Last week I was busy finishing my nesting in my home that G_d will not let me sell. It's been 5 years since I've unpacked my pictures, and I've even got the last room, my office, organized and unpacked. The wild thing was the last box. I didn't even see this box, because it was under the poster that my Tahoe students had made me as a going away gift saying, "Sacramento is lucky to have you!" and many students put little post its with words of love and encouragement.
After I put the poster up on my wall the box was hard to miss. I didn't recognize the box, and my movers had taped is securely shut. I cut the tape with scissors and to my surprise the box was full of my ex-fiance's pictures of he and his first wife! With curiosity I looked through the pictures that I'd never seen before. Was there any hint of this man's cruelty in his youth?
I searched his face to see how I could have been so blind as to be used for 2.5 years for thrills, only to be left by a 57-year-old man, because I couldn't have children anymore and right before my Jewish conversion was complete, so he'd have to marry me. And yes, we did have that conversation that I couldn't have children 2.5 years before. No, this man had no cruelty visible. He was utterly in a selfish, fantasy world. Unfortunately, I had to do the mitzvah of returning this lost item to him, and soon because he was leaving to Israel forever at the end of the month.
Now I know that G_d timed this for me to find this box at this time for a reason, so I decided to go with the flow and follow the moral road and let G_d do what He does best, dish out the consequences. So I wrote a little note on a sticky note and attached it to the box. I always called my ex, "Ahuvi," meaning "My love" in Hebrew said to a man. He always called me, "Ahuvati," meaning "My love" in Hebrew said to a woman. "Lo," means "not" in Hebrew.
"Lo Ahuvi,
Today you have mazal tov.
Lo Ahuvati
P.S. Don't try to thank me."
So basically I said, "You"re not my love, Today is your lucky day. Not your love." Since he has been harassing me by trying to drop my items off one at a time, I've have him on "Harassment Warning." He wants to apologize to me, but I don't want to hear it. How do you accept an apology from a person who basically left you out to sea and never checked to see if you made it safely to shore? Then when I appeared back in civilization alive, he put on the pretense of being a supportive friend in front of others by buying me flowers in celebration of my conversion. No, I would never speak to this man again.
This presented a problem. I didn't want to see him, but I had to return these pictures to him, and it appeared the G_d wanted me to do it myself, since few people liked him after what he did to me. He also had his new Israeli fiance with him. He brought this non-observant, new Israeli fiance to the synagogue two Sabbaths ago to parade her in front of everyone. She really didn't want to be there and didn't know how to follow an orthodox service. They stopped the Torah in front of her for quite some time before she finally figured out that she was supposed to touch it. They never stop the Torah like that! I did have to have 4 shots of whiskey to get through that Sabbath kiddish with grace and a smile.
Then the solution came to me! He's selling his home. He'll probably have an open house on Sunday! I checked online and indeed his home was listed as having an open house then. So I brought the box in to his home which was bustling with people and placed it immediately by the stove where his fiance would probably see it. I quickly distanced myself from the box to remove any connection of it to me and walked through the home like everyone else, except I was making sure that he really was moving to Israel and that I'd gotten all my things back once and for all.
One of his Israeli friends saw me as I passed her and our eyes met briefly. She was stunned and I just smiled in victory. He was leaving the country, because of the shame that he caused the Jewish people over leaving me right as I was returning to finish my conversion.
To keep her from questioning me, I got the real estate agent's attention to take care of one more matter. The night before the infamous break-up text while I was sleeping, I negotiated with my ex-fiance that if I were to move in to his home, then all the pictures of naked women will have to come down, so I can entertain members of our community at the home. Apparently, the real estate agent had also had him take down a lot more than those pictures, but he missed one---the one of the half-naked blond by the master bed that looked like me. So I escorted the real estate agent to that picture and said, "This picture should be taken down. It is offensive during an open house."
Without waiting for his action or reply, I walked out the door. I did my mitzvah of returning a lost item, made my presence known to one of my ex-fiance's friends, and got all the pictures of naked women off the walls without touching anything. My smug smile of success beamed as I left that home where I once had lived and planned on making a life. Now my ex-fiance would have to explain to his new fiance about me and why I would have a box of pictures of his first marriage.
P.S. To my blog readers: If you want to support a struggling math/engineering teacher and author, please buy my first book, "The Romance of Kilimanjaro," soon to be followed by my second book at: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=9781613464960 Thank You!
No comments:
Post a Comment