A half-truth is a whole lie.
~Jewish Proverb
My folks used to come from Baltimore to our home in New England to spend some time during the beautiful autumns. Once, they came for two whole weeks. That was when my husband, Bob, made a bet with me that I couldn’t go twenty-four hours without lying to my parents.
“I’m glad you can stay two weeks,” I said, as I hugged my mom.
Lie.
Bob whispered, “You said you could stand five days max! You’re lying already.”
“You didn’t say when the twenty-four hours started.”
“Right now.”
Actually, the lying began before I got married. Back then, when I had guts (which meant I did courageous things without obsessing about every conceivable thing that could go wrong), I was giving lectures at the local Cape Cod Community College. One lecture was called “Life After Divorce.” Bob was enrolled. That’s how we met.
Later on, when we were dating, I lied to my parents about my social life. Bob isn’t Jewish. And having been raised in an Orthodox home, I wasn’t even allowed to have non-Jewish girlfriends, much less suitors.
But lying used to be easy. When Bob found a carton of spoiled milk in my fridge, I said it was a Jewish tradition. “To commemorate the sour times the Jewish people had on their journey through the desert, we all keep rotten milk in our refrigerators.”
When he asked about the blue spots on the rye bread, I said, “That’s what makes certain food kosher — the ability to grow mold. Cheese is kosher. So is zucchini. The Hebrew prophets said we should always remember — with age comes new growth.”
When Bob occasionally answered the phone when my mom would call, I’d say he was just some local guy who helped me around the house a lot, repairing things.
By the time we were engaged, I made the dreaded phone call home. “Mom,” I said, with much throat clearing and nervous sighing, “Bob and I have sort of developed a serious relationship.” When I told her we planned to marry, she laughed and said, “I knew that. Bring him home.” My mother saw right through my lying. Imagine that.
And so, it is with great humiliation that I admit I lost the twenty-four-hour no-lying challenge when Bob’s folks came to visit. We were married by then. Here’s what happened.
They had this canine mutant named BooBoo. I’m not prejudiced against small Shih Tzu-type dogs, but there was only one way to describe BooBoo: greasy. He always kept his paws around my calves. When I feigned tenderness as I removed him, my hands got coated with oily yuck. It’s easy to figure out how he got his name.
So when Bob’s mother asked if we’d take BooBoo when they went on their cruise, what could I say? “He’ll throw my feng shui out of whack, thus creating disharmony in my environment?” No. “The projectile vomiting I do when I’m around him is a dander allergy?” No. I said, “Sure, I’d love to.” And that’s when Bob shouted, “Gotcha!” which made everybody jump.
As my parents grew older and their life-shaping Jewish traditions enveloped them more, their pleasure in my happy mixed marriage grew as well. They pulled off a pretty remarkable transformation, if you ask me.
And so, before each one died, I felt great peace in knowing that my husband was mishpocheh, which meant family… not just in my heart, but in theirs.
And that is no lie.
~Saralee Perel
