In Remembrance of My Mother

Hello Girls

These were the words of remembrance read at your Bubby's funeral. It was a beautiful day as is typical in the States during the summer.  I could only glimpse at those sitting behind me but I felt their warmth and love. I honestly did and it helped. 

I was surrounded by your Aunt, Uncle, Zadie and cousins. We all shared the experience of loss and our powerlessness to control the depth and finality of it. There was an incredible kindness from the rabbi who struggled to mute his phone as Siri interrupted the service to say "I am sorry, I didn't get that, could you repeat it..."  

Dad sent a picture of you all before the service, just to remind me of your presence and also my presence with you. It also reminded me that although this piece of my heart and my history disappeared, no longer able to be touched, pushing me into lonely place, the pieces of you filled the air. I imagined saying these words to you. That day, I was talking to you.

It all seems a blur now but the warmth of that day and the week still gives me comfort. We looked through pictures, told stories, reenacted our childhood, laughed and cried together and then of course there were your your cuddles when I returned.

I love you all so very very much. Now, I find myself reflecting on the love between daughters and mothers and how us mothers, although often feeling as though we are fumbling a bit, try to model a course, a way of being. This was the course she modelled for me.

Words said: 

My mom had a few truths she lived by, one of which was that love was immeasurable and by giving love to others helped your love supply grow.

 

Another was that friends easily grow into family, which often made our home a community full of engagement and warmth, everyone had a place around our continuously growing dinner table.  

But  then, of course, in my mother’s world it meant that everyone now needs to be fed or they may starve. Which leads us to the next truth that all meals can be continually recycled or frozen. 

Graeme once commented on how tasty a pizza was that she cooked for him and she said, “Well, I knew you loved it because it is the one we took home from the restaurant last year.”  He was a bit shocked, but I giggled because I understood this level of frugality. It was needed when you wanted to open your home to the world and the world came in.

Most people don’t know the reasons that Mom created and dedicated herself to these important truths. It was simple, she wanted a happy life and she wanted us to have a happy life. 

Mom’s was an incredible journey and at times a very difficult one so to hold on to the hope of a good life she needed courage, strength and endurance.

Due to the death of her father, her hero, a little girls world became a scary place. A subtle but strong message knocked at her door that maybe happiness and a kind life existed but just not for her.  

However, she responded to that message in the same way that she responded to any negative messages and the negative people who would try to deliver them. Those of you who really knew her can probably guess her response and appreciate that it is a bit too naughty for me to repeat here.

Mom unapologetically rebelled against these cannot do’s or you are not allowed to messages. She never shied away from a challenge but instead charged it with a ferociousness, a battle cry and a belief in her right to succeed. 

I think when she lost her father, the blueprint for creating a happy life became smudged. She needed that fierce focus. Can you imagine the fortitude of that young girl? And that is the fortitude that we all who loved her understood and respected. At a very young age, she gathered her resources, placed them in her little toolbox, straightened her stance and said there is no room I will not enter, and no person who will dictate my worth and thus continued on her journey. 

To never again feel the threat of poverty, she knew that she needed to prioritise education because no one can take away her degree and her learning.

 

That meant that as a young woman in the 50’s she was the first in her family to achieve a university education and that involved the sciences, never opting for the easy path, and learning about how the world was made up, seemed pretty cool to her.

The second tool was gathering supportive and wonderful friends, because they, at times, would be her oxygen and in that quest she found my father.  Their love and friendship and shared understandings created a strong and beautiful home. The importance of family echoed in our lives.

Mom had an incredible capacity to love and care about others and let them know why they were special. It was like X-ray vision, she could  see someone’s worth and she couldn’t abide it going unnoticed by others. The sadness of a treasure, stepped over.  She couldn’t allow it. I think that there was a part of her that connected quite personally to that experience. She would not let that happen to the people that were important to her; she would fight for them because they were worthy of that fight and she would not apologise for that warrior stance. 

I remember her saying to me, that guilt was an unnecessary emotion. What she really meant was we cannot compromise who we are or our dreams to make another happy. We have the right to live our lives and prosper. 

And then when I was only 18, our happy home was hit by tragedy with the death of my father. She was a woman in her 40s with two kids in university and another thousands of miles away in Israel. How was she going to keep everyone safe? How was she going to continue to help us achieve our dreams? But somehow she did because sacrificing her or our dreams was not an option. She needed to show us that there was no glory in being stuck spiralling in a tragic story.

I am so thankful that she did not yield to that reoccurring message of not deserving happiness or to be loved again. What a horrible ending that would have been to her incredible life story if she hadn’t been loved again. 

Mom also went back to education, a fun 6 week course in Michigan to study something exciting like chemical compounds, as you do, and in that very romantic setting, she did find love again. 

