Out Of Dust Comes A Diamond

 Nothing  is normal now.

The world is in chaos, my country is in chaos, my body and mind are in in chaos... the small moments of  joy that make life bearable seem few and far between. There is immense suffering on every conceivable level at this particular moment in time... and I feel it ALL.

The Buddhists believe that attachments cause suffering. And to achieve enlightenment, one must detatch from the source of suffering. But how does one accomplish this? Mainly though meditation. You train your thoughts to be quiet. You train your breathing to be deep & steady, which in turn causes your heart rate and pulse to slow. You train your body to respond, with poses and movements that are mindful & intentional. It takes years of practice. I mastered it on a very basic level by taking Hatha yoga classes with a wonderful teacher for 7 years. And while it helped me tremendously, I could never master the art of meditation and full relaxation, because I have what yogis commonly refer to as "monkey mind". My brain just never shuts off, even on a subconcious level when I'm asleep. I am not able to have thoughts or distracting sounds enter my mind and let them pass through without reaction. I am a deeply sensitive, intuitive, empath & while I understand the very Zen concept of total detachment from thoughts, feelings & outside influences, try as I might, I simply cannot "detach".

On a "macro' level, the world is currently experiencing intense shifts, both politically and economically. There is a rising tide of far-right fascism throughout Europe. The Middle East has been destabilized, thanks to the Palestinian / Israeli conflict in Gaza, fueled by Hamas, Netanyahu & funded by Iran & the U.S.. There has been three years of brutal war in Ukraine, the land my grandparents all fled at the turn of the 20th century to escape persecution and discrimination at the hands of the ruling antisemitic, oligarchic, dictators. And now, I'm witnessing MY country's 249 year-old democracy being dismantled from within, by some of the most horrible people on the planet. It's horrifying on so many levels, because never in my lifetime did I imagine that the Republic of the United States of America would become the very thing that my grandparents emigrated here to escape from. I've had to enforce some very strong boundaries & "detach" from the fascist, dystopian, nightmare shit show that's playing out 24/7 on the television & social media, for fear of literally losing my mind from it!

On a more "micro" level, there is my physical suffering. The fabulous combination of menopausal hormonal shifts and an autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis) have thrown my body into absolute chaos. I've been dealing with the RA for nearly eighteen years. I firmly believe that the traumas I experienced when I was younger, along with major hormonal shifts immediately after giving birth do my daughter are the cause of the onset. I have been on every class of drug used to treat my disease, but despite short-lived success and relief, I have failed on each one. My rheumatologist is probably going to have me start IV infusions at this point, which is literally the last line of defense in the treatment of RA. I have NO idea how I will tolerate it or whether it will even work. My inflammation is systemic and now affects my hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, hips, lower back, knees, ankles and feet... pretty much EVERY joint in my skeletal system (with the exception of my jaw & upper spine). I am in some form of pain every single day of my life and it never ends. Ever. At best, I push through it by taking my meds, supplements & edibles when needed & push the suffering to the back of my mind, so I can focus on what I need to do in my daily life. At worst, I lie in my bed sobbing, sometimes barely able to move, putting the best laid plans aside, because I'm not physically able to do all of the things that I used to. I'm still trying to accept that last part and I fully believe that at some point, I will probably need to use a cane and will eventually end up in a wheelchair for mobility. Currently, my illness is "invisible"... I don't look or act "sick", so people assume I'm fine. Unless you know me well or see me wearing compression gloves or hear me groaning as I try to shift in my seat or get up from a very uncomfortable position, because my joints are screaming, you would never know how excrutiating & debilitating my daily battles are. My body is at war with itself & my mind is constantly at war with my body. I can only hope that like one of my artistic heroines, Frida Kahlo, who also suffered with physical disabilities & disfigurement from childhood polio & a terrible accident in her teens, I can somehow elevate my suffering into an art form.

At the same time, I'm also working a full time job (because I was denied meager disability benefits a few years ago, since I'm still relatively able-bodied), but my boss is a pretty horrible human being, who's a narcissist, with OCD, ODD & borderline personality disorder. She's a miserable woman, who loves to berate, browbeat & bully people into doing her bidding. She is not a compassionate, collaborative, empathetic or mentoring sort of person & she really has no business being in a management position or ANY position of authority at all. Luckily, there are lots of other "normal", caring, interesting people at my workplace, so I find solace with them. And then there's the raising of my nearly eighteen year-old daughter, who will be graduating high school in 2 months & then will be off to college.  She will soon be getting her drivers license (after a year of driving lessons & practice with me), she has a serious boyfriend & wants to go on birth control (which I fully support) & is about to enter the brave, new world of "adulting". My sassy little girl is now a young woman & ready to fly the nest. It's exhausting dealing with all of this, both mentally & physically! And sadly, I have no one to guide me, because my mother, my aunt & my "antie cousin", who I was very close with my entire life, are all dead & gone. No wise, female relatives that I can turn to for advice & counsel... So, I've had to rely on myself & make it up as I go along. I hope that I've successfully navigated the parenting thing & that I've steered my funny, intelligent, supremely talented & lovely daughter in the right direction. Nobody's going to give me trophies or medals for my efforts, but I know that I have done my damndest to give her both roots AND wings!

I don't know how I have been able to be so highly functional under so much pressure. I don't know too many people who could have survived what I've survived and still be standing. I like to think it's because of my genetic predisposition for survival, thanks to stubborn, strong Ukranian / Polish / British Isles personality traits & superior DNA. I'm sure that my twisted, wicked sense of humor, forged out of trauma & suffering, has also kept me from breaking into a million little pieces. I have literally walked through the fires of hell or Mordor & kept on going, despite being a bit singed. Perhaps I'm like that piece of fossilized, carbonized coal, that gets squeezed between shifting tectonic plates for millenia, compounded by the immense pressure & heat of gravitational forces & time... I could've been ground into dust, but instead, I was forged into a briliant, glittering, multifaceted diamond.

