The Ghost of A Labor Day Weekend Past

 This past holiday weekend a long forgotten memory bubbled up... One from 32 years ago, like a dream that makes you wonder if it really happened at all... But it did.

In my mid-20's, I experienced a traumatic event, which is a chapter of my life that I rarely talk about. An ex-boyfriend tried to kill me in a very horrific, violent way and ended up killing an innocent person in the process, sending him to a life in prison (it's a long blog post for another day). It happened at the tail end of the summer, in 1993. I had almost forgotten, but in the immediate aftermath of the horrible happenings, I experienced one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me.

At that time in my life, I was only a few years out of college and still trying to find a job/career befitting of my BA degree. In the meantime, I was working a retail job at The Body Shop in one of the upscale malls in suburban Chicago. It was there that I became close friends with a co-worker, Jennifer. She had gown up in NYC, Manhattan, I think, the only child of very wealthy, divorced parents. She was a few years older than me and had attended Wellesly, but was now living in Evanston with her fiance Kenny (who was also a transplanted New Yorker and worked for an educational software company). She was working part-time at the Body Shop, while getting her Master's degree at the University of Chicago.

I don't even remember having a conversation with Jennifer about the horrific event involving the ex-boyfriend, but that Labor Day weekend, she whisked me away to the Hamptons, on Long Island. Through my shell-shock, I remember feeling grateful and relieved to be getting the hell away from the swirling chaos of the terrible situation, that had even made the local news. We'd be visiting her father, an extremely wealthy investment banker, who was renting a house in East Hampton for the summer (as most rich NYC residents did) and also her mother and step-father, who had a home in Amagansett. Jennifer's mother was a writer and professor at Harvard, who split her time between New York and Paris and her step-father was a wealthy academic and writer, who was somehow related to the Rockefeller family.

I have NO idea if Jennifer explained to either of her parents the circumstances which led to me accompanying her on this weekend getaway and I guess it really didn't matter. All I know is that we flew to Long Island, got in a luxury rental car and the next thing I knew, we we dropped our luggage off at the palatial house her father had rented for the summer and then did some shopping at fancy boutiques in East Hampton. We also stopped at another, more modern home, to visit a couple that Jennifer was friends with, which belonged to one of their rich Aunts. I vaguely remember their curious questions over lunch in a fabulously updated, marble covered kitchen, because Jennifer had actually told them about what I had just endured back home. 

That night, we had dinner with her father and his "girlfriend du jour", served to us by a private chef. I'm sure I was polite and quiet, while I took in this lavish lifestyle that I had never experienced. Later that evening, Jennifer and I crashed in the twin beds, covered in expensive looking floral bedspreads, that were in the middle of a huge bedroom, filled with beautiful, antique furniture. The next morning, we got up and I remember showering in a small, elegant bathroom that had a balcony, overlooking the backyard and a pool. Jennifer said her goodbyes to her father, I thanked him for having me as a guest, then we headed off to her mother's place, stopping at a small cafe on the way, for coffee and pastries.

Her mother and step-father's summer home in Amagansett was much smaller and cozier than the rental house that we'd stayed at the night before. Her mother was chatty and friendly and showed me to a small guest bedroom, where I dropped my bags. It was a short walk to the beach, so Jennifer and I changed into our bathing suits and headed there. I remember slathering myself in sunscreen before walking along the beach, collecting shells and standing in the Atlantic surf, waves crashing against my legs, trying simultaneously to not think about what had just happened to me and wondering how the hell I going to go forward with my life. It was a LOT to process and it would take me years to do it! That night, we all enjoyed a boiled lobster dinner and sat on the backyard patio around a fire pit. 

The following morning, we had breakfast, then said our goodbyes. Again, I'm sure that through my shell-shock I was polite and thankful to Jennifer's mother and step-father for hosting me. I remember my prevailing thought on the plane ride back to Chicago was that I DID NOT want to go back. It was so nice being in a completely different environment, far away from the horrors I had experienced. I don't know if I was able to properly express it at the time, but I was extremely grateful to my friend and her parents for their generosity and kindness during what was THE most traumatic experience of my life thus far. 

