Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(35)

“Jewish cemeteries won’t allow non-Jews to be buried there,” Glen informed us. “We have to have a fake Jewish funeral.”

“What about all of her friends from church?” Shana asked.

“They’re just going to have to pretend she’s Jewish, for the funeral,” Glen said, matter-of-factly—as if this is what all families do when there’s a death, have a fake funeral. It seemed like Glen had already sorted this out with my father and was breaking the news to the rest of us.

    “What if they find out she isn’t Jewish? What about her bishop or friends from church who want to say something about her?” Shana asked. “They all know she’s not Jewish.”

“They’re not allowed,” my dad told her. “They can go do their own thing.”

“You know, like have a service at a local supermarket,” Glen told Shana. Glen can be an asshole in these instances. He doesn’t mean to be, but he’s just another man who doesn’t know how to handle women when they are in crisis.

My dad announced that he needed us to get him something to wear for the funeral—“None of my nice suits fit anymore”—and then he walked out of the room.

Glen’s eyes rolled into the back of his head. “I wonder why.”

“Dad doesn’t know that Mom baptized Chet,” Shana said quietly.

“Are you serious?” Simone asked, appalled.

“Yes,” Shana declared.

“Mom baptized Chet?” I asked. Just another fucking thing that no one in my family ever bothered to tell me.

“So, now we have two non-Jews that will be buried in a Jewish cemetery,” Glen declared, smiling. “Sounds like there’s an odd man out.”

“Can we just baptize Dad after he dies, and then they can all be buried together?” Roy asked.

“That’s a great idea, Roy,” Glen told him. “That ought to fix everything.”

“Does being baptized negate your Judaism?” I asked.

“Not if you’re dead when they baptize you,” Glen whispered, as he gently kissed my mother on her forehead. It was a perfect Glen moment—tender, but dripping with sarcasm.

    “Actually, in the Book of Mormon…” Shana started, and I had to interrupt her.

“Please don’t with the Mormon stuff right now. I just can’t.”

“She’d want to be next to Chet,” Simone said.

“Yeah, but would she want to be next to Dad?” Glen asked.

We sat in silence for a few minutes trying to make sense of what was about to take place. Then Roy—who had had a bar mitzvah thirty years earlier, and never converted—asked, “Am I Mormon too?”

These are the times when you think no family is as fucked-up as your own, and that no one on earth has been through anything close to what you’ve been through.



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We all dealt with Chet in our own way, and now it was time for us to split up and deal with our mom dying, individually. But we didn’t. We stuck together this time—perhaps from knowing the mistake we made last time.

Shana and I drove to the Short Hills mall to pick out something for her to wear. Shana has extremely short legs and two bricks for feet. Buying clothes for her is and always will be confounding. The looks of the saleswomen at Saks and Nordstrom are always entertaining to behold—if you like diplomacy mixed with a healthy dose of bewilderment.

While we were shopping, I tried to convince her that an A-line skirt was just what she needed to meet someone romantically at our mother’s funeral. She reminded me that she was already married with a baby. I got her to laugh and she got me to laugh because that is what sisters do for each other in the depths of their despair—they cry, laugh, sing, fight, and then go see a movie, in that order.

    My sister and I buoyed each other that day. I thought my mom would be proud of how we guided each other through this death storm. Then we got back to Shana’s house, and when I came upstairs from putting our bags away, I found her standing in the rain on her back porch, crying inconsolably. Her husband was standing in the kitchen staring at her, not knowing what to do. Who would know what to do? Sisters. Only a sister knows how to comfort a sister. Period. End of story. Men can give us a hug or pat us on the back, but only a girl will get another girl off her feet to face the rain. That is the definition of sisters. There exists between us an ineffable understanding. We don’t have to ask why or how or when. We just go in.

Sometimes, I’m there. Sometimes, Shana is there. Sometimes, Simone is there. One of us is always there. We’ve all been one another’s mother at some point.

It hurt to see Shana in so much pain, and I felt guilty that my pain didn’t cut as deep. She was close to my mother in a way that I never was. She was more dependent and more loving, and they were more alike. My sister would have taken advice from my mother. Both were reserved, sweet, and Mormon together. I never appreciated or respected that.

When my sister converted to Mormonism after Chet died, it felt like one more strike against her. Religion was of no interest to me, and when I read the Book of Mormon at my mother’s behest, I came away even more embarrassed for both of them. It all bored me to no end. Religion wasn’t going to ever be my jam, and I didn’t appreciate trying to be converted in the privacy of my own home. It all felt so sanctimonious. The notion that accepting Jesus Christ as your savior absolved you of all wrongdoing of any scale felt like a crock of shit.