The Tangled Web
As a fledgling writer, I'm drawn to a theory that links storytelling with human evolution. Proponents point to symbolic language as the development that elevated Homo Sapiens above the other human species, allowing us to unite and drive the others to extinction. Aside from making fire, creating tools and technology, telling tales is what we do. Stories by definition are the 'what' of human history and very likely the 'how' that enabled it.
Every spring brings Passover, unequivocally my favorite Jewish holiday. The tradition on this occasion – the Passover Seder – centers around the dinner table as opposed to the temple. Here family and friends perform a ritual retelling of the Jewish exodus from Egypt, from slavery to liberation.
Seder means 'order,' so participants walk through a series of symbolic steps to recount the original story and suss the deeper meaning of its events. The 'Haggadah' text provides a guide of requisite reclining, hand-washing, question-asking, singing, and of course lots of eating and drinking; four glasses of wine prescribed by the program helped cement the holiday as my favorite. This sensory exploration ingrains in Jewish minds the story of how Moses led his people out of the Pharoah's bondage, told them G-d's commandments by which to live, and delivered them to the promised land in which to settle.
Haggadah means 'telling,' and it's said that "those who tell the story at length are praiseworthy." I believe a reason for this praise is that telling the story reminds Jews of our origins, of who we were then and are today, and for what we might give thanks. Also, if there's one story to remember, it's one reminding us when it's time to leave our old life, taking what we can carry, and move forward to gain our freedom.
Indelible memories of my mom's stylistic readings from the Haggadah returned to me this year. Whenever the Seder leader called her to narrate a passage per tradition, her renditions became performances consistent with her colorful personality. She was the camp theater director in her teens. Later in life she made a career as a professor of public speech at Baruch College in NYC. No wonder she felt it was her duty to display her oratorical prowess, no matter the audience size or composition. With the requisite embarrassment of a teenage son, I would squirm at her over-the-top embellishments. Afterwards, I was relieved, then made proud when I heard others praise her delivery.
This April I sheltered in place from a modern-day plague, emulating my ancient ancestors. Australia was my refuge, as far from my family and former home as I could be. A second Passover arrived without my mom at the Seder table, this year's Covid version held virtually on video chat.
As I watched my family spread across my phone's screen, I felt grateful for them keeping tradition alive. Suddenly, a wistful wish arose: to hear one of my mom's famous flourishes once more.
———
This is one of the hardest things I've tried to write. What I wish to express became an essence of my existence nearly two decades ago. It burbles beneath the surface, simmering within, pressing against the boundaries of my being. I arrive over and again at a point just before bursting, approaching the precipice of emotional explosion. And like each time before, it somehow subsides once more.
Something holds me back. I've tried for years but can't find the right words. Even if I could, I question if it's right to release them – now or ever – to the world.
When is it 'too much?' What should be kept to myself, secreted away? What is necessary to divulge?
The desire to share this feels like it's been with me for an eternity, nearly half my life at the least. One year ago, the calling solidified into firm certitude. These past months, I've grappled with how to answer it.
Still, my internal monologue has been dominated by what l call my 'moral-logue.' I struggle on two fronts, debating how to express this 'the right way' while questioning my intention to share this more publicly. The last bit feels odd after telling the salient points to many in conversation.
I debate whether it's a want or a need to share this, and if that even matters. Now, I rest with the feeling that it doesn't. It's irrelevant when there is no absolute wrong or right.
All I can do is try my best.
———
This Passover reignited an ongoing contemplation around telling stories. I revisited the benefits and hindrances of the tales that I repeat to myself automatically, daily. Introspection in past years brings near-constant questioning of the purpose these stories serve.
From a larger perspective, social cohesion seems impossible without a unifying narrative. Can billions coexist without the unifying – and paradoxically separating – forces of nation-states and their accompanying laws and customs? Looking closer, the ideas comprising each are simply stories crafted from past minds. It's those stories that delivered us to the present state of chaos and suffering we see today. What happens when we push against the limitations and through the fault lines of these fabricated tales of law and order?