Dedushka Zeyde: The Fantastic, Mysterious Story Of Harry Marshall: Part 4

 By 1956 both of my paternal grandparents are gone and my father had enlisted in the Navy after spending a few years living with his older sister, brother-in-law & nephews in Long Island, NY. Eva had died of cancer in 1953 and 2 years later, Harry Marshall, father of 6 children by 3 different women also died of heart disease. He had married one last time after Eva had passed, to an unknown woman, someone to look after him in his last few years. His story ended with a grave, in the Kishenev section of Waldheim cemetery, buried beside his wife Eva, his 3rd and longest lasting marriage. 

My father, Harry's youngest son, spent 6 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy, then returned to Chicago in 1962. He attended Northwetern University and was a reservist at Glenview Naval Air Station. During this time, he had lots of adventures of his own. In 1966, he met and married my mother, Sybil Janofsky, who was an Audrey Hepburn lookalike, also the daughter of immigrant parents (who's stories are equally as fascinating as Harry Marshall's). She, like my father, had lost a parent (her father), but she had grown up in the Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago, where the more middle class Eastern European Jews had settled. Her parents were college educated, which was unheard of for most immigrants, a teacher and a doctor respectively. My mother was not only beautiful, but very smart, having gotten a full academic scholarship to Roosevelt University in Chicago. She graduated with honors and became a teacher, like her mother. I was born 2 years after my parents married and my sister Joanna followed 5 years later. My father has always said that his mother Eva would have loved being a grandmother to my sister and I, but sadly, she never had that opportunity. I'm sure she would've been a wonderful Bubbe and perhaps Harry would've been an interesting Zeyde.

All I can surmise, after years of researching my family history and my grandfather Harry in particular, is that he had a definite taste for adventure, he must've been a very determined man, having left Russia & come to America at the age of 25, he clearly needed women in his life, although he abandoned his first 4 children and 2nd wife Selma, he was physically and mentally strong, but also vain, stubborn and selfish (traits which both my Aunt & father definitely had), he went from rags to riches and back to rags throughout the course of his life and I do wish I could've sat with him, drinking a glass of tea, while listening to the fascinating stories he had to tell.

There are also some amazing coincidences and revelations that I came across as part of my research... 

The first one was the sad story of Harry's first wife Jeni. I was horrified at her death, but also happy that I was able to coroborate a story / rumor with actual facts, piecing together the mystery of who Milton Marshall's mother and Harry's first wife really was. 

The second was finding out that my sister was not the only Joanna Marshall, there had been Johanna Marshall, Harry's first daughter, born many decades before her. I wish I could've met my father's half-brother and half-sisters, because I'm sure they probably had very interesting stories about their lives and their parents. 

The third was finding out through my research that in the early 1940s, Harry had gotten work through the WPA project in the very town where I now live, in suburban Chicago, helping to build the local library. My father recalled that his father had huge hands, which I'm sure came in handy as a laborer, butilding that libray. 

The fourth was finding my father's half-niece and nephew, Jay Adlersberg and Lynn Adlersberg Colby, who I am in touch with and would love to hopefully meet in person someday, since they, my father, myself and my sister, as well as his 2 nephews are the only living descendants of our grandfather Harry (besides all of our children). 

But the fifth and most heartwarming discovery I made was this: My father's recollection that his mother's favorite song was "Mein Shtetele Beltz", which made perfect sense, once I came across my Aunt Belle's birth record, which showed that Riva Leia Nusamovich was born in the town of Beltz (modern day Balti) in Moldova, a fact that nobody, least of all my father, even knew! 

And then the sixth, most personal coincidence was realizing that my daughter's middle name Leah is the same as her great grandmother's. I hadn't known Eva's "real" name and although my daughter's middle name was chosen to honor my Aunt Lila, just as my name Ellen was chosen to honor my grandmother Eva, perhaps her spirit had also been influencing me in a way that I never could have imagined. 

ALL of this is because of one man, my paternal grandfather, Harry Marshall, who's story has now been told, and preserved, by the curious, research-junkie, writer granddaughter that he never even knew.

Dedushka Zeyde: The Fantastic, Mysterious Story Of Harry Marshall: Part 3

 By 1924, Harry Marshall is 44 years-old, he has 4 children, by 2 different wives, one who killed herself and one who he has left, but he is by all accounts a wealthy man. He's been in Pittsburgh for nearly 20 years and somehow decides to go back to the "old country" to find himself a new wife. A marriage has been arranged, although the details of how it was actually coordinated are unknown. Perhaps it was through family that still resided in Odessa or Barr, perhaps it was done through a matchmaker... the answers are lost to history. But, he makes the journey back across the world to Moldova, a land sandwiched between Romania and the Ukrainian section of Russia, also called Bessarabia, as part of The Settlement of Pale, where Jews had been forced to settle by the Russian authorities and aristocracy in the latter part of the 19th century. It is here, that Harry finds his prize.

Riva Lia Nussamovich is 24 and a dark haired, dark eyed beauty. Her father and brothers had stables and ran a cartage business (using carts & horses). They have all fought in WWI and possibly the Russian revolution as calvary officers in the Czar's Imperial Army, since they were skilled horsemen. She was apparently in love with a cousin, who she wanted to marry, but her war wounded father told her that if she married him, he would never get out of his bed again. Somehow, he DID agree to allow a man 20 years older than his beloved daughter to marry her and take her away. I can only imagine that there was a large sum of money involved as a "dowry" in such an arrangement.

