The Kindest Woman

When I was little my parents divorced and my mother was left penniless. Even then she never said a mean word about my father. My father had custody of me and would always let me know the ways in which he thought my mother was failing me. She’d express sadness about the custody decision, but never spite. Even when my father didn’t invite her to my bas mitzvah party, she hugged me tightly and didn’t say a word of complaint.

My mom is the kindest woman I know. She had a very difficult relationship with her own parents, and I only saw them a few times in my life. When my grandfather was sick with Alzheimer’s she would have me call him every weekend. He would often think it was wartime and start attempting Morse code on the phone. My mom would gently take the phone from my hands, tell her father she loves him, and hang up with tears in her eyes. She would usually make sure to tell me a story about her father from when she was little. “Did I ever tell you about the time my dad borrowed a convertible and took me for a ride down the dirt roads in our town in Connecticut?” she’d ask.

When I became frum in high school and began to keep Shabbos, my mom always supported me, even though keeping Shabbos meant her small amount of time with me on the weekends would be cut in half. “If this makes you happy, then it makes me happy, honey. We’ll just have to make our Sundays together even more special,” she said. I think she selflessly meant it.

My mom is the kindest person I know. When she joined the painter’s union at 50 years old and was the only woman there among a bunch of tough, hardened men, she decided to make friends by making extra lunches. My mom is five feet tall and weighs 90 lbs, but she would approach those men at lunchtime and offer them food with her gentle smile. Some of those men became her biggest advocates, offering to lift the heavy scaffolding for her and fighting for her to stay in the union when the chauvinistic forces around her tried to get her dismissed.