A faith of my own

The pages of the frayed old 

children’s book peek out of my 
nightstand, begging to be read once 
again. Prepared for the overflow 
of emotions and tears that I know 
are on their way, I wipe my eyes, 
put on my glasses and open the 
little white drawer. Inscribed on 
the inside of the book — written 
in my grandpa’s curly, comforting 
cursive — is a short poem: 

Dearest Emily,
May the wind be at your back,
Let no grass grow under your feet,
Spread your wings and learn to fly,
Let your boundary be the sky.
Thoughts with love from Aunt Liz 

My copy of the 1980 children’s 

book “The Paper Bag Princess” is 
only one of many my grandparents 
sent out. In an effort to send Liz’s 
love to a generation she will never 
meet, my grandparents mailed out 
copies of this feminist-in-training 
story to all of her friends as they 
had children. The story itself 
takes the classic fairytale and 
flips it on its head: when Princess 
Elizabeth’s husband-to-be Ronald 
is captured by a dragon, Elizabeth 
outsmarts the dragon, rescues her 
fiance and then proceeds to dump 
him because he’s honestly a real 

asshole (my words, not the book’s). 
She runs off into the sunset in her 
paper bag gown and scraggly tiara, 
joyful as can be. Elizabeth learns 
to fend for herself and realizes that 
she does not need a judgemental, 
snobby prince to keep her in line, 
for she is stronger than he will ever 
be. What makes her a princess is 
not the beautiful gown she wears 
and the massive castle she lives in, 
but her ability and drive to forge 
her own path. 

I tuck the book back into its 

crevice in my crowded drawer and 
finally get out of bed. We have to 
be at the temple in less than an 
hour, and I am nowhere near ready. 

My mom struggles to zip up the 

dress I swore still fit me, and to my 
own embarrassment, my 12-year-
old brother comes in to help her. 
Once it finally zips shut, I can 
feel my chest being pushed back 
into itself. It is unclear whether or 
not I will have the oxygen supply 
to make it through a two-hour 
service in this dress. One thing 
Liz and I do not happen to share 
is our cup size. But it once fit her, 
so I insist it will fit me. I slip into 
high heels that I cannot walk in 
and hobble out the door alongside 
my family. 

I have never had the privilege 

of meeting my Aunt Liz myself. 
What little I know about her 
comes from teary anecdotes told 
by my grandparents and old photo 
albums I can barely stomach 
looking through. I know much 
more about the pain my family 
endures having lost a loved one at 
the tragically young age of 28.

She was kind, and sensitive, 

and thoughtful, and much more. 
She went to Cornell and then 
Harvard to study public health 
in hopes of setting up children 
for healthier futures. She loved 
the outdoors and grew up skiing 
with her family. She saw right 
through all of the bullshit thrown 
at her growing up and instead 
focused on finding true friends. 
She cried to my grandparents 
about problems with her friends 
and feeling overwhelmed by the 
world in the same way that I do. 
She understood the importance of 
being authentic and in tune with 
her heart. She was a beautiful, 
inquisitive soul who had a simple 
love for exploring the world and all 
its wonders. And the world loved 
her back for as long as it could. 

The temple lobby is as antiqued 

and musty as ever. The dusty brown 
carpeting, the abstract art donated 
by half-hearted temple dues – all 

of it is the same as whenever I had 
been here last. As we take our seats 
in the giant, stained glass-adorned 
synagogue, we grab prayer books 
filled with Hebrew that not even 
the Bar Mitzvah boy himself 
understands. 

Before they have the chance 

to take their socially distanced 
seats, my maternal grandparents 
come running towards me with 
love radiating from their teary 
eyes. They know I was planning 
on wearing her dress, but that 
doesn’t 
stop 
their 
emotions 

from overflowing all over their 
disposable masks. 

This 
dress 
had 
not 
even 

originally been owned by Liz; she 
found it at a thrift store (another 
hobby we share). A few years 
back, we were sorting through 
my grandparents’ closet when we 
stumbled upon this simple little 
flapper-esque dress. My grandma 
raved about how proud Liz was 
of this absolute steal of a Nicole 
Miller original dress. I had been 
waiting for the right occasion to 
wear it ever since. 

The service began with the 

booming voice of our rabbi as he 
welcomed my brother Ethan to the 
bema (stage) to begin the service. 
After 
months 
of 
memorizing 

Hebrew, he would finally be 
symbolically indoctrinated into 
manhood! He worked hard, he 
sang everything flawlessly and, 
best of all, he got sent a lot of 
checks from old family friends he 
wouldn’t recognize. The beauty of 
the reform Jewish Bar Mitzvah. 

After he finished his Torah 

portion, Ethan returned to his seat 
and the rabbi took the lead once 
again. 

“As per the family’s request, we 

will now recite the Mourner’s 
Kaddish, in honor of Ethan’s Aunt 
Liz.”

It was the uncontrollable kind 

of 
crying. 
The 
tears-silently-

streaming-down-your-face-
without-having-to-push-them-out 
kind of crying. The remembering-
the-baby-pictures-of-her, 
sitting-

next-to-my-mom-and-wondering-
what-could-have-been 
kind 

of crying. And it was hitting 
everyone. This was a wonderful 
day celebrating familial love and 
the ascendance into adulthood, yet 
it was clear that someone was still 
missing from the equation. And I 
was wearing that someone’s old 
dress. 

Thursday, June 3, 2021

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com STATEMENT

BY EMILY BLUMBERG

Design by Katherine Lee

Read more at michigandaily.com

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