Sadly, my friendship with Jennifer only lasted about 5 years. We drifted apart after she married her fiance, had a daughter and moved back east. I remember seeing her house in Evanston listed for sale and I actually went to the open house... It was weird walking through the rooms where I had once spent so much time with her and her partner, seeing reminders of her child that I never had the opportunity to meet, I felt incredibly sad that our friendship hadn't remained, but I suppose it gave me some sort of closure.

So, when the memories of that long ago Labor Day weekend popped into my head this past weekend, I allowed myself to recall the random bits with gratitude, before deciding to commit them to a blog post. They remind me that even in the worst of times, even when friendships don't last, people's humanity and kindness can leave a lasting impression in our minds and hearts. Thank you Jennifer for giving me that gift, when everything, including my life, had almost been taken from me. I will never forget it!

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.

These Are The Things You Didn't Know, But Now You Do.

 So, you see me or know me from work, mutual friends, etc... We hang out, you think I'm a "cool" person, because I've traveled, done interesting things, I'm funny, open, friendly, a bit unconventional & outspoken... But you have NO idea that I've suffered unimaginable tragedy as the victim of a very violent crime, when I was in my early 20's. I rarely talk about it.

You also have NO idea that as the result of a psycho ex-boyfriend, who tried to kill me, because he didn't like that I broke up with him, the course of my life was forever changed & not in a "good" way. You also don't know that when I did try to break up with him, after only dating for 5 months, he raped me, got me pregnant & I ended up telling him in no uncertain terms that I was NOT having his child under any circumstances & he needed to take me to the clinic ASAP to have this taken care of(this was back when Roe v Wade was the law of the land, thank fuck!). And nobody on this earth can tell me that I didn't do the absolute right thing in this situation.

You don't know that I was on "autopilot" or had undiagnosed, untreated PTSD for YEARS afterwards. You don't know that the actual incident was traumatic enough, but then it took 2 years for it to go to trial & when it did, I was re-traumatized all over again. You don't know that this guy is now living out his life + 30 year sentence in prison or that at one point, the legal team was considering asking for the death penalty.

You also don't know that nobody in my family, not my parents, not my sister, not my cousins, Aunts or Uncles EVER once asked me if I was okay or whether I needed anything or that they were sorry something like this happened to me. You don't know that my Mother actually blamed me for the incident... as if I could've predicted that this closet sociopath had murderous intentions! You don't know that I got NOTHING in the way of empathy or compassion from anyone at the time, only disdain, criticism and being portrayed as "the victim" in a "crime of passion".

There was ONE family member, who told me I was her hero, because of the strength & grace I projected, even when I felt like I was dying inside... She reminded me that I come from the toughest, most stubborn of people (Ukrainians), who literally left the Motherland with nothing, not even speaking the language, then boarded ships to America & re-built lives for themselves, their children & grandchildren, so they would have better opportunities in this new land. She told me I was genetically programmed for "survival" & she was right.

You have no clue that beyond my well-constructed, but very genuine facade, I am a deeply distrustful, cynical, jaded person, who will never feel safe in any situation & is always looking over my shoulder when out in public. You can't imagine the depths of my dislike towards most of humanity. You also can't imagine the things I would do to anyone that would even think about doing such harm to MY precious, only daughter. You don't know that I cried for 2 days when I found out I was having a girl, because my mind flashed forward to potential boyfriends that could someday perpetrate & violate her, like I had been perpetrated & violated.

You don't know that my anger & hatred has simmered for nearly 30 years, fueled by deep reserves of determination & willful character... A weaker person would've been shattered by what I endured & probably ended up being institutionalized, suicidal or barely able to function... But, not this girl. I never viewed myself as a "victim", which is perhaps what saved me from drowning & succumbing to the stigma... I carried on, I still carry on. I'm not even sure how my brain allowed me to, but it did & I did. The thought of letting this "define" me or letting him "win" was never an option.

You don't know that the trauma still resides in my mind & body... I still have nightmares about him, I sometimes wake up in a cold sweat, screaming. And I'm fully convinced that my rheumatoid arthritis is a direct, physical, autoimmune response to the emotional & physical stress I endured & still endure, almost 30 years later. Again, not many people could handle such intense, daily, never-ending physical pain.

