It’s time for my first child to be born. It’s the late nineties and I’m in my early thirties — thick black hair, curly, and down to my shoulders, with blue eyes and a thin smile, my arms are small but my belly is huge. I’m off to the hospital to give birth, but I plan to take things slow. When he’s born I’ll pinch his baby cheeks and kiss his keppie. I’ll whisper “mumashayna” and teach him the last bit of Yiddish I still have from my grandmother when I was young in Philadelphia. I worry that the doctors won’t let me hold him when he’s born, but maybe it’s for the best, my hands will be so sweaty after the labor and I’ll be too nervous to drop him. Mostly I’m hoping he comes out handsome, knowing he’s my son he’ll be a real head turner when he grows up but for now I’m fine with him being cute, shayna punim, pretty face.
I decided to raise him in suburban New Jersey where we had a two story house with lots of windows, trees, and a long stretch of porch that nearly wrapped around the whole front, two chimneys, and direct symmetry down the middle. We didn’t live there long so I mostly forget about that time. We soon moved to corporate Pennsylvania where there were still lots of windows, trees, and porches but maybe even too much. In the house we had two golden retriever dogs, one with four legs, and another with three from the cancer we had to cut out of her hip. Her mouth was stained red from the turmeric I’d put in her food to fight the inflammation, but in the end the best thing for her was a hacksaw. The dogs loved to roam around the identical houses that lined the neighborhood, and towards the back was a dynamite quarry that erupted every Thursday morning so we’d retreat to the concrete synagogue in our basement and pretend an earthquake was coming. At times we’d have guests too in the basement to celebrate our favorite holidays — Hanukkah, Rosh Hashanah, Passover, I favored Yom Kippur, but we had the most fun with Tu Bishvat. It became much less about the celebration because we hardly recalled the words to the prayers, and even then we couldn’t understand what they meant besides “Adonai” or “Yisrael” and even those were hard to believe in. Instead we used the holidays as excuses to gather as a family to laugh and chat about things: parkinsons in San Francisco, soybeans and estrogen, and titration methods at CHOP.
I raised him to be smart because I wouldn’t know how to handle a dull child. At a young age I made sure he kept up on his studies and had talent. When he couldn’t handle a pencil or paintbrush I turned him to piano, guitar, and cello — he preferred Dvorak. In school he preferred the sciences — biophysics. In elementary school he did his times tables quicker than the other students and placed first chair in the school orchestra, and I couldn’t have been more proud. In middle school he kept up the pace and won a spelling bee and the science fair, then in high school he became much smarter than me and read Mendenhall before bed. He grew his hair long and I let him enjoy his coolness while he played guitar and swooned for attention. For a short while in middle school he became interested in dance and I enrolled him in ballet classes, but after the first recital he grew embarrassed and quit, he couldn’t handle his family watching, and he cut his hair back so his big lip smile came through.
When he grew up a bit more he told me he wanted to travel to India for a short while where he’d study buddhism and become an honorary monk at a temple. He went off, shaved his head, wore robes, ate his veggies, and drank butter tea. He told me about his adventures bargaining for food and gifts in markets, how he’d cross long streets of fast traffic, motorcycles and cars going by without stopping, he told me the trick was to keep walking at a constant speed and let the vehicles swerve around you. He told me very little about his time meditating or what it meant for him if anything at all. He told me instead about friendships he’d make with strangers over tea on hikes in mountains. He even met the Dalai Lama briefly, who blessed him, and a photograph of my face. When he returned back home he seemed about the same except now with a shaved head and vegetarian diet, he tied a red string around his neck because it had been blessed by someone special. He now rises at seven every morning to meditate in the corner of his room, developing good posture from it and for that I’m thankful. Besides all this, he mainly stayed the same. At this point, he’d moved out and lived in Manayunk but he’d still come home for meals to gather and talk about local politics and protein aggregation. After dinner one night he lied on my couch and looked very sullen, he rubbed his head and said now he’d plan on taking things slow.
Years later he had his own child — my first grandson. For a long time he was bald, no eyebrows or hair on his head, but overnight he grew large curly hair and manicured eyebrows and I could finally claim him one of my own. “Neshuma, meshugana, schmuck,” I taught him my Yiddish but forgot what the words meant. He’s a good boy with lots of smarts and talent and a great smile.
My mother wouldn’t leave my grandchild alone, she already had her turn, I wish she could let it be mine. She lives in a large retirement home down the street alone, because my father needs special care for his stiff body and she couldn’t remember the correct medicines to give him. She owns a very scrappy dog that’s lived thirteen years, always whining for attention and barking at inconvenience. Petting her isn’t much fun, under her thick mat of curly hair are little bones and a thin layer of skin you push and pull around but she likes it very much. When my mother was young she played telephone wire ball with the local boys and was very athletic and beautiful. Later in her life she developed an autoimmune disease that attacked her platelets, so she turned to alternative medicines and began her own body talk practice. The healing works with telepathy, while holding the patient's arm up, my mother would silently ask the body questions, gently applying pressure to the wrists, the arm holds still if “no” or becomes weak and falls if “yes.” One time my grandson was sick with a cold and she talked to his body through a surrogate. I don’t buy it at all so I don’t let it concern me. When I was little, she turned to me in synagogue to tell me she believed she had been reincarnated from the Holocaust. I held on to that for four years, and brought it up to her again, she said “I said that? Oh, I’m sorry.” Another time she spoke about roller skating down a curb back when she was young in Philadelphia, and a voice in her head called out “don’t go,” a car flew by moments later and she said God spoke to her.
After work one day I slipped and fell on concrete, my head throbbed and my vision shook, it was my third concussion. I looked for a cranial sacral therapist to heal me, she massaged my neck for an hour to reconnect the flow of energy to my head. I continued my biweekly visits to the local acupuncturist and chiropractor to set my bones right. I even bought crystals to charge in the moonlight. I paid a reiki master for reiki energy, my children laugh at me for it so I practice on the dogs, placing my hands over them I summon the energy and heal them with intention, I can tell they’re thankful for me.
My first dog died of cancer, and the next was her daughter who died from a motor neuron disorder. I now have a third with PTSD who can’t keep his mouth closed and a fourth dog that weighs above one hundred pounds, and they get along just fine.
I raised my daughter just as I had raised my son — smart. She excelled in school and as a baby, being the first of my two to reach toddler milestones: first to crawl, take steps, ride a bike, speak words, and once she started talking she wouldn’t quit it. I taught her to pump her fist and yell “vagina power!” but she spoke with a lisp and exclaimed “gina powa!” instead. She’d scream it in public spaces but they couldn’t understand her, we’d look at each other and laugh hard. In school she received good grades and placed first chair in the school orchestra too. I went to all her concerts and told her she looked the best up there. She studied in her room and I let her be.
For years I worked as a part time school psychologist and performed psychiatric evaluations for students, sometimes I was paid to test their IQ levels, so I’d bring the tests home to practice on my children to fatten up their scores. She scored high and looks like her father, so I knew she was mine.
One time my husband and I were staying as guests in someone’s home. The bathroom wouldn’t open and he couldn’t hold in his pee so it went in their potted plant…
This other time when he worked for a car seat company, he patented a booster seat and named it after me…
We have family that need us here to celebrate and take care of them, staying for traditions, we speak Yiddish to the driveway and find replacements for dogs who’ve passed. We live in tall trees where identical stone houses line the streets of flowers, bikes, and children. We spend our days spitting on the neighbors orchids and having more pride than them in our own grandchildren.
3D prints, paper, paint, metal stand made by Enid Corcoran
Laser Print on pre primed canvas
