With the hindsight of almost 60 years, I realize with sharp clarity how insightful and prescient my mother was

“MA,why can’t we just light already?” I pleaded.

Calm yet resolute, my mother responded quietly, “We will wait for your father to come home and then light the menorah together as a family.”

I was nine years old and living in Brooklyn.

My father, a photographer, supported his family by traversing the Tristate area, taking pictures of newborns and hoping to sell the photographs to proud parents. His job took him everywhere from Hoboken, New Jersey, to Norwalk, Connecticut, and all across New York City.

Only if he managed to sell the pictures would my father earn the much-needed money to pay for his son’s tuition. If he couldn’t close the sale, all his time and effort went unpaid.

He would work 12 hours a day, lugging 30 pounds of Yashica camera equipment circa 1960s into inner-city ghettos, climbing six flights of stairs through darkened and dirty stairwells because the elevator was usually broken.

And all too often, after arriving at an apartment and setting up his equipment, he would be informed that the electricity had been shut off. In those cases, he would head home with nothing to show for his efforts besides a strained back and increased worry about the next tuition payment.

Nevertheless, my father persevered, doing his best to provide.

Generally, my mother would serve dinner to my brother and me before my father got home, and my mother would wait to eat with him. But on Chanukah, my mother insisted we all wait for my father’s arrival before lighting and eating.

“Your father works hard and deserves the nachas of the family lighting together,” she would say. “We will wait for him to come home.”

And so, over my protestations, my mother held her ground. There were no cell phones back then, and my father did not always have enough coins for the pay phone to call my mother from Connecticut and update her on his expected arrival time. And so, we waited.

And finally, after what seemed like forever, we would hear the thud of a car trunk closing and a key turning in the lock.

My father had arrived. My mother would greet him as if he had returned from a yearlong absence.

Not only did my mother never display even a hint of annoyance at the late hour, but she greeted him like he was a hero returning from battle. Eventually, my brother and I came around, and joined her in those greetings.

A cold or hot drink, depending on the weather, was offered, and after my father had a chance to catch his breath, regain a sense of composure, and disassociate himself from the stress of work, we would gather as a family and kindle the Chanukah lights, followed by dinner.

Back then, I felt a sense of resentment and impatience. I wanted to be relieved of the wait, and I unsuccessfully challenged my mother. I protested aloud, “Why the need to wait?”

Looking back on it now with the hindsight of almost 60 years, I realize with sharp clarity how insightful and prescient my mother was.

In my present reality, the nightly family lighting is often limited to my wife and myself. Now I fully recognize and appreciate the feeling of family.

And as I field more questions from sons and daughters asking for halachic sanction to light independently due to their multiple school and social commitments, I pine for those days decades ago when family was the ultimate priority.

Have we lost sight of the forest through the density of the trees? Perhaps.

I still cling to the memories of my mother, whose focus on the forest, known as the family, was never in doubt.

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1041)