They stayed in Kishenev (modern day Chisnau), a major center of Moldovan Jewish life and within a year, a daughter, Beila Marshall, my Aunt was born. After a few years, they apparently, grew tired of life in Moldova, and since Harry was an American citizen, he applied for an emergency Bucharest passport/Visa for his 3rd wife and small child and they left to go on a tour of Europe, with an English nanny in tow, to help take care of the girl. And in 1929, they returned to America aboard the Aquitania, which was the sister ship to the Lusitania, sailing from Cherbourg, France and ending up in the west side of Chicago, in the the Lawndale neighborhood, a haven for Eastern European Jews, which had a vibrant Jewish community. Shortly after their arrival, the Great Depression would steal the remaining fortune Harry had left and he would have a series of jobs, one selling slippers at the Maxwell Street market, to make ends meet, while Riva Leia (who had changed her name to Eva upon coming to America), did sewing and embroidery for wealthy ladies in Chicago and the affluent town of Evanston. 

Clearly, Eva must've known about Harry's previous marriages and his other, older children, but I have no idea what contact he had with them, since Chicago was far from Pittsburgh, a long way away from the legacy of bitterness and sadness Harry had left behind there. In later years, my Aunt did meet her half siblings, all of whom seemed to have done well for themselves, despite their absent father. Milton was in the army in WWII, married & had several children of his own, Johanna also served in WWII (as part of the WAACs), and eventually settled in Arizona, Mathilde stayed in Pittsburgh and married a German Jew named Herman Adlersberg and had 2 children, Jay and Lynn (the only still living members of the Marshall clan, besides my father and his 2 nephews). The only one who didn't survive was Benjamin, who's death certificate showed that he died at the age of 24 from a congenital heart problem and septicemia from an infection. 

By all accounts, Eva and Harry did not have the happiest of marriages. And the cousin, who Eva had been in love with, had also come to America, becoming a pharmacist in Philadelpia (who she also visited with my father, when he was very young). In 1939, when my Aunt Belle (the more Americanized version of Beila) was 14, the last of Harry Marshall's progeny, my father Edward Martin Marshall was born. There had been several miscarriages and still births in the intervening years, but at last Harry, at the age of 58, had another son. Interestingly, Eva was 38 at the time, which is considered "advanced maternal age" (and is exactly the same age as I was when I had my daughter). The young teenager Belle and her best friend Silvia Schwartzberg used to push by father around the neighborhood in his stroller, when he was a baby, and feed him french fries, bringing him back home, with his hands and face covered in grease. As she got older, photos show that Belle grew into a stunning beauty, a raven-haired, Jewish version of Rita Hayworth. She was quite smart and artistically talented. And apparently a boy who hassled her was accosted by Harry, who grabbed him by his shirt collar and told him in no uncertain terms to leave his daughter alone (a scene that would be repeated by my own father many years later, by a man who dared to bother my younger sister). And although Harry was protective of his youngest daughter, after graduating high school, he apparently refused to let her attend The School of the Art Institute, which she was offered a scholarship for. I have no doubt that based on his "old world" views, girls weren't worth educating and their true purpose was to get married and be homemakers and mothers.

Meanwhile, Eddie's younger years were somewhat idyllic... He went to school, sporadically attended cheder (Yiddish for Hebrew school) and was later bar mitzvah'd. His grammar school pictures show a devilishly handsome boy with jet black hair and sparkling blue, almond shaped eyes. His yearbook showed that his nickname was "innocent eyes", but he was anything but, having admitted to me that girls like Luba Shlopak let him drop pennies down their blouses. When my father was 5, his older sister Belle got married in the living room of their house. She married a Naval officer named Herb Lapidus, who came from a well-off family in New York and had been stationed at Navy Pier in Chicago during WWII. Belle married him presumably to get away from her father and leave the poverty of the west side of Chicago. They didn't get along at all and she was very embarassed that the family was poor and her father sold slippers on Maxwell Street and did other odd jobs to make ends meet. After Belle left the house to go move back east with her husband, life continued for Eddie, with Harry working and putting up barrels of pickles, beets and sauerkraut in the cellar and Eva keeping the house, doing her sewing and embroidery. They spoke Yiddish at home and when my father was old enough to understand it, they'd switch to Russian. Eva, who spoke Yiddish, Russian and Romanian (having grown up in Moldova, right next to Romania) also learned English once she came to America. Eva Nussamovich Marshall, who probably had NO formal education, spoke FOUR languages! She took night classes at the local library to learn English and my father recalled many hours spent at the library with his mother, which I imagine is how he developed his lifelong love of books and adventure.

But when my father turned 14, his world turned upside down... Eva was diagnosed with cancer, breast cancer to be exact, which had spread to other places in her body, due to the fact that she was poor and couldn't afford good medical care. She languished in the hospital, comforted only by a radio that Belle's friend Sylvia Schwartzberg procured for her. She was given radiation treatment, but just prior to that, she cut off the long, black braids that had always been pinned up on her head and donned a scarf, so as not to scare her son with the change in hairdo (those braids still exist in a carved, wooden box in the bottom of one of my father's desk drawers in his library). On her deathbed, Eva made her daughter Belle promise to take care of her beloved son, Eddie. She agreed and after Eva died, my father was uprooted from everything he knew in Lawndale and sent to Hicksville, New York on Long Island, to live with Belle and Herb Lapidus and their two young sons (my father's nephew's Barry and Todd, who he is actually closer in age to than his older sister). Herb has done well for himself and owned an insurance company, plus some family money and he had made smart investments, so they had a nice, mid-century modern house. Harry Marshall was in his early 70's at this point and clearly unable or unwilling to take care of his teenage son, so he remarried. Who this 4th wife was, I have NO clue, but clearly, he was an old man that needed to be taken care of by a woman, once again.

My father, the rough and tough kid from the west side of Chicago was probably a handful, so after a few years of living with his sister and brother-in-law, it becomes clear that they simply don't want the responsibility anymore. Instead of waiting to let my 17 year-old father graduate from Hicksville high school with a diploma and sending him on his way, which would'veat least sufficed in terms of finding a job and starting a career in 1957, Herb takes him to the local recruiter, so my father can join the military (which he was told would "make a man out of him"). My father chooses the Navy and when he has to sign the papers to list who his beneficiary will be for death benefits if he happens to die in the service of his country, my father lists nobody. The old gunnery seargent processing his paperwork sees his choice says, "Good lad!", then glares at Herb Lapidus, who technically has NO right to turn my father over to the military, since he is a minor and neither Herb nor Belle had ever been made my father's legal guardians, despite the fact that his mother was dead and his father had remarried. 

