What am I doing here??
Was I born solely for the purpose of making up for my mother’s bad childhood? And if so, then mission accomplished. What more is there for me to do? I have fulfilled my main purpose in life, and this answers that eternal puzzle we all strive to solve: Why was I born, for what reason, for what purpose? Oh well, now that I figured that one out I feel so purposeless…
My mother is a very strong woman. My mother resents her own strength. These two sentences are both absolutely true and often the source of quite a dilemma for her. And like so many other traits I have absorbed, both sentences are true of me as well. So, I will try my best to sort it all out and see what I have learned over the years in an effort to embrace and cherish my own strength instead of being afraid of it and running away.
My mother wants to be rescued and when that does not happen, she fights on. This has happened often in her life. It began when her parents moved her to Winnimac Indiana with them to live on a farm during the Great Depression, which turned out to be one of the most tragic turn of events in her life. The farm was supposed to be a co-op of sorts, something similar to a Kibbutz and her father was to be in charge while the other owners remained in Chicago. He would work the farm with his sons and his youngest daughter who was only about 9 at the time. Well, the area they chose to live in was infested with anti-semites. My mother was bullied and beaten on her way to and from school so she had to stop going. Then one weekend someone burnt their home down to the ground. My grandparents were forced to clean out a chicken coop and live in it. At that point my grandmother made the colossal mistake of sending my mother to live with an Aunt who already had 8 kids of her own. My mother was sleeping on a floor in the back of her Aunt’s little grocery store, all alone, except for the cockroaches. The other kids all shared one room up stairs and there was no space left for Becky. And this is where I learned the first lesson my mother taught me without knowing it. Never ever separate from your young child. My mother would have been better off sleeping in the chicken coop with her own mother. Poor Becky was a lonely little girl who missed her parents terribly and soon had to go to work since there was no one else to provide for her. Yet, I am convinced she lay on that floor dreading the nasty noisy bugs and praying someone, her mother, her father, anyone, would come and take her away. .
I have to believe in the mind of every little girl in a bad situation, that fantasy, that dream of being rescued keeps them going. It is an illusion, but a necessary one if tomorrow is going to come, and it always does. And it did for Becky. I can only assume she wanted to be rescued again when she realized the man she married was nothing like the man she had been dating. She had probably resigned herself to a life as an old maid living with her parents and oldest sister when World War II ended and immigrants slowly sailed across the Atlantic to their new beginnings in America. The elegant, intelligent European man who once held doors open for her turned into a controlling and violent enemy and yet her new life was signed and sealed in a Marriage License. His volatility probably did not become completely apparent until after Becky had her first child and by then it was too late, she could not afford to support herself and a baby. She was probably too embarrassed to tell her family what she was enduring at home. After years of hearing the stories, I realized she had taught me yet another lesson. Never allow a man to insult, intimidate, or threaten you in any way for any reason. Becky endured and she even multiplied twice more which is how it is I have arrived at this spot on the page.
I remember when she had open heart surgery in 1994. After the rehab and coming home I hired a caregiver to sleep in the extra bedroom since I had moved all the way upstairs (wow what a risk taker I was) into my own apartment on the third floor. Of course I paid rent, my mom was a business woman first and foremost and the building was her livelihood. She knew she was responsible for her own financial well being, the archetypical widow, a woman with more strength than an army. She was always in charge of her own destiny. She just didn’t trust Destiny. She constantly voiced her fears, “what will become of me?” as if she were that little girl on the floor, or that woman in an abusive marriage unable to figure a way out. The caregiver got tired of my mother’s complaining and told her not to worry and that “she was plenty strong. The caregiver was right, but it made my mother really angry. I realized then, she wrestled emotionally with her ability to endure physical hardship and her desire to be rescued so she could escape from it.
One of my mother’s favorite quotes when I was growing up was: “We make plans and G-d laughs” to show how futile it was to try and exert control over one’s life. I cannot help but think that while random tragedies happen it is dangerous to live as if we have no say in the course our lives take? Besides that, my mother was living proof that indeed, even after tragedy strikes, we can once again regain control over our lives and choose the direction in which we wish to travel. Destiny is more flexible than we realize.
My mother has lived her entire life convinced the rug would be pulled out from under her heavy legs at any moment. And this is how her childhood affected her, and me. It may have had a different impact on someone else. I think about that a lot. I am sure there are numerous anecdotal instances that would illustrate taking 2 or 10 or 20 different people and giving them all the same experience and seeing each one cope differently resulting in a wide variety of long term effects on their development. I take this as proof positive of the existence of individual Personalities being present at birth. I don’t really want to write a story about my mother with a beginning, middle and an end, instead I prefer to sit and wrestle with the words as a way to explore and philosophize. The Tao of Becky…figuring out my mother, her many contradictions and what they can teach me about how the world works. Who knows maybe there is still enough time left in my life for me to move Destiny in another direction.
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