Wait Til Next Year

     The first thing I thought when I woke up and looked outside was that I wanted to spend the day at Wrigley Field.  It was a Friday in late September of 2007, about 75 perfect degrees, and the wind was blowing out.  My beloved baseball team, the Chicago Cubs, was leading the division by one game over the Milwaukee Brewers.  The game started at 1:20, my children were at school, and I could get on the el train and take it right to Clark and Addison.  I had a cute top that was low cut and had a nice ruffle around the bust, and if I wore it I would certainly be able to scalp a single ticket in front of the park.

     There was only one thing holding me back.  That night was Kol Nidre.  It was my job to prepare our big meal before the fast—matzo ball soup, brisket, potatoes, kishke—the meal that was supposed to provide my family enough physical and emotional sustenance to get through the Yom Kippur fast.  If I went to the ballgame, my family would instead be eating Lou Malnati’s Pizza.

     I weighed the options.  I have a 6’4 husband and two equally large sons.  The only thing they are religious about is food.  They were not happy to be going to Temple.  My younger son did not understand why he couldn’t go out with his friends afterwards.  If we ate pizza, it would set a terrible example.  It would show that I didn’t think the holiday was very special either. (No disrespect to Lou Malnati.)

     On the other hand, my gang would understand.  They would love that I went to Wrigley instead of preparing for the holiday.  Forever after, my boys would tell the story that on the night of Kol Nidre, the beginning of the holiest of holy days, their mother served them takeout because she spent the day at the ballpark watching her beloved Cubbies.  My boys would love this story, and it would become my legacy.

     I know what you are thinking: Yom Kippur comes every year.  How often are the Cubs leading their division?  Go to the game!

     Everyone loves the tough old broad who says to hell with all that.  I wish I were that broad, but I’m not.

     I am a Cubs fan down to my bones, but in the marrow of my bones I’m a Jewish mother.  I had to cook for my guys.  You should know that I’m not a good cook.  In fact, I’m terrible.  But I do it, and it’s one of the ways that I show my family that I love them.  Over the summer my younger son was at camp, and I told him I was sending him some of my homemade chocolate chip cookies.  He wrote back that he’d rather have Pringles potato chips.  I thought about it, but in the end I told him it was too bad.  It wasn’t about him.  I was his mother, and I missed him, and there was no way for me to show my love in a can of Pringles.

     And so, I stayed home.  I watched the game on television while I prepared our holiday meal.  It was not without regret.  Alfonso Soriano hit a home run the very first pitch of the ballgame.  The Cubs scored four runs in the first inning.  But when my family came home for dinner, and I watched them load up their plates with my mediocre preparations, I was glad that I’d remembered who I was.  Yom Kippur was no time to fool around.