When we were in Vegas visiting Mr. W’s family for Mother’s Day weekend last month, we went on a double date with Mr. W’s gamer brother and wife to watch a musical show performed by the Scintas. Toward the end of the show, one of the Scinta brothers told us that their late father, who used to attend their shows, always asked him to play the theme song from “The Godfather.” The Scinta brother would scoff and say, “Dad, this is a conservative Jewish crowd tonight, they’re not gonna wanna hear ‘The Godfather.'” Each show that the father would make the request, the brother would laugh it off and explain it’s not appropriate for the venue or it doesn’t fit in with their routine. Their father passed away fairly recently. The performer telling the story paused, then told us how he wished he would’ve played his father’s request every time his father requested it. Then he sat at the piano and played a beautiful rendition of “The Godfather”, at the end of which he raised his hand to the heavens, looked up, and blew his father a kiss.

So I’m doing the inconvenient thing of spending the night before my wedding at my parents’ house, because my mom wants the tradition of the symbolic daughter-leaving-the-parents’-house-to-be-wed. I’m following my mom’s oddball insistence that I wear the highest high heels I can find in my wedding dress and that my bridesmaids wear lower shoes, because it’s important to my mom that we make up for the height differences in the girls. (I.e. I’m short.) These things don’t matter to me in the long run, but I know it matters to my mom. And I never want to have a day when I wish I could’ve done something small to make my mom happy but know that it’s too late. Learning vicariously is a gift that is better than turning back the clock.