Just Hilarie

Passover 2023 in a new place

On May 25, 2023

This spring was the second time me and my J.A.P.S. have been able to meet to celebrate Passover since the world stopped for Covid 19. This year was different than previous years because we met in a new place – out in Skarpnäck, at a beautiful party house. Thank you, Carly, for offering to host us there. It was lovely. And as usual, I had a few words to say before we started our wonderful ritual of reminding ourselves of who we are and where we came from.

I want to welcome all of you here to celebrate Passover with me once again. This year we are starting a new chapter, with a new place to meet. We have been doing this Passover thing for a long time now and it is always my wish that we can gather together to celebrate this holiday.

When we read our Haggadah, we discover that this holiday, Passover, is all about the desire for freedom – the wish to be free.

But you have to be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it, says a lot of memes out there on Facebook and the internet. While my mom never stressed me about it, I know that she really wished I would find someone and get married. Well, she eventually got her wish. What she didn’t expect was that it would be to someone who would take me all the way across an ocean. Be careful what you wish for, Mom.

As a curly red head, I always wished for straight blond hair…just like our curly-headed friend Barbara did. And about 5 years ago she got her wish, but it came as a wig and was due to developing cancer. Now, my reddish hair is grey but still pretty straight as long as if I keep protecting it from the weather and luckily Barbara’s curly red hair is once again growing back. But, we have to remember to be careful what we wish for.

I have been involved in Progressiv Judendom I Stockholm since 2006. And since Progjud started, the wish for having our own Rabbi has been at the top of the list. Well, now we have one and I find myself drowning in work for Progjud that I didn’t really expect. Be careful what we wish for, right?

For 2000 years the Jewish people had wished for their own homeland and finally in 1948 it happened, bringing with it both great happiness and great heartbreak. Be careful what you wish for because peace…is something still at the top of all of our wishes for Israel.

While wishing for things is not specific for us as Jews, we always need to be a bit careful. Wishing for family, and different hair, and Rabbis, and a homeland, and peace are nevertheless good things to be wishing for.

In the Haggadah story we are about to retell, we hear that in the beginning, the Jewish people were slaves in Egypt. They had started out as a small group of free people who because of famine had migrated to another land to find food. They eventually ended up there as slaves. The story tells us how Moses led them out of Egypt to freedom – how Pharoah was vanquished and the Jewish people crossed the red sea towards a new life. And that’s where it ends. That’s like me telling my mom, “I met a guy and I’m getting married” But I leave out the part that he is Swedish and I will be living in Stockholm. She got her wish…but… it wasn’t quite what she expected.

And so too the story in this Haggadah. Yes, the Jewish people were freed but… being free looked hard – many wanted to turn back, they had to wander through deserts, they didn’t know what they would eat, their leader disappears up a mountain and they don’t know what to do without him. Maybe freedom isn’t all its cracked up to be after all. You have to be careful what you wish for.

So, as we begin our seder, with the story about becoming free in our past, let us keep in mind what freedom, to be who we are today as Jews, means, both the difficulties and the joys. And we need to think about how we continue to be Jews, tomorrow and the day after and the day after that.

Because it all works out in the end- I got married, my hair is straight, Progjud has a rabbi, the Jewish people have a homeland – and here we are today still telling that same story and I find myself wishing that the children I see here today, will continue to do so, too.

Now…Let’s start our seder.

New body parts

By Hilarie

On February 23, 2023

In Uncategorized

So…I am now minus another body part and the recipient of something human-made replacing it.

A few months ago an optometrist informed me that I had cataracts. That was the reason my long-distance vision had gotten so terrible and also the reason I suddenly (it seemed) could read again without reading glasses. It was a perfect example that sometimes you win some and sometimes you lose some. I couldn’t recognize a friend a half block away but I could read labels in the grocery store – as long as I was close enough that is.

When the optometrist who examined my eyes told me about the cataracts, I was surprised and disappointed. I had already spent quite a bit of time looking at all the frames available and had found a pair I liked and was looking forward to wearing them.

