...at least, there was pie...

So Thursday morning came about. I was really not feeling well, due to a number of reasons, one of them is something I would rather not write about. I didn't even go to the office, but worked from home, then went to pick Kevin up at school and we drove two hours to pick up my sister Emily at base. Having Emily with us made it a lot more happy occasion to drive all the way back to Jerusalem. Have I  mentioned that Emily is one of my constant Harel Skaat concert going companions? So we listened to music and talked about Chanukah plans. We were also rather odd looking, with her wearing uniform, me a pink shirt and Kevin dressed in a pine green shirt, but with the oddest tie... 

Anyway, we got to the hotel, we were seated in the restaurant and then we waited. I was kind of relieved that the whole meal was supposedly kosher, so there was at least that much that couldn't go wrong. When Mr. and Mrs. Phillips walked in and emily introduced her stepfather to us, the first thing he said was, "Call me Paul!" He was a nice Utah Mormon, and he immediately made me feel uneasy. While I lived quite a bit of my life in the States and now I live in Israel, where everyone is on first name basis, but I was raised to address people properly. Which I still do. 

I have to admit that I had been stressing about what to call Mrs. Phillips for days before our meeting. I settled on sticking with ma'am. One can't go wrong with that. :)   The two kids were really pleasant, there's a 13-year-old boy and a 15-year-old girl. They both speak more English than I expected, and Kevin put his Russian to use talking to them. 

I have to admit that pretty much the first sentences blew my fuses. 

"Your mother has told me a lot about you," Mr. Phillips said. I smiled, and replied.
"She is not my mother. I have proof of that from the court."

It wasn't the only time I had to remind them several times during the dinner that Mrs. Phillips ceased to have the right to call herself my mother when she and her husband dissolved my adoption. She is not my mother and hasn't been that for a very very long time. To be honest, she was my mother only for about 1/3 of my life. 

The group they travelled with was an LDS group. For some odd reason they didn't use Mr. Daniel Rona's company, no idea why, but it was several families from their ward and from the Jewish LDS group. So there was a big LDS prayer before the meal, which we didn't participate in, but being the good Jews we are, Emily, Kevin, a couple other Jews and I recited the apropriate blessings for the food. It made Mrs. Phillips roll her eyes. 

Mrs. Phillips told me that I had to let her see her grandkids. I reminded her that I hadn't seen any of her grandkids for about a year now, because I last saw my nieces and nephews over Chanukah last year. She didn't understand at first, so I had to point it out that my children are not her grandchildren.

After a while I needed to get some fresh air to help the throbbing headache I was having, and Kevin and I went to the terrace, holding hands and when I was getting a little cold, he hugged me. We came in, sat down a little further away, and ordered coffee. When we went back to the table, Mrs. Phillips remarked, "You are embarassing me." I have no idea how I didn't respond to that, maybe because Emily hissed at her that it wasn't me, who wanted to meet with them.

And then there was pie. Fabulous cherry pie, lovely chocolate pie, tasty pumpkin pie. And over pie, I had a realization. "Aunt Mary, I can have you in my life as an aunt, but not as a mother. That ship sailed long ago. Please let me know when you can be a loving aunt to a fabulous gay man, who is Jewish, and who doesn't give a damn whether you approve of coffee drinking or same sex marriage." I remember saying that. Kevin says I said a lot more, making my point clear in a calm and reasonable manner. And I can't really believe I used the word fabulous to describe myself. I'm anything but!

Saying good bye wasn't difficult. We will see how things go.