She met Norman,  a true blessing not only for her but for all of us and they laughed together and they learned together and they danced together and they were happy together. 

He saw the treasure in her and valued her and valued us and I am forever grateful to him for what he brought and continues to bring to our lives and also for the love and care he gave to my mother in her final years. 

And I am also grateful to him for unknowingly being the impetus for mom and my legendary trip cross-country. She always wanted to go on a cross country road trip but it helped that he was waiting for her on the West Coast. We, armed with a 2 man tent and a continuous flow of tortilla chips, cheese and salsa made our way through 9 thousand miles in 6 weeks all to the background music of Les Miserable. I mean we did have a vague idea of where we were going, it was somewhere over there.  It sounds so crazy now but, at the time, it seemed so natural, it was just another adventure to embraced.  

And we did have so many adventures on that trip, literally climbing mountains and literally singing quite loudly to everyone who passed Valderi Valdera. We were Thelma and Louise with a much happier ending.

We awed at star-filled night skies that seemed to stretch out forever and then we held hands and cuddled and shared our dreams as well of course as solving all the world problems.  I feel so lucky to have had that time with her. Her infectious energy and curiosity were priceless.

It is also the time, she shared with me her “Fudge You” song and dance, sang to the tune of “So Long, Farewell” from the Sound of Music. However, we all know it wasn’t fudge you, she was singing. We sang it to those who annoyed us. It also became her words of wisdom to my daughters along with other colourful advice to give the bullies in the playground. I had to pretend to be shocked and warn her that naughty words were naughty words even when said in Yiddish.

  

It was her saying to my girls  regardless of societal rules, we don’t have to accommodate and compromise, we have the right to be strong and unabashedly show our strength and that strength can coexist with warmth, playing, creating and loving. 

 

Which brings me back to Norman, who created with her another beautiful home. She loved him so deeply and it showed in the home they created together, she was so happy there and she wanted to share that happiness with everyone. It was the home I brought my husband and daughters into.

When I introduced Graeme, he was welcomed into this community with wide-open arms and that love spread to my in-laws, my English family. That dinner table now grew across the Atlantic.

This Chatsworth home was full of love and joy.  Georgie and Gabrielle ran around with very little rules, cooked with Bubbie, created picnics in the front room, crafted and played games and allowed their imagination to run wild. They felt their Bubbie’s love and their very unique and special connection to her and also their importance to her. She awed them but they awed her too.  The love she had for them and all her wonderful grandchildren was again without measure.  And again that special ability to realise their strength and beauty and communicate it back to them and give joy was so powerful. I felt privileged as a mother and a daughter to watch that.  She “got them” and they “got her” and both felt admiration, importance and unconditional love. 

I have heard that the price of love is grief and that is so hard. However, although the loss of my mother is so deeply felt, the fierceness of her love, protection and joy transcends and continues.  Her presence is in the voice that guides my thoughts and experiences, the memories held by my family.  It is in the choices I make and it is in the choices my children make. It is in discussions and fiery debates at the dinner table. It is in her resemblance caught in their smiles or the way they look at the world with awe, curiosity, mischievousness and an impulse for adventure. It is in the way we all love deeply, without measure or condition. Thank you, Mom, for creating that blueprint of a happy and passionate life, I know your legacy will live on for generations. 

When you taught me how to dance

I remember I was vacuuming or trying to and you were pulling at my trousers or trying to because I kept flagging your hand away with a sort of swiping motion, usually reserved for removing stains. I used the remote to direct away your interest. "Just a minute," I said," Let Mommy finish, just this, just that, just one more thing and then the kitchen."

You didn't realise that I had a sort of schedule,  we sort of ate around this time and sort of cleaned around that time, different activities for different days to fit different forms of development: literacy, social interaction and coordination. Had to get my ticks in before we could take part in frivolous play.

Routines, the unwanted guest, I would rather live in a world of chaotic stress then live with structure.  However it was a lifestyle choice.  One that I often reevaluated and recreated in order to be a good mother. So, as with your father's sports car and my smoking, sporadic trips to faraway places, frivolous shopping and naughty nights out, it all had to go bye byes to create a household and lifestyle that was appropriate for a tiny little miracle like you. In came the white sheets, organic sleep suits, fruit smoothies, mothers clubs, dusted mantles, clean toilets, spotless floors and ironed panties.  I wanted the perfect home for the perfect you. A happy and safe home, but was it?

As you grow, you will be barraged by domestic goddess themes, which subtly impregnate false truths and infect unrealistic expectations.  There will be pictures of women smiling while they scrub toilets and wash floors and you may feel the need to smile back, don't! They are not your friends.  They are paid to lie, run! You will overhear pensioners on buses and trains reminiscing about household pride, joys of cleaning. Well, dear, their memory is shit.  And then, of course, there is that smiling mother of your child's school friend, who wears linen trousers, eats only organic, has stain free cream carpets and an ivory sofa. Open her closets and you will free a cleaning lady.