Luckily, my now "orphaned" father is smart and although he doesn't have a high school diploma, his test results show that he is highly intelligent, which puts him on an officer track into naval aviation versus a more menial job, and he is sent to boot camp in Bainbridge, Maryland, then off to places like Lakehurst, New Jersey (scene of the Hindenburg disaster), Norman, Oklahoma, Corpus Christie, Texas, and finally he is stationed at Norfolk, Virginia, as a parachute rigger in a seaplane squardon, VP44. He is in the Navy at a perfect time, the cold war era, between Korea and Viet Nam. He has joined the Navy, he visits many places in the U.S. as part of his training, and he also gets to go to more exotic locations like Bermuda, where VP44's sister squadron is located, as well as Puerto Rico, where another Naval aviation base exists (along with numerous places for sailors to have a good time with the hot, local Latina girls). My father even jokes that I may have some half brothers and sisters running around the island, which I have never tried to investigate, but it wouldn't surprise me, given the fact that the pictures of my father in uniform with his dark pompadour, intense eyes and smile from that time make him look like he stepped out of a Hollywood movie set. His exotic combination of Ukrainian / Moldovan features must have been pretty irresistable back then, and since I know he didn't drink, gamble or smoke, like most of his felow sailors, he was clearly an absolute ladies man. A fact which was confirmed many years later at a fraternity brother's son's bar mitzvah, in Norfolk, by a woman who was one of the town nafke's (slut in Yiddish), who declared in front of everyone assembled (including me and my mother) that "ALL the girls in Virginia Beach knew Eddie!".

And what will become of the youngest son and sixth child of Harry Marshall?... You have to stay tuned to find out, because there is much more to the story!

Dedushka Zeyde: The Fantastic, Mysterious Story Of Harry Marshall: Part 2

 In the course of my research on my paternal grandfather, I came across a few early facts. He apparently came to the United States in 1905 at the age of 25 and settled in Pittsburgh. How he came to be there was an absolute mystery. His papers had contradictory information, some saying he was from Russia and some saying he was from Barr (perhaps a town called Barr Podolsky in Ukraine?). It's impossible to know where exactly he came from and the information given to my father and his older sister was that Harry came from Odessa. Again, we will never know, since too much time has passed. Harry also claimed that his last name was always Marshall, which would've been highly unlikely as a Jewish man from Odessa. Could the name have been Marshallkovich (a Russian name that was listed in the directory of my mother's cousin's condo building, which was full of old Eastern European folks in the '80's)? Could it have been Marshalik? Moshkovitz? Had it been changed at Ellis Island when he came to America? Had HE changed it to sound less Jewish? I will never know the answer to that question, unfortunately. The only other name that appears on Harry's papers is his father, Morris and again, I have no way of knowing if that was even my great grandfather's real name.

What I do know is that he ended up in Pittsburgh, his profession was listed as a salesman and the rumor/story was that he had taken over his first wife's family business and she ended up killing herself. That last part was both fascinating and horrifying to me. Harry and the mysterious first wife had a son in 1906, named Milton. He was my father's eldest half brother. There is much more about Milton to come later. As I said, the mysterious circumtances of this first wife haunted me... Was it just a rumor and a made up story or did she really exist? Those questions rattled around in my brain for years, until I finally went down a research rabbit hole, looking for more information about Milton, through Ancestry, which led me to another site entirely that led me to the truth... Harry Marshall's first wife HAD existed! Her name was Szeni (Jeni) Bakler and was a Hungarian Jew. She was born in 1885 (how she came to be in Pittshburgh and met my grandfather is another mystery), she had 12 siblings, 2 of which died young, she married Harry in 1905, their son Milton was born in 1906 and she died in 1907 at the age of 23, two years after marrying my grandfather, when her son was a year old. The information I uncovered about her death nearly knocked me off my chair... Her cause of death was listed as carbolic acid poisoning. It was actually a suicide! I couldn't imagine what would drive a person to kill themselves in such a horrible way, since carbolic acid (phenol) is highly corrosive and causes burns to the mouth, esophagus and digestive tract when ingested, it causes immediate tissue necrosis as well as acting on the brain, the lungs, liver and kidneys. It depresses the nervous system, causing shock, rapid heart rate and is fatal when not treated immedately. In the early 20th century, is was used as an antiseptic agent and was found in many comercially available household products. Why would anyone do something like this to themselves? Especially a 23 year-old woman with a baby. Had she been dealing with mental health issues or was it something else? Had my grandfather actually driven her to such extreme lengths? Again, I will never know the answers to those questions, but the scenario was indeed tragic on several levels. The only other information I was able to find out about poor Jeni was that her parents, Esther Hapt & Lobi Louis Bakler died in Los Angeles in 1925 and 1928 respectively and had 13 children between them. I can only assume they went to California to escape the tragedy of their daughter's suicide or they had relatives or possibly some of their other children living there. Interestingly, they did not take their grandson Milton with them. His fate lay elsewhere.

