The Seder Plate

“Why do we have a Seder plate?” I asked as my mother wrapped the crystal platter delicately in layers of tissue paper. “It's not like we're Jewish or anything.”

“I didn't say it was a Seder plate,” my mother snapped. “I said your grandmother said it was.”

“So, why would Grandma say it is a Seder plate if it's not?” I asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Mom gently placed the wrapped plate in a box and began to tape it shut. “All I know is, your grandmother called it a Seder plate. Why, I don't know, and I don't know why I care all of the sudden.”

With that, she burst into tears.

It had been a hard year for all of us, Mom especially. Dad died in April, then my great-aunt in November, and now we were packing up Grandma's house after she had died three days before Christmas. Packing up the leavings of a life is never easy. Doing it three times in one year, it gets old really quickly.

I took more Kleenex out of my pocket and handed it to Mom. While she calmed herself, I looked around my grandmother's dining room. The massive table where we had eaten all those holiday dinners was stacked with boxes. The roll-top desk where my grandfather used to sit all afternoon and talk to people on the phone was already gone – my uncle had claimed it. Grandma's upright piano sat in it's usual corner, an unfamiliar bulk now wrapped in furniture blankets. Patches of shockingly bright pink paint blazed in the cutouts where pictures once hung on the tobacco stained walls. Mom and I had been cleaning out the china cabinet when this outburst occurred.

“Maybe we should break for some lunch,” I suggested. “I could run down to the sub shop for something.”

“No, there's not much left in here,” Mom sniffled. “I'd rather get it done and then take a break.”

There were no more tears as we wrapped stemware I had never seen used, and unearthed a set of tarnished spoons. Once everything was stowed, we locked the house and walked to a café a couple of blocks from the house.

December in the Central Valley meant lots of grays – the skies, the trees, even the light. We both watched our breath fog before us, not saying a word the three-block trip.

The café was warm and bright, but not too busy. We placed our orders quickly and then stared out the window. My curiosity bugged me enough to speak.

“Mom, what's the story behind that plate?” I asked. “What about it made you lose it like that?”

She sighed and took a sip of her coffee. “You don't remember much about your great-grandfather, do you?”

“Not really,” I said. “I remember we all spoke German with him, so I didn't get to talk with him much. How old was I when he died?”

“You had just turned six,” she said. “Your great-grandfather was a piece of work. He was odd. As he grew older, he would hide things around the house. Weird things, like my high school yearbook or a sewing pattern your grandmother would be working on. Once, he went through the family Bible and inked out all the names of the relatives he didn't like.”

I nodded, thinking of the few times I had paged through that enormous tome with it's curlicue High German print, and the unsmiling pictures of relatives long-dead. The family records page was criss-crossed with angry swaths of ink over a good portion of the names.

“I remember I pulled the plate out once when we were setting up for a party,” Mom continued. “I must have been in high school, because your great-grandparents were living with us. We'd never used that plate for anything, and when I saw it, I was intrigued by the pebbly surface on the back and how it made the plate look like bubbles.”

I thought back to the brief glance I had of the plate that morning before my mother had burst into tears. All that I had really noticed was the huge six-pointed star in the center.

“Your great-grandfather was having a cup of coffee when I took the plate and a couple of other serving pieces into the kitchen,” Mom continued as our food arrived. We both looked at our sandwiches and thick soups. Neither one of us moved to start eating.

“So what happened?” I asked.

“Mama took one look at the plate and whispered to me to take it back and get something else. When I asked her why, she hissed at me to just do as she said,” Mom said before she took a tentative bite of her sandwich. “Being a sassy teenager, of course I asked why.”

“And what did Grandma say?”

“She whispered that it was a Seder plate, and that we were forbidden to use it,” Mom said. “She then threatened to ground me for life if I ever mentioned it again.”

“Wow,” I said. “But what does this have to do with my great-grandfather?”

“I'm not sure,” Mom said. “But I got the feeling Mama really did not want him to see it. In fact, I think she was afraid.”

I took a bite of my sandwich and thought. “And no one's ever talked about it?”

Mom shook her head.

“that is just weird,” I said. “What do you want to do with it now?”

Mom put down her fork and stared out the window. Her eyes watered a bit.

“I just want to know why,” she simply said.

We finished our meals, and I went to the counter to pay. The local newspaper was sitting by the register. The headline read, “Antiques Roadshow to See Local Treasures!”

“Bingo,” I whispered.