Jan. 30, 2023: On your 110 birthday Mom, I’m gifting my apologies.
Dear Mom,
I’m sorry it has taken me so long to write this.
I’m not sure why I waited until your 110th birthday to offer my apologizes. Perhaps I had to reach old age myself to realize I had maligned you.
This is my birthday gift; It’s way overdue. I want to apologize for slights sent your way in my writing. And ask forgiveness for making Dad the heroic figure and you, ofttimes the villain.
Also, please know that I regret never learning more about your youth. Why wasn’t I more curious? Was I so preoccupied in my own life that I didn’t ask for stories about your early years?
Why wasn’t I interested in learning more about your girlhood? You immigrated with your family from a shtetl in Russia to Chicago. You did not speak the language. You were off the boat and in a place foreign from your childhood home. Yet I never queried.
You must’ve experienced trauma during the leave-taking. Were you fearful or brave on the voyage? Chicago must’ve been overwhelming. You became a citizen, graduated high school. Why didn’t I ask, sit in awe at your memories?
What a selfish dolt I was, and yet you loved me.
In my memoir, “The Division Street Princess,” and in several of my essays, I write that you wanted me to be thinner, and monitored my weight with the vigilance of a beauty queen’s handler. How could that have been the theme of our relationship?
Now, at my advanced age of 84, I can see your desires for me in a new light. Instead of my stingy view that you were trying to transform me into someone more attractive, I understand you wished an easier life for me.
Dad was crazy about you throughout your marriage. I know that one reason he was so intent on purchasing the vacant store downstairs of our three-room flat was that he wanted you to be with him all day.
That store, “Irv’s Finer Foods,” became the centerpiece of my childhood. He at the meat counter. You at the Burroughs cash register. Ronnie, three years older than me, delivering groceries. And me, tending to the make-believe store Dad set up for me. “We could all be together,” I can hear Dad saying, pleading with you to see his dream, too.
You relented. You wore a store apron that disguised your glamour girl figure. That was not in the future you envisioned for me. Standing behind a grocery store counter was not the desired backdrop for your only daughter.
I’m sorry that I often took Dad’s side when you two were quarreling. Through a child’s eyes, I saw a man in love. I sympathized with him when you, Mom, pleaded that he take better care of himself. He was diabetic, overweight, and a three-pack-a-day smoker. Stupid me saw only a happy-go-lucky guy. Mom, you saw a widowed future.
Of course, you were right; Dad died at age 48. We had already lost the store because of customers’ debts and the supermarket that opened across the street. Both of you had to find jobs to keep us afloat. But I remember that time as glorious for you. You could finally shuck the grocery store apron, wear high heels and a businesslike wardrobe from Stevens, and enjoy coworkers appreciating your good looks and smarts.
You had a disastrous second marriage. You vowed you didn’t want to burden your children with your care, so you married again. Instead of aging carefree, your husband’s stinginess had you clipping coupons to stretch your budget. Although older than you, he outlived you. You were only 68 when you died of a heart attack.
I hated that real life ending. So, in 2011, I wrote another book, “She’s Not the Type.” It was a roman a clef, a fictionalized version of parts of my life. Instead of dying in your 60’s, I placed you in Hawaii. You were marrying the man of your dreams. Finally, I could set you in paradise. And the good looks that won Dad’s heart all those decades ago, remained in the ageless portrait I was able to paint of you.
So today January 30, 2023, on this your 110th birthday, Mom, I’m asking for your forgiveness. I was selfish, misguided, and inconsiderate. Please forgive me for the pages in my memoir that gave a false view of you. Consider it the writings of a naive author, eliciting sympathy for herself, rather than highlighting your exceptional parenting that produced the person I am today.
Now 17 years after my memoir, with my own experiences of marriage, motherhood, and life, I wish I could edit the book, or at least add another, truer chapter. And those pages would be filled with love and praise for the most marvelous, smart, beautiful woman I was privileged to call my mother.
Happy Birthday, Mom!