LJ Idol Season 11: The Way Back
My mom and aunts would always tell me stories of my grandfather who I never met. His big sticking point to them had always been family stays together, no matter what. He would remind them that they were three sisters and they only had each other. It became a mantra that was drilled into them and they could recite long after he was gone.
As he and my grandmother both lost almost their entire families to the Holocaust and as my mom and aunts had grown up first in Poland and then in Israel without knowing what it meant to have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, he wanted them to promise to stick together no matter what. It wasn't until my mom was eighteen and the family moved to the United States in 1965 to meet her father's long lost brother and sister (who had escaped pre-war Poland) where her and my aunts learned what it meant to have an extended family. All of a sudden, they had to learn to call family members by Aunt and Uncle and Cousin, words that had no meaning to them. Growing up, my mom and aunts were insistent that we did not grow up the way they did; they wanted us to find the meaning that they never could grasp in extended family.
I've always grown up surrounded by extended family. I had sleepovers with my Bubby, nights spent with my cousins running around the neighborhood and spending time with each other's friends, older cousins who baby sat me, and unfortunately my mom and I even lived with one of my aunts for three and a half years. As a family, we used to get together for everyone's birthday to celebrate with presents and cake. My cousins and I still all joke about how we had to make the "blow face" for pictures in which we had to pretend to blow out candles so an adult could take a picture of us before we could actually blow out the candles. Every holiday, we got together to celebrate. I smile when I think at the times we all snuck into the synagogue on High Holidays because no one wanted to pay the exoberant price for tickets (we were told to say that our family already saved us seats and we were just getting there). We all have our scars from Passover 1989 in which no one got to eat dinner until 11 PM because my uncle was insistant we do ALL parts of the seder. I particurly remember bawling when we got to the singing part and after practicing the songs in nursery school, everyone was singing in a tune I didn't learn and 4 year old me threw a tantrum pissed and cranky that I couldn't sing along. We used to go out to lunch, dinner, get together randomly, shopping together, and enjoy each other's company. We all went to get our nails done at the same place. My mom was successful in making sure I found meaning in the family she didn't have growing up.
Currently, I live within 3-10 miles of almost all of my mom's side of my extended family (not including her second cousins and minus a first cousin who lives in Boston). Cousins, aunts, I can get to anyone easily. We could be doing all of the same things of my childhood with my family of get togethers and I could be raising my son the same way exposed to all of my family members. Yet, I don't speak to several of my family members. I decided after my mom passed away that I didn't need toxic family members just to say I had family. I learned that family is what you make of it.
See what I didn't mention in all of the idealistic moments I think about fondly is also the emotional toll it took on my mom to keep her father's word. My aunt was and still is an awful human being who put my mom through hell with emotional abuse (and in turn me) and my other aunt, often would play along with her adding to the emotional toll. The two of them excluded her from things they'd do together, talk about her, have events without her. The amount of times I've seen my mom cry, break down when no one was looking, rant, vent, haunts me. My mom used to say, "I love her because she's my sister but if she wasn't my sister, I would want nothing to do with her." Her friends became the sisters and support to her that she didn't have from her family. Yet, my Bubby would remind her of her father's words everytime she would vent: "You only have each other and you need to stay together." So my mother kept her connection despite her bitterness and resentment eating at her. I learned to do that too because I wanted to keep to her word that she was taught so long ago despite the amount of yelling, name calling, and abuse I took especially in the years of my mom's dementia when she needed family the most (not that they were particurly there for her but made sure to tell me everything I was doing wrong)....
Until I couldn't anymore. Getting berated, harrassed, yelled at, and degraded throughout the week after my mom's passing by my aunt was my final straw (actually my final straw was 30 days later at the Shloshim - 30 day memorial - in which I gave a eulogy for my mom and in all my speaking which was off the top of my head and not planned, made sure to leave her out of my speech). Until my one cousin told me my miscarriage was G-d's will because I didn't deserve to have children and yet she has four, so look how much of a better person she is than me. Oh, and my favorite was how I should be deported (I was born in this country just like the rest of my cousins and don't have citizenship to any other country- not sure where I would be deported to) because I don't support Trump or Bibi Netanyahu. I cut my ties with them and the family members that are the closest to then and rationalize their words and I haven't looked back.
I know these family members don't understand my decision - because to them, despite all of what they have said and done, family should come first and I should be honoring my grandfather's words. And maybe they are right in some ways. My grandparents lost so much in the Holocaust and I understand his insistance on family staying together. But at the end of the day I have to choose what is best for my mental health and for my family. As I think about this while I'm pregnant, I was originally worried that he would never experience family like I did until I realized, he will have it so much better than my mom did and even better than I did. My son will know family who will love him without reservation and judgement and want the best for him. He will have cousins on both sides of the family to play with and baby sit him, aunts and uncles who adore him, grandparents who can't wait to spoil him, a great aunt who is so excited to tell him stories of her sister, his Safta (grandmother) and her parents, and friends who already consider him part of their family. Hopefully, he will never know what it's like to ever not have extended family like my mother didn't or have toxic family like I did.