You are not as old as my favourite jeans, but faded pencil marks on Grandma's wall reminds me that your dynamic form is ever changing and I am missing the performance because I am vacuuming, diligently, heartfelt -back and forth, back and forth.

Days slip by and time goes faster and faster as we grow older and older.  Your infancy was a flash, toddler years a breath and I am so afraid that your little girl years will simply disappear in a moment of distraction.  I understand how you could not prefer my preference for vacuuming over cuddling, wiping stained toilets over puzzle making.  Why should I simply walk to a store when I could be pushing a doll pram, skipping alongside you. You, wearing silk and satin, glitter and velvet gowns.

Interesting how easy it is to touch the Dyson button and hear that annoying buzzing motor mute.  Also, interesting that I could still slide across the laminate floors like Tom Cruise in Risky Business, "Come on join me, little one," I put my hand out to you and you took it and you laughed and so did I, and then we ran around this trying to be perfect home dancing and singing.  It was so much more fun than vacuuming. I danced techno, jumping up and down on the bed.  You went heavy metal, head banging until dizzy, thick curls everywhere.  Then you did a mix up, throwing in an ABBA pose, finding your tiara and yelling "Super duper trooper." We dressed disco with blankets for capes, twirled around, kicking toys out of the way and prancing around in princess dresses to finalise a designer look. 

Your father walked in to see us crab shuffling to the bathroom, knees and elbows moving in and out.  He stepped over plastic high heels, moved aside the custom jewellery that cluttered the counter, turned down the screaming radio and we stopped and we turned.  You with drugstore makeup smeared across your face, surprised.  You slid to him in your Peppa Pig socks, brought  your plastic microphone to your tiny mouth, pointed up to him with your other hand "I sekky and know it," and then gave a good Elvis-like shake. I looked at the dirty dishes piled in the sink, grease on the stove top, clean, wrinkled clothes thrown across the table and I stood quiet and smiled. "Have a good day at work, Dear?" Your father smiled, pulled me in and swayed with me as we did at our wedding. We then gathered you to us like a bouquet of flowers. My favourite part of the day.

So, if you want to know why you don't remember Mommy ever having a show home.  Blame yourself, kid. And, thank you because I will always be grateful. 

Today is your day little one

Mammy will not get the ironing done

Nor will she shush you while she listens to the man on the phone

or ask you to use your inside voice

Mammy will not roll her eyes when you unfold the silk sheets

Instead she will let you ride on them like a sled

or roll into it as if it was a hammock.

Today is your day little one

Mammy will not quiet you to finish gossiping with a friend

Nor will she prod you to perform

or make the moment a “growing time”

Mammy will not rehearse with you that poem

but instead we will laugh at silly verses we create

because words aren’t easily remembered

For the years you served me,

quietly putting away your outside voice

going from A to B

instead of going round it and round it again.

Tidying the princess castle into the moat,

replacing your princess dress with the pretty one just bought you

and waiting to use painting sets…

…still waiting…

For letting the other little girl go first.

Today is your day little one

We can prance around with our hula hoops,

twirling them over each other

watching them drop off our hips

Barefoot, swaying to the music, bumping Butts,

howling out of tune.

shrugging shoulders, touching noses.

cuddling in, wasting time.

wrapping up in a cocoon, together,

twirling around and around and around.

We will have such fun little one,

just you, me and that naughty little shake the doctor’s watching.

Vulnerability Plus Vulnerability Equals Intimacy and Then Comes Strength

True intimacy attained through shared vulnerability. 

I just watched Everything Everywhere All At Once and  I am not sure I completely understand the movie, actually the only thing that I am sure of is that I don’t completely understand the movie.  And, after reading a few reviews, I am also sure that most other people don’t completely understand the movie. However, the power of consistent relationships in an ever-changing universe translated loudly. I watched Evelyn, surrounded by love, radiate loneliness and regret. There were Evelyns in my world, who I stared at, intently, committed, believed they fed the connection only to realise their stare became lost in the chaos behind me. I welled up.

There is a line in there, something like, we are not meant to be alone. Maybe... probably not, as it would be difficult to survive alone. It is something that I have often wondered about. However, surviving with the wrong person can be pretty horrible too. 

This weekend I had a hip replaced, ouch! and it was ouch! I hate all this be strong bullshit that accompanies stuff like this-especially when it shouts at me from my head, ringing out from some echo chamber, vibrating in my chest and belly, built during days when I had to be strong.  I hear things like ...it's a very common surgery and that some people leave on the same day etc... and I imagine doing backflips out of the surgery doors. However, the surgeon did shift my attention by explaining, stone faced,  about alignment mistakes, infections and death while slipping me a release paper to sign, both dad and I were a bit quieted after that meeting.  

