אני קושית יפה/I’m a Cute Black Girl Pg 22

Last night we finished out first term…can I call it that considering this is not actually school? and since we are only just finishing the first quarter of 2022, I cannot call it a semester. Well anyway we are on a week’s break from class.

So last night while we were finishing up the Jewish Life Cycle…I dazed out, while the Rabbi Spoke, and thought back to the time when I sat for Shiva and Sheloshim, when my mother passed away just over 21 years ago.

As much as much as that week is a distant memory, I can remember how I felt then.

I felt so conflicted…I was distraught that my mother was not going to be with me anymore…but a part of me was content knowing that she wasn’t going to be in pain anymore. She could finally rest. She knew her girls were going to be fine and that we were ready for her to rest now.

I will never forget the last thing she said to me while she was lying on the hospital bed. I was sitting on the side of the bed and she was sleeping…but I just sat there and rested my hand on her leg.  she said to me. For many years, since that day, I have taken many moments to try and analyze what she meant by that, but was never able to.

But maybe I am now…deciding to make this year about me has been one of the best things I have ever done. Converting to Judaism has always been my true calling. I regret not having done it when I was a child…when I had more time to focus on it…but I am glad that I am finally converting.

Last night while we were going over some of the Pesach songs…and of course I was singing along…I felt so good. I remembered the many Pesach Seder’s I got to be part of as a child…In my mind I was looking back at the times when my sisters and friends would all sit around the table and belt out the songs…and how excited we got when we rushed around the house looking for the afikoman, which was always under the table cloth, at the head of the table where my father would sit.

I can’t wait until I get to live all that, again.