It was May 1994 when my mother came to visit me in England. At that stage I regarded myself as "was born Jewish, now a Christian" - it was long before I began to understand that faith in Jesus doesn't mean you stop being Jewish.
I knew I had to break the news to my mother. I knew she wasn't likely to be ecstatic about it. Becoming a believer in Jesus is not on a Jewish mother's list of things her children do to bring her naches.
You may be wondering why I hadn't told her before her visit. I used to write to her, but I was scared to put that kind of thing in a letter - I had these images in my mind of my poor mother (who was in her seventies at the time) having a heart attack, and someone finding her on the floor with her daughter's letter clutched to her bosom. I'd always been the black sheep of the family - did I really need to add this to my already rather blotted record?
So I put it off and put it off, and it was only when she decided to come and visit that I decided I was going to have to tell her. The scared part of me still tried to think of ways of avoiding that - what if I just didn't go to church whilst she was there... But what if she and I went out for a walk and I bumped into someone I knew from church and they said, 'How are you? Didn't see you there on Sunday' - surely my mother didn't deserve to hear it like that!
So whilst she was here, I dropped hints. Which with hindsight I realise was really stupid, because if there is something you are not only not expecting to hear, but it's the last thing you want to hear in your whole life, then you're not likely to get hints. So mentioning, for instance, a Bible study group I was attending in which we were studying the book of Acts, did not have any effect whatsoever. It must have got sifted out, perhaps she thought she hadn't heard right. She didn't say anything, which naively I found encouraging - I thought that meant she was coping with it!
I don't remember all the hints I dropped, but what I do remember is the moment of truth, when on Sunday morning over breakfast I said I would see her later, I'd be back by lunchtime. 'Oh, are you going for a walk?' says she. 'No, I'm going to church,' say I, still not realising that she hadn't got the message.
That's when my mother asked me if I had a valium in the house.
I didn't go to church that morning - it was much more important to stay with my mother and calm her down. And somehow she found the strength to cope with what I'd told her.
But I do wish I'd done it differently. I wish I hadn't been such a coward. And I wish I had understood things better myself at the time - knowing what I know now, I would have said it quite differently. And who knows what her reaction would have been?
See also my not so cross-cultural love story
