I never felt that my mother loved me on my terms, but only on hers. My mother loved me simply on her terms. She did so, as if I were an extension of herself. Therefore, she never really saw me for who I was, but only through her own lens. Writing my memoir brought back both the memories and realizations.
WRITING MY MEMOIR AND THE REALIZATIONS IT BROUGHT
Was I my mother’s “get even with her mother’s card,” or a “get out of jail free card,” from the indentured servitude under her mother? Or was it her “going with what she knew?” Before writing my memoir, and some years before my memoir was even a thought in my head, I had put together a storybook of pictures, writings of my mother’s father, my grandfather, along with a bit of commentary, so I did have an idea of my mother’s relationship with her father. As to my grandmother, who lived to 94, I had plenty of time to see how she interacted with my mother, and both of them told me about their history, some of which is in my memoir.
My grandfather died young, leaving my grandmother, Lena Derman, to not only run her thriving fur business, Derman Furs, in the heart of then middle-class Flatbush Avenue and Clarkson, but also the task of bringing up four children, three boys and a girl, my mother. My memoir does not cover any of this in depth, so I am writing about it now for my blog, which is an ancillary vehicle for my memoir. The task of raising the brothers, Herb, Dave, and George Derman, fell to my mother, who is covered in my memoir.
Lena, fortunately for her, had my mother to do her bidding, and my mother did so correctly, although not necessarily with a love of doing it. It was my mother who raised her three brothers and sent them off to college, even though she was left behind without the similar benefit of such an education. She was denied the freedom to act and the benefit to better herself as she made a life for her brothers, as the surrogate mother, who could not be there for them.
My mother was equally bright as her brothers, but as she advanced in life, especially without the equal treatment as her brothers when it came to an education, along with the silent message from Lena, that she was not up to it and less deserving, fell into a roll where many times, she played the ditzy housewife, seemingly not so bright and not as adept in dealing with the world.
MY MEMOIR AND THE WRITING OF IT AWAKENED MY INSIGHT
What I came to understand was that Lena did not see my mother at all. She was almost irrelevant, beyond mention of her brothers and her role as their mother. Lena ignored her innate abilities and intelligence as she was subjugated to the role she was forced to play. So long as Lena needed my mother, then my mother played the role of her spouse. It is no wonder my mother was incapable of seeing me at many periods of my life at all, as she was pre-programmed by Lena for her “role in life.” My mother saw me as an extension of herself. As she was denied the opportunity of higher education, she felt compelled to push me in that direction, so that I could fulfill that role for her.
THIS PART IS IN MY MEMOIR, HOW MY MOTHER MET MY FATHER
In my memoir, I write how my mother met my father, and for the purpose of this blog, I will add it here. By the time my mother’s brothers were all grown, out of school, and fully capable of dealing with the world, Lena had no further use for my mother. In my memoir, I write about how my father and mother met. For some reason, whether from guilt or otherwise, Lena became the matchmaker.
Lena felt that now that my mother was emancipated from her role of nanny, she was ready for marriage. I write in my memoir about what motivated my father to pursue my mother for marriage, but for here, I will keep it simple. He saw a business opportunity in Derman Furs, which, for a short time, did become a place of employment for him, until it wasn’t.
My grandmother literally pushed my mother into my father’s greedy and opportunistic arms. It was almost as if she were caught between two whirlwinds, with little choice for herself in making this lifelong decision, but she went along with it. After all, nobody in the world, at that time, was as pushy as my grandmother. It later proved to be a lifelong regret. On my grandmother’s deathbed, my mother told her to her face how she “ruined her life.”
NO SURPRISE THAT MY MOTHER COULD NOT SEE ME
As a result of her history, Lena’s programming of my mother, and her life with my father, I literally became an extension of her. The aspirations she held for herself, which were denied, she pushed on me. I was therefore never to be seen for who I was, or my aspirations, but only as a reflection of hers. A classic story of her denial and this syndrome was this: I never liked nor drank coffee in my life until the age of 40. In all of those years as solely a tea drinker, which I am to this day, but for an occasional cup of java, whenever I ate with my mother, or was at her house, she would offer me a cup of coffee. I would then have time remind her that I did not drink coffee. Guess what, my mother was an avid coffee lover, right down to coffee ice cream as her flavor of choice.