Sometimes, I sit back in awe of it all... Because if you had told me years ago that I could survive intense trauma & still be standing here, sane, rational, genuine & with a wicked sense of humor, I would've laughed in your face. But here I am, in all of my imperfectly perfect glory...These are the things you didn't know, but now you do.

Dear Frenemy

 Dear Frenemy,

High school is long past, but my reckoning is not. Now that I've had many years of perspective & lots of time to reflect, here are a few salient truths for you to ponder...

I was ALWAYS prettier, thinner, more clever & funny. I could wear the little, lacy, nothing bras, while you had to spend hundreds on "over the shoulder boulder holders" & had to get a breast reduction at 16. I had better skin & hair. I was a much kinder person. I was far more charming, which is probably why the uber handsome guy at the cafe we met the summer before college called ME & started dating ME, not you, prompting you to tell our entire group of friends that if I ever mentioned him, I was lying, because your bitterness & jealousy over that was more than you could bear.  I was more creative & artsy. I looked fucking amazing in my size 7, vintage prom dress ala Molly Ringwald, while you had to wear something that looked like old, lace curtains that a mother of the bride would wear (and your prom date, who you drunkenly lost your virginity to in the back seat of his grandma's Buick turned out to be gay, which I still chuckle about to this day). And despite your "reputation" for developing early & acting the "slut", with your seemingly endless knowledge of boys, you ended up marrying the college guy who gave you an STD (which you bragged about), while I had amazing boyfriends & probably slept with more people (some quite famous) than you ever dreamed of. I did theatre, I fronted a band, I did burlesque, I strutted my stuff on many stages, all to the delight of audiences, which is also something you could only ever dream of doing. I've traveled the world, I've been a published author, I've owned homes & cars & horses, while you've lived in all of 2 places. 

And now, as adults, when I mention you to other people who knew you back then, they ALL tell me what a bitch they thought you were & honestly can't believe I considered you to be my best friend. Because honestly, you were and probably are still a horrible person. I may have been a very innocent, trusting person, with low inner self-esteem back then, because I didn't want to believe that you were capable of such fuckery towards such a close friend, but I am quite the opposite nowadays. I know that you're connected to people I know, and yet, you've never once tried to reach out to re-connect, despite me hearing murmurings that you may have wanted to... But please know that if you ever did, I wouldn't even give you the motherfucking time of day... Because you don't deserve one single second of my time, my energy or my valuable friendship... I have NO fucks left to give where you're concerned. You are nothing to me, nothing but a cautionary tale that I tell my own daughter, about how to choose friends very wisely & steer very clear of twatwaffles like you, who use people & then throw them away, all because of their own desperate insecurity, self-hate & jealousy.

It's okay because guess what?... I survived the damage you inflicted on me & in the end, I WIN. I ALWAYS win, sweetheart! And despite everything, I have some incredible female friends who are just like me & you don't hold a candle to ANY of them!

My Body Betrays Me

 I was a picky eater as a child. I always took food on my plate and never finished it. It was a HUGE source of annoyance for my parents, who had been raised by my Grandparents & their "depression" era mentality that it was somehow shameful to leave food on a plate when there were children starving in Europe. My mother had been forced to sit at the dinner table until she finished meals, which had very little to do with children starving in Europe & everything to do with the power struggle between her and my grandmother.

But MY parents chose the "shaming" route, which was their lame attempt to "guilt" me about my eating habits & only served to make me more determined to annoy them & ultimately led to me having a eating disorder. Because, after hearing them tell me how wasteful I was with food & how I never finished anything, It just became easier not to eat, which instead of alarming them, made them simply back off and allowed me to be in control... Because ALL eating disorders are about control, not food.

And as a young girl, I was involved in dance & gymnastics, which only further fueled the need to basically look like a little boy... Lithe, petite, no hips, no tits, super flexible & able to defy gravity... I was like that until the puberty fairy hit me with her stick, not at 12 or 13, like most girls my age, but at 15 1/2, because I basically has zero body fat from my lack of nutrition & insane physicality. I remember being at a weekend retreat as a sophomore in high school & feeling a huge pain in my lower left side... Little did I know that it was my ovaries firing up for the first time & a mature egg was ripe & ready to burst from its follicle, to then travel down a fallopian tube & maybe get fertilized... And then, my breasts, which were nothing more than "mosquito bites" began to fill out a bit, while my hips became curvier, along with my upper thighs & ass... I HATED IT!