“No new glasses for you,” he said. “I’ll write a referral for you to have your eyes checked at a place that treats cataracts.” And so he did.

The eye doctor at the eye specialist place did his own examination of my eyes and confirmed that, yes, I was the possessor of two cloudy, yellowish, thickened lenses through which I was looking and that it was time to have them fixed. Actually they don’t really fix them. Like a broken, worn-out brake pad in your car that needs to be replaced, they just remove the old worn out lens and put in a new one – made of plastic.

Once I started telling people that I had cataracts (because I am a blabber mouth and tell people things like that) I discovered that so many of the people I knew had already had the procedure done. Cataract surgery is one of the most common types of surgery done worldwide and supposedly its success rate is about 99 percent. Cataracts start developing around age 60, and the average age for cataract surgery in the United States is 73. That explains why so many of the people I know have had it done – a lot of my friends are 60+ and it seems that I fit right in that age box, being just one year short ot the average age.

So today was the day. I showered in the morning, made sure to wear clothes not covered in cat fur, scrubbed my face well and refrained from wearing any eye makeup. Håkan drove me to the building where my appointment was. I was actually pretty glad he did that – that way I didn’t have to go out in public makeup-less.

First the nurse comes over and puts drops in my eye and then you just sit and wait. A little while later she comes back and puts more drops in. And then a third time she comes with her small eye drop bottle and waters my eye once more. The nurse then asked me if I would like to have something to calm me. I said yes and she came back with a plastic shot glass containing a tiny slurp of clear liquid – barely enough to swallow. It tasted like grapefruit juice and left a bitter taste in my mouth. By this time my pupil was humongous – could barely see any iris at all. The waiting room had about 5 other people when I arrived. Most of them sitting there with blue plastic on their shoes and white paper caps on their heads. One of the patients was very chatty and she got us all talking as we sat there with nothing to do except wait for our pupils to expand. I of course jumped right into the conversations through feeling a bit self-conscious with my American accent. Everyone was in my general age group and all were there to have a cataract replaced. It was nice to be in a talkative waiting room – friendly.

Finally after almost an hour of waiting around, the surgeon came and lead me into the operating room. It looked like a dentist office with a big, bright green chair. After scrubbing my face with alcohol they put a sterile cloth of some kind on my face leaving my eye uncovered and went to work. Ultrasound is used to break up the faulty lens and then the surgeon takes out the pieces thru a small incision. Sitting there in the green chair, I couldn’t tell what was going on but as she worked on my eye I was seeing the most amazing psychedelic light show – pretty cool and didn’t hurt a bit. And then she slipped in the new lens, sloshed lots of liquid in my eye and was finally done. The nurse suggested I get a cup of coffee and sit in the waiting room for a bit till I felt ok to leave. Håkan came and picked me up and we drove home.

Since my eye upgrade, I’ve noticed that the color of the world as seen with my undoctored eye and the color seen thru my new lens is very different. I had gotten used to the yellowish tint that the cloudy lens had cast over everything I looked at. My new body part makes everything look bluer and brighter. In a few weeks I’ll have them fix the other eye too. I am looking forward to a bright new world with my new body parts. And a new pair of glasses.

Resting in Peace

By Hilarie

On January 31, 2023

In Uncategorized

This was a hard weekend.
On Saturday, my son’s cat was diagnosed with heart failure. He had noticed her breathing strangely and panting a lot on Thursday evening after coming home from work. He texted us about it and I suggested he call the veterinarian that we usually take our cats to – they were still open. He did and was able to make an appointment to take her in on Friday morning to be examined. The vet there confirmed that Coco’s heart sounded odd and her breathing was labored. But not being an animal cardiologist herself, the vet suggested Bevin take Coco to the large 24 hour animal hospital south of Stockholm for a more thorough and specialized exam. An appointment was made by the vet for a hospital visit an hour later, a taxi was called for them and off they went. At the hospital, it was decided to have Coco stay over night so they could keep an eye on her and do more tests and give her some medicine intravenously. I was busy with something else that day but when our son texted that he was at the animal hospital outside of town, my husband drove to the hospital and picked him up and drove him home. The vet promised to call on Saturday with more information.

