Back in the 1990s I deserted New York to spend the Easter holiday with my family on the South Shore of Boston.

Despite my abandonment of God as a child my mother persisted in requesting my attendance at morning Mass. It was a small sacrifice to make for the woman who brought me into this world and I always said, “Sure.”

That morning I dressed in a dark-gray suit with a black cashmere polo shirt.

My mother came into the bedroom and asked, “Where’s your tie?

“Mom, this shirt is pure cashmere.”

“But you look better in a tie?” My mother was old school.

“You can’t wear a tie with a polo shirt.” I had worn a tie every day at Our Lady of the Foothills parochial school.

My mother frowned with disappointment at both my wardrobe and rejection of her God.

“I hope at my funeral you’ll wear a tie.” Her eyes were dewy with tears.

“I will.” Refusing my mother was impossible and I changed my shirt and put on a tie. It felt like a garrote.

“Better?” I asked in the kitchen. My father sat at the table in his best suit.

“Much better.” She smiled with triumph and kissed my cheek. “You’re a good boy.”

Upon my return to New York I related this story to the mother of my diamond employer. Hilda tsked and said, “That’s the difference between Jews and goyim.”

“What?” Her son and I were befuddled by Hilda’s statement.

“Your mother simply asked for you to wear a tie at her funeral, if it had been me I would have said, “Once you kill me, I want you to wear a tie to the funeral.”

“Aha.” I replied, for Hilda had explained the true depth of Jewish guilt in a single sentence.

Matricide.

We were all bad boys, except to our mothers.

To them we were saints.