I had NO idea that my new "womanly" figure was meant to attract the opposite sex... I just wanted by boyish, slim body back... I even missed being teased about being flat-chested & "a carpenter's dream - flat as a board"... I could no longer buy jeans in the boys section of the clothing store, but suddenly wearing more tight fitting tops & skirts in a size 7 (which seemed gigantic to me) was an option & I could shop in the juniors department & The Limited or Express, Casual Corner or Contempo Casuals. I still thought I was "unfuckable" in high school, because I was a 32A & boys thought of me as "cute" not pretty or sexy, but I was actually okay with that, because while I had MANY crushes, I never actually dated anyone seriously... I wasn't ready for that. I was still getting used to my teenage body, which was apparently the envy of 2 close girlfriends... One had always struggled with her weight & the other had developed early & actually had a breast reduction the summer before our junior year of high school... She LOATHED the fact that I could wear skimpy bras, or no bra at all & I ate like a bird... Her jealousy of me, eventually turned her into a "frenemy" & I'm still leery of friendships with women, because of how badly she betrayed me and hurt me. She is now a cautionary tale for my daughter, about choosing your friends very wisely.

I blossomed in college, where boys finally discovered the "exotic", sassy Jewish girl from Chicago... In the middle of Ames, Iowa, I was a rare delicacy. I was an Art major, who was very into music & theater & unlike the Iowa farm girls from small towns, who did nothing but drink until they puked on the weekends & chase dooshy frat boys or any male that would make a suitable husband. My freshman year dorm room was kitty corner to the bathroom on our floor & if my room's windows & the windows to the bathroom were open on a Saturday or Sunday morning, I could hear the chorus of retching from those hungover girls & the bullimics that thought they were being SO clever with their eating disorders... I couldn't wait to switch rooms, which is exactly what I did 2nd semester. I learned to like eating in the cafeteria on the main floor of our dorm... I even got up to 105 lbs, which at the time was "heavy" for me... But I still fit into my size 7 clothes & I walked all over campus, so that kept me in reasonably good shape & not into "the freshman 15" weight gaining territory. I even had a few serious boyfriends, who adored me, so it was a pretty great time in my life.

I never had issues with my weight after college... I worked, I worked out after work, I did pilates & yoga when I could, as a holdover from dance & gymnastics training. I couldn't do either of those anymore, due to a knee injury in high school, but I was still in reasonably good shape. I had a few boyfriends, nothing serious, one turned out to be a real psycho, which was a total mind fuck, but eventually I got married to a Korean American guy, who looked good on paper, but was a terrible match in reality. After being together for 4 years & married for one, I got pregnant & subsequently had a miscarriage... I was devastated, because my best friend at work was also pregnant & we would've had our babies around the same time... But it was not meant to be, I remember the midwife I was working with was so incredibly kind & re-assuring, telling me that it's actually a GOOD thing that our bodies can recognize when there's a problem with a pregnancy & react accordingly & now, at least I knew I was fertile & could get pregnant... I was only 7 weeks along, so it was early & my miscarriage was not that much worse than having a bad period, but I don't think I ever properly grieved that loss or the subsequent breakdown of my "starter" marriage after 2 years... "Shit happens" I told myself & despite feeling like a massive failure, I moved on.

Five years later, I re-married & after two years of that marriage, we discussed the possibility of having a child... I remember telling my husband that it would probably take 6 months to a year of trying, but I got pregnant on the very first try, which surprised and excited me. I remember being 128 lbs when I got pregnant & I was closer to a size 8 or 10 at the time... I only gained 22 lbs with my pregnancy, which was "right in the ballpark" according to my ob / gyn. My belly grew & so did my boobs, which was a total blessing, since I FINALLY had some "real" cleavage! Unfortunately, at the 5 month mark, it was discovered that I had placenta previa, which was a dangerous & uncomfortable condition, so the rest of my pregnancy sucked & my daughter's birth required a scheduled c-section. And while I marveled at my body's ability to conceive & grow another human being, I made sure to do water aerobics & yoga, so that I wouldn't feel like a huge hippo. And I wondered if I would ever be able to get my pre-baby body back.

