My story begins at the end of a harrowing week, the week my 81 year old father died. His kind heart, the one he always wore on his sleeve, finally gave out. He had warned me in so many words: you never have as much time as you think you do. He died on a Sunday morning in April.

I’d just returned home after having coffee with friends. Over my usual café au lait and bagel, I had told them that my father was tired, he was done, he was living a life he no longer loved. Good friends, they had listened and sympathized.

As soon as I got in the door, my teen-age son greeted me with a face I’d seen before–when he was about to complain of a stomach ache on a school day. “What is it?” I asked him, thinking: he has a rehearsal today and he can’t miss it, even with a headache or a stomach ache. In our family, with a long involvement in theater, the show must go on. He swallowed hard and finally said, “It’s…your sister called.” And then: “Papa Sam died this morning.” I burst into tears and held onto my son. And then I reached for the phone and called my mom. My husband came home moments later and found me sobbing into the phone.

Tradition dictated that the burial happen quickly. We settled on date, place and time. We wrote the obituary. We planned for food. All the arrangements got locked into place. Finally, we had to think about what to wear. I would be speaking at the service, and wanted to look nice. And so I ended up driving to the shopping mall with no ideas about what to look for and no real desire to be there.

It was destined to be one of those bad shopping days. Nothing fit, the colors were wrong, everything was too young, too old, too not-right. The racks in all the usual good luck places were out of magic. No marked-down sale items on hangers calling my name as I walked by. I remained unmoved by their fall from retail grace. Maybe I just wasn’t under the usual spell of enchantment, oblivious to the charms of the pianist gliding her fingers over the keyboard as she played  show tunes and standards designed to make shoppers reach eagerly for their credit cards, trance-like, at the counters throughout the cavernous store. Shopping at Nordstrom was usually a happy time, but not that day.

Halfheartedly running my hands along fabrics in spring colors, occasionally taking a hanger off a rack and putting it back — this was worse than I anticipated. What was I doing there anyway? Was shopping the best thing I could think of to do right then? What did that say about me?

I was drawn toward something. It was a red jacket, a blazer. The color was more of a  sedate scarlet than a perky cherry red; it had a quiet dignity that didn’t scream “red” so much as say it:  I’m red. Don’t make a fuss.

As if on a blind date with someone I had doubts about already, I walked back to the dressing room with the jacket, certain to be let down. I tried it on, while trying not to look at myself above the collar. I knew the harsh lighting would highlight the dark circles under my eyes, my washed-out skin and dull hair. As I looked in the three-way mirror, I decided that the jacket would do, but the sleeves were several inches too long. I had spotted the sign on the way into the dressing rooms that designated a day too far in the future for alterations on purchases made that day. It was not to be, this red jacket. Then Esther, the sales person who had brightly offered to help me, peeked into my dressing room and cocked her head.

“We can have those sleeves taken up and have it ready for you in a couple of days.”

“No,” I told her, shaking my head slowly. “I need it for tomorrow.”  I took one more glance in the mirror, and then began to take the jacket off.

She looked at me, thought for a moment, and asked, “Can you find something to do for about an hour? We can have it ready for you then. I’ll be at lunch, but someone else will keep an eye out for you.”

I nodded, mumbled my thanks, and waited for the seamstress to come in, still avoiding my reflection.  How could Esther have known what I wanted the red jacket for? Did she read it in my face? I didn’t think to ask. A short woman with a pincushion on her wrist entered the dressing room moments later, quickly pinned up my sleeves, then gestured for me to go as I shrugged out of the jacket.

I stepped out into the April sunshine and found a pretty card in a nearby stationery shop. I sat down and wrote a note to Esther, telling her that my father had always liked me in red and that I would wear the jacket at his service the next day and how much it meant to me that she was helping me, and as I wrote I could not keep the tears from falling. Shoppers passed me by, enjoying the afternoon, not really noticing the sniffling writer on the bench pouring her heart out to someone she would never see again.

I took out my cell phone and called my sister, letting her know that I had found a nice red jacket and that by some miracle of understanding, through the kindness of a stranger, it would be ready in time for the service the next day. She was glad to hear it. When the hour was up, I left my note for Esther, claimed the red jacket in its zippered bag, and drove home in tears.

I will always be grateful to the saleswoman who saw something urgent and desperate in a grieving daughter’s face. All these years later, every time I see that flash of red in my closet, I think of her—and how much my father would have loved hearing the story about Esther and the red jacket.

The Great Knaidel Disaster

As you may know a bowl of chicken soup without knaidelach is like a day without sunshine.

For the uninitiated let me explain that knaidelach is the German-derived Yiddish word for matzo balls,  and knaidel the singular.   And as I’ve said,  without knaidelach chicken soup is just, well,  soup.  (See The Matzo Ball Spelling Bee)

And as you can guess chicken soup with matzo balls was always on the menu at our Passover Seders.  But then one year our cousin Samantha called to tell me she was gluten sensitive and could no longer eat matzo.

I had always used Streits matzo ball mix to make my knaidelach,  and miraculously at the supermarket I found another Streits matzo ball mix marked “gluten free”  – how perfect!

But when I was back in my kitchen,  suffice it to say the gluten-free mix was a knaidel disaster,   and so there were no matzo balls for the soup at our Seder!

Despite that we had a lovely holiday gathering,  but the next day I called the Streits customer service number to complain and a recorded voice said the company was closed for the holiday and wished me a Zissen Pesach – a Sweet Passover.   So I left my number and asked for a call back when they reopened.

The following week my husband and I left for a planned trip to Paris,  and were looking forward to spending some time with our friend Jane,  an artist who had moved there a dozen years earlier.

A few nights after we arrived Jane came to meet us for dinner at our hotel.   We were having drinks in the elegant hotel dining room when my cell phone rang,

“Hello, this is Rabbi Zeller replying to your message.”  said a slightly familiar voice,   “I’m sorry I didn’t call back sooner,  but we were closed for Passover.  How can I help you?”

Then I realized this was the voice I’d heard when I called Streits customer service about my knaidel disaster.   So, rabbi or not – with my husband,  my friend Jane,  and several Parisians at nearby tables within earshot –  I launched into my  transatlantic customer complaint.

“Firstly”  I said to set the stage,  “I want you to know my mother bought only Streits matzo,  my father especially loved your Moon Strips,  and to this day I buy only Streits.”

”And,”  I continued,  “since I’ve been making the family Seder I’ve used Streits mix to make light,  fluffy matzo balls that practically float in the soup.  But this year I had a catastrophe!”

“What happened?”  asked the rabbi,  possibly fearing the worst.

“Our cousin Samantha was coming to Seder”  I said,  “and I knew she was gluten sensitive,  so I was delighted to find your gluten-free matzo ball mix in the supermarket.  And when I got home I followed the directions,  added eggs and oil to the mix,  let it stand 15 minute,  rolled the batter into walnut-size balls between my wet palms,  and dropped them into boiling water.  But to my horror rather than floating,  they dispersed leaving me with a pot of cloudy water.  And so my Seder guests had no kneidalach in their soup!”

“I can’t imagine what could have gone wrong,”  said the good rabbi,   “I’m gluten sensitive myself,  and when my wife uses that mix her matzo balls come out perfectly.  But I’m so sorry for your troubles,  please give me your address and I’ll send you some coupons.”

And so it was over cocktails in an elegant Parisian dining room that I had a revelation  –  there are some things in heaven and on earth that even the wisest of rabbis can’t explain.

But at least he sent me coupons.

– Dana Susan Lehrman