Hubris and Hemlock -Chapter 7: Losing Nanyehi

Losing Marie was worse than the panic attacks. Especially on Memorial Day. Since the time she had been an EMT and first begun to get sick at the sight of blood, Marie had been there for her. No one else had stuck around to help, or even to listen. The years of their friendship had been cemented by Marie's stories, always useful, and mostly to the point. Every story had a reason to be told, and only to be told at that time and in that place. And every story, during those dark days for Nanyehi, as she was only known at that time, came with a dress to sew. Or for Nan, as Marie had always called her in any case, every story came with a small accessory to sew. Something simple enough that Nan could help, using her relatively limited sewing skills (and everyone in the entire world had limited sewing skills compared to Marie -that woman could sew as well as Nan's 5xGreatGrandmother from Charleston, South Carolina who had saved enough money from her dress-making to buy her freedom!). She would sit for hours next to Marie in her dress shop, sewing the lining on a hat, or starting the inside of a pocket on a skirt, which Marie would finish later. Nan always wondered if Marie did not secretly undo and re-sew Nan's terrible work when Nan had left the shop.
Those sewing sessions nearly always went with a story. First Marie would ask how Nan was doing and whether she had remembered to eat. And people called Nan the mother Hen! Marie was like the mother that Nan had always needed. Nan managed to get herself through college by working hard, earning a few scholarships and keeping her part-time job from High School. But her passion for nursing and medical studies had died when she saw her first elderly patient, when she had worked nights as an orderly in a local hospital. Everyone ignored the poor woman, always sad, never ate much. It soon became clear to Nan that the woman simply needed company -she ate as much as Nan brought her, just as long as a sympathetic person was there while she ate. Nan was disheartened to learn that the woman had died before she could finish her studies that semester and return to keep her company while she worked. That had convinced her to become a para-medic, rather than a nurse or doctor. She finished her bachelor's degree in pre-medical studies, but decided to take the training for a position as an EMT instead of continuing with the practical studies of nursing or medicine. At least as an EMT should could see the lives she would be saving, and not get attached to the patients in longer-term care. Nan also found that the adreneline rush of emergency calls made it easier to focus on her work.
And then she had begun to freeze up on calls. It had started with the call for a domestic dispute, which the police always treated with a sort of disdain, sometimes even leaving the para-medics to break up arguments while attempting to treat patients still under threat, or while being threatened as they worked on the victim. That call where the wife was bleeding profusely had at least ensured that the police had removed the husband before Nan and her team had arrived. The house had been a disaster area, with broken furniture and windows, music blasting, and the smell of everything from "loveboat" to Camels and old Jack Daniels. The smell of blood was the strongest of all. And not only fresh blood, but the unmistakeabl smell of blood that had been spilled long before today. One look at the victim confirmed it: This was not the first time that she had been cut open, just the first time someone had made enough noise not to get away with it.
And Marie had been tthere that evening, or rather that morning, at 4am when Nan had gotten home. Mike was asleep, and dead to the world. Nan had collapsed on the couch, unable to think of anyone to talk with except for Marie. At 4 in the morning, Marie had picked up the phone on the first ring. Instead of demanding what in the heck she was doing calling at,that hour, Marie had asked
-What happenend, what's wrong, hon?
Nan had not spoken a word, and had not needed to. The hour and the fact that she had called were enough to alert Marie's intuition. Ten minutes later, Marie was at the door, softly tapping on the window. She had risked bringing her favorite pin-cushion (bright pink, of course!) and extra needle and thread just in case Nan wanted to sew as she talked. But in fact, Nan did not want to talk at all. They had sipped green tea in the kitchen. The smell of blood seemed to linger, and as soon as Mike was awake upstairs, Nan went down to the basement to take yet another shower. Marie had waited in the kitchen, even preparing a light breakfast for Mike. Marie had been like a protective sibling, and now she was gone. Nan hoped that standing by Mike had been the right thing to do. The rain continued to pelt the windows, announcing an early summer storm, and a grey start to the coming week. Hopefully the weather would clear up before the beginning of June. Shavuot was the one holiday that Nan actually looked forward to, but this year she would not have Marie to argue with, after staying up to study into the wee hours of the morning. Nan had always been the first person to arrive on that morning of Shavuout, after 5 cups of coffee that night, to greet Marie in her shop before opening for her customers. Not this year.