I never really did, because in my late 30's & 40's, my body decided it wanted to hang onto the "extra" curves & I essentially had gone from a pear shape to an hourglass... It horrified me, because no matter how hard I worked out, my body refused to go back to a size 8 & with a baby, then toddler, I simply didn't have the luxury of being able to work out for hours a day. So, I grudgingly accepted my fate & bought clothes in a bigger size... Instead of celebrating that my body had changed, thanks to my daughter, I secretly hated looking in the mirror & my old eating disorder reared its ugly head again. I foolishly compared myself to the other women in the Mom's group I belonged to, never taking the time to realize that I looked like a "normal" woman with a child. I beat myself up mercilessly for not bouncing back to my old body shape. And nobody ever told me how wrong my thinking was.

And then in my mid-late 40's I hit the perimenopause wall... And suddenly I had to contend with insomnia, hot flashes, mood swings & weight gain... ALL things I had never encountered before & no matter how hard I tried, my body STILL hung onto that extra curvature, even adding some to my hips, belly, ass & thighs, along with my upper arms... I was an am disgusted by it. Once again, instead of embracing the changes, I loathed them & would cry in the dressing room, each time I had to try on a pair of jeans. The only thing I appreciated was the fact that I had become a 38C, a small C, but still a C cup, so even though I kept the lower body curves, I also kept my new, naturally enhanced boobs (and lots of women have to go the surgical route to get them). THAT part didn't seem like a betrayal, but everything else did. Because once again, my hormones, who were just doing their genetic job, had turned me into another being, one who looked a lot like my mother, a person who has struggled with her own body image issues & dealt with it by overeating & then trying every diet known to man, while I was growing up. 

I'm still trying to accept myself at 52... I'm certainly self-aware enough to not ever make a big deal about my teenage daughter's eating habits or her blossoming body, because I KNOW firsthand how damaging that can be to a girl's self-esteem. She looks a lot like I did back then & weight has never been an issue for her, so far. She likes to dress in baggy, androgynous clothes most of the time, but when she doesn't, I make sure to compliment her on her cute figure, which so far, is perfectly in proportion. I don't ever want her to suffer the damage that I suffered & inflicted upon myself, both psychologically & physically, because I thought I had to live up to some highly unrealistic, manufactured & Photoshopped version of what a woman should look like. I'm hoping that her sassy, half-Scottish genes will allow her to not give a shit about what other people think, which so far seems to be pretty effective. I made a promise to myself long ago that I would NEVER do or say anything to make her feel like she was anything less than perfect or beautiful... I just wish I had had someone tell ME those things when I was a girl. It would've made a huge difference, then again, I probably would've turned out a lot different & far less empathetic than I've become as a middle-aged woman.

Dementia: The Mindkiller

In addition to dealing with my own recent health issues (the dreaded heart palpitations & the horrid RA), I've been having to bear witness to an even more insidious disease... not mine, of course, my mother's dementia. 

This is a road I've traveled before, as I got to see my maternal Grandmother's own slow descent into it, nearly 30 years ago... I watched my strong, smart, stubborn, not very demonstrative, former teacher, Granny Fannie's mind fade away to nothing. Now, it wasn't ALL bad, because as her mind started to go, she recalled long forgotten memories, like the time she came to America as a 7 or 8 year-old girl, in steerage, with her mother, as the last 2 members of her family to make the perilous journey from Chernigov, Ukraine, where Jews knew nothing but suffering & poverty at the turn of the 20th century, to embark on an unprecedented voyage to a new land, with a new language, new hopes & dreams, where the streets were paved with gold & a poor, peasant family could perhaps have a better life for themselves and their children. She recalled that when the ship pulled into NY harbor, she saw the Statue of Liberty, standing there with her book and her torch, beckoning the stranger, bidding them welcome and she thought it was a REAL lady! Her mother had to explain to her that it was just a statue, not a real person... Can you imagine THAT being your very first impression of America???!!! She then went on to tell me about her memories of being processed at Ellis Island and how twin girls, who had also made the journey with them, were put into quarantine, because of a problem with their eyes... And then how an immigration officer handed her mother an apple and her a banana, but had to show her how to peel and eat the banana, because tropical fruit was NOT something they had in the shtetl! She told me that she was excited to see her older sisters, her father & her half-brothers, who were already ensconced in Chicago, but the missed her pet goat.