At some point soon after, my grandfather married again, presumably to have someone to help raise his young son. That woman was Selma Wallach, a German Jewish lady, who's profession was listed as a cook. Since my grandfather was Russian, I can only assume that he spoke Yiddish with Selma (and poor Jeni, who was Hungarian), since that would've been the common language of ALL Jews of Eastern and Western European origin, aside fom their new American language, English. I have no clue how Harry and Selma met. I Imagine that he either met her through the Pittsburgh immigrant Jewish community or perhaps they met at a restaurant or bakery she was working at. I know virtually nothing about Selma's origins or how she came to be in Pittsburgh. In any event, Harry and Selma went on to have three more children, Johanna, Mathilde (Mittel) and Benjamin. Milton was also integrated into this "new" family. Again, I know nothing of their lives during this time, but I do know that by the 1920's Harry apparently owned a few taverns in Pittsburgh and had made quite a bit of money, despite prohibition. I like to imagine that he probably dealt with bootleggers and perhaps members of the local mafia, who procured booze up in Canada & smuggled it across Lake Erie and down the Allegheny river to supply the speakeasys in Pittsburgh. All I know is that by the mid-1920's, Harry had adandoned Selma and his four children, for reasons that I will never know. I do know that a census record from that time showed that Selma listed herself as "widowed", so I can only imagine there was conflict and a bitter divorce that left her with three young children of her own and a step-son. What kind of man would do this? How could Harry have left his second family and why? 

The answer lay halfway across the world, in Moldova/Bessarabia, where the fate of a dark eyed, dark haired beauty named Riva Leia Nusamovich was about to be intertwined with a man named Harry Marshall. And this next chapter is where things get VERY interesting.

Dedushka Zeyde: The Fantastic, Mysterious Story of Harry Marshall, Part 1

I never knew my paternal grandfather. He was born in 1880 and existed only in black & white or sepia photos and a handful of vague stories, recalled by my father. For a long time the only facts I knew were that he came to America from Russia as a young man, supposedly from Odessa, had several children, by several women (2 before the arranged marriage to my grandmother), he was functionally illiterate, but had once been a successful businessman and salesman, he spoke Russian (probably a Ukrainian dialect), Yiddish and broken English. 

The "origin" story, that was related to my father, was that when he was rougly 14 years-old, Harry came home to find his stepmother beating his younger sister and when he intervened, by throwing the stepmother off of the girl, he was told, "Wait until your father gets home!". He apparently didn't stick around for whatever punishment lay in store for him and ran away (leaving his sister behind, to suffer further abuse). Harry also told my father that he had spent time in South Africa (his age at that time is unknown, so presumably he got on trains or a ship at some point, which would've been the only way to travel that far from Russia at that time) and while walking through the jungle, with whomever he was there with, got pelted by monkeys, high up in the trees, tossing down the seeds of the fruit they were enjoying. The only other story from Harry's early life was that he was once riding in a cart pulled by horses, when wolves came out of the surrounding woodlands, spooking the horses, which overturned the cart, so to avoid being attacked, he undid the horses' reins, releasing them to run away, while he hid under the overturned cart until the wolves lost interest and moved on. Both are good stories, but I have NO idea if either are true or they were just exciting, cautionary tales told to entertain my father as a young boy. 

All of my life, I have been fascinated by my paternal grandfather and his arranged marriage to my paternal grandmother... I would stare at a particularly fascinating image of them, in what I assume was their wedding picture, taken in the mid 1920's, which hung in a black, oval frame, above my father's dresser... He in a 3-piece suit, his stocky frame balanced with one elbow propped on a high, small table, lined with fringe, looking intensely into the camera and she in a long buttoned coat, her black hair pulled back into braids, with a somewhat shy and demure expression. Who WERE these people? WHERE did they really come from? WHY did they come to America, HOW did they live? WHAT could their DNA, now coursing through MY veins, possibly tell me?

When I was in my 30's, I joined Ancestry.com, started piecing together the puzzle of my family tree, with mysterious figures on BOTH sides of my family and began to uncover a treaure trove of facts, documents and evidence to support my research on the people who I was descended from. It was and is my geneological/forensic anthropology dream come true! Harry Marshall, my paternal grandfather, who made his momentous, incredible life journey, over the course of 74 years, all the way from Russia (Ukraine) to his small grave in the Kishenev section of Waldheim cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois (on the far outskirts of Chicago), where he is buried next to his 3rd wife, my grandmother Eva. The things I managed to uncover made me happy, sad, amazed and some discoveries literally blew my mind. ALL of them are now being committed to memory via this blog and I hope eventually into an actual book.

"Why Can't I Be Me?"

 I've written about my very complicated relationship with my mother previously, but as I'm working through my grief over her recent death, it's funny the things I recall. I never really understood where the expectations, demands & pressures she put on me came from as a kid, but as an adult, I can look back and see exactly where all of that stemmed from.

When it came to academics, there was never any question as to my intelligence. If there was a subject I excelled at, like reading, writing or art, I always did well. Math was another story entirely, though. It was a language I just couldn't comprehend. Addition, subtraction & multiplication made sense to me, but I saw NO point in doing endless algebraic equations. Geometry, which was a visual representation of an equation or angle, also made perfect sense to me, but anything beyond that, like physics, calculus or higher level stuff made my head spin. I barely passed sohomore Algebra in high school & took a remedial, "business economics" class that actually made far more sense to me, with its practical applications. And despite having math tutors throughought my school career, my mother never understood why I couldn't grasp mathematical concepts... I remember sitting at the kitchen table, crying as I tried to solve homework problems & being berated by both parents for not "getting it." You would think, as a teacher, my mother would've had a little more compassion & understanding that math was clearly NOT one of my brain's intelligences, but alas, no. 

Clearly my forte was in writing, drawing, painting, crafting dioramas, doing plays in the school's theater program (which involved singing, dancing & acting) & anything to do with nature. Yet, instead of building me up & praising my skills in those areas, I was criticized & shamed for not being able to do math. It's mind boggling really, because even the most basic child psychology & parenting books will tell you that praising a kid & reinforcing positive behavior greatly develops a child's self-esteem. I didn't get ANY of that from my parents during my school years. What I got was my mother's expectations laid heavily upon my shoulders.

