Pidyon

My wonderful friend made a Pidyon Haben for her grandson a few weeks ago. My husband and I were seated with another good friend whose husband was in Israel. A newly met lady(Fran) was sitting across from us.

And so it begin. I already know how to handlechallenging social situations but ( hey, I’m the founder of LoAleinu) even I get thrown for a loop here and there. Well. a loop was thrown at me. The new friend, Fran, asked me if I had grandchildren. I very transparently replied that I do not. I explained about my my kids and where they were in life. I was extremely overt about my younger daughter with special needs who lives in a group home. When my soliliquy was finished I made a statement informing my tablemates that I was officially done with conversations re my kids. I said I was done talking. I said this in a nice way.

A man at the table went to the restroom. Upon his return he thought we were talking about kids. He said sarcastically, Wait, She doesnt want to talk about kids, right? No one laughed. I ignored him.

About five minutes later , his wife asked me where my kids lived and then as an afterthought said “Or don’t you want to talk about that”. I said nicely again, yes I would appreciate not talking about it, thank you.

Somehow the conversation went on to parents. Well my parenst look great so I figured I woud brag and show a pic. I took out my phone and opened up to my pics. Lo and behold, the first pic was of my beautiful daughters.I showed the pic to my new friend, Fran. The original lady said provocatively……thought you said you didnt want to talk about kids???!!!! HUH? Really?

How very very painful. I asked her to please stop.

She said she didnt understand what she did wrong. I tried to explain.

I said could you please show me a bit of empathy?

SHE said, well now I’m upset. I said I know you for 40 years. Please don’t be. She said that I put her in her place when I said I didnt want to talk about my kids. OY.

I actually APOLOGIZED to her, saying that that was NOT my intention.

She wouldnt stop. I said to my husband lets leave. My other friend was still working on her chicken and said could you wait two minutes? I said absolutely not. HA! An unfinished chicken dinner. The “lady” texted me and apologized. My conjecture is that someone must have explained it to her better than I was able to.

What I wanted to say to her was if we Jews can’t be kind to each other how do we expect others to behave??

I’m not her teacher though and I wasnt asked.

My bracha for all of us is the two magic words.

BE nice. Thanks for reading.