The surgery did go well, but my body retaliated, screaming from the inside out, demanding immediate attention, a proper fuck you to everyone involved, lengthening my stay.  However, eventually, all parties calmed and it was agreed that I could be discharged. 

Your father met me with warm gorgeous hands, I felt them as he pulled my hair back and kissed me. He guided my legs off the bed, helping me to stand. I looked at him and his eagerness to bring me back to our home. This is where his imagination sat.  The day he heard them say all went well and I was ok to go home. His mind rejoined our co-created life of dinner table chats, silly jokes, running after the children, and racing after the hairy beast. Tonight, he fantasised about the warmth of a duvet that covered two bodies where skin touched.  This day, he no longer missed me. He just looked to his side and he caught my gaze.  

His relief paused in reaction to my shutter and words, "I just peed." He looked at the bed, " No, no... 5 minutes ago I peed. but what if I need to pee again and we are in the car and it is commuter traffic and I have to pee. What if I have an accident in the car?"

He smiled and said, "I have a plastic bag for you to sit on." This is actually true.  They instruct you to have a plastic bag in the car for mobility ease.

"I can't pee on a plastic bag!" The nurse replied that men usually have bottles but she didn't think that would work for me." I thought about a shewee and wondered why I hadn't ordered that. While my mind escaped to picturing me  using one and how that would work and if it would work... if I would have felt embarrassed in front of your father... if he would drive me past a trucker just for giggles... If a she wee  would have been easier to use initially instead of a bedpan.  

Your father interrupted my thoughts and said, "Would it make you feel better to try again. I looked at him and the nurse, ready and waiting to leave and I nodded.  The nurse gently smiled and understood, saying "I am in no rush." 

Eventually, we do get to the car. I look at the arduous task of moving my unmovable body into that tiny space. My foot stretched out, the crutches unyielding in shape, unable to help, a dip between the curb and the car for a foot that can’t lift, hips that can’t navigate. I freeze. Your father puts on his familiar brave face. He thinks that if he is calm and brave, I will be at ease and he's right. One part of my brain knows that he is faking it but the other part tells it to shut up and get on board. He smiles and gives eye contact and slowly, gently manoeuvres me. I feel the tenderness of each touch, the love. 

As the journey begins, I tell him I am scared. My thoughts jump and catastrophise to scenes from Fast and Furious. Until he answers, " I am too, so let's take it slow." Then he changes the subject and I am caught by the bridges that stretch out over the Tyne and what looks like a slow movement of the Sage building, one of the first buildings used in your father's efforts to win me over to the North East. Lost in the reverberations of that memory, it takes a few minutes before I rejoin your father telling me about how you and your sister have tidied the house- the oldest absorbed in laundry and the youngest making the kitchen and dining room shine blindingly and I smile. 

The world has become a game of Tetris. I need to get past the front door and up a few flights of stairs, meanwhile,  your father runs up and down those flights several times to obtain that forgotten item, becoming items. His final journey up,  he smiles, which he thinks camouflages heavy breathing. 

“I am sorry,” I say to him, again and again, and when his breathing allows,  he asks, " Why?” 

"Because you have to care for me." 

"Don't be silly." his face contorting while wrestling off compression socks. His getting me ready for shower reminds me of what we used to do for you girls but I am the mother and it doesn't feel right.

Your father, as if to dance, takes my hands and guides me upward, I take my crutches and he follows me to the shower. The first time we did this, it was accompanied by more giggles than the groans of today, trepidations existed but for very different reasons. Sorry if I made you girls blush.

I sit on my plastic shower chair, his hands pressed on my thick thighs that are layered by belly bags and I whisper, "I don't think that this is my sexiest moment." 

He, on both knees, looks up at me,  and smiles,’”You're beautiful.” I believe him, and for a moment I become shy. 

Vulnerability breathes out every pour and because he loves me, he is quick to inhale. His hazel/brown eyes give kindness and I need that kindness.  I need to know that I am safe. I can't defend or protect myself. The hazards in my world multiply rapidly causing my body to shiver. I need to believe in his strength but also his desire and compassion and I do. It comforts me when my body is absorbed in pain. He is my respite. 

Now as the weeks progress, I cannot say that the euphoria of true love and patience also progressed.  The drip drip of fantasises of my doing it better leaked in and the stairs began to creek, mimicking your father’s grimaces.  I hated the feeling of dependency and that little tasks still remained stupidly challenging. But, at the end of my rant or his silent simmer, we would check in with each other, even when we couldn't look our hands would touch. There is relief when you burst and then melt like candle wax on to your best friend, and there they are, annoyed and a bit burnt but still there, fingers touching or a hand sliding across your back as you pass.  

