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Mother Of The Groom

As I stand under the chuppah watching my son
marry, my feeling of joy is overwhelming.

BY TOBY JOAN
ROSENSTRAUCH

rir

he big day has arrived. My
son, my first born, is get-
ting married. I stand with
my husband under the
chuppah, a canopy of flowers. We have
just completed the walk down the
aisle, our arms linked to those of our
strong, handsome son. Now, as we
face the chapel doors in anticipation
of the bride's entrance, I look up at
the tall groom with the glowing face
and pray I shall not cry before all these
people, for so much has gone before
this day I never thought I'd see.
It has been very hard to raise this

14 Brides 1990

child. The first. Had I known what
I would have to do, to give, to give up,
to learn, to be, I would probably have
been too afraid to undertake this role
— to be a mother, on duty forever, in
spite of my own troubles, illnesses,
ambitions and failures.
Before he was born, I remember
praying for a son. For my husband, a
son. And for me a son, thinking it
easier to be mother to a son than to
a daughter.
Then he is bon; . For his bris, my
grandmother makes a huge party in
the parlor of her Williamsburg
brownstone.
He is a lively rascal, bright and full
of fire. As an infant he never sleeps,

crying constantly, his digestion easily
upset. Often he cannot keep his milk
down. Years later we learn that he is
allergic to milk.
As a toddler he gets into everything,
takes everything apart, and I am afraid
to leave him alone. To go to the
bathroom in privacy, I devise a game
for him in which we pass things back
and forth under the closed door so
that I know exactly where he is until
I come out.
I am unwelcome at afternoon cof-
fee klatches with other young mothers
because he takes their homes apart
and hits their children. In kinder-
garten, he is isolated from the class
by an impatient teacher who cannot