LXV

Yesterday was one of those days on which I could not help but thinking about how different it might have been had my life not veered off-course five years ago. Yesterday was my 65^th birthday.

Lucky for me, Barry did not allow me much time to wallow in such morbid thoughts. Five years ago, when I turned 60, Barry and our daughters had planned a beautiful and heartfelt celebration for me. I was not feeling very well, and Barry recalls considering cancelling the party, but I am glad we soldiered on. I ended up being diagnosed just a few weeks later.

This year our plans were somewhat lower key. I knew that he had purchased tickets to “Book of Mormon” on Broadway. But I didn’t know that he had also purchased tickets for the November 1^st performance of the show everyone wants to see, “Hamilton.” He topped it all off with a beautiful opal pendant necklace that goes well with a pair of opal earrings he bought me a few years ago.

Like all long-running Broadway musicals, “Book of Mormon” was filled with talent, enjoyable music, and tremendous energy. The play was made especially enjoyable by the couple seated next to us, who (we learned chatting before and after the show) have lived for many years in Park City, Utah and are vacationing for a week in New York. They are not Mormons, and acknowledged in our conversation after the performance that they did not imagine their Mormon friends would have found the play entertaining. But I cannot remember the last time I saw anyone laughing as hard as that fellow! Because we are not that familiar with the Mormon religion or community, there were probably a lot of references that we simply did not appreciate. But laughter is infectious, so I suspect that the play seemed funnier to me than it might have had we been seated differently.

Having said that, I have been offended at times by plays and television shows that have poked fun at Jewish stereotypes. The line between humor and insult can be quite thin. In the end, it seemed to me that the real take-home message of “Book of Mormon” is that love and respect should always have the upper hand. I hope that any Mormons who may have seen it have felt the same way.

So now I am in my LXVI^th year. Cool.

Love,

Rebecca