Fringes

The boys tzitzit in no time got dirty and I was never able to remove the stains. My husband’s tzitzit was almost entirely covered by his vest, but the edges and fringes were always dirty. When I was embarrassed by his stains I would buy him another pair. I talked to myself in the store.  "Size five, “V” collar, no tassels, two holes at each corner, and thin strings sold separately". He liked to make his own knots. He would sit at the dining room table with heavy books holding the material in place. Threading four strings inside the two holes and wrapping them around and around again. Eight times, two knots, eleven times, two knots, and finally thirteen times. I watched his hands as he counted the pattern in his head, not speaking out loud as he worked. I would add his stained tzitzit to my collection to scrub. When the bag was full, I'd cut off the attached strings and put them into a different bag with the torn holy books for burial. The garment I threw away.

In my mother’s house there was a cracked crystal lamp on a large coffee table. Inside the coffee table my mother kept loose photographs hole punched together onto metal rings. It was there that I found a picture of my other grandmother, our kindergarten birthday booklets, and the report cards I wished she'd thrown away. I would trace the cracked pattern with my finger and wonder why she glued the lamp back together.

My boys recently told me that when you go to the cemetery you have to tuck the strings of the tzitzit inside your pockets. The dead shouldn’t see the tzitzit and have pain that they can no longer perform mitzvot. But what of the stains on the woolen part of the garment, the stains that can’t be cleaned or hidden away?