A Passover loss

 My parents bought this tablecloth during their 1955 visit to Israel. It is made out of  linen from the first post 1948 flax harvest. The linen is heavy and almost crude. The embroidery is very fine.

We used this cloth every Passover until the center wore thin. 

You can see the cloth on the table in the background of this photo of my parents and nephew

My Aunt Sheva bought my mother a replacement cloth.

The replacement cloth is made out of a cotton poly blend. The embroidery is crude and the colors not nearly as nice. The old cloth hung in our basement. We used the new cloth and remembered the much nicer original cloth. I loved that my aunt wanted to replace the cloth, I just hated the replacement because it was so much less than while evoking the beauty of the original.

After my father died my mother sat me down and with great ceremony gave me all of her best tablecloths. She also gave me the worn Passover cloth and suggested that I could mend it. I did. Year after year I would mend the weak bits after Seder.

I inherited the Passover cloth, the Passover dishes and the task of making the family seder.  Every year after the Sedarim I would walk the cloth over to the dry cleaner  and a couple of weeks later it would be delivered to my building, clean, stain free and ready for the next seder. Every year I would hang the clean cloth in my husband's coat closet.

Last night I went to check the closet for the tablecloth. It wasn't there. I checked each of our closets. It wasn't there.  Since last Passover the dry cleaner was replaced by a weed store.  The dry cleaner never delivered the clean cloth. As a last gasp hope I went through the dry cleaning in my building's package room. No dice. 

Since last night I have gone through all of the stages of grief.

So this year we may be using the cloth purchased by my aunt as a substitute for the original one.

 

The first Seder we hosted after my father died my mother was anxious the entire ride from Boston. I was anxious too hoping that while I couldn't bring my father back from the dead I could create a Seder that felt enough like home for my mother. My mother and my sister walked in after the hard trip from Boston. My mother saw the table set  with the same dishes and cloth and Haggadot from Quincy and took in the same familiar Passover aromas wafting out of the kitchen and once she took it all in, she visibly relaxed.  My father was still dead but things would be OK. 

I will set a beautiful table for Pesach with beautiful linens. It just may not be the cloth I was expecting to use this year.