- It's 1996, and I'm on an Express Bus from the Bronx,
heading into Manhattan to go wedding dress shopping
with my future mother-in-law.
And I'm not looking forward to this
because she and I are not exactly friends.
Rita and I come from very different worlds.
She is this Sicilian from the Bronx,
waitress and a secretary and a Jehovah's Witness,
devout Jehovah's Witness, this strange religion
I know nothing about.
And I'm this middle-class Jew from Long Island.
So when I start dating her son,
a lapsed Jehovah's witness,
who she dearly would like to come back into the fold,
she and I kind of circle each other wearily
and we are polite but cold.
But when Fred and I decided to get married,
I realized that I should make some effort
to get to know this woman who's going to be part of my life.
So here we are.
And the ride down is very uncomfortable.
She and I have never been alone in a room together.
So it's very awkward.
But when we get to the bridal salon
and I start trying on all these gowns,
she tells me I look beautiful in every single one,
which is a complete lie. (chuckles)
But the sweetest of lies.
And I feel myself starting to soften towards her.
And then afterwards, when we get back to the Bronx,
and it's time to say goodbye,
she suddenly grabs me, and she gives me a hug.
And it's the kind of hug that tells me
how much it must have meant to her
that I invited her to do this with me.
And it breaks open a place in my heart for her,
and we start to become friends.
And over the next two years,
we bond over the two things that Rita loves the most,
eating and shopping.
Nobody can devour a lobster, like Rita Romeo.
(audience laughing)
And she doesn't care where she shops.
It could be a dollar store, a hardware store.
Although, dollar stores are her favorites.
She just loves to shop.
But then, when my twin daughters were born in 2000,
she is my savior.
I'm so overwhelmed by these creatures.
And every Friday, she comes out from the Bronx
and she spends the weekend with us.
And when I hear that screen door open each Friday,
it's like the cavalry has arrived,
and I can finally breathe.
And she absolutely adores her granddaughters,
but she is not your typical cookie-baking grandma.
She's a Sicilian from the Bronx.
And one year, when the girls' about two or three,
I hear her talking to them and the other room.
And I hear her say, "Ugh, I love you so much.
I just want to punch you."
(audience laughing)
(chuckles) But she also has her tender side.
And once when we go to visit them in the Bronx,
I noticed that she's been stealing things from the girls.
Little things, like a stuffed animal or a barrette.
And I can't figure out why until it dawns on me
that she literally wants something of theirs to hold on to
when she can't be with them.
When the girls are about four,
I send out holiday cards every year,
usually just seasons greetings cards.
But this year, I decided to send out a Hanukkah card.
The girls are getting a little older.
I'm starting to think about sending them to Hebrew school,
but I don't send it to Rita
because Witnesses don't celebrate holidays.
But I do send it to Fred's aunt,
who lives near them in the Bronx
and likes to display the cards.
And about a week later, Fred gets a call from his mother.
And she tells him that since we've decided
to raise our daughters as Jews,
that she can no longer be part of our lives.
And I'm shocked.
Because she and I have never discussed religion.
So I had no idea she might feel this way.
And then I'm hurt because this is me.
How could she do this to me?
And then I get angry because
this has to be the most anti-Semitic thing
that's ever happened to me and this is my family.
But then I think, oh, she's just in shock.
She'll get over it, she'll call me, she'll apologize,
and everything will be fine.
And so I wait.
But after four weeks of waiting, it's clear,
she's not calling.
And so the night again, and I say you know what,
if she cannot accept us
and how we're going to raise our daughters,
then I don't want her in my life, and I'm done.
And months passed.
But about nine months later,
a new dollar store opens up in my neighborhood
and I think of Rita, and I want to call her.
And the urge to call her is just so strong
that I pick up the phone.
I have no idea what I'm going to say.
And she answers on the first ring.
"Hi." I say, "It's Tracy."
"Hi," she says.
"I miss you," I say.
"I miss you too." she says.
And just like that, it's over.
We never discuss it.
We just step over that time in our lives
as if it never happened.
And over the next seven years,
she becomes my second mother.
In 2011, Rita passes away.
And I miss her.
I miss her every day.
But I think about what we almost missed.
Like that time when the girls were five
and they had their first and only ballet recital,
where they proved that they are much more adept at pratfalls
than graceful pirouette.
(audience laughing)
Or the time when they were eight
and we told ghost stories around the fireplace.
And I know I would have been justified all those years ago
and keeping Rita out of my life.
What she did was hurtful and cruel, and it was wrong.
But in the end, I decided
I didn't want to stand on my principles
if it meant I had to stand there all alone.
At the end of her life,
I go to visit Rita because I need to tell her
how much she meant to me
and what an impact she had on my life.
And she tries to say something back,
but she's wearing an oxygen mask,
and it's really difficult to understand her.
And then the moment's just gone.
So I don't know what she wanted to tell me,
but I'd like to think that it was some variation of,
I love you so much I just want to punch you.
(audience laughing)
(audience applauds)