All this had been her fault. Her fault for letting Marie harrangue Mike everytime she saw him, her fault for being a wuss and getting sick at the sight of blood, worse than the old woman who never ate unless someone gave her constant attnetion. Maybe that was what she had, here. Was the point of these panic attacks just to get herelf more attention, first from Marie and now from Mike? Had she let Marie spoil her by coddling her, instead of standing on her own two feet like a grown woman and dealing with it? And of course Marie gets to be the hero, just like the heroes in those stupid stories, always knowing what to do, always saying do this do that, drink this, don't drink that. And she had eaten it up, taken it all, just like a little kid: "mommy take care of me" instead of taking care of herself. She had even let this woman come between her and her husband, a good man who had been nice enough to take her on as his wife even with all this baggage, and look how she had repaid him. Mike was right, Marie was meshugenah, nuts, and needed to stay far away from both of them.
Instead of letting that "out there" shiksa Marie tell her what do do, Nan should have been being more appreciative of her mother-in-law, as Mike pointed out. After all, the lady was a mental health professional, so if she had not noticed a problem, there must not be a problem in the first place. If Mike's family felt that she should be more Jewish, maybe they were right. They were the one's who had lived their entire lives this way, so they should know better than her. And who was she, anyway, just some mixed mut with no family to speak of, so-called part Cherokee, and all mixed up as they had told her for years. They were right, it was time to get her head screwed on, straighten up and fly right. Starting with who the heck she was, she was Jewish, damn it. Oops, not exactly what a nice Jewish girl would say, was it? Ok, time to stop hanging around with oddballs, and start working on keeping those promises she had made to the Jewish community: to learn to be Jewish, and to live a Jewish life. It was time to put her Yiddishe Cap on and accept her new identity. Her Jewish identity.
But what was her Jewish identity? Mike's family was Reform, so they did not seem to take much seriously in the way of holidays except for Passover, oops, Pesach, and of course the High Holidays, which everyone took seriously. Even Mike kept both days of Rosh HaShannah, when his family had always ignored the second day of every other holiday, deriding the frummies for being overly rigid in their observances. But what gave them the right to tell everyone else how to deal with their own consciences, and especially their own observances? And even worse, what if the frummies were right? There was no denying that the People of Israel had not survived for five thousand years just on lox and bagels. Cultural Judaism was important, true, but culture did not a people make, or did it? She had not been born into the religion, but Mike said that his family accepted her, she just had to stop being so up tight about her identity problems. She was Jewish, a Yid, been to the mikveh, welcome to the tribe. So now what, or nu, as he would say. Clearly it was time to start being more in line with her promises, and do what she had to do. If that meant getting rid of her old name and her old non-Jewish identity, so be it. What good had her family name and blood done for her anyway? But no half-stepping. Right was right, and if she was going to become as culturally Jewish as she had tried to be observantly Jewish, within certain limits for Mike's sake, then it was time to do it to it. All the way. No more Nanyehi, no more eating during the so called minor fast days, no more driving on Shabat, oops, Shobos, and no more pretending to be Goyishe when we were around the goyim. Non-Jews had the right to be themselves, so she had the right and responsibility, as a convert in particular, to stand up for her Jewish identity, as she had promised to stand with the people of Israel, the Jewish people. Time to show that she had the courage of her convictions, and that she, Naamah, could put her money where her mouth was, having cast her lot with the Jewish people. Time for her to be who she had promised to be, and not who her useless family and former friends wanted her to be. She would show them that she did not have the word "Welcome" written on her back, like Judith, Deborah, Ruth and Huldah. She would be all Jewish, all the time. She would help justice to roll like a mighty stream, presenting a pleasant face to all, but not keeping company with bad people or with bad friends. She would do as the Chafetz Chaim taught, and set an example of kindness and ahavah, in the Jewish way. In the sweet and pleasant way of Naamah.

Originally published at www.wattpad.com.