5751

by Mary Marcus

My life changed on the second night of Passover in the Jewish year 5751. I'm not sure what the calendar year was; though it was the early nineties, before the earthquake. Why do I remember the religious year in my mind, and not the calendar year? Even going to the trouble of creating a mnemonic as I used in law school? Fifty-seven rhymes with heaven and fifty-one's the one. Danny was forty-seven, add ten and that's another way I remember the year. It was after dinner and we were in the big living room on Mandeville Canyon Road. Danny was still upstairs. I was in the leather chair by the floor lamp, looking through a motorcycle magazine I had picked up on my way home from the office. Ellen and my mother were sitting close together looking through a pile of out-of-focus shots Mom had taken on a recent cruise. Once in a while I heard the wife say soothingly, "that's a beautiful picture," or "you must have had a wonderful trip." Ellen was good with my mother. She was the one who wrote and sent up to date pictures of our son and remembered her birthday; even the day my father died with a proper Yortzeit candle. Though Mom never came out and said it, she must have known she'd struck pure gold with Ellen. What real Jewish daughter would show respect to the religion and to the mother-in-law that this former Methodist from Texas did?

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