This was the great paradox of my mother. If Shay had been a member of the congregation, she would’ve embraced every one of her rough edges and abrupt endings. She would’ve admired Shay’s willingness to try again—and again and again. And she’d marvel in the woman my wife had become. She’d celebrate Shay. But my mother couldn’t extend that grace when it came to anyone who passed beyond the arm’s length of the congregation and into the circle of her family. And that circle was rife with judgment and straitjacket structure and expectations that had never made a whole hell of a lot of sense.
