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I will never live long enough to write enough about my mother.

More to the point, I will never live long enough to figure her out, and by “figure her out”, I mean know her in a way that will satisfy me, convince me that I finally know who she is…who she was. I am a woman of a certain age, and if i were less inquisitive, less of a searching soul, i could convince myself that by now I do know who the woman was. After all, I’ve journaled volumes about her, thousands and thousands of words to do with our intricate love and grasping symbiosis through the years, rages, poems, questions with sometimes long but none-the-less opaque answers. I should have her figured out by now.

But, as i use regular therapy sessions to figure out the layers and riddles of my life (a duty i feel is incumbent on us all as we age), i learn even more about her, Sarah, the woman who pushed me into this world. She used to tell me, now and then, that ever since I was born, I scared her, that my power, my hold over her convinced her i was some sort of special being that was from her but not of her. The start of our mutual conundrum: figuring each other out. Love and fear.

The older i grow, the more I see how I am her. I know this is an old and well-used trope – we become our mothers – but the astonishing thing is that the fruit really doesn’t not fall far from its tree, and i am amazed as i see her move me through these later years. Though she has been dead a couple of decades, she is in my body more and more. My momma and me. We are the same tree.

This awareness crept into my very skin last night as I lit the first Chanukah candle for 2023.
First, as I have done for the past 4 decades, I took down from the kitchen shelf the menorah Momma bought me in Israel. Covered in years of wax, colorful and biblical in appearance, this menorah’s presence was as if Momma was in the room with me. I practically felt her next to me. I’ve never felt it more than i felt it just yesterday.

“Momma bought this for me when she went to Israel”, i said to myself, and the first of the afternoon’s goosebumps covered my flesh. Why now? Why did this invade my very being at that particular moment?
Why now, at my age? Am I more susceptible because my actual skin is growing thinner?
Maybe because i am closer and closer to the layers of confusion, emotion and raw power ive been hiding from all these years, as if my weekly therapy sessions might be uncovering something that was ready to be embraced, finally. Perhaps we grow braver as we age. I would like to think so.

And so, i felt what i had to feel, as i scraped the loose wax off the menorah. I let tears come to my eyes, and an open wash of emotions filled me, jumbled, sweet, welcome and scary. I felt Momma in my hands. The bony feel of the menorah’s brass was like holding Momma’s hand.

Then i carefully placed two slender blue candles (her favorite color, the color of her eyes), in their places, struggling as usual to make them fit and stay secure. “Why must every thing be a struggle”, I thought. “why can’t the candles just go in easily?”

But nothing was ever easy with Momma.

By now, i had fully accepted that this Chanukah , this first one in our new home 19 floors above the Embarcadero, with sweeping views of the Bay, that this Chanukah i would welcome her into my open and mourning heart. I miss her. I wish i knew her, and i wept when my husband and i lit those first two candles.
I relaxed into my own weeping and let it feel good, like a tribute, like a sweet and loving memory of Momma. My tears brought me closer to understanding her than i ever need.

Mother? A word, a concept, a reality incomparable to any other

We were destined, simply , to love, love and love some more. Love and become.
I smile, as i write the word “simply”.