Erin Mahone - If You Could See Me: Life, Motherhood, and the Pursuit of Sanity

LIFE

Just because youre miserable,
doesnt mean you cant enjoy your life.

~Annette Goodheart

Bubbe and Zayde

P hiladelphia, December 1952

A 19 year old girl gets into a cab. Behind the wheel is a fair haired, kind faced, blue eyed 26 year old veteran.

Whats your name, he asked.

Marlene, she answered, whats yours?

Lenny.

She smiled shyly as he grinned at her through the rear view mirror.

That night he proposed and two weeks later they went down to city hall. But they almost didnt get married. You see, on that first date she told him in a momentary lapse of reason, that she was 23. Only now, when they went down to fill out the paperwork she just couldnt continue her charade. She couldnt enter into their marriage with him thinking she was 4 years older than she actually was. She couldnt keep her pretend birthday straight in her head forever

You ok? He asked as they sat side by side filling out the paperwork.

I have to confess something, she said.

Ok, what is it?

Im really 21. She lied again. What is wrong with me?! she thought in her head.

Ok, he said, ok, its ok. Anything else?

Im 19.

I cant do this youre just a kid. It aint right.

Its fine, she answered calmly, its no big deal. Im the same as I was 2 minutes ago. Im the same as I was when I got into your cab.

Needless to say, they got married. But shortly after Lenny began acting strangely. He was volatile and paranoid. He was hallucinating and having delusions. Soon after, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Her family and his for that matter, encouraged her to institutionalize him, to move on, get married again, and pretend it never happened. But she couldnt do that. He didnt deserve to be locked away like an animal, she would say. So they made it work. That girl and that boy were my grandparents. I called them Bubbe and Zayde. They spent 47 years taking care of each other.

My Zeyda had a prolific career as a schizophrenic. His delusions of grandeur were indeed grandiose. He spent time as an astronaut, the chauffeur for JFK during the assassination, frequently tracked in various inventive ways by the KGB, and as the Messiah or preternaturally communicating with G-d through the placement of the cigarette butts in his ashtray or reading the alignment of the stars. He would spend hours looking up at the sky or sitting alone nodding his head. Every day was an adventure.

My Bubbe would get so angry with him when he would engage in the secret rituals like cigarette butt messages to The Lord. Stop it, Lenny! She would yell. Even at the other end of the house, she either knew he was doing something or she was warning him in advance.

Bubbe experienced great difficulty with anxiety and depression as a result of the stress and uncertainty of Zaydes illness and shouldering the responsibility of caring for their family. Their life together was extremely difficult and came with great sacrifices. Neither of them ever gave up and they raised four amazing children, one of whom was my father. Their children went on to give them 12 grandchildren. They had a weird relationship but his illness was never a secret. They both did whatever necessary to help him to be as healthy as possible, hospitalizations, new risky treatments, and days on end in doctors offices. Whatever it took.

When my father was a child, Zayde spent years in and out of hospitals in an attempt to find a viable treatment and medications that worked. He underwent the bad kind of Electroconvulsive therapy shock treatments the archaic 1950s version, the scary drugs, nothing like what we know today. This left Bubbe alone to care for the children, the house, and earn a living providing in home childcare. She worked hard to care for her family and give her husband what he needed to survive outside of an institution.

Zayde once had a doctor, in his old age, whos name was Dijou. He saw the name written on the white coat and thought it must mean Die Jew and refused to go anywhere near the doctor. His distrust of Japs and A-rabs was not racism necessarily but a combination of his service in World War II, his experience as the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, all intensified by the paranoia from his disease that created so many powerful enemies.

My Bubbe told me once that when Zayde was very young he felt there was something wrong and he went to discuss it with his mother who was a Jewish immigrant from the Ukraine, sickly, and fearful in the world. Sha, sha she would say in her thick Yiddish accent, Youre fine. Dont say these things, people will hear you. Nothing wrong. And that was that.

His greatest gift was that he was a gentle man with a big booming voice who loved to tell stories, sing songs, and play games with us. He was full of goodness, kindness and love. He would walk over to me and put his hand on top of my head as if blessing me and say My Erin Peyton. Shaina Madel.(which means beautiful girl in Yiddish.).

Although their struggles were never a secret our grandparents and our parents often recalled about all the fun they used to have. They were always laughing and doing crazy things like rearranging the bedrooms in their tiny house in the middle of the night so everyone got a new room. Their kids friends were always welcome and fed no matter how much they ate. They made everyone feel like a part of the family.

My dad told stories of his best friend coming over and eating the entire familys dinner before they sat down. My uncle, once invited the entire basketball team home for lunch in the middle of the school day. They both would come home in the middle of the day to watch The Young and the Restless with their mom and eat lunch.

My siblings and cousins and I (12 of us), would spend weekends at their house. We would eat chocolate ice cream with crushed pretzels, baked spaghetti with American cheese on top, pretzels and mustard, lox with eggs and onions. Wed play rummy tile, trivial pursuit or penny poker, and have fashion shows, or put on musical reviews.

My love of performance, and telling people what to do, is a direct result of being the oldest grandchild. On those weekends I learned to be a Directator creating elaborate productions, yelling at all of my cousins, doing costumes, make-up, and hair. In fact, one cousin still has a scar from the time I accidentally burned her during a hairstyling session.

Bubbe encouraged talent and vision. She made me feel like I could do anything. Unless I was doing something she didnt understand, then she wouldnt speak to me for awhile. Like the time in middle school when I was feeling fashionably adventurous and I wore Zeydas pajamas to school. You would have thought I had kidnapped the Lindbergh baby.

I guess now I understand a little better that this reaction was partially generational but also a reflection of her incredibly high expectations for her family. Her life, though full of love, was limited as a result of Zaydes illness. She had to work so hard for everything she had that when she saw me going to 7th grade in an old mans pajamas it was just too much. She valued excellence and respected talent but she wasnt a huge fan of weirdness.

However, even though as an adult I can understand her a little better I recall that she wasnt always kind with her recriminations when you did something she didnt like or understand. The more she loved you the meaner she sometimes was in those moments. She was an incredible woman, but she wasnt perfect.

In fact, the greatest lesson she taught me is that showing up doesnt mean being perfect. She struggled with her own anger, resentment, anxiety and depression too. She yelled, blamed, gossiped, and judged, and yelled some more. Theres enough material for a book on her alone she was the center of my universe. Good, bad, otherwise she never let me down and she never let Zayde down. I cant speak for anyone else.