1957
On day one I became
the fourth of four busy children my mother governed while my father was
building a business and together they suffered survivor’s guilt; having lived
in Canada while parents and siblings were murdered in the holocaust.
On day one of the
fifth grade my father had recently died, my mother was unexpectedly a tired
working mom with one married daughter, two teenagers and me, 10 years old with
a Dennis the Menace personality bargaining for attention and affection in our
busy family.
A defining event was
my mother having a temper tantrum in response to me crossing some line making
life harder for her. I remember her in a blue dress face down on the kitchen
floor crying and beating her hands and feet like a two year old unfulfilled in
a Walmart toy aisle. She was fifty.
In retrospect I'm
sure her complaints included more than me but I was alone with her in the
moment. My tool box was bare. I couldn't begin to help. I was paralyzed,
powerless, weak.
A first taste of what
it meant to be a person.
March 2020
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