Life can throw a good punch and we react in ways unimaginable. I couldn't fathom reacting in unimaginable ways with anyone else but your father. I keep thinking about how difficult this would have been on my own. Or, how difficult it would be with the wrong person. There are some who might not share the vulnerability but take advantage of it by shaming, boasting superiority, crying about neglect and planting feelings of guilt. Maybe some would help due to obligation or expectation of payment, or maybe they would have left when I could no longer dance and entertain.  

In the movie Waymond recognises and accepts life’s inevitable hardships but his resilience is fuelled by seeking goodness and play and simply enjoying a laugh.  Girls, that is your father. Although his past job made him bear witness to tragedies, his innate nature continued to believe in good thriving and enjoying others. His humour drew me to him.  I loved how he saw the world and I hoped it would be contagious. It was and because of it, life is easier and actually quite nice. 

Relationships can be so complicated, but not as complicated as life. Your partner, needs to be like the air you breathe, calming, strengthening, enduring, and simply present and the assumption of presence should be a given. It should be the one thing you can count on  in case all your other surroundings tremble. That partner holding you and you holding them is the constant.  When that happens, stability spreads and, in that moment, you know that you two and the world you created, will be ok and maybe just a little bit stronger than the moment before.  

In The Ice Skating Rink

 Mother, you stared for ten minutes at each picture of each grandchild and the day passed and you were happy.

In your grandchild picture, you wear curly blond, soon to be auburn, ringlets like a crown, and a frilly dress that just hangs from your tall popsicle body. You can still hear your mother yelling, "eat, eat!"  

Those long legs created a long gate and quite a stride, which helped you traverse the other side of the tracks. Your arms like armour, carried books. You loved your books and I believe they loved you back.  

I can feel the ocean in my chest when imagining your childhood. Your mother strived for "a normal life," to soothe the chaos born within. She married for love and he did love her and they created you and then your brother. He calmed her restlessness and coaxed her to sit  in their very own garden.  She watched him throw a ball to your brother and teach you to swim.  You gave him a hero's cuddle during story time and then he said good night.

You still wore frilly dresses when your hero died. At night, you waited with a book but no one came. You listened to your mother's loud cries and bottles dropping until you didn't. Books, like a gentle hand, led your attention away. Your brother listened, until you led him outside to play. When your mother finally emerged, it was to find a job. She left you to care for him in a new home that always seemed dusty and made your brother struggle to breathe. You cleaned the house and him, fed him, clothed him, consoled him and also punished him. You played the little mommy and he held on tight. 

I remember taking my oldest skating.  I worried about her falling on unforgiving ice.  I worried about the cold sting inside tiny cuts. I worried about others pushing her. I wondered if she would get bored or fed up in the first 5 minutes, reverting to  a not so bad plan B of hot chocolate with marshmallows. But, her intense stare surprised me.  We entered the rink and all else fell away.  She created a plan.  I would get her to the rink and around it, until she could hold herself up on the rails.  She patiently clunked behind people till she could glide and then she glided past them. She fell a few times and I rushed to her, but she got back up before I arrived.  She focussed forward on her mission.  She didn't feel the bumps or bruises form.  She didn't notice those who fell or raced around her, she only looked at her next step, her next glide.  She didn't want a break, she was fierce and I was proud. I just watched her, loved her and cheered her on. By the end of the 90 minutes she was skating and smiling and looking at me again, I existed again and we smiled and skated round together. A little bit of me stopped worrying about her after that.  I knew that she would be ok. 

That is how I envisioned your childhood, Mom. After your father died, you began your survival quest. Your quest for normality.  I remember your intensive stare where the periphery fell away and only what stood in front of you mattered. I think that this must have served you well. I think the world would have been too cruel and daunting to endure your full attention, 

You fought monsters. You held your books like a shield, your eyes intense, focussing forward. It worked. It buffered that teacher who mocked your side of the tracks, refusing to give you stickers or place your name on the happy side of the board. It muffled her resentment that a girl  unworthy took up space. You faced forward as you walked home alone, without playdates, covered with rumours that you might infect the other girls. You held your books tighter as you waved to the nice lady living next door. She asked you how school was, while a new man slipped by her and waited.  You worried for her children, who knew how long they would need to play so they could eat. Your cupboards housed only a few potatoes and you held them in your hand, you wondered about dinner. You called out to family and showed them, asking for help, but your mother shut back the door and said the potatoes would suffice. Your stomach ached, heightened by your brother's cries. You told him you must leave him to study.  

Your books led you through school to university, to science, not an easy goal for a woman in the 50's. You held your books tightly, as your brother called you back when he took too many pills, or when your boyfriend told you he would only care for you if you would just lay down your books. You refused and he wished you well.  

