I saw Wicked when it first came out on Broadway in December of 2003. I knew little about the then new hit musical starring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith. A friend told me it was like a prequel to The Wizard of Oz and also that the music was great.

My Aunt Linda took me to see the show with her that cold December day now twenty-one years ago. She wanted to take my mind off the sadness that our family was feeling as my mom was becoming sicker by the week. Despite the a plethora of treatments my mom was undergoing, the tumors in her body were growing.

Aunt Linda and I sat with our playbills in hand side by side in the small theater seats over two decades ago. The music was in fact great. The story was clever. I do remember that, but I also remember not being able to laugh or even smile as the rest of the theater goers did. I cried in the not even remotely sad parts of the show. I was thinking of my sick mom. Aunt Linda was too. We left the theater during intermission, feeling too sad to sit through the second act. That was a first for me. No amount of Broadway singing could take our minds off of our family’s reality in 2003. My mom died six months later.

In December of 2024 (this past week actually!) Aunt Linda took me and my daughter Rebecca, who was home from college for winter break, to see the movie Wicked. I had heard way more about the movie version this past fall via online trailers, Instagram reels and interview clips of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande. Rebecca and I were excited to go. Aunt Linda’s plan to revisit the story of the story behind the witches (both good and wicked) from the Wizard of Oz seemed like a truly good one.

Aunt Linda ordered us the movie tickets ahead of time, selecting great seats in a high row of the stadium theater. Rebecca secured the candy, selecting junior mints, refreshing with just the right amount of chew.

I sat comfortably in the overstuffed reclined movie theater seat sandwiched in between my Aunt Linda and my daughter Rebecca. I was able to take it all in. I laughed at the funny parts (the Ga in Ga-Linda is silent!) and I cried too, not as much as I did in 2003, but there were tears.

Back in 2003, my daughter Rebecca was nothing I could have imagined, not yet in prequel form. When she came into the world in 2006, we named her for my mother, Becky. My brother told me that on the night that Rebecca was born my dad told the family “Becky’s back.” I didn’t know what to make of that. Also I was pretty drugged up.

People have unsolicitedly told me over the years who my kids look like:

“He is the spitting image of your husband.”

“He’s tall like your dad.”

“She has your eyes.”

“She looks just like her father.”

I usually smile at them, nod and move on to something else. I’ve always said that my kids look like themselves and also that they are like themselves, which of course how could they not be? I try not to compare them to anyone. It just never sat right with me.

But then there are those moments when Rebecca reaches for my hand, or I catch a glimpse of the sparkle in her blue eyes, or I hear her on Facetime with a friend, and I think to myself, maybe Becky is back?

In the top row of that dark theater this week, when Ga-Linda (silent Ga) the good witch makes Elphaba feel comfortable and good about herself by dancing by her side in front of all of the students at Shiv University, I thought of my mom and how often she did the same for so many people. She had a gift for making others feel good about themselves. She did that for me when I needed it most. I think she was one of the good witches.

I also thought about my daughter, known by many of her friends as Becca (the Re is silent) who asked the new girl in school to join her at the lunch table with those same friends — a good witch too, just like the grandmother (fairy godmother?!) she never knew.

I reached for Rebecca’s hand on my right side when a familiar song started to play on screen.

“Something has changed within me. Something is not the same…..” Rebecca squeezed my hand back and held on for longer than she normally does. I’d say I was in a full on cry by that point — a good cry, not a wicked* one.

*Note: This is not a spoiler alert (I think/hope!) but my interpretation of the movie (and life!) is that we all have good in us. Are people born wicked or do they have wickedness thrust upon them, the movie asks? I think the later.

Back to something has changed within me. It did. It had, since the first time I walked out on a live performance of Wicked in 2003. My tears were the happy kind. I felt then, and I feel each and every single day, so much appreciation, gratitude and love for my (Re) Becca, for all the good witches (i.e. good people!!) in my life.

That includes, of course Aunt (Ga) Linda too, who whispered into my left ear the name of the actor who played the wizard and also a couple of things we missed when we had walked out of the Broadway show on that sad day.

I miss my mom every single day, but I so often remind myself how lucky I was that she was ever there in the first place. That she was my mom. Because I knew her….I have been changed (for good!!!) Cue the song.

We stayed for the whole movie. This is definitely not a spoiler alert because it has been reported everywhere: The 2024 movie Wicked is only the first half of the whole story. When I first heard this, I wondered if this was some kind of witchy trick being played on Aunt (Ga) Linda and me? Are we destined to only see the first half?

Aunt Linda, Rebecca and I left the movie smiling, singing and wowing. My mom used to say her favorite shows were the ones she left singing up the aisles, and my mom and I saw so many wonderful shows together. Because I knew her, I remembered that.

The three of us made an unspecific plan to see the second half when it comes out next year. I can’t wait to see how it ends, and also how it begins.

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Boston Friends!! See you in Person in January!

I am coming to Boston in January, and I am already thinking about getting out my warmest winter coat. Suggestions are welcome.

Join me in conversation with my dear friends Amy Blumenfeld and Jennifer Weinstock for what promises to be a wonderful discussion and event in support of Women’s Philanthropy of CJP.

All attendees will receive a copy of the new anthology ON BEING JEWISH NOW. More info and link to sign up right here! More details to come in the new year.