Skip to main content

So I wonder


I have been speculating inappropriately about the nature of the neighbours' marriage. Can't help it, maybe... or maybe I can but choose not to. He's 80-something, Jewish, Canadian. She's 60-something, Vietnamese, claims to "looooove Jewishpeople" (all one word). She says "Love" in a way I have never heard it said without the words "you longtime." (see, I told you this was all pretty inappropriate)

So I wonder and then I think there is almost no way they could have met in the natural course of things. So I wonder if he sent away for her, which is a phrase my father always used - JOKINGLY, please! - when saying he'd made a mistake choosing my mother and would have done better for himself with an obliging mail-order Asian bride. He also occasionally - again, JOKINGLY! - had the endearing habit of referring to my mother as his "first wife." Guess she had the last laugh.

So I wonder if they met through some kind of service - he sponsors her to Canada, she takes care of him for the rest of his days and then gets to retire in his comfortable bungalow just south of Eglinton.

But then, I get a little Tevye in my head who says, "if that's not love, what is?"
Yes, she has complained often about how old he is and hard to take care of. But she's not abusing him; as far as I can tell, she's playing the part... when I went in last night, he was obviously being well taken care of. She goes to shul with him on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. She spent the last several weeks at his side in the hospital.

She refers to him by his first and last name, together. At first, the paramedics last night thought she was saying all one name (his last name is one of those ones that sounds like a given name -like he was some kind of hillbilly with a hyphenated name: Jim-Bob; Bobby-Frank. But she also remembered more or less his medical history, grabbed all his meds, remembered that he was on Metformin and pronounced it okay. It can't be easy in a new language, all of it.

So I guess it doesn't matter, either way. Nobody should live or die alone if they don't want to, and maybe in however-many years she'll have some nice Vietnamese (or not) husband to share her own old age with.

In the meantime, they just came home by AmbuTrans, I gave her back her keys, and she thanked me again. I'm glad he's (relatively) okay (for now).
Posted by Picasa

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

לימודי קודש/Limudei Kodesh Copywork & Activity Printables

Welcome to my Limudei Kodesh / Jewish Studies copywork and activity printables page.  As of June 2013, I am slowly but surely moving all my printables over to 4shared because Google Docs / Drive is just too flaky for me. What you’ll find here: Weekly Parsha Copywork More Parsha Activities More Chumash / Tanach Activities Yom Tov Copywork & Activities Tefillah Copywork Pirkei Avos / Pirkei Avot Jewish Preschool Resources Other printables! For General Studies printables and activities, including Hebrew-English science resources and more, click here . For Miscellaneous homeschool helps and printables, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you just want to say Thank You, here’s a

Hebrew/ עברית & English General Studies Printables

For Jewish Studies, including weekly parsha resources and copywork, click here . If you use any of my worksheets, activities or printables, please leave a comment or email me at Jay3fer “at” gmail “dot” com, to link to your blog, to tell me what you’re doing with it, or just to say hi!  If you want to use them in a school, camp or co-op setting, please email me (remove the X’s) for rates. If you enjoy these resources, please consider buying my weekly parsha book, The Family Torah :  the story of the Torah, written to be read aloud – or any of my other wonderful Jewish books for kids and families . English Worksheets & Printables: (For Hebrew, click here ) Science :  Plants, Animals, Human Body Math   Ambleside :  Composers, Artists History Geography Language & Literature     Science General Poems for Elemental Science .  Original Poems written by ME, because the ones that came with Elemental Science were so awful.  Three pages are included:  one page with two po

It's Heart Month: 3 days left to save lives!

Dear Friends & Family: Hi, everybody! Sorry I can’t stop by in person... you're a bit out of my area.  :-) We’re out walking up and down on our street on this beautiful afternoon to raise money for Heart & Stroke.  This cause is important to me (I won't say it's close to my heart , because that would be tacky!).  I hope you'll join me by donating online. Growing up, I watched as every single one of my grandparents' lives were shortened by heart disease and strokes, and my father had a defibrillator that saved his life on more than one occasion.  Heart disease and stroke kill 1 in 3 Canadians and are the #1 killer of women. Please click this link to be redirected to my main page at the Heart & Stroke website: http://tinyurl.com/AtlasHeart Thus ends my personal appeal.  Official information follows.  :-))) ----- Heart disease and stroke is the #1 killer of women - taking more women's lives than all forms of cancer combined. But no one is immune. Th