As he and my grandmother both lost almost their entire families to the Holocaust and as my mom and aunts had grown up first in Poland and then in Israel without knowing what it meant to have grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, he wanted them to promise to stick together no matter what. It wasn't until my mom was eighteen and the family moved to the United States in 1965 to meet her father's long lost brother and sister (who had escaped pre-war Poland) where her and my aunts learned what it meant to have an extended family. All of a sudden, they had to learn to call family members by Aunt and Uncle and Cousin, words that had no meaning to them. Growing up, my mom and aunts were insistent that we did not grow up the way they did; they wanted us to find the meaning that they never could grasp in extended family.
I've always grown up surrounded by extended family. I had sleepovers with my Bubby, nights spent with my cousins running around the neighborhood and spending time with each other's friends, older cousins who baby sat me, and unfortunately my mom and I even lived with one of my aunts for three and a half years. As a family, we used to get together for everyone's birthday to celebrate with presents and cake. My cousins and I still all joke about how we had to make the "blow face" for pictures in which we had to pretend to blow out candles so an adult could take a picture of us before we could actually blow out the candles. Every holiday, we got together to celebrate. I smile when I think at the times we all snuck into the synagogue on High Holidays because no one wanted to pay the exoberant price for tickets (we were told to say that our family already saved us seats and we were just getting there). We all have our scars from Passover 1989 in which no one got to eat dinner until 11 PM because my uncle was insistant we do ALL parts of the seder. I particurly remember bawling when we got to the singing part and after practicing the songs in nursery school, everyone was singing in a tune I didn't learn and 4 year old me threw a tantrum pissed and cranky that I couldn't sing along. We used to go out to lunch, dinner, get together randomly, shopping together, and enjoy each other's company. We all went to get our nails done at the same place. My mom was successful in making sure I found meaning in the family she didn't have growing up.
Currently, I live within 3-10 miles of almost all of my mom's side of my extended family (not including her second cousins and minus a first cousin who lives in Boston). Cousins, aunts, I can get to anyone easily. We could be doing all of the same things of my childhood with my family of get togethers and I could be raising my son the same way exposed to all of my family members. Yet, I don't speak to several of my family members. I decided after my mom passed away that I didn't need toxic family members just to say I had family. I learned that family is what you make of it.
See what I didn't mention in all of the idealistic moments I think about fondly is also the emotional toll it took on my mom to keep her father's word. My aunt was and still is an awful human being who put my mom through hell with emotional abuse (and in turn me) and my other aunt, often would play along with her adding to the emotional toll. The two of them excluded her from things they'd do together, talk about her, have events without her. The amount of times I've seen my mom cry, break down when no one was looking, rant, vent, haunts me. My mom used to say, "I love her because she's my sister but if she wasn't my sister, I would want nothing to do with her." Her friends became the sisters and support to her that she didn't have from her family. Yet, my Bubby would remind her of her father's words everytime she would vent: "You only have each other and you need to stay together." So my mother kept her connection despite her bitterness and resentment eating at her. I learned to do that too because I wanted to keep to her word that she was taught so long ago despite the amount of yelling, name calling, and abuse I took especially in the years of my mom's dementia when she needed family the most (not that they were particurly there for her but made sure to tell me everything I was doing wrong)....
Until I couldn't anymore. Getting berated, harrassed, yelled at, and degraded throughout the week after my mom's passing by my aunt was my final straw (actually my final straw was 30 days later at the Shloshim - 30 day memorial - in which I gave a eulogy for my mom and in all my speaking which was off the top of my head and not planned, made sure to leave her out of my speech). Until my one cousin told me my miscarriage was G-d's will because I didn't deserve to have children and yet she has four, so look how much of a better person she is than me. Oh, and my favorite was how I should be deported (I was born in this country just like the rest of my cousins and don't have citizenship to any other country- not sure where I would be deported to) because I don't support Trump or Bibi Netanyahu. I cut my ties with them and the family members that are the closest to then and rationalize their words and I haven't looked back.
I know these family members don't understand my decision - because to them, despite all of what they have said and done, family should come first and I should be honoring my grandfather's words. And maybe they are right in some ways. My grandparents lost so much in the Holocaust and I understand his insistance on family staying together. But at the end of the day I have to choose what is best for my mental health and for my family. As I think about this while I'm pregnant, I was originally worried that he would never experience family like I did until I realized, he will have it so much better than my mom did and even better than I did. My son will know family who will love him without reservation and judgement and want the best for him. He will have cousins on both sides of the family to play with and baby sit him, aunts and uncles who adore him, grandparents who can't wait to spoil him, a great aunt who is so excited to tell him stories of her sister, his Safta (grandmother) and her parents, and friends who already consider him part of their family. Hopefully, he will never know what it's like to ever not have extended family like my mother didn't or have toxic family like I did.