When my cousin Gladys’ mother died, her brother Getzel said to his sisters, “You will keep the house kosher, won’t you? Otherwise it wouldn’t be home.”

For the next 30 years, his three spinster sisters kept a minimum of six sets of dishes: everyday milk and meat, good milk and meat, peasdik milk and meat – and though no one would ever admit to it, I swear there was a secret glass set for trayf in the basement. For Getz, home meant kosher. And for us, her little cousins 25 years onwards, we can’t imagine the place any other way.

Gladys had a confession last weekend, when I was visiting for her 100^th birthday.

“I’m not changing the dishes for Pesach,” she said conspiratorially.

“That’s ok. I don’t mind. Passover is three months away.”

“You don’t understand,” she leaned in closer, “I can’t chase after these girls anymore–” The ‘girls’ are the home healthcare workers we brought in two years ago to look after her, to make sure she gets her meds and meals. “I can’t keep up with them. I can’t keep two sets of dishes. They just don’t understand.”

I don’t keep kosher and to a degree I could care less. Her caretakers are local girls, good Swedes and Norweigans, they try. That seems like enough to me.

Friday night I made Gladys a Shabbos meal of her mother’s knadle, roast (kosher) chicken and potatoes. At the end of the meal, she asked for coffee. The ‘girl’ poured milk into the teacup of her mother’s fancy fleishig set. Gladys didn’t notice. I did.

There was something unheimish about it.

Gladys kept a kosher home for 99 years. I assume God will forgive her for her last few minutes of trayfness. (If not, I’m inclined to think he’s not a forgiving enough God.)

For nearly 50 years, Gladys was a schoolteacher in Wisconsin. When she retired, she went home to her sisters and has since buried them all. She never married; in the small towns where she taught, she was the only Jew. I realize now that the laws of kashrut are a way of making home portable. They are the small, everyday activities that establish comfort and continuity wherever you are. Wherever kosher is, home is.

A sensible set of rules for a wandering people. So maybe Getzel was right, something has been lost.