Category: Family

The Jewish Mother I Wish I Had

Kugel warm from the oven.  Walks to the library hand-in-hand with my mother past Silverod’s Pharmacy where she might buy me a candy bar.

Forget those fantasies. That’s not the Jewish mother I had, not like some of the others I saw all around me when I was growing up in Brooklyn. I walked to the library on my own. On the coldest winter days, she pushed me out the door during blizzards and I was one of the few who showed up on the days when New York City schools were canceled. I trudged home down deserted streets clutching the chocolate Devil Dog I bought from the deli across the street from my school.

Years later, in a classic reverse migration she moved from Miami to Baltimore in her late 70s settling in just in time for our caretaking roles to switch. Still I was hopeful that she might become a traditional Jewish grandmother. Everyone should get a second chance.

My kids loved her attention and we had our rituals, especially our Mother’s Day brunch at the Museum Café.  She would split one big sundae with my kids when they were young enough to share but they shared little with my mother as they grew older and her attention wandered.

On a Mother’s Day when she became too ill to go out to brunch, we visited her in the nursing home, and the nurses and aides there that day told me she was a favorite. “She adopted us all.” Who was this woman, I wondered.

This is our second Mother’s Day without her. The second year I won’t be dragging my kids and myself to visit and we won’t be wondering when it’s time to go. I know now she wasn’t the Jewish mother I wanted but I still wish I had somewhere to go.

 

Where You Go To College Does Matter

It’s finally over. My son Alex chose the college he’ll attend next year.  I paid the deposit.  It took less than 10 minutes

My son knows he’s lucky to have parents who can juggle resources to send him to the top private university he chooses.  As the daughter of an immigrant and the first in my family to attend college, I didn’t have those choices and I get annoyed when I read those stories that tell you that where you go to college doesn’t really matter.  I know it matters because I got lucky, too, and I know that for kids without money, connections, or privilege, where you go to college can sometimes make all the difference in where you end up.

How did it happen?  In my middling Miami high school of 3,000 students, my counselor, who had about 600 on her watch, invited me into her office one day and told me she had met an admissions rep from New York University and assured me that I’d most likely get in with a scholarship.

college-photo_6422._445x280-zmm
Washington Square Park

So, it was a random event that led me to NYU on a full ride until the end of my sophomore year when a family crisis forced me to give up my scholarship, move home, and transfer to the state university. Only in my junior year, sitting in classes with hundreds of students, did I realize what I had given up. In an incredible act of generosity, NYU took me back and returned most of my scholarship for my senior year.  During that critical period I held an important magazine internship and built a relationship with a professor who became a mentor and friend.

Of course, I could have succeeded in my career with a degree from the state university; many of my friends in other fields such as accounting did very well. But my opportunities would have been quite different and the truth is that my NYC experiences impressed the editors in Florida who hired me.

I’m always on the lookout in the classes I teach for students who may be first-generation, who need a little extra attention and I’m thrilled when they reach out to me.  As an attorney and child advocate in Baltimore, I saw few young adults make it to college without intensive support from mentors and outreach programs that identify scholars.

Every year we read amazing stories about those rare high school seniors accepted to all the Ivies but I prefer articles  about counselors guiding a new first generation of students, living much tougher lives than mine. In a high school in Queens, NY, a counselor, assigned by the non-profit College Advising Corps, urges her students to dream bigger than the local community college, to state universities, private universities, and the Ivies. Her salary, a modest $35,000 a year, is partly paid by NYU.

 

 

It’s Never Too Late To Marry Your College Boyfriend

Mae, one my closest friends, got married a few days ago, for the first time, at the age of 59. She married her college boyfriend.

Simple math: She was 16 and a freshman when they met 43 years ago in the dorms at the University of Miami.

Here are a few essential things to know about Mae:

In a world clouded by cynicism, she is one of the most optimistic and generous people I know.

She spent her 20s creating intricate lace and beaded wedding gowns for dozens of brides, many of whom became her friends. I met one at her wedding.

FullSizeRender
At the wedding with Mae

In her 30s, she became a therapist, a natural transition following years of providing counsel for her many friends. Oh, the hours she spent on the phone getting me through the many real and imagined crises in my life.

Her therapeutic work focused on bringing joy into the lives of the elderly, running bereavement workshops for children, and working in Miami for many years with cancer patients and their families. You can get a sense of her personality by watching an interview with her a few minutes into a documentary  about caring in the face of loss.

In a ballroom filled with white orchid centerpieces that almost reached to the ceiling, a 10-piece band played “I’ve Dreamed of You,” a song written by Ann Hampton Calloway, as John and Mae took their first dance.

I saw her again as the girl I knew: the first friend I made at Glades Junior High, Mae, my dance partner at our 7th grade fall dance. Now here she was floating in a lace gown she had sewn herself, surrounded by a lifetime’s collection of friends who loved her. What a privilege it is to be one of them.

 

Should You Really Ask The Tough Questions Before Getting Married?

I came across an article about 13 Questions to Ask Before Getting Married. Fortunately, it came too late. Exactly 25 years too late.
Because I read it just as I was celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary.
Relationship experts from the National Institute of Relationship Enhancement, the Couples Institute, and a divorce coach urge those contemplating the forever “I Dos” to step back first and answer some really tough questions such as:

Will you bail me out if I have debt? How often will you want sex now and in the future? Will you change diapers when we have children? Do you really like my parents?

Dear friends: Those of you who are single, recently married, divorced, or past the 10-year-mark, I suspect that you may have some strong reactions to this article and it’s worth reading through the full story.

My questions for the experts: Are you married? Did you ask these questions before you were married? And are you still married?

Yes, these are important questions and I believe these subjects should be discussed before marriage. But seriously, how many of us in the throes of infatuation and lust would answer truthfully? What is truth? Who can predict the future at such a time in our lives?

In my rear-mirror view, I know now I should have asked a few more questions. I needed far more clarity on the diaper issue, for instance, but on the major issues I put my trust in someone who shared my values. A few years ago, I knew I could count on my husband when my 90-year-old mother needed a step up to assisted living. No question about it.

So I guess I wonder how many of us would really take those vows if we fessed up to all those answers. Maybe a little bit of faith and eventual compromise really gets you through. But don’t ask me. I’m no expert.

 

The Secret of Turning Twice30

Many people don’t get the chance to turn 30 twice.

That’s the way I’m looking at it.  It’s a gentle way of thinking about turning 60 which is coming up this year.  It’s also a year of milestones: Celebrating 30 amazing years of survival after a life-threatening illness, 25 years of marriage (one of us deserves a medal!), and two great children I thought I might never have. On good days people tell me I don’t look a day over 55. Listen folks, I’ve got a mirror and if it could talk it would tell me: You have the face – jowls and all – that you’ve earned. So much for SPF 30!

So in celebrating this year, I’ve been reflecting on family, friendships, work, life trajectories, and what it’s like to come full circle in my third career – teaching college students about media after my first career as a journalist and my second as an attorney. I’ve got a lot on my mind – both the serious and the lighthearted – and I’m tired of the “boomer narrative” that doesn’t match the lives of the women I know.

I’m hoping to connect with old friends and new ones.  Share your thoughts and stay in touch.