I'm writing this on my laptop, but I'm going print it out and put it in my hand-written journal, which I keep with my other mementos in my worn little red suitcase under my bed. I want to record some things about my relationship with Esther, who is thirty years older than I am. I like to write these extra essays for my journal almost as if explaining things to a stranger. After all, who knows who I'll be and what I'll remember in twenty or thirty years? It's possible my younger self will seem almost like a stranger then. Or maybe someone who really isn't me will read this someday.
Anyway, Esther, my landlady for almost a year at the point that I'll begin this, was sympathetic when I explained that I couldn't pay my rent. She'd rented a room in her house to me to start with because she was roommates in college with my Mom, and so she was already a friend of the family.
I told Esther at the end of April that my parents were getting a divorce, which was a surprise to her. I explained that because of the money going to my parents' lawyers, the fact that my Dad was now paying rent on an apartment, and my Mom was trying to cover on her own the mortgage on their house, that we just didn't have the money to pay rent to Esther for at least a few months. I explained that even with my job at the university library, which was going to be full-time over the summer, it wasn't clear if I'd even have all the money for fall tuition at my state university. I might need to drop out, even though I was doing well, but had the impractical major of art history. My dream of becoming a professor someday in that field, I told her, seemed to be vanishing like a mirage.
Esther was a fifty year old woman then, and a widow without any children. She had worked for many years half-time at the local branch of the public library as a reference librarian, and so we shared a love of libraries and books. Her husband Isaac, who had been almost two decades older than her, had passed away a few years before. He had left her comfortably well off, but she had explained to me when she rented me the room that she could always use the extra money, even if she just gave it to charity. And, as she also said to me, it felt wasteful and a bit lonely to be living in a four bedroom house all by herself.
At twenty I'd only had one serious girlfriend, and we had broken up six months before because Lisa transferred to grad school at a university in another state.
I said to Esther, thinking of my desperate money situation, and the fact that I might have to drop out of school, that I felt surrounded by dangers, and I wasn't sure how I was ever going to get out.
Esther was thoughtful as she listened to me, and said, "Well, Daniel, you are a little like Daniel in the lion's den, aren't you? But somehow he made it out of that situation, and I think you will too."
As she said this, she then reached over and caressed my hand sympathetically. This physical contact from her was encouraging, and it helped me, even though I didn't really believe in religious stories the way she seemed to. I hoped she understood religious stories more allegorically or metaphorically than literally? But to this day I'm not really sure.
In any case, Esther is often a source of practical hope. She seemed to always see the good in me, and wanted me to succeed. Her view of me was more positive than was justified, but I became a better person around her, and even away from her, to try to live up to what she thought of me. Esther believed in me even more than my parents did. When it came down to it, she believed in me more than I believed in myself.
Esther is Jewish, and has a wonderfully deliberate way of speaking and thinking. She is practical and yet also a little mystical at the same time. She cared about me as a human being, and she saw me as an equal, even though I was a gentile.
At this point, after knowing her increasingly well for almost a year, we'd already developed a good friendship. I'd gone with her at her invitation to her Temple several times. I felt she went out of her way to build a bond between us, seemingly day by day, and brick by brick, even though we were of different backgrounds and faiths. She often praised me, making a big deal of small good things that I did for her or for others, or would say I looked handsome that day. Her praise made me a little embarrassed, but it also felt good.
Sometimes I had the feeling she felt she was a representative of the Jewish people for me. I felt she wanted me to see Jewish people, through her, as complex human beings with deep hearts and deep souls. I felt this was in part because of the anti-semitism that still exists in the world. I felt she wanted me to see that a person of her faith, in part because of her faith, was a true human being, and a "mensch," as she put it. Mensch is a Yiddish word that means a person of integrity, which includes being a person who helps others, regardless of their background or religion.
After having me as her housemate for about four months, Esther said to me one day that I was a mensch, and I could tell this was a meaningful thing for her to say, and that she meant it seriously. I was rather humbled, and wanted to live up to what she'd said. I wasn't sure that I could, because I wondered if part of being a mensch was being religious, which made me uneasy.
Because I wasn't really religious, which I confessed to Esther, even though I'd been more or less raised as a Methodist. She accepted that sympathetically, and said I was still a mensch.
Through her I became interested in Judaism, which at first I didn't know much about. Esther began by teaching me a little Hebrew. This started so that I could say a little Shabbat prayer with her before our Friday night Shabbat dinner. Below is what she taught me over a few weeks. Most Jews know this and other prayers in Hebrew, but very few gentiles know these little prayers.
"Baruch atah, Adonai, Eloheinu, melech haolam, asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav, v'tzivanu l'hadlik ner shel Shabbat."