I find narrative a deceptively easy device to frame an understanding of something or someone. My mind learns through experience, then forms and keeps a series of stories, which accumulate and evolve with new experience. I project these interwoven tales onto the world with varying levels of awareness, informing my understanding of my inner and outer realms. These synopses supposedly define who I am, or more accurately who I think I am, and what I think about everything outside of me.
How limited are my stories and memory? Let's imagine I attempted to describe all that happened in my life just yesterday, or even in the past hour. Whatever transcript I produced would be so impoverished in relation to all that took place, my description would necessarily be false.
A skeleton doesn't fully represent the body it supports. Skin, flesh, blood, sinew and all other matter must be incorporated to paint the whole picture.
How helpful is it to hold onto skeletal stories and the zombified identity they create? Might it be better to release them, allowing life to exist fully, here and now, free of the narrow constraints of a poorly remembered past punctuated by loud echoes of guilt, shame and fear?
It's important here to note the separation between my ego and who I am truly (or as one might say, who I am at heart). My ego is my false identity, comprised solely of my past stories, convincing me to be a wholly separate entity rather than inextricably linked with the greater whole, the one Self. It readily tricks me into identifying with it as who I am, even though who I truly am is the witness to my ego.
The ego can only peddle in the market of the known. It selectively recalls the past to sell an imagined idea of what I might want and could have in the future. The unknown of the future (and past) frightens and threatens the ego, so it resists. Only what is known from experience is safe to the ego, no matter how unpleasant the experience of the memory, for that is what it is made from. Frustratingly, the worse the past experience, the more the ego thrives, almost always successful in providing an illusion of safety from the unknown by returning to what is known. "Better to experience the suffering you know than the potentially greater suffering that you don't," it might say.
So, if I relinquish my hopes and expectations, drawn from my palate of past experience, might I arrive at a promised state of freedom in an oasis of the unknown? Is this what it is to live in the eternal present?
Recently, I see with greater clarity how my life – particularly in the last four years of travel – has become a personal exodus from the bondage of suffering. I've sought liberation from my ego, from the limitations this ultimately false identity creates of a separate self. It perpetuates stories of separation, preventing me from feeling whole, relentlessly restarting the cycle of suffering.
By dropping the bounds of imagined division between myself and the outside world, I might merge easefully and effortlessly with all around me. Peace, joy, bliss and other qualities of true happiness independent of any thing become my experience. Or so I'm told.
I question again the purpose of sharing the story I wish to tell here. A buddhist teaching from a meditation retreat comes to mind:
As it is possible to remove a thorn from the skin using another thorn, one can use the ego to release the grip of the ego.
So apparently it's possible to use suffering to move beyond suffering, but it's a tricky maneuver. Am I attempting such a feat by telling my story to let go and liberate from it?
I also wonder if sharing this could help others let go of the narratives that grip their minds. Someone with a much harsher past than mine said that as he tells his story to others his pain diminishes. A Hindi proverb says similarly that as you share your happiness it grows, and as you share your sadness it shrinks.
Within this exploration and equivocation, I find myself pulled toward sharing more about my life with my mom. The bad and the good. All of it. By sharing my darkness, I shed light on my shadow, perhaps weakening its hold on my psyche and aiding my audience to do similarly. Revering the lighter times helps me realize the pureness of my mom's love and the immensity of her being, allowing others to bask in it with me.
Feeling I've made enough consideration, I decide to forge on further with this tale.
———
My mom visited me in a series of dreams this April as the temperatures descended with Australia’s autumn. Recounting events from my waking consciousness is difficult enough. Describing the contents of my astral travels is like grasping vapor.
In the first of this series, I recall her sitting silently, staring at me with a forlorn gaze, like from a photo I have of her as a younger woman, perhaps around my current age. I couldn't separate the feeling that she was alive there with me from knowing she was dead in 'reality.' No words were exchanged. We were there in each other's presence. I woke with a deep sadness.
On a night soon after I led her through a series of meanderings, the plot points less important than the feelings of her realness with me and of her essence as she once was. Our adventure was mundane. Like I would in times past, I felt like I was dragging her along due to her proclivity for lateness, or her aversion to punctuality.
She made more visits on ensuing nights, the details fully eluding me. Her consistent presence was most significant to me.
