It took awhile, but I found the old ma and pa store that my grandparents ran in North Providence. Very different, inside and out. Quite a jolt to stand there.

My grandmother Minnie and my grandfather Jacob came to America from Russia after the turn of the century and worked just about every day of their lives selling groceries and candy to their then-immigrant neighborhood. My grandmother died many years ago, and she and I loved one another dearly. She often sat me down and warned me not to marry outside of my faith, then Jewish.

Gentile women, she would tell me – she called them “shicksas” did not generally clean or cook much, so I needed to find a Jewish wife who was domestic and who would take care of me. Well…. Standing in front of her shop, and then at the door of her tenement down the road, I introduced her to Maria, who was in the car. And told her I had been divorced and then remarried.

I often ran away from home, and invariably ended up at my grandmother’s apartment, getting soup and candy and shelter.

“I did marry a gentile woman,” I said, “and you were right, at least about her. She does not clean or cook. But I do and I am very happy and that is a lot more important, really.” I felt her presence in that tiny shop, where she spent a half century of her life and worked so hard. I could feel her smile and her approval. She would have loved Maria.