Esther told me what this means.
"Blessed are you, Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who hallows us with mitzvot, commanding us to kindle the light of Shabbat."
A mitzvot, as she explained, is just a good thing that you do as part of Judaism.
And so, at the start of our Friday dinner, after we said that prayer together, we'd light a Shabbat candle. At first she did it, but when I offered to do it after a while, she said of course, and was clearly pleased that I'd taken that on.
As Esther taught me, Shabbat is observed every week from sunset Friday to sunset on Saturday. It's supposed to be a day of reflection, and on Saturday she mostly didn't do things like driving, cooking, and so on, unless there was some really good reason. Then, as a practical person, she just did whatever was needed, even if it was the sabbath. She waited on Saturday until it was dark, and a thread held in the palm of her hand held outside could barely be seen, and that marked the end of Shabbat until the next Friday night.
Anyway, maybe I'm getting away from my story, although really everything I've already written is a part of my story with Esther.
On the day I couldn't pay my rent, she said kindly that I could work for my rent by doing things around the house, and doing things for her.
I gladly said I would, and from that time on did things like the grocery shopping with her, and sometimes even without her, as I came to know the exact things she liked to buy, and where she liked to buy them. I also drove her around in her Subaru wagon, doing errands with her, driving both of us to Temple, and so on. I got her car serviced when it needed it, and filled with gas and washed it. I did some cooking, even though that took some learning because she more or less kept Kosher, although she wasn't super strict about everything in the Torah.
****
Once a week Esther had over her two best friends, Mitzi and Miriam, or "M & M" as we called them, for lunch. They were all about the same age, but Mitzi has black hair and Miriam is blond, although it's clear in each of their cases their hair was colored, while Esther was the only one letting her hair slowly go naturally grey. They were all nice looking for their ages, but Esther was the nicest from my point-of-view.
Mitzi is a computer coder at a medium-sized company, and Miriam is a writer of romantic mystery novels. Both still had their husbands, who were sometimes praised in our lunches, and sometimes complained about. I noticed that Esther sometimes looked wistful when M & M's husbands were mentioned, but she would also once-in-a-while tell a mostly positive story about her late husband Isaac.
Mitzi and Miriam, like Esther, tended to make a big deal out of it when I did little things like helping to serve lunch, cooking something, listening to their stories, telling a few of my own, or doing dishes.
"Such a nice young man," Mitzi would once-in-a-while say, somewhat theatrically, right in front of me.
"And so handsome," Miriam might add, again with me right there.
"And, as you know, he's a good listener," Esther said more than once.
Clearly buttering up men was something they just did. I felt flattered, but also took it with a grain of salt. They were somewhat older Jewish ladies, but they sometimes made themselves laugh by almost playing as if they were even older than they were, by repeating phrases that they'd heard from their mothers, like "Such a nice young man."
Once Mitzi added to that in a Brooklyn accent, "Oy vey--if only he were Jewish!"
But then, after giggling some more, Mitzi quickly told me that this was just something her Mom had said sometimes about really nice men who weren't Jewish--in other words, men who were considered off limits for marriage. But Mitzi assured me that such attitudes were slowly lessening over time.
"For example," Mitzi said, "Miriam's husband is a handsome and good Japanese-American man, and he has a good job. Miriam's Mom had finally more or less accepted him, now that they've been married for more than twenty years."
Miriam sighed, and then glared at her friend, and said, "A little close to the bone, Mitzi. Watch it."
Since Mitzi's husband was Jewish she'd escaped that kind of stress.
One hot day I was out in the yard without my shirt doing yard work for Esther, when she called me in for lunch. I came in, but still didn't have my shirt on.
As I stood near the table all three of them looked at me with somewhat wide eyes and, thinking I'd offended them, I said, "I'm sorry. It was just so hot. You go ahead with your lunch without me. I'll go take a shower and get dressed."
Mitzi said, "It's okay, Daniel, we all like a young man who works in the yard! In fact, Miriam here was just saying as she looked at you through the window that you have a very handsome chest. She likes your muscles."
I'd started doing push ups most mornings a few years before after reading an article about how to get in shape without going to the gym, and over time my chest muscles had filled out.
"Mitzi!" Miriam said laughing, and then threw her napkin at her friend, adding, "I'm sorry, Daniel, it's just...at our ages we don't often enough get to see a young man like you up close without his shirt. But after you wash your hands, you are welcome to join us for lunch. We're flexible about your state of dress, right Essie?"
Essie was a nickname they called Esther.
"Of course," Esther said, adding, "I appreciate all the work you've been doing for me, Daniel, which often goes beyond what I ask for. Please join us for lunch."