Saturday was a long day. The vet kept in contact with my son, telling him how Coco was doing. She had an enlarged heart and it wasn’t doing a very good job pumping blood. But she was responding a bit to the meds they gave her. No test results were back yet. They told Bevin he could pick her up to take home at 8pm Saturday evening.

This was not the first time my son has ever experienced a much loved and critically ill pet. All three of us stood around a veterinarian’s examination table at midnight many years ago as our 20-year-old Findus lay there after having had a stroke that paralyzed his 2 hind legs. We held each other and petted Findus as he slowly passed away from the shot the vet had given him a few minutes earlier. Seven years ago Bevin went with me when I took our Pepsi to the vet after over 6 months of stomach problems that had him throwing up several times a day no matter what we did for him. That day, the vet gave us a room with dim lighting, candles and a big box of tissues, to spend time with Pepsi in, before he was calmly put to sleep. Pepsi is buried out at our country property together with Findus and his sister Tingaling under a grove of tall pine trees. Both these times it was Håkan and myself that made the fatal final decision.

Saturday evening, we picked up Bevin and drove out to the animal hospital. I went in with Bevin. Bevin took a number and when it was called both of us went up to the counter. The girl behind the counter seemed unsure who she should be talking to, sometimes looking at me and sometimes looking at Bevin. I kept looking towards Bevin when she asked a question so that she would know it was him who owned Coco and who she should address. But anyone who knows me knows that I am loud, opinionated, bossy and a bit pushy. I make no apologies for that. Anyway…we were told where to go to sit and wait for them to bring Coco out to us. Together with Coco, the nurse brought a packet of medicines and more information about Coco’s condition. I asked questions. So did Bevin. In the car on the way back to Bevin’s apartment, he told me that I was so busy asking questions and talking that he was not able to ask the question he had been thinking of asking.

I felt terrible. I felt I had failed my son. I had gone with him to be a support for him and I had failed him!
As a parent we want to protect our children. We put small plastic things on the corners of coffee tables so when our tiny toddlers lose their balance they don’t hurt themselves if they fall against the table. We hold their hands when crossing the street so they don’t run out into traffic. We want to protect them from the pain of life. And we want to be able to continue protecting them from bad things for the rest of their lives. But we can’t. And we shouldn’t. We need to raise them so they can stand on their own two feet.

All day Sunday Bevin tried to take care of his sweet little cat. Checking her breathing. Checking that she ate – she ate very little. Giving her medicines, some of them she needed to be given 3 times a day! She didn’t like getting the meds and she mostly just lay on the floor or under the sofa. On Monday he arranged to work from home – still trying to take care of her. Anyone who has ever owned a cat knows how easy it is to give a cat medicine – not easy at all. And she needed a lot. By Monday evening, he accepted the fact that he couldn’t keep doing what he was doing. It wasn’t working and he made the decision to call the hospital on Tuesday morning and make an appointment to bring her in to relieve her of her suffering – because he could see she was suffering. Shortly after he texted us to tell us of his decision, he texted a photo of her sitting on his lap and said she had just come over to sit with him – to have him hold her. To me, it was as though she was saying thank you.

The next day we drove to the animal hospital. They showed Bevin and Coco and myself to a room – it was dimly lit with a candle and a box of tissues. She lay on a towel half in her cage. If she had been her normal self she would have been going around exploring the whole room but she was content to just lay there looking around. We stood there petting her, not saying much. Eventually we broke down and cried. I held my little boy who is taller than me and told him that yes, this was a very hard thing. The box of tissues were well needed. Finally everything was over. We could leave. They offered to do an autopsy and Bevin said ok. They will do a private cremation and he will get her ashes in a small urn. We can spread them out at the country house where she loved to catch mice.