You did crave the normality, glanced at it through other's windows. It grew in my father's house, which you stepped into. You hid large marks smeared across your forehead and back that read damaged. His attention pulled towards your eyes, your strength, your intelligence, all ironically fertilised by that which inflicted the wounds. He gave you a little cart to carry your books and you decided to love him. Together, you bought and filled a home creating your own normal silhouettes to be displayed in your windows.  Your mother and brother smiled to my father and then tilted their heads to you, reminding you that your damage could not wash off and that they did not wash off. That you could move away but you were still with them.  

I suspect you thought yourself contagious to us, so you kept your distance. You would not sacrifice us. You let us know that the world was cruel but you would protect us with shelter and food and love. Warriors can't do much else. You did your drills and watched on as my father carried out the life you hoped for but couldn't grasp.  

When my hero died, you wanted to run and you asked me to run with you, 9,000 miles in six weeks, two women and a pop up tent. We really didn't know much about each other except that we both loved the music from Les Miserable. It played again and again and we learned all the words. However, before we learned the words it was the background of our many fights. You see you had raised a warrior in your image. You had no books to shield you only the endless hours of a Canadian summer day. And when we were finally tired of our war, we put our swords down and breathed.  You sang, "Master of the house? Isn't worth my spit! Comforter, philosopher and lifelong shit!"  I laughed and you looked at me and laughed and I sang, "Everybody raise a glass, raise it up the master's arse!" and for the first time we played. The warrior took a rest and allowed the little girl who no longer wore the frilly dress to play. We lived on tortillas and cheese, dipped in salsa, walked up mountains, jumped in puddles, drank hot chocolate and watched a million stars float across the sky. I watched the girl who was trapped in a city, plagued by missions, let go and spread out in the long grass next to me. You let go of your weights and danced to country music, spoke to strangers and breathed in clean air.  

You sang the "fuck you song" to a naughty trucker, who blocked your path. I watched, mouth open, slouched behind the car's dashboard. In awe, I found myself mouthing the words, "Fuck you and you and you and you and you," sung to the tune of So Long, Farewell. You swaggered by him, hips wiggling as fingers from both hands danced around his stunned face,  and a sweeter smile could not be found on anyone. You enjoyed that moment. We later sang it together when recounting those who smeared our backs and foreheads and you would teach it to my children as I  put my head in my hands to hide my smile. We proudly sat as Thelma and Louis finding freedom on an endless road.    

However, that trip eventually ended and life came back into play and sadly some demons pushed old defences up again and soon miles separated us even more.  Although, you always took pleasure in retelling the stories of our odyssey and I always loved listening. In those moments, we sat side by side, giggling at our misadventures, our tortilla diet and our honest friendship. 

You always wanted me to write about that trip and I always said I would. Now, I don't think you can remember much of that trip, ageing can be cruel. Oddly, that which erases parts of your life also allows you to put down your warrior shield. Over zoom, you tell me you miss me, you love me, giving me virtual hugs, at your request, I shut my eyes and feel the warmth you give. I see the little girl waiting with her book but I also now see the mother who answers her lonely daughter's calls. 

Mother, you stared for ten minutes at each picture of each grandchild and the day passed and you were happy. I know how important it is that you never forget their faces. Like the little girl focussing forward with her intense stare, you just need to take the next step. 

Roots that Bind

 Your pink-tinted skin and lips blotted by wild flowers earned you the nickname “The English Rose.” These women worried about you getting too much sun so they pulled you into their homes saying, “Such a pale thing.” Their voices and movements leap-frogged each other in a sort of chaotic dance, and you stood silent, eyes darting, quietly soaking in the chaos.  Food filled the table you sat at and they said, “Eat, eat, you’ll like it,” it was familiar, that tone, those words. That day, I watched your smile and it felt infectious.

Today, I watch a different smile, one accompanied by a nervous giggle. I’ve asked how your day went, time with your friends. You describe them as girls you can be yourself with, you don’t have to try, they get you… This description allowed your father and me to finally let go of inhaled breath collected throughout the years. We watched you navigate through a social labyrinth that screamed out at every wrong turn.  For many years, you chose to keep a safe detached distance, affording only to mimic from the periphery, showing a curiosity for others but not being close enough to experience their curiosity for you. 

This changed with your visit to the States. You only needed a moment of consideration before deep diving into the family. I could see it as you played with your cousins, enjoyed new foods, or listened intently to the stories about people we used to love.  You eagerly squeezed into the back seat of a crowded car for an unorthodox tour of Boston, and recognised your strength by kayaking across the lake, creating bonfires and finding your way out of a hike that went wrong. With each feat, you heard the family applaud.  

