Celebrating all moms on Mother's Day!
I already knew -- right up front -- when my father chose to make her his second wife that she had been through the war -- A German Jew who escaped Hitler to live in a rat and roach infested refugee camp in Shanghai China from 1939 -- 1945.
It had been seven years since the tragic death of my baby sister and the fallout after that had decimated my idyllic childhood. My mother had had a mental breakdown and turned her outrage at losing her baby onto my father and .me. I was eight at the time.
Now it was1955 and I was to get a new MOM!!
Following my brief description below of Camelot Disrupted, the context from which I derived my tale, I write of how it was for me with her -- in the beginning. By the end I knew her to be my angel.
In loving tribute to my Mom Freda
Excepting from Camelot Disrupted
Camelot Disrupted is a memoir in historical fiction-fantasy form {FYI -- revealing my secrets in Prince Harry's fashion -- the blood and guts of how it was is not my way at all but as my tale will tell sometimes one must choose, as Harry did, how best to survive in ways that seriously disrupt in the service of coming through the damage of ACE -- Adverse Childhood Experiences.-For Harry as for myself, suicide ideation can often be at the core of the mental health issue that must be overcome. That's how it was for me though now long ago healed for the most part, yet the healing is a never ending process.
About my Mom and I and the effects of trauma and not talking about things --
"Still Meda had her reserve with Freda. And not just a little. But it wasn't her fault! She needed a mother. That was for certain. But there were things Meda wished they could talk about that Freda seemed to almost deliberately avoid, to walk around as if there was some kind of rule not to speak of these things, things that had happened in the past, her past, her mom's and her father's past, even her Aunt Molly's.
When Meda stood back and reflected on this -- the things avoided all seemed to have a main point not to speak of -- death and dying. Why not, she wondered. Most importantly for Meda were the deaths of her mother and baby sister. Meda needed badly to talk about these, to ask questions, get grown-up answers. Sometimes she needed this so badly she thought she would scream. Rant. Maybe even tear her hair out and get down on the ground and kick and pound and cry. But there was no one to tell. No one who would listen.
When she tried to bring up the subject, her parents constantly changed it to something else, ignoring what she had just said almost as if they hadn't heard her words at all.
Meda was confused about all kinds of things about those deaths. And hurt and scared. The baby's death, then her mother's less than a week later had turned her life upside down Meda’s whole world had collapsed with those deaths. Sometimes she felt as if she had died with them. Meda didn’t understand why they couldn't speak of something as important as death. They talked about everything else, including her grandmother's death.
Her father's mother had died just this past February and they had mourned her passing fully in the Jewish tradition, the family observing the practices of Shiva, the seven-day period of formalized mourning by the immediate family of the deceased, as they had always done before. So why the secretiveness about the other deaths?
Overall they were a happy family, she thought, always having adventures, taking day trips, traveling up and down the coast and into Mexico. And always together on Sundays. Meda hated that part! She didn't always want to be with her family on Sundays, especially now that she could drive and needed to see her friends in Hollywood!
It didn’t make sense to her especially since her mom had been there -- almost on the front lines of dying and death. Her mom, a German Holocaust survivor, had been born in Germany when Hitler had come to power. Then she had escaped to Shanghai, China, living in a refugee camp. Mom must have known many deaths.
Meda knew about that stuff from talks about it in Sunday School and at the JCC. Even at the synagogue they talked about it, especially every year when they celebrated Holocaust Remembrance Day.
Why did everyone act like it was a secret at her house? Everybody knew about the concentration camps.
But no matter how she tried to understand it, the bottom line was that if she couldn't talk to them about what was most important to her, then what was the point of talking at all? They complained about her not talking to them. Their view was that they had tried everything to get her to talk to them! But she knew it was the other way around. And the one thing that would have worked to get everyone talking they just wouldn't do - stop keeping secrets.
To be continued,
With love and gratitude to my mom -- "Freda Babe"
Want to know more about Meda Rose as she faces life and grows to be an outstanding role model through all her adventures?
Look for more tales excerpted from our writing adventure of Camelot Disrupted, Book One: Lost Hope Regained, a four book series.
COMING SOON!