In early April, a heavy energy swept up through me, or descended upon me, or sprung from inside me, perhaps all three. Its intensity surprised me, but not its appearance. I mentioned this to one of my lockdown flatmates, a close friend and teacher for me. He spoke one sentence while placing a hand on my chest, and the grief found a seam to release its magnificent pressure. I stumbled a few steps to the carpeted stairs nearby and started sobbing silently. After an initial round of tears I felt prone and exposed, so I descended to the couch downstairs and crawled my six foot frame into a fetal pose.
There was nothing to do and no energy for anything other than to cry and release. There was no need to label or assign meaning to what was arising and flowing out in ebbs. Whatever was happening was happening, and needed to be so in that moment. Eventually the pressure subsided, the tears stopped, and it was time for dinner. I sat at the table with my friends, empty, light, exhausted.
A week later a similar energy returned. While tears were palpable, they never emerged. Lethargy took over and carried into a second day, April 11th. I was horizontal nearly as much as I was upright, moving between bed and couch, later laying on the beach with another healer. This friend had brought me lilies after reading a tribute I wrote about my mom and her penchant for those pungent blooms. Their appearance on my table felt like a gift from above.
I waited for a release to come under the late afternoon sun, laying on the sand, then swimming in the ocean. Diving in the waves often helped move my awareness out of my head and into my body, then beyond its bounds. The heaviness shifted slightly. The sunset that evening was particularly spectacular. Still, the thick energy remained through the evening until I laid my head to rest.
When I woke on the 12th, my eyes felt lighter and brighter. Unlike the recent mornings, I could move my body with alacrity and vigor through my usual routine. The energy had lifted and left once again.
———
When I received a call in India from my father on the morning of April 13th last year, I immediately sensed something was wrong. His quaking voice told me my mother had passed away. The news shocked me. But I wasn't surprised.
My mother's death certificate lists April 12th as the date of her passing. But from the moment I learned of it, I felt she left her body earlier, likely by at least one day. If so, she died exactly one year from the day of heaviness that ended on the beach.
In addition to the errant date, I believe the certificate has another mistake. The cause of death is listed 'undetermined.' Based on her history in her last decade and the state in which I found her apartment when I first returned last year, I feel certain in saying my mother took her life.
———
Even when the facts of a story are verified, undisputed, its meaning shifts in interpretation. Two people can see the same reality differently just as one person changes their view from one moment to the next. As time unfolds, so does my comprehension of what happened.
Reflecting on my childhood, I now understand how my mother struggled with her mental health for what seems as long as I can remember. It took me a while to see this. As a child, I didn't recognize her volatile mood swings as more than personality quirks that made her 'special.’ After her mother passed away while I was at university, my mom's mental state descended into greater chaos. Soon after her loss, my mom made what was either a first attempt on her life (that I knew of) or a cry for help, quite possibly both. With this screeching turn in the story – one of those 'everything has changed' moments – I began to wake up to the magnitude of her psychic strife.
I would learn in this period: that my mother was institutionalized for bi-polar disorder in the decade or so before I was born; about the sometimes severe parenting of her mother, a single parent raising three daughters; how the death of my mom's father when she was 11 deeply impacted her on an existential level, affecting her everyday consciousness.
This last part might seem obvious on paper. Yet there are many things children and young adults are sheltered from, or unaware of, until reality comes crashing through their consciousness. In notes she wrote late in her life my mom continued to lament her father's passing, never reconciling this gaping loss in her being.
Suicide attempts succeeded one another on what seemed a semi-annual basis for the next 16 years. Weeks-long hospitalizations and stays at psych wards and rehab centers followed upon and melded into the next. Through the fog and fatigue of this period, I lost track of how many of these cycles she – and my family and I – went through. My best guess is eight attempts before she finally succeeded at ending her lifelong suffering.
Our relationship necessarily changed in this time. Any childhood innocence remaining in my impression of my mom quickly faded in the reality of the present moments I faced with her. My parents separated in the period after her first attempt. With each subsequent episode, I felt the weight of being her closest of kin, the responsibility of being her primary contact and caregiver, bearing down harder on my consciousness. Less consciously, I felt the roles reverse, the son becoming a parent to his mother, the child. I grew sadder, angrier, and more frustrated each time the little girl screwed up, failing again to get her act together. Always her son, I silently wished for the mom of my childhood to return, to hold and comfort me in these dark times.