The comments from the teachers during conferences & on report cards were always basically the same, "Ellen is a very bright girl, but she just needs to apply herself." or "Talks & socializes too much in class". This drove my mother crazy. Because she AND my teachers all recognized the potential that was there, I just lacked the motivation. And my mother's brand of motivation was to tell me, "You could be a straight A student if you wanted to. Why are you so lazy?"... And yet when I DID "perform" at the top of my game on a paper, test, quiz, gymnastics meet or a dance recital or play, it was always, "Well, it was good, but you could've done better.". What I realize now is that those were HER expectations, not mine. She wanted me to conform to those standards, the standards that SHE was held to by her parents. For a long time, I tried to oblige, but after awhile, I just stopped listening, stopped caring, because I KNEW that it took a LOT of guts & talent to do ALL of the things I did excel at, so I stopped wanting & needing her approval. I somehow had the courage & strength to listen to MY inner voice that was telling me I WAS good enough & always had been. I could get up on a stage or a balance beam, in front of HUNDREDS of people, with no fear, no hesitation or shyness & sing with the clear voice of an angel or defy gravity & then stick a landing. THOSE things took guts & a lot of chutzpah!

During my school years, the Jewish & Asian kids were always the smartest & at the upper eschelons of those groups, it was a highly competitive game as to who would have the top ranking. I was smart, but not THAT kind of smart. I remember my mother constantly comparing me to them & holding these kids up as examples of the "gold standard" of academic excellence. One girl in particular, who was always the valedictorian, was held up as perfection personified. Our mothers were friends, but she & I were only periferally friends. After high school, she went on to go to the University of Michigan, graduated with a BA, magna cum laude, went on to law school (I forget where), then made a switch to a Master's in Library Sciences, then ultimately got married, had kids & NEVER even used her advance degrees. I can't even recall how many times my mother asked me why I couldn't be more like HER, and yet, I had NO desire to be like her at all. And as an adult, I am keenly aware of all the pressure that must've been on her to be that valedictorian & to live up to whatever expectations her parents & she herself put on her to be that person. And I recall that one of the last times my mother said, "Why can't you be like Jackie Stern?", my reaction was to spin around, in a very sharp, confrontational way & reply, "Why can't I be like ME?!". And interestingly, she had no response to that, because I had finally silenced that hurtful, damaging, brand of criticism. That comparison was never made again, at least not to my face.

As a parent, I vowed NEVER to do that with my own daughter. And just like me, her strengths are in the visual / verbal realm. And like me, she is highly intelligent, very intuitive & sensitive, quite creative & math is the bane of her existence. And also like me, when she finds a subject she likes & excels at, the sky's the limit. My philosophy with her academics has always been to do your best & make an effort, even in math. I KNOW she is never going to get straight A's in math... it's not going to happen & so I don't have ridiculously high expectations in that respect. She has needed extra help in math since grade school, she is genetically predisposed to suck at it, thanks to the DNA she inherited from both parents. When I tell this to teachers & counselors, they sometimes look at me funny, but I don't care. One had the nerve to tell me that because she believes she's bad at math, she will always do badly... Not true! I know my daughter, like I know myself, her brain is neurodivergent (thanks to ADHD) & mathematical concepts are not ever going to be something she excels at. So, rather than reinforce her weaknesses & set those bars ultra high on something she will never be able to live up to, why not build her up ion her strengths, because she has SO many?! I am 100% okay with the fact that she's having to retake sophomore algebra, because maybe she'll get a C or a D this time, instead of an F. I don't care if it's not an A, as long as she passes the class & has enough math credits to graduate, because, let's face it, unless she's going into engineering or theoretical physics (and those are certainly not going to be career options she's even remotely interested in), she WILL NOT be using algebra in her daily life... I haven't!

So yes, unlike MY mother, I am self-aware enough & undertanding enough to know how damaging expectations can be to a child, especially ones that are unrealistic & unattainable. I know exactly how it feels to be forced into a mold that was not ever made for me. I know how it feels to be made to think I was somehow "less than" & how that affected my self esteem up until adulthood. I know all of the ways a kid, especially a girl, can rebel against that, with some very negative repercussions like eating disorders, self-harm, depression, risky behavior like doing drugs, drinking or being sexually promiscuous, ALL because of the never-ending seach for some form of "approval". I do my very best to accept my daughter for the person she IS, not the person I think she should be, faults & flaws included. My mother was a spectacular exmple of what NOT to do as a parent, so I have always tried my damndest to not repeat those mistakes, to learn & hopefully evolve from those awful patterns of behavior that I endured. My daughter gets to be HERSELF & I finally get to be ME & that is a very good thing.

Grief And The Maiden

 My mother has been gone for a month now. I wasn't sad about her passing. She had suffered a lot in her last few years between the diabetes that ravaged her kidneys & necessitated surgery to create 2 different fistulas, then thrice weekly dialysis, along with dementia & heart disease, plus loss of mobility, falls, weakness, a significant change in personality & towards the end, incontinence. Her quality of life had totally diminished & it basically revolved around her dialysis schedule & doctor's appointments, with a few fun outings thrown in there. Still, she was a presence in my parent's house, sitting there, in her recliner chair, with the TV remote & phone nearby, watching endless hours of "Murder She Wrote", "Monk" or ridiculously bad Hallmark & Lifetime movies, sometimes game shows or the local news. 

There was still a spark of the disapproving mother I had always known, even towards the end, when she was hospitalized after her peritoneal fistula failed & was unable to be fixed by the vascular surgeon. The decision had been made by her medical team, that stopping dialysis and having her transfer into hospice care was the only option, since her veins were not viable, one kidney wasn't functioning anymore & the other was working only at about 10%... I knew that renal failure was quick & took about 2 weeks for a person to die, thanks to a hospice nurse friend. So, I also knew that before things got worse, I needed to ask my mom some questions. When I did, I got a typical response, "Ellen, stop quizzing me. Leave me alone!". I wasn't mad, because I knew she was tired & her dementia addled brain simply couldn't handle the things I was asking of her... I laughed, because it also showed me that she still had some fight left in her. It was the last "real" conversation we had & it epitomized our relationship.

