I wonder now, looking back, at how no one did intervene for my niece. Wasn’t there a teacher or school counselor? Wasn’t there someone? So far as I know, this dear soul, my niece, Princess Bonita, never had someone to talk to who could have helped her gain a sense of selfhood and worth, at least, not until later when there was no choice.

It seems to me that there was unhappiness wherever my niece turned. Given her start in life, what could she have had?

For college, she went to a music school. It wasn’t Juliard but it was right up there. Although Princess Bonita had a beautiful singing voice, I suspect that her choice of a career in music was part of her trying to please her mother.

I believe it was at this time that she had had her first breakdown and was hospitalized. Eventually, she had a great doctor who helped her and found a medicine that stabilized her and gave her a chance. I am down on drugs, but, in this case, I am grateful.

But forever after her breakdowns, Princess Bonita worked in a tea room as the person who took the dirty dishes.  She would wheel the cart and put the dirty dishes on it. She did this for the rest of her work years.  And that was her work life until the tea room she worked at closed down after many many years.

Princess Bonita also knitted and did some singing. Through it all, Princess Bonita was always what I see as a true princess, always a lady. Always kind, thoughtful, and with a sense of humor. She was a princess of the heart. And I think of how brave she was.

I am reminded of Zena, the  dog that Lauren, my daughter, gave foster care to. Zena was blatantly damaged, fearful, and yet she had the sweetest nature of all. Pure sweetness. You could put your hand in Zena’s mouth, and she would take every care to be gentle. Zena was the gentlest of all. And that is how my niece Bonnie is.

Now I will tell you more of Princess Bonita’s story as I know it.

She married a man who was not well physically. He was debilitated.  Forgive me, I secretly wondered whether he would be able to function as a husband. As it later was revealed, Princess Bonita was pregnant when she married.

I was Princess Bonita’s maid of honor.

Princess Bonita had her baby, a little boy named Benjamin. She nursed her healthy baby boy. When the baby was about three months old,  she took him to the hospital  because she was afraid she was going to hurt him. He was in foster homes for I don’t remember how long.

Brave Princess Bonita saw danger for her baby and did the right thing.

Her husband told her that if she didn’t get better soon, he would leave her, as if it were a question of a decision for her to make. He did leave her. He had to have a vertebrae removed from the back of his neck, and, dying in surgery, he left her.

Princess Bonita did get better, and she got her little boy back. I remember him at about five, and he was sweet and dear and cheerful. I remember he wore a belt that must have been his father’s, and the tail of it was so long, it trailed to below his knees. Princess Bonita didn’t know. She was patient and kind, yet how would she be able to raise a son?

I do not remember at what age Benjamin was,  or how it happened, but a Lubavitcher Yeshiva took an interest in him. Do you know what a Lubavitcher Yeshiva is? It is a very orthodox Jewish school. This particular boarding school was in New York or New Jersey or possibly Boston, and, God bless this school, for they took Benjamin into their school and hearts and raised him, of course, without any compensation except their joy in doing so. He would honor his mother and visit her whenever he could.

Benjamin became an accountant, and he married a very Orthodox young Jewish woman. Orthodoxy makes the occasion of the birth of a child a holy event, and birth control is not practiced in a truly orthodox home.

There is a ceremony after the birth of a son. A briss is an important religious celebration. It is the occasion when a circumcision is performed when the baby boy is eight days old.

The best I remember, I was living in California at this time whereas Benjamin, Princess Bonita’s son, now married and a father, was living in the Boston area, an hour and a half away from Springfield.  Princess Bonita, now a grandmother, and her mother Queen Sylabub, now a great grandmother, of course were going to the briss.

Queen Sylabub, the Dark Queen, Princess Bonita’s mother, my sister Sylvia, drove to the briss. Princess Bonita never had a car. Queen Sylabub chose  not to give her daughter a ride to the briss. Why not? Because Princess Bonita weighed too much, and Queen Sylabub was concerned about the welfare of her car. And so Princess Bonita took the bus alone to go to her first grandchild’s briss.

Benjamin and his wife and children emigrated to Israel. The last I knew, they had eight children. They may have more  now.

Every few years, with the help of my other sister’s sons, Princess Bonita is able to visit her son and her daughter-in-law and all their children in Israel.

This is a happy ending, isn’t it?

When Heaven Admin and I were in Israel, I simply didn’t think of Benjamin and that he was in Israel. It didn’t occur to me at all. I didn’t even make the connection until after I told Heaven Admin the story as I tell it to you now and he said to me: “Why didn’t we go to see Benjamin while we were there?”

I have no answer except I simply didn’t think of it.

Let’s come to the conclusion of the tale of my sister Sylvia and Princess Bonita. Here is a joke I remember Princess Bonita telling. Why do I remember this joke? And why do I think it is significant? I think I know. What do you see as the significance:

A woman went into a meat market. She said to the man behind the counter: “May I please have a pound of kiddilies?”

The man said: “You mean kidneys, don’t you, Madam?”

The customer replied: “I said kiddilies, diddle I?”