You observed our family’s script, the essence of my script, life according to us, that didn’t always involve all those fussy rules. A world dismissing the unnecessary, the waving away of  protocols and social mores. You paused, often, mouth open, unsure, but then joined in. It was freeing for a new teenager, where invisible rules hid in every aspect of your life.  “Us” that word that now included you, ensured your right to this identity and a claim to all stories told. It felt a safe place for you. I understood this because when the rest of the world felt complicated, this is where I went.

You brought that sense of belonging home, growing friendships where secrets passed through whispers and snapchats. Where comfort settled the need to understand the formula. For your birthday, we filled the table with food and you girls laughed, ate, and then escaped to just be silly. You brought that warmth home, adding it to your story.

However, today, snacking in the kitchen, you wondered where Judaism fit into that script.  I looked out the window pushing my belly against the sink. 

“Mam, I was on the bus and this group of boys came to talk to us.”

“Ok” I replied. I felt the warm water rush over my hands as I finished the dishes. I shut off the water,  walked to you and leaned against the island to watch you twirling your spoon through yogurt. 

“They were introducing themselves and then pointed to one of their friends and said, he’s the Jew boy because he lives near the Jews,”  and that is when you became Jewish outside of our home, as pointed out to them by your friend. You became Jewish to the boys who stared.

You looked up and giggled. I held my breath, trying to not react. I just said, again, “OK.”

You continued, “Well, you could feel the tone change. They all started saying ‘ew Jew’ and then one boy said, ‘ Jew, get off the bus.’” You giggled again.  I had giggled like that. So, had your Bubbie, my Bubbie and so on….

During that visit across the pond, you commented on how my accent changed, a little bit New Yorker, a little bit Jewish, you mimicked Yiddish words. Growing up, my cousins and I mostly saw each other during the holidays. A time when people are only separated by generations. Us, the youngest generation, would run crazy around the house, while the oldest generation, would encourage us out the door.  I always thought of them as the elders, the high council. They would sit together, after a meal, digesting, and while the left overs were being stored away, they would ponder and then solve world problems: comments followed by silent consideration; sentences interrupted only by the dessert. Those fresh flowing colours laid upon antique dishes, each plate bringing stories from past generations. Fragile witnesses, to something quietly understood, held in a shared consciousness but rarely expressed.  

I remember my great aunt’s drooping red lids captured what seemed to be a blue mist. I stared and it felt hypnotising bringing me in closer to watch her as she spoke of her past, a rare moment. Sitting, hands on knees, legs spread, as if ready to stand, she glanced and then nodded at  her siblings, who reciprocated with their own nods. “To them, “ she said referring to her elders, “The West was filled with cowboys and lawlessness, they didn’t understand East Coast/West Coast. They saw my father as crazy. They asked why would he leave his home? His wife? His five children, all of us under 8?” And then she would laugh,  “The States, this far off country, they thought was so uncivilised!”  I would hear them laugh at that part of the story, followed by silence and then a whisper,  “The irony.”  In his 7 year absence, the children created imagined memories of their father, filled in by stories from their uncles, aunts and grandparents, who gathered to raised them in his absence.   

A dangerous world affected not only their childhood but also lingered in their current world. They never spoke of it but you could feel it, the darkness that seeped into the room, intertwined with the scent of food.  The quiet that came over them as “we remember.” An acceptance of their world, its threats and their helplessness amongst it. Memories of windows crashing, sweeping of glass, bloodied relatives walking with their faces downward to not scare the children, hugs given for the purpose of hiding, long walks back and forth to school where they knew to stay together.  To keep safe they tried to disguise themselves, camouflaged in the backdrops of their world. Finding safety only in their home. 

My grandmother never spoke of the days before she stepped on American soil.  She refused to speak her childhood language. She identified as Jewish and American only, but Jewish seemed whispered unless said behind closed doors. Her and her siblings hid that world away behind their new anglicised names, but that world would not leave my grandmother, no matter, her education, job or the very American man she married to kill her roots. The little girl inside her still saw the men who starred as they leaned against her window, slurring rants that fogged the glass, banging at her door, until boredom moved them on.

My Bubbie would say, “Be careful who you tell you’re a Jew to, know that there are those that will hate you for that, be ready.” In the next breath she would say, “And for all those who died, you must fight them.” She made me promise. Her words repeated loudly when I watched my school  teacher smile or when I opened the door for the mailman. Who was “that person” who hated me?

As a young mother, my grandmother, cried at the absent letters from her relatives over seas.  She watched the news of the holocaust and waved her brothers and husband off to fight. My grandfather died shortly after the war, leaving only my mother and uncle to carry the weight of my grandmother’s trauma. It seemed too much for my uncle, who would never truly participate in the world. 

