Born to Selma and Morris (a.k.a. Moe or Moish) Weinstein on October 13th, 1958 in Philadelphia, I came in, according to family legend, on a wave of laughter. My parents had been out to one last hurrah date sans baby the night before. Chinese food (likely her favorite shrimp and lobster sauce for my mom) for dinner and a hot fudge sundae for dessert. In the wee hours of the morning, she experienced what she thought was indigestion. Turns out it was me about to make my entrance. My father drove her to what was then called Lying-In Hospital (Pennsylvania Hospital) and the games began. My mother was pacing the hallways and found herself in front of the nursery. She gazed in the window at the rows of babies ensconced in their little cribs. All of them were crying. One little boy was still and she watched with concern to see what might be amiss. A doctor came over to him, took off his diaper and he started to wail which prompted my mother to laugh. Her water broke and labor intensified. Shortly later, I slid out, not without the minor complication of the umbilical cord wrapped around my ankles. She would later remind me it could have been my neck. The first few days on the outside of the womb had me falling asleep while she fed me. The nurses advised her to ping me on the bottom of my feet to wake me up since I was losing a bit of weight in the process.
I came home to lots of love from immediate and extended family. My maternal grandmother shared a home with us and became a third parent. She died when I was four, which was a tremendous, if not quite understood, loss back then. I have since recognized