From the time I was a toddler, my mother & I were at odds. I could never accept "No." for an answer & instead of being a nice, compliant child, I always argued back... I was strong willed & stubborn & would try my damnedest to wear her down, so I could get my way. Sometimes it worked, but most of the time it just created tension & a battle of wills. I loved testing the limits... I still do. 

I suppose that it had something to do with the fact that at 9 months old, I was sent to stay with my Aunt & Uncle in Des Moines, because my mother had slipped a disc in her spine when she was pregnant with me & needed to have major surgery to repair it. She wouldn't be able to hold me or carry me during her recovery, so instead of hiring a nanny or caretaker, or having my father take time off work to care for me (this was long before the days of FMLA) the decision was made to send me to relatives. My cousins loved having a little doll to play with & I'm sure I loved having 3 instant siblings to fuss over me. I took my first steps at their house & used to think it was hilarious to pour out all of the kibble from their dog Rascal's food bowl all over the kitchen floor. I called my Aunt Lila "Mommy" & was thoroughly confused when I was returned to my parents, after being in Des Moines for 3 months. I was also apparently the reason my Aunt & Uncle never had a 4th child! And although it all worked out, I'm sure that son some level, I had a sense of abandonment. How could a mother give up her only child like that, for even a few days?

I do remember my mother being AMAZING if I was ever sick, which was rare & if I were ever hungry, she was a fantastic cook, although I was an extremely picky eater. I did love her Jell-O molds & the fabulous meals she'd make for Jewish holidays, like brisket & matzoh ball soup. Yet when it came to academics or athletic performance (I did dance, gymnastics & briefly ice skating), there was ALWAYS judgment & disapproval. If you got a B, it should've been an A. If you came in 2nd place in a regional competition, it should've been 1st. There was NEVER any praise for the great job that I did manage to do, only scorn at the fact that I could've & should've done better. The message that was firmly planted in my psyche was "You're not good enough.". And of course, I internalized that. 

I was always good at writing, artistic pursuits (drawing, painting, collages & anything creative), as well as the biological sciences... I was fascinated with nature & animals & I used to read my grandmother's National Geographic magazines from cover to cover, whenever I'd visit her. I would spend hours underneath her mahogany dining room table, with the claw & ball feet, writing & illustrating stories, while sucking on the Brach's sour balls candy, that she had in abundance, in the crystal candy dish that resided in the middle of her round, mid-century living room table. My grandmother was not a warm, loving, demonstrative person, so I'm sure she was happy that I could entertain myself, while she sat in her favorite chair, smoking Winston's, reading the paper or talking in the phone to her friends. She always loved whatever creations I made & sometimes, a particularly good drawing would end up being displayed on her refrigerator. Unlike my mother, who would tear me apart for being so "bad" at math (it was never my strong suit), instead of praising my artistic abilities or writing skill.

In facr, in the 3rd grade, I wrote & illustrated a story about a mole, cleverly drawn with white crayon on black & brown constriction paper, to show how dark it was underground, which actually got entered into the Illinois Young Artist's contest & my story made it all the way to Springfield. My teacher, Miss Moy, who I adored, was VERY excited & proud. Much more so than my own mother. I remember being so disappointed that I didn't get a prize, but Miss Moy, who was a kind, creative, nurturing mentor (and is still my favorite teacher to this day), told me how lucky I was to have made it that far, to the "finals" & that I should be really proud of myself. I wasn't, but she knew how to put a positive spin on it for me, versus the disapproval & judgment I got at home. I'm sure my mother WAS quite proud of me & my accomplishments, but she NEVER showed it, not to me anyway.

Throughout my high school, college & early adult life, ALL I got from my mother was the same message, slightly varied, but always that my efforts weren't ever good enough, nor were my choices in jobs, friends or boyfriends... I made "bad" decisions & when THE most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me, after the breakup of a bad relationship in my early 20's occurred, instead of providing comfort & empathy, my mother BLAMED me for it. It was the ultimate form of parental rejection & gaslighting... It's a wonder I had ANY self-esteem growing up! And to be fair, I found out years later that she did the SAME thing to my sister, when she didn't medal in a high school swim team event or when she ran off to Las Vegas to marry her African American husband, who was a musician with dreadlocks (the horror of her middle class, Jewish daughter doing such a scandalous, rebellious thing was almost too much to bear). When my mother had a heart attack in 2002, she apparently blamed my sister for it. Nevermind the fact that she was overweight, didn't eat a healthy diet or exercise & she is genetically predisposed to heart disease, thanks to our wonderful Ashkenazi DNA. Her daughters were clearly doing these things to punish HER & she was going to make sure we knew it! She was a martyr.

My mother grew up during war time, as the youngest daughter of a doctor & a teacher, both immigrants, who were college educated, which was almost unheard of. She was quiet, pretty & smart. She grew up in a household with a sister who was 8 years older than her, 2 parents who were emotionally unavailable, where education was paramount & finishing the food on your dinner plate was required, because "there were children starving in Europe". She rebelled quietly, in her own way, but ultimately led a very sheltered life. Her father died of a heart attack when she was in college (on a full academic scholarship to Roosevelt University in Chicago) & she lived with her mother until she married my Dad in 1966. She became a teacher, like my grandmother & Aunt had, then a stay-at-home mom for 10 years, while my father was the breadwinner (back int he days when you could raise a family on one salary) until my sister was old enough to go to full day kindergarten, then she went back to teaching. I'm SURE she felt unfulfilled, since most of her high school friends went away to college & married wealthier guys than my father. She was smart enough to have been a doctor or a lawyer, but back in the 50's & 60's, girls weren't given the message that they could do or be "anything". I'm also sure that losing her father, who she was close with, was traumatic & I know she dealt with it as an adult by overeating. She battled her weight for as long as I can remember, trying every fad diet, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Richard Simmons exercise plans, books, the lot... 

