews, displaced from Israel by the Babylonians, had fled. The king of Persia, Ahasuerus, had divorced his wife, Vashti, for refusing to appear before him wearing only her crown when summoned while he partied with his friends and soldiers. As is always the case, a search was conducted amongst the kingdom’s virgins to find a replacement for the Queen. Esther, young and beautiful, won with Mordecai’s coaching but she did not reveal she was a Jew.

Later, Haman, annoyed by Mordecai’s refusal to bow before him, plotted to kill not only Mordecai but all the Jews. Learning of the plot, Mordecai enlisted Esther, telling her she must plead her people’s case before the King. To appear before the King without a summons meant death, but after fasting for three days, Esther gathered up her courage and appeared. The King was not displeased and sought to reward her. Esther invited the King and Haman to a feast in her private quarters. Two more times she invited them back, as Ahasuerus was very taken with her. On the third night when he asked her what he could give her to show his pleasure, up to half his kingdom, Esther, informed him of Haman’s plot and asked him not to kill her people. The King ordered that Haman be hanged on the very gallows that Haman had erected to hang Mordecai.

But having signed the order crafted and concealed by Haman, the King could not undo the evil that was about to befall the Jews. Instead, he allowed Mordecai and Esther to issue a new order in his name authorizing the Jews to slaughter anyone who was about to do them harm. The Jews found 75,000 likely assailants in the Persian Empire, which stretched from India to Ethiopia at the time, to kill, including all of Haman’s ten sons. Mordecai became the Prime Minister, Esther remained the Queen, and the Jews prospered in Persia. It was ordered that feasting and drinking, reading the Megillah (the Book of Esther) while making enough noise to drown out Haman’s name, and giving to the poor be done every year thereafter to commemorate Esther’s bravery.

A holiday dedicated to the bravery of a woman, brought about by a woman’s refusal to obey her husband’s orders! My kind of holiday. This year Purim resonated especially with me as I watched politicians and leaders demean and denigrate women in the name of politics. I thought of Vashti who refused to appear nude to entertain her husband’s drunken allies and Esther who braved the King’s wrath to save her people. I thought of my own daughter, who is named for Esther, fighting to obtain her long-sought after doctoral degree and to retain her internship, which had been cut to save money and leave dozens of children and their parents without testing and guidance in dealing with autism. And I thought of my son, working for a woman seeking public office to change some of the attitudes and actions that still exist against women.

I thought of my son and daughter who so loved as toddlers to dress up for Purim, banging on my pots and pans every time Haman’s name was mentioned, while their father read from the Megillah on the nights they were too young to be taken to shul to celebrate the holiday. They celebrated with such abandon the victory of good over evil, of freedom over enslavement.

My daughter was Esther every year, my son was almost always the King who loved her and learned to be tolerant and conscientious.

And I thought especially during the past week celebrating women that what we really needed was another Esther to be brave and save us all from the modern day Persians – the Iranians – who once again seek to annihilate the Jews and all of us who love freedom.