When I was a child I knew my mother was different.  I didn’t really hear her accent, but all of my friends did and would ask, “Where is your mother from?  Is she from Hungary?  She looks like Zsa Zsa Gabor.” 

“Poland, she’s from Poland,” I would answer.   To my friends my mother’s foreignness was other worldly.  She might as well have been an alien from another planet.   She was an enigma even to me as I tried to fathom the differences between her and my friend’s parents.  It wasn’t such a stretch of the imagination for me to conclude that I didn’t really know my mother.   From time to time I wondered why my mother had no father, mother or siblings.  What had happened to my grandparents?  I wondered why she had a tattoo on her forearm and why during the summer she wore a Band-aid to cover it up.  Later when I asked her why she wore the Band-aid?   She would shrug and say she didn’t want to be stared at or endure the inevitable questions that the indelibly blue A-14569 would elicit from strangers. 

In the 50’s and 60’s no one spoke of the Holocaust or World War II for that matter.  I don’t remember ever learning about it in school, at least in terms of the Holocaust.  I was about nine when I finally began to persistently question her as to the mysteries that surrounded her.  You see, I didn’t just love my mother I was in love with my mother.  She was so startlingly beautiful that all of my friends would constantly comment on her beauty.  It was like an aura that shone so brightly that even children were taken with her.  Forget about the countless men that were drawn to her.  Even with four children in tow between the ages of three and nine they would come up to her and hit on her, using any excuse just to bask in her glow.  She enjoyed being beautiful, but was never comfortable or secure with it.  In other words, she never really owned it.  It was just some fluke of nature, something she hadn’t earned.  I, however, only wanted to look like her and be like her. 

She was hesitant to share her past, but I must have been relentless because little-by-little she began to share her stories.  At first, she spoke mostly about her family, reminiscences of incidents and events, family history and the city she came from.  Her eyes would light up in reverence as she spoke of her father, mother, sister and brother, her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Then as suddenly, her eyes would cloud up and fill with tears as I continued to badger her for an answer as to what had happened to them.  Eventually, she shared it all with me and I became part daughter, part psychologist, and part family historian.   It became a routine that on Sunday morning I would climb into bed with her and having saved up a hundred questions during the week I would interrogate her.  I was insatiable for answers and this hour usually ended with the two of us sobbing.  I would wrap my arms around her feeling guilt that I had provoked such sorrow, wanting to comfort the pain that could not be comforted.  I felt like the parent, the protector of this soul that had known such horror and lost so much.  It seemed inconceivable to me that anyone could survive what she had.  In my efforts to reassure her I would promise to never leave her and profess my love of her for all of time.  “Mommy, when you die I don’t want to live another day.”  She would laugh and say, “Of course you want to live.  Life is the most precious thing we possess.  Believe me, even with all of the evil in the world there is nothing sweeter than life.”  So would another session end with her hugging me. “Besides, I am not leaving so fast I will be with you a long time.”

My mother has kept that promise to her child of being with her for a long time.  The days and years have flown by, as they tend to do, and I feel that the circle that is life gets ever smaller.  She is older now, and not a day goes by that I don’t worry about her fragility.  Yes, she is still beautiful but not in that effervescent lusciousness of youth.  Her beauty is more haunting, and like a mirror her face reflects the years of deprivation and loss that were her teens.  Yet, her spirit is as pure and incandescent as it ever was.  It is a mystery to me how anyone who has witnessed what she has could hold such an enduring belief in the goodness of mankind.  Today, she often reminds me of an ancient philosopher of Greece.  Ever the pragmatic idealist, she has long resigned herself to the inexplicability of life. 

It is important to remember during these rapturous days that are summer that even with all of the imperfections and disappointments that come with the daily task of living, there are miracles to be sure.  My mother lives by example, and she is an example to us all.  Be sure to appreciate all that you have been given, and all those that you love.