My Granny lived alone in a small, modest 1 bedroom apartment for many years after my grandfather died, it had a big living / dining room with green, wool carpeting that I used to help her vacuum with an old Electrolux. She also had a small kitchen, a bedroom a hall & linen closet, a bathroom with black & white penny tiled floor & a 40's pedestal sink with separate taps for hot & cold, plus a small kitchen. when I would have weekend sleepovers, we'd watch PBS, I'd read her National Geographic magazines & sing showtunes to her, while she read the paper & smoked Winston's or chewed Dentyne cinnamon gum. For breakfast we'd have Corn Flakes with sliced bananas or Bays English muffins with apricot jam. She even let me drink coffee from her ancient percolator, with plenty of milk & sugar added. She had a huge, crystal candy jar on her mid-century, round living room table, filled with Brach's sour ball candies. I'd always swipe the purple ones, since I liked those the best & I'd pop one into my mouth, before sneaking underneath her mahogany dining room table that had claw & ball feet, where I'd spend hours drawing pictures & looking at story books... Sometimes, her friend, Mrs. Bergman would come over to visit & bring me a toy or candy as a treat. We'd often go for walks to the local park, which was right next to the Misericordia home for children with Down syndrome, run by the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese or we'd walk down to the White Hen Pantry convenience store a few blocks away to buy bread eggs & some cheap toy, if I was lucky. Sometimes, we'd ride the bus down Peterson Avenue to her bank or a doctor's appointment, since she didn't drive, but I loved the "adventure". I even remember her telling me to always put toilet paper on the seat if you ever had to pee or poop in a public bathroom! I pretty much had Granny Fannie all to myself, since my sister was 5 years younger than me and my first cousins, her other 3 grandchildren, lived far away in Des Moines. She was never very affectionate or demonstrative with me or anyone else for that matter, but I loved her dearly.

So she lived alone for many years, on the north side of Chicago, between West Ridge & Ravenswood, which was not quite Edgebrook... It was a mistake though, because even though this was the time before assisted living or retirement communities were a "thing", it didn't do her any good to be all alone and not that close to where we lived. Eventually, my mom had a lovely woman from Belize come over every day to help cook, clean, dress, bathe & be general companionship for my grandmother, who's mind was clearly fading... one night, my Granny got up to go to the bathroom & fell, breaking her hip... She laid there all night until her caretaker came the next morning, found her & she ended up in the hospital. From there, it was off to the nursing home, because she clearly couldn't be left alone anymore & there wasn't room enough in our house for another person, plus we had 2 flights of stairs.

My Granny ended up in a very good nursing home, not far from us, chosen carefully after much deliberation & visiting of other facilities. She was placed on a Medicare floor, filled almost exclusively with Alzheimer's patients... The nursing staff LOVED my Granny, because she was pleasant & not carrying on or having outbursts, plus she could feed herself & go to the bathroom on her own. She didn't know who the hell anyone was or even where she was, but it was honestly the happiest I ever saw her! She was fed, bathed, dressed & well-cared for every day & didn't have a car in the world... She had even reverted to an almost child-like state of existence. I once got permission to  bring the family cat, a big, orange tabby named Michael, to visit her as a "therapy pet & she LOVED petting his soft fur as he sat quietly in her lap, loving the attention.

One night, they put her to bed & went to check on her an hour or two later & she was gone... Died in her sleep of either a stroke or a heart attack, which is frankly, how "I" want to go. I remember my mom getting the call late at night & then having to go gather her clothes & few belongings the next day. The Filipina nurse, who my Granny was a favorite of, came in to work for her shift that morning & apparently had a breakdown when she saw that my Granny's bed had been stripped & her things were gone... I barely remember her funeral, but I wasn't all that sad about her death... She was 86 & had lived a long, full life before dying peacefully. During her few years at the nursing home, she had been well cared for & was spared the mental anguish of knowing she was losing her mind & not in her own home anymore... It was a blessing, really.

