SisterSchmooze

Crossing Colesville Road It’s the first Shabbos after my daughterLeah has left for seminary in Israel. I’m walking to shul about to cross Colesville Road a six-lane highway in suburbanWashington. As a transplanted New Yorker I’ve always had to resist the New York instinct to jaywalk especially when my young kids were growing up in the suburbs. You know “do as I do ” and all that. As they got older though I tended to lapse into my old ways. ButLeah my youngest always walked the straight and narrow. Any time I even thought of crossing against the light she’d yell “Mommy!” and I’d have to behave. But this time I’m alone. I’m an empty nester now. Hah! I can break the rules again! Suddenly though I hear a voice inside my head:Leah calling “Mommy!” And there I stand like a good little girl waiting for the light to change.