Yet I would always find her food stashes, especially the chocolate candy & cookies she hid. Her overeating was an example to me of what NOT to do, so I went the opposite direction. I had always been petite & a picky eater... I would take more food on my plate than I could possibly eat, so my parent's would chastise me about it, which resulted in the old "battle of wills". Although my mother vowed never to make me or my sister sit at the table to finish a meal (since she hated having been forced to do that by my grandmother), I decided to skip the arguments over food & simply stopped eating altogether, just to shut them up. And it DID shut them up. I don't think they even recognized that I had an eating disorder and if they did, they never consulted with professionals or got me any help. When I was doing dance & gymnastics, it was a way for me to have some control over my body, in addition to having to "perform". I honestly loved the feeling of being so starved that I'd experience the euphoric, lightheadedness that came with it. I loved that my friends would pig out on snacks, but I had the "discipline" to only eat a few bites of an apple. If I wasn't "good enough" in academics or athletics, I could be the best at not eating. And when puberty came calling around 12 or 13 & my lithe, boyish figure started to become soft & curvy, with tiny boobs appearing, I was PISSED! I was 15 and a half when I got my first period, probably because I had no body fat & had been a gymnast. My mother was ready to take me to the doctor before it finally happened... I'm sure she was relieved, but again, there was no congratulations, only the fact that I was a failure at puberty, since it took so long!

And later, when I became a mother myself, I couldn't go to her for advice on things like breast feeding (since women of her generation didn't do it, in favor of bottle feeding formula, which the doctors recommended). I know she was proud of her only grandchild, but she also made me keenly aware of my own daughter's "stubbornness & iron will" as a baby & toddler (and what would you expect from a child who was a mix of centuries of pure Ukrainian & Scottish DNA?). My mother had NO idea that when I was pregnant & found out the sex of the baby, that I cried for TWO days... Because I knew what was coming & I was terrified of repeating the same awful mistakes my own mother had made with me. I ended up having to have a scheduled c-section delivery, 3 weeks before my due date, because I had placenta previa (which is a dangerous condition where the placenta is low in the uterus, blocking the cervix & potentially causing life threatening hemorrhaging if one goes into labor & the placenta comes out before the baby does), which was also terrifying to me, since it meant a surgical birth, rather than a natural delivery. I also suffered from a bad bout of post partum depression, which I wasn't expecting & again, my mother had no point of reference & offered me very little support or help with her newly arrived granddaughter. She longed for grandchildren & then when I provided her with one, she simply couldn't be bothered to actually engage with her or do fun things with her, like other grandmothers did. I'm not sure why, but my mother acted like babysitting o r spending time with her grandchild was an inconvenience. This only further disappointed & frustrated me.

I had ALWAYS had a closer relationship to my father. We were far more alike than my mother & I. We related to each other with our love of adventure, books, movies, music & creative pursuits (we once built a Viking ship from a kit, painted it & mounted it on a stand). My father worked in retail, so he was always working, but we managed to have special time together doing Indian Princesses through the YMCA or weekend jaunts to antiquarian bookstores & antique shops. My father had been orphaned at the age of 14, got sent to live with his older sister in NY & then joined the Navy at 17. He was my hero & the tough guy who was really a teddy bear when it came to his daughters. My mother was my enemy, since she was the disciplinarian, the "bad cop", the person who's approval & love I would never have. 

Although, even from childhood, my younger sister, who was olive complexioned with dark hair & eyes, like my Dad's mother & sister, was always the favorite. She got away with murder, unlike me, who was always punished for the slightest infraction. My father spanked my sister ONE time & because she cried & carried on, he felt terrible... Unlike me, who took it like a man each time I was in trouble. I was too stubborn to cry in front of him & show that I was upset... I was stupid, because my sister's "manipulation" turned him into jelly. She was the one who went on to become a high school science teacher, then got her Master's & PhD (paid for in part by her affluent school district)... I was just the asshole who had 2 bad marriages, managed to do well the 3rd time & produced a precious grandchild. My mother LOVED to brag about the fact that there was once again "a doctor" in the family, which made me secretly furious, because had I had the opportunity & the money, I would have loved to get a Master's degree myself. 

And as my mother lay dying, at the end of her life, ALL of these feelings & resentments bubbled up inside me... ALL of the years of disapproval, judgment & the complete lack of emotional availability were laid bare. I had been lucky & smart enough to find "other mothers" to fulfill that need for myself in the form of neighbors like Karen Farber, Judy Tecktiel, Pam Gorges or teachers like Miss Moy, my mom's cousin Marlene & my beloved Aunt Lila, who in some ways were better mothers to me than my own. They gave me things that my own mother couldn't & for that I am eternally grateful. 

But when I looked at her, lying in that hospice bed, her brain & body under the medicinal twilight spell of a Haldol, Lorezepam, Dilaudid cocktail, all pale, Her once beautiful hair all sparse, whispy & white against her skull, her once beautiful face all sunken in, her breathing labored, her pale skin, still amazingly soft as I held her hand & told her it was okay for her to let go, I couldn't be mad... I could only feel pity & sadness. I was not the daughter she wanted & she was not the mother I needed. And after she died & the funeral was over, I had to grieve over that... the infinite melancholia of a mother that I had almost no real relationship with, the person who I couldn't really go to for advice or comfort for anything, the person who had abandoned me as a baby & damaged me psychologically to the point of an eating disorder, the person who blamed me for my mistakes, the person who criticized and judged me up until the very end, the person who NEVER ever understood me or accepted me for who I was and the choices I made with my life. THAT is what I had to grieve & I am still grieving. 

I'm sure it will get better & easier over time. Although, I don't accept the standard bullshit excuse of, "She did the best she could"... No, she didn't. Because the best she could have done was to love, accept and support her daughter unconditionally & that never happened, despite how "proud" she claimed to be of me. And as a mother myself, it has always been my burden & challenge to do my best to be a different kind of mother to MY daughter... to always be the mother that she needs, no matter what. Because I promised myself a long time ago that I would not let history repeat itself, I would not be like Fannie Janofsky or Sybil Marshall, I would be better than that. I would be me.