David aka Heh-soos

I started to title this one, For my Baptists Relatives…

Friday is normally the day I mow the grass at our little hacienda. However, thunderstorms, then rain moved through the St. Louis area, making that a chore for another day. I decided I would do the running around I needed to do.

This summer, I have been slowly rebuilding our 250 feet of picket fence, three eight-foot sections at a time, trying to do one a week. However, with weather and other unforeseen happenings, this has extended out longer than I had planned.  I needed some more lumber for the job.

Señora had not been feeling well, and I left the house with her having gone back to bed and asleep.  Since, I have been buying supplies for the fence at two different businesses, I swung by the house with one load to drop it off. Lo and behold, well not really – Señora is not good at sitting still, my bride had arose and was outside working in her gardens, cleaning them up after the storms.  She was not looking well and was complaining about being dizzy. I went in full parental mode, chewed on her a little bit and chased her back to bed, making sure she had water by her bedside, offering to fix her something to eat, which was refused.  I left the house for my next stop.

As I was leaving Lowes, I received a call from Señora with her telling me she thought she needed to go the ER.  So home I hurried and off we went.

ERs being ERs, nothing was happening fast, but they then did finally put us in an ER room. There the time passed as it usually does in such places, excruciatingly slow. Laying there in bed Señora had kicked off her sandals and could see her feet better. She began commenting on how dirty her feet were.   She had been working in her gardens foot-footed (barefooted), and had jumped directly into bed when I chased her from her pruning.  Since she almost always wears sandals, I had noticed the condition very early in our trip.  However, after 2 bouts of matrimonial fever and 36 years in a martial marital climate, I have semi-learned to keep my mouth shut… sometimes.

Since Señora had a multitude of connections to machines and fluids, it was not feasible for her to wash her own feet. Another thing that I have learned is that sometimes it does not hurt to be of service. I went to the sink and dampened a handful of paper towels and proceeded to wash her feet.  She seemed to be enjoying this more than she should, but that is another story.

I looked her in the eye and informed her that she could now call me Jesus. She immediately did so, giving the name the Spanish pronunciation, heh-soos. I then asked her if she knew where my reference came from.  She did not.  I went on to explain that there are a few stories in the Bible involving foot washing, the best known being that of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper as a sign of humility and service.

So the image that should be in your mind now is that of a born-again agnostic attempting to explain a Christian bible story to his Jewish wife. However, being in an alleged mixed marriage of one partner raised in the Baptist tradition and the other in the Jewish tradition, we have had these types of discussions on and off for most of our relationship. Since I find the whole religious concept incredulous, I do not always do a bang-up job.  Señora is more or less secular, but finds the keeping of Jewish traditions very important.

So, what can I say, that was my Jesus (Heh-soos) moment.

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