Mom

I remember this particular Friday evening in late 1977 or early 1978.  Having recently returned from a tour of duty in Germany, I returned to live at home with momma and my oldest sister.  I was 22 or 23 years of age at the time and I had been out doing what young men do on Friday evenings.  I came home rather early that evening and was a tad tipsy. This Friday evening came to have special meaning for me for the rest of my life.

 

There was a party going on when I arrived.  The music was not what I had been accustomed to, Mexican music or the AM radio music that was popular during that era.  The food was different, not the chicken mole that was common at parties in my neighborhood, I had no idea what was being served.  The people at the party were not familiar to me, they weren’t neighbors or relatives.  Men were wearing “funny” hats that I had seen previously on television and in movies.  And curiously, there was no beer; beer was not commonly served in my home, but this was a party, or so I thought.  I quickly concluded that this party had to do with mom’s church.

 

Later I learned that mom and sis had joined a Messianic Jewish church, yes I know, I know, but she’s my mom.  That Friday night they were having a religious ceremony, not a party, per se.  The purpose was to put a mezuzah on the front door.  As it turns out, momma said she was Jewish and that meant that we, her children, were Jewish. 

 

At the time, I didn’t give it much thought. Mom and sister, Stela, became born again Christians sometime while I was stationed in Germany during my army years.  My other sister, Carmen, was also a bible thumper, and she was in Germany at the same time I was there.  On one of my visits to her apartment in Germany, I went with the family to their Baptist church service and was saved that Sunday morning.  But that’s another story.  Overall, I found it to be an enriching experience.

 

Mom was born in El Paso, TX and raised in Chihuahua, Mexico.  Later in life she returned to El Paso where she raised her brood, I am the youngest.  We had heard a few stories about her childhood, but not much.  Her parents died before I was born so I never had the benefit of those family stories that are richly filled with family history.  After the army, I was a busy college student, serving in the Army Reserve, and working full time so I paid little mind to mom’s religious activities.  One day she told me that her grandmother was Spanish (not Mexican).  Until this day I assumed her parents were of Mexican decent.  She went to say that her mother’s last name was Perez and that the name had been changed in Spain from Peres to Perez to avoid persecution for being Jewish.

 

Over the years I heard terms like Sephardic Jews and Crypto Jews, but again, I didn’t pay much attention to the conversations.  In the early 90s my sister was diagnosed with advanced terminal liver disease.  We had many long conversations about her wishes.  In one of those conversations she told me she wanted a Jewish friend of hers to preside over her memorial service, so I called Eleazar.  It was the same for my mom, she wanted Eleazar to do her service.  On mom’s coffin we had the Star of David instead of the Christian cross.  We were at the funeral home, her brother who was Mormon, myself, a practicing catholic, and Eleazar, who is Jewish:  “a Mormon, a Jew, and a Catholic walk into a funeral home…”  I never finished telling that joke.  Anyway, I put these memories on paper because today, October 4, 2016 is mom’s 8^th anniversary.  On a chain around my neck I wear the Star of David in memory of my mom.