It was a beautiful wedding, it really was. So what’s this pit in my stomach? Why are my eyes blurring?

Every Jewish wedding has a familiar pattern, but at this wedding of my friend’s son, I notice the differences first.

Unlike the New York weddings I’d grown up attending, this Israeli event has an outdoor chuppah set against a stark desert background of stones and sand. Od Yishamah rings out with that extra bar that still jars my American ears, and the vibrant spices and plentitude of dips at the waiting tables are clearly Mideastern.

Then I notice the two babbis. The music is thumping, the circles swirling with rhythm and color and life but—

I keep looking at those babbis.

They’re wearing blonde sheitels, the kind with the structured pouffiness which, my grandmother once told me, no 100-percent human hair model can ever really achieve. Each sheitel has that strenuously teased front that my grandmother used to perfect with her navy-blue teasing comb, the one with the five metal spikes at the end.

The two babbis wear elegant dark gowns with just the right smattering of sequins, not too much so as to be gaudy, not too few as to downplay the importance of the occasion. And, of course, each babbi holds a matching clutch. Jackie Kennedy couldn’t have pulled it off better herself.

I miss my grandmother.