“TUM!” That was the exact word my mother would use as she prepared her Rosh Hashanah feast. “TUM,” she would remind us, my siblings and I, as we had to dust the baseboards, take out the “GOOD DISHES,” washing them one at a time, complaining that no one would really care that we dusted, swept, and washed the “GOOD DISHES,” one at a damn time. “TUM, It is the music of the heart, she would remind us as she placed the third cake in the oven, immediately checking on the chicken soup with real pieces of boiled chicken, often times burning her fingers touching one or the other hot pan or dish. My mother, without using too much Jewish mother guilt in her voice, would then say, hardly moving her lips, but using her facial expression to make THE POINT, one day, the “TUM, may try to escape from these holidays”, and then she would become silent, looking at whatever was boiling or baking, or frying on the stove, and celebrating Rosh Hashanah will feel different.”
As my mother grew a little older, she reluctantly, first permitted my oldest Maxine, to “have the holidays.” That was my mother’s term whenever a holiday was not celebrated at our house, using ONLY my mother’s recipes, her TLC, and her knowledge of just how much or much too much and the ever mysterious, “I just know how to prepare this.” My sister Maxine at first, could bake or cook certain items, but the hard-core meal was still one my mother prepared. Eventually, Maxine got the meal right, my siblings and I would call it the “Rena Way,” (my mother’s name is Rena) and soon only the desserts came from my mother's magical cookbook. (As an aside, to this day, my siblings and do not have a complete list of recipes for most of my mother’s baked goods, or holiday fare. ) But Maxine, and then my older sister Bonnie, became the privileged few to “Have the Holidays,” with my youngest sister Francie eventually getting the Rena-Okay. I wanted to “have the Holidays,” but I was the boy, the only son, and somehow, within the rules and regulations of my mother's interpretation of Jewish Life, I never received the Rena-okay!
“TUM,” was indeed the music of the heart, a melody which I sadly had taken for granted, as if that song would play on a continuous loop for the Buncher Family. My mother’s generation of Aunts Uncles, and Relatives, all of whom lived within a 5-mile radius of one another, had passed away, and at first, the traditions of Rena Buncher and her clan, survived, until the circle of life becomes unwound. And as that circle unravels, oftentimes we look forward and not back. Not backward, but back, at the moments of magic and mystic memories. As this Jewish New Year of 5784 finds footing I humbly and with great heart wish everyone who celebrates, observes, or shares in the delights, LOT’S AND LOTS OF TUM!