This was the hardest decision my son has ever had to make in his young life. We can not protect our children from the hard things. We can only try to be there for them as much as we can. But sometimes life is hard and it is sad and we have to meet it as best we can. My son did good this weekend.

Passover 2022

By Hilarie

On May 3, 2022

In Jewish

Photo by Danielle Shevin

Finally after almost 3 years of isolation and pandemic, my group of American/Jewish/Swedish friends could meet in person and celebrate Passover together again. We gathered at the Party House on Reimersholmen as we usually have done for many years now and sat down to an organized dinner. It was so great to see all who could make it. This year our Seder plate had two additions on it. I am generally a traditionalist and don’t like changing the contents of the Seder plate to suit current politically correct modernity but I made an exception this year. This year we added an orange and a beautiful sunflower blossom – the orange to symbolize women leading services once usually reserved only to men and the flower to remind us what is going on in Ukraine at this moment.

Here is what I had to say before we started our service.

It’s so nice to see all of you today. It’s been 3 years since we met to celebrate Passover in person. Technically it’s not really Passover any longer. Yesterday was the last day so I guess Passover has passed over us. Passover is over but here we are…

Here we are. Think about those words: here we are. We almost weren’t. I waited too long before trying to book the Party House and when I went to book our usual day, Good Friday, I discovered someone else had booked it before me. Saturday, påskafton was also booked, as well as Easter Sunday. Today was the only available day this weekend, so here we are.

This holiday which we celebrate every year, is especially apt this year, given what has been going on in the world right now. Passover reminds us how we had to pack up what we could carry with us and leave a land that we had been living in for many generations, at almost a moment’s notice. We didn’t even have time to let our bread rise.

A similar exodus is happening over in Ukraine right now. I can’t stop watching CNN show me how Ukrainians are being forced to flee from their homes and escape to other countries. While they aren’t being chased out by horse-drawn chariots and their bread comes in plastic bags from grocery stores, their hasty and dangerous exodus reminds me of the Passover story. It tells the tale of a people who want to be able to live in freedom and self-determination just like the Ukrainians do today.

The Passover story of the exodus from Egypt, 13 centuries before Jesus, was the founding myth of the Jewish people. But, it was just the first of many such expulsions. 7 centuries before Jesus, the Assyrian empire sacked the northern Kingdom of Israel and deported the Jews to Assyria. Then a little over a hundred years later Babylonia, besieged Jerusalem, destroyed Solomon’s Temple and carted us off to Babylonia. It took fifty years before the Jews were allowed to return to their homeland and could build a new temple. That Temple got destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD and once again Jews were scattered across the ancient world far away from their home. This time the expulsion would last for 2000 years.

During those centuries Jews were given the choice to either leave or die, by cities or countries throughout Europe and north Africa. During the early middle ages, Spain became a haven of prosperity for Jews only to be ended with the devastating expulsion by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. I’m not going to list all the places that first welcomed us only to later expel us. You can look it up on Wikipedia.

But in spite of all that moving around, the Jewish People survived. We learned how to carry with us our culture, our religion, our history – to not tie it down to the place we were living in. In today’s world, forced migration is getting more and more common. Sometimes because of war like in Ukraine, or because of environmental catastrophes like forest fires in the American west or rising sea levels for island nations or desertification in sub-Saharan Africa. With each new place the Jewish people were forced to move to, we learned to live there within the new rules of the place and also as Jews and when we had to leave we took with us the influences from that place and incorporated them into ourselves without losing ourselves in the process. This ability to adapt and change and still remain true to our heart is something we can teach the rest of the world in these days of involuntary migration.

So, here we are, sitting here, today, as Jews still do, in a small building on Reimersholmen, remembering that very first move. Granted we are not all here – some of us, from my group of J.A.P.S., couldn’t make it today. Hopefully next year we can all be here together once again.

So, let’s start the seder.