Because of Diane’s health, we are spending the first two nights of Passover away from home, with friends in the neighborhood. Our hosts are a lovely low-key family with three adult children, two of whom are married, and three uncommonly well-behaved grandchildren, 7, 4 and 2.
The seder meal on the First Night and Second Night of Passover may be the most beautiful ritual in Judaism, the richly detailed account of how and why we Jews escaped from centuries of slavery in Egypt, a recounting equally appealing for 4-year-olds and for 80-year-olds.
We barely had been seated for the First Seder at 7:45 last evening when Diane, her face aglow, turned to me. “I have not been this happy in months,” she said.
Normalcy, just for a flashing, intensely transitional, moment had returned to our upside-down lives.
Understand that Diane employs such descriptive terms with the same frequency that a homeless person applies a fresh cake of Ivory soap. Barring the miraculous discovery of a cure, Diane’s entirely unexpected smiling observation will be the apogee of my favorite memories.
If terrorists, heaven forbid, had firebombed the home a moment later, I would have died a satiated man.
She participated briskly in animated conversations — about the story of the Exodus, as told in our Haggadahs (booklets), and in medical talk, since she, both of our hosts and their daughter have devoted their lives to that field.
The solemnity of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur are the most treasured interludes of the year for many Jews.
Not this time for us.
When Diane, who routinely uses my arm and a cane, stood to leave for the ladies room, quietly, firmly, she said she did not need assistance this time.
This is the kind of supposedly pedestrian but achingly pleasant moment whose fragrant setting will not soon pass.
I look forward to the Second Seder this evening.