While I can't know for sure, I have another feeling: that my mom endured the pain she experienced and held for as long as she could. That she was strong enough to live for as long as she did before it was too much for her to bear.
———
Waves of emotion swept through me on the final night of a month-long stay with my friends and teachers in Australia. Last November in Thailand, one had told me at my birthday party they received a gift from my mom for me: a song. Hearing the news excited and frightened me. What did my mom have to tell me? More to the point, how would I react when I heard it? Now six months later in early May, it was time to find out. I had avoided situations that might lead to this song's delivery, vainly guarding my emotional stasis. At the eleventh hour I surrendered to the moment, waiting on the couch to receive this profound gift.
I remember the warmth and delicate beauty of the melody, the sweetness of the lyrics unmistakably sent from my mother's higher self. I can't recall the lines verbatim. Nor can I relate the feeling of hearing my mother tell me everything was ok, and that it's all ok, and not to worry. Hearing my mother call me 'baby' at 36 transported me to a feeling perhaps unknown since I was 6. What I know is that for the better part of an hour, sadness, gratitude, relief and more swirled and washed through me, those emotional waves melting me into a puddle of tears.
In early July, a friend drove me and a few friends back from the beach to continue celebrating his birthday. Minutes before while in awe of the beauty around me, I was also cold and restless to leave and frustrated we hadn't, acutely aware of how selfish and sensitive I felt, very much like a child. Gazing at the sky on the drive back, a knowing came into my awareness from out of nowhere.
I could tell myself as many stories about my mom's experience as I wished from what I knew and experienced myself. But no matter how much I tried, I would never know precisely what her life was like. So then how valid or accurate would any judgement or conclusion of mine be about it? The only experience or story I can attempt to claim as true is my own, and even that is a shaky proposition.
———
In her time on earth, my mother Susan took a deeply spiritual approach to her life. In addition to spending Saturdays at her synagogue, she attended a meditation center devoted to her guru weekly, sometimes more. We had a country house in upstate New York for several years when I was young so we could visit the ashram nearby on weekends and summers.
A few weeks after the funeral officiated by her rabbi, I organized a memorial for her with her friends from the center. Those who knew her as Sudha, her spiritual name meaning 'nectar', could gather to share in the blessing of their memory of my mom. The service provided much needed solace and healing. Connecting with family friends and with people I remembered and never met filled some of the cracks in my heart with warmth.
A lady whom I never knew shared a memory of my mom that caught in my throat and brought more tears. She told us how she had never spoken with my mom, but she knew who my mom was from the first day this woman entered the center. Seeking the support of a spiritual community, she felt shy and isolated in an unknown space. Mid-conversation across the room, my mom turned her gaze to the lady and beamed her radiant smile, letting her know how welcome she was. Meeting her eyes with shining tooth and grin, my mom would regularly transmit the warmth of her love to this woman over the years without a word ever exchanged.
While it was taboo to make death announcements at the center, word of my mom's passing reached many who then came to the gathering, including this woman who never knew my mom's name but made the connection in time to arrive and tell her story. I could say I was grateful, but the word fails to fully convey what her story meant to me, to my evolving understanding of who my mom really was, and now is.
In this life I met my mom first in physical form with all her human foibles. Now she's somewhere else, often beyond perception but always within reach. I'm still here, human. But just like my mom, I know I'm something else, and that there is more to me than what I can see and feel.
I have the ability to tell my story. And with greater awareness, I can reach my clenched fist out, then choose to stop sending energy to hold the weight this old tale bears upon me, allowing it to drop on its own. What happened, happened. Whether I continue to grasp the past or relinquish my grip is the decision determining my emotional and mental freedom. Forgiveness, for myself and for my mom, is not so much an act I can make but simply a spontaneous happening that occurs without effort.
I mentioned how difficult it has been to express my story, my experience, to write it formally for the others to know fully. When asked how my mom died, I've often felt handicapped by my mind, emotions and moral-logue, debating who needs to know the depths and details.
I've found strength in the truth & telling of my own story, how I relate to my mother's passing. I can't tell her side, only mine. I know there's much more to say, and also to let go.