Just a response to Comment

This is a response to the kind person who commented in Spanish. I do apologize that I am not using my Spanish enough right now and, while I could understand the comment and questions, for my answers I must revert to English. (The Spanish begins to come back when I visit my favorite town, Mazatlan.)

The fact is that yes, my parents were Jewish, my mother was strictly orthodox but my father was much less so. My father died when I was 10, so was raised only by my mother.

I, like many teenagers, informally abandoned religion--though not the Jewish culture--at 16-17 years of age. (I've never abandoned my wonderful Jewish heritage or culture, but am now opposed to all orthodoxy which claims to know too much.)

I joined the US Air Force at 20 and after basic training was sent to Scott Air Base in Illinois for technical training. On a cold, snowy March night, I was crossing the center square. I was invited into a building to have a hot cup of coffee. There was a talk being given by one of the chaplains. I didn't have to stay, but it seemed impolite to leave. The talk was interesting and led me to ask the chaplain to meet and talk some more.

After several meetings, I requested to be baptized and was so on Easter morning of that year, 1956. I put off telling my mother for a while, but when I did, her orthodoxy told her that she must treat me as dead and sit mourning. This was when all connection to the family was broken.

I fell in love with Japan and went there for university. But I also found and fell in love with my wife there. (I should add that I also fell in love with her mother. My mother-in-law and I had a wonderful relationship until this year, when she died at age 96.)

Later, my new wife made the effort to establish contact and become friends with her. This made it possible for me to renew some tentative contact with my mother. So we did have a small and extremely weak relationship during her final few years.

I hope this explanation is not too much. Of course the previous blog entry was really about my cousin Ruth whom I have come to admire and love.