I remember numbers on translucent skin, those of the family who “made it.” Their stories came to me indirectly, through my mother. As she spoke to me of what she overheard, we crouched down, like children huddled around a camp fire, our fantasies putting us in the places they had been. We would fight the fight they couldn’t and then maybe we could heal the wounds of those we loved, maybe I could heal my mother’s wounds.  Hebrew school, echoed “I must remember,” with films of naked women waiting in line, emaciated, sexless people collecting others last belongings.  It was my responsibility to remember, to say never again. As a child, I felt a warrior, but a warrior driven by the fear born in someone else’s blood. 

Growing up, the hatred waiting outside our neighbourhood was pointed out to me. We heard the stories of graffiti on temple walls, bomb threats, we watched the police patrol the streets, sit in the parking lots during Shabbat.  But often the prejudice I experienced directly was more of an irritant than a threat. It would come in the form of bizarre observations made, questions asked of me because “ I didn’t look Jewish. “  

 

“So, when is the messiah coming?” Or  “Why did you kill Jesus?” Usually, my mouth would dry, I would inhale before walking away, allowing them to enjoy a different form of entertainment. 

When I was 18, I attended a cool person’s party. I was never cool so I hid behind a lit cigarette and a drink, watching them, listening to their language, while slowly being pushed into the inner circle. The quarterback of our high school football team stood centre. I watched his fans listen and wait for  cues to laugh, what words to repeat. I joined because I could mimic, and banter flew, but then it turned racial, disguised as a harmless joke. It wasn’t harmless and it wasn’t directed to me but to the man next to me who wasn’t Jewish. As to my training, I spoke out. “Those jokes aren’t cool. People try to joke about Judaism too, but it is not ok.” The tone changed. The cool kid laughed as he looked at his friends and then me. “I can’t stand Jews.” He said this quite matter-a-factly and then continued,  “In fact, we needed more of those ovens.”  

That is when my world blurred with rage.  I screamed as I felt my friends pulling me away, back to my car. He watched, tutting, his friends’ heads down, saying nothing. My friends excused my sensitivity, justifying it by reminding each other of my father’s recent death. It wasn’t due to the death of my father. It was due to a lineage of those with subtle accents, whispering stories of others who couldn’t scream. I became their voice.  That story replayed over and over again for me as I listened to your story of the day you ingested a particular type of fear. 

At your birth, they commented on your “exotic” looks and asked the origin. I said, ”Me, my daughter looks like me.” I assimilated into my new country, the UK, absorbed into my new traditions and decided that you would belong to a kinder world, instead of one poisoned by generations of trauma. I would enjoy sitting with you in this world, unlike the scared women before me. You didn’t need to know of those who hated. However, here we are, at this counter, you smoothing out your hair before twirling it again and I watching you in silence.

“I told them I was only half Jewish and that you weren’t even that Jewish.” I watched you begin to cry. “I was scared.” You looked at me, afraid again, ashamed. Even though that part of your world, the vulnerable part susceptible to those who hate, had gone unspoken, as with osmosis, it seeped in. 

“Of course you were scared. You did the right thing, you kept yourself safe.” 

You exhaled loudly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know what to do.” 

I traveled around the counter and whispered, “Of course you wouldn’t know what to do.” You hadn’t been built that way, to hate or to expect hate. No, one lurking in your world until today. Today, what I tried to create for you was stolen and replaced by the same toxins that had also infected my world. I would say that to your father later when he held me as I cried. 

And then it happened to your sister (I decided to update this letter):

A few months later, the littlest one of you experienced similar on a WhatsApp group chat. A few years earlier, you were introduced to this historical hate. The teacher brought it to you in pictures of treacherous men with big noses, wearing yellow stars under the new vocabulary word “propaganda.” She also spread out pictures of men and women waiting at gas chambers, and children in ghettos behind fences staring.  The little boy, three seats down whispered, “If we lived back then, they would have taken…” You looked at him to see his finger pointing towards you; the other children followed his finger to you, the only Jew in the classroom, actually in the school. 

You burst through the door shouting questions, “Is it true, Is it true…How could it be true?” As you coughed through strained breaths and roughly threw words together that sketched out the lesson.  Refusing to drop your bags, refusing my kiss, even refusing to eat the cookies waiting, you wanted answers, maybe you wanted me to tell you the teacher got it wrong but she didn’t.  I stood unprepared, I just nodded and then picked up my shoulders. 

You then breathed out carrying the words, “Why didn’t you tell me?” We both stood in the quiet, staring, I bent down, looked at you and pick up my words from deep in my chest, confirming this hate exists, chipping more away at your innocence. You struggled with that. You struggled to sleep, worrying about being taken away like the children before you, it was months before I could leave your room when your eyes were still open. 

Those words in the WhatsApp group echoed the lesson, echoed what had been said to me so many years ago. Your pain reverberated and I absorbed it. Your sister held you. She understood. My shoulders raised again, this time to carry your pain, I had no other words to give.