I’m your mother, and I need help badly. Why won’t you let your daughter pitch in?

Ruth: I’m your mother, and I need help badly. Why won’t you let your daughter pitch in?

Sara: I hate to seem uncaring, but this doesn’t work for me, my daughter, or our family.

Ruth

When you’ve been making Pesach for close to four decades, you pretty much have it down to a science.

What you don’t take into account — at least, I didn’t — is that it gets harder  and harder to keep up the pace.

Some things are easy: the grocery order, the menu plan. Pesach prep doesn’t involve much thinking these days. But scrubbing out cabinets, standing for hours at the stove, schlepping the Pesach boxes from the basement, or climbing on a step stool to wipe the furthest corners of the pantry — we were just not up to that anymore, Nachum and I.

What we really needed was family close by, but none of our five children lived near us. Sara, the oldest, lived out of town; her husband was the rav of a small, growing community. Moshe was married to an Israeli girl; they lived in Kiryat Sefer. The others lived closer, an hour or two away, but none of them were at a stage of life where they could take time off to help me.

On the other hand, except for Sara, they were all coming to us for Pesach. Which was exactly what I wanted — I just had to find a way to make Yom Tov happen.

I sighed and checked my phone. My friend Judy had mentioned that Lay Green had posted some interesting new Pesach recipes, and I figured I’d take a look. The kids would probably enjoy them. If I got to Pesach intact.

“Come to us for Pesach, the kids would love it,” Sara offered immediately, when I mentioned over the phone that I was anxious about how we’d manage the prep. Sara and her family never came for Yom Tov; they couldn’t leave the community. But it wasn’t practical for us to go there — I’d already invited the other marrieds, and besides, I wanted to make Pesach.

“Oh, we’re not up to that stage. I’m not giving up hosting all of you just yet,” I told her. “I mean, not you — you’re always invited, but I know you can’t get away during this time of year. But the others are looking forward to it, they’re all planning on coming, even Moshe — it’s been almost three years since they came last, can you imagine?”

“Crazy,” Sara agreed. “I guess that’s what happens when you live halfway across the world. When are they arriving?”

“Three days before Yom Tov,” I said. “And the others are driving in the night before, or on Erev Yom Tov. I’m excited for them all to come, but really, there is so, so much I need to get done.”

Sara was frowning; I could hear it in her voice. “None of them can come a few days earlier to help you out a little? You really have a lot on your plate….”

“With their kids? Please. I love them dearly, but having them around while I’m trying to clean would be more hindrance than help,” I said. “Besides, Shani’s in her eighth month, and you know how Malkie’s Sruli is — she needs to stay home as long as possible, where she has all the volunteers who know him and take him out. And Batya has work until Erev Yom Tov.”

I was still thinking about Pesach after hanging up the phone with Sara. She was right — all I needed was a pair of hands, someone to take the heavy work off of me, to share the potato peeling and onion frying and egg checking with, so I wouldn’t be doing it on my own. If only one of my daughters could come earlier or even send a grandchild. But their kids just weren’t old enough yet, and none of them aside from Sara had girls first in any case.

Sara, luckily, had three. She called them her team, three daughters in four years, and they helped her out with e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g. Goodness knows she needed it, with her communal responsibilities and her job and her eight children, bli ayin hara. Bassie, her oldest, must be 14, nearly 15, by now.

Almost 15, and I hardly got to see her. I felt a pang. I was proud of Sara and her husband Menachem, they were idealistic and passionate and doing a great job, but I just wished they would be able to get away to visit more frequently.

Wait.

Bassie was the perfect solution!