And now, here I am, seeing history repeating itself, only this time, my Father is the main caretaker, so HE has to watch his wife fading before his very eyes from her diabetes ravaged kidneys, which require thrice weekly dialysis sessions, to her asking him the same question 20 times a day... She was never much of an extrovert, but her personality has most definitely changed as her cognitive degeneration has slowly continued... She used to read, talk on the phone, have lunch with former teacher friends, go to movies & plays... She's not up for any of that anymore. She sits in her recliner chair all day & watches stupid Lifetime movies or golf... I KNOW it's not good for her mental state & probably provides very little mental stimulation for whatever neurons are still firing, but what else can we do?... We can't force her to go out walking or do crossword puzzles, which she used to do religiously, because she simply doesn't have the energy or stamina for it. My Mom is 79 & she may as well be 86 at this point.

Gone is the woman who drummed the message "You're not good enough. You will never be good enough."into my head from a very early age... Gone is the woman who was always emotionally unavailable, except when you were sick, yet demanded perfection in academics, dance, gymnastics & piano lessons, even in former boyfriends, because THEY were never good enough either! Gone is the woman who would judge the f@ck out of every outfit, every hairstyle, every choice in friends, school plays, bad test results & less than C grades, to the point of giving me an eating disorder from her insanely unrealistic expectations & constant need to live vicariously though her daughters. Gone is the woman who blamed my sister for her heart attack in 2000 & me for not knowing that the psycho ex-boyfriend was in fact, a psycho! I can't even be mad at her for how badly she tried to destroy my self-esteem & victim blaming, because I know it comes from her own messed up family dynamic & failed educational & career choices. I scared the f@ck out of her from day one, because I was stubborn, with a mind of my own & I never wanted to be her "perfect", compliant daughter. I never wanted to be valedictorian of the class & go to an Ivy League college or marry a nice Jewish doctor or lawyer... It was never my dream or my sister's, although at least my sister got a Master's & a PhD, while I produced the only grandchild (who is also stubborn & strong willed & unimpressed by expectations). I never had her "approval" & I knew I never would, so I just stopped trying to get it.

I've now had to find a caretaker to assist my Dad in looking after my mom & it's now MY job to help them go through 22 years worth of stuff in their townhouse & then help them find a reasonably priced condo, with everything on one level, no dangerous stairs for my mom to trip & fall on, where they will spend their remaining years. I am the eldest daughter, the strong one, the brave one, the one you want in a crisis because I get shit done, that's now I roll... I am the one who will probably have power of medical & financial attorney for my aging parents. Thankfully, my Dad is still active, both physically & mentally, so he is able to make most of the decisions about my mother's car at this point, but as I know, that can change in a heartbeat. He is the one who has to deal with seeing his wife deteriorate & slowly lose her mind & her very personality right before his eyes... I'm sure he hates it, in fact, I know he does. Instead of a quick, painless process, it's a long, slow, descent into nothingness & I'm actually glad I'm somewhat removed from it. my mother hasn't been my mother for YEARS, at least not the mother I actually needed, so I'm actually quite objective about the whole process, because I've been here before. I know this play, I know all of the songs & I even know how it ends. I just hope the applause at the end is good, so my mom finally gets the standing ovation she deserves.

The Liberating Power Of Cream Colored Jeans

It's been awhile since I was comfortable going into smaller retail stores, but as the weather has gotten nicer & the pandemic seems to be getting under control, thanks to the wonders of modern medical science, I decided to go to one of my fave outlet stores to peruse & possibly give myself a much-needed dose of "retail therapy".

This particular store (oh fuck it, let's just say it)... Lands End Inlet, happens to have a really cool catalog overstock / clearance section that I have scored lots of cool items from in the past. This comes in especially handy for buying kids clothes (for my daughter) & work wear for me. The trick is that you have to be willing to dig though racks & racks of stuff & be okay with the fact that the stock changes a lot. If you're good with that, you can sometimes find a serious bargain.

