280 Days Until the Big Five-0

What's in a name?

I know I am lucky right now. I am getting a chance to spend precious time with my mother because I am fully aware of where we are right now even if she is not. I am being given full warning to make the best of every last moment. It may be weeks or months, but it is no longer some vague thought buried under the debris of millions of memories. I am about to become an orphan at the tender age of 49 or 50.

I was much older when I got married. It was not what I wanted but it happened that way. Looking back I can understand why. I simply was not ready to set my mother free from her worries of losing one more person in her life. Even if my moving out was not nearly as final as death, to my mother just the thought of not having me there created an anxiety I hated seeing. Her fear of abandonment was justified and all consuming. It started so young for her. Her life, like a Dickens novel, was full of tragic escapades and remarkable recoveries all revolving around her undeniable resourceful strong personality. The same personality saved her, her children, and in many cases friends and relatives. It is difficult to be the daughter of someone with so much personality and determination. I lost my identity long ago when I realized most people never called me by my own name. Since I was a young child, with the exception of my own friends, to the rest of the world I was “Becky’s daughter.” I often introduced myself that way and still do. Sometimes I forget my own name. When I first become an orphan I will still be Becky’s daughter to many people, but eventually that number will dwindle. I know many people say:

I am “fill in name’s” mother, wife, son, friend etc.

Their own names disappear in the shadows of their roles in life as someone else’s parent, spouse, or child. But my other roles as a wife, mother, cousin or friend all seem to be merely supporting cast slots behind the starring role of being Becky’s daughter.

Lately I have been wondering if being “Becky’s daughter” was not so much about who I was “not” as opposed to who I was. I had long resented being overshadowed by my mother and her needs. Perhaps instead of looking at the name as an act of losing my identity, I should view it as a way of finding it. I had my own name and my own needs. Hell, Becky gave me both the strange name and the need to be heard over her loud life. I wanted to be me, Benita Esther Kirshenbaum. I got so frustrated by most people referring to me as Becky’s daughter that I eventually started signing my full name everywhere, in year books, on cards, on the backs of photos. My friends always knew I was Benita Esther Kirshenbaum. I was staking my claim in this world. I wanted to own my identity. Now I realize being “Becky’s daughter” is my own identity even more so than being Benita Esther Kirshenbaum and I wonder what I will be when I am no longer Becky’s daughter.