I hadn't been in there in AGES & there's one right in my town, next to my other fave bargain retail place, Big Lots, so I popped in & started casually looking around. Of course, I went to the back of the store & I zeroed in on the Petite section & started looking at jeans... I have a seriously hard time finding ones that fit my short length, tiny waist & curvy hips, thighs & butt... You would think it would be super easy, but let me tell you, it's not! Sizing for women is a shit show, even at the best of times, because you can't go by numbers, you have to go by fit & maybe you can find something in the middle that sort of works, if you're lucky.

Suddenly, On an unassuming rack, I saw them... cream colored jeans, in my size for $14.50! Now, aside from the fact that this was a total bargain, I wouldn't ever normally consider buying them, because of a lot of things... I HATE how I look right now, thanks to perimenopause & the fact that I spent the pandemic on my couch, either working on my laptop or watching the plethora of programming on cable TV, so I'm not exactly in "fighting" shape... And even when I was, cream colored jeans are strictly the domain of lithe, thin, super-fit, suburban MILFs, who shop at Whole Foods, get hot stone massages & expensive haircuts... My curvy hipped, cellulite dimpled ass would NEVER look good in cream colored jeans, because I wasn't the petite, size 8 or 10 that I used to be, before having a kid. My pear shape had turned into an hourglass years ago.

But, for some reason, I didn't put them back... I touched the material, it was quality denim fabric, but soft, with some stretch... maybe I COULD pull this off?!... I couldn't actually try them on in the fitting room, which was closed, but I figured that since I lived nearby, if I tried them on at home & they didn't fit, I could easily bring them back for a refund. And I did just that... They fit me pretty damn well... I mean WHY couldn't I pull these off with a cute top & some strappy sandals or ankle boots? Who fucking cares if I'm no longer the size I was 10 years ago? I should embrace my shape & the curves that I EARNED over a lifetime of womanhood, instead of beating myself up about not being "thin" enough! Who cares if my saddlebags show alongside my rounded hips, thighs & no longer flat stomach? Who cares if a lighter colored demim shows off visible panty lines & a little cellulite? What do I have to prove at this point in my life to anyone?... The answer is NOTHING! Nothing at all! 

I spent YEARS feeling bad about my body & often flirted with an eating disorder, first as an adolescent with budding breasts that ruined my otherwise boyish frame, then getting teased in Jr. high for being "A carpenter's dream - flat as a board & easy to screw",well, at least the first part was right! Then in high school where I was merely cute, but not "fuckable", which I was certain was because of my small tits, which were great for being in dance & gymnastics, but not something any boys were interested in. In college, I blossomed & finally had some semblance of acceptance with my body... College guys liked my "exotic" looks, especially when I was onstage doing plays or performing in a band... I learned to harness the power of my femininity & the divine goddess energy I had hidden away, deep inside. I look at pictures of me from that time & think "Holy shit!"... I was so beautiful and I didn't even know it! I was a size 8 & I thought I was fat... I wasn't, I was perfect, but I didn't have the self-confidence to embrace that! 

After college, I still struggled with body image issues, but it was less pronounced as I grew into womanhood & experienced life and more serious relationships... I got married in a beautiful, ivory sample size wedding dress that fit me like it was made for me... I looked gorgeous & had a lovely wedding... Sadly, it didn't last. Later I got married again, to a Scotsman, on the beach in Florida, in an ivory silk skirt & ivory lace tunic from one of my favorite designers, April Cornell. And two years later, I had a daughter, which changed my body yet again... Taking me from that pear shape to an hourglass... My barely B cups became small Cs, my curves stayed & so did my c-section scar, hidden in my bikini line. My body had finally fulfilled it's biological imperative and I had no choice but to accept it.

So back to the cream colored jeans... Yes, they were $14.50. Yes, they fit me perfectly. Yes, I kept them & actually got complemented when I wore them out somewhere the other day. So the lesson here is... Life is too damn short not to buy the clothes or the shoes you like or to eat dessert or to take that trip you've been thinking about... Buy the cream colored jeans & wear them with pride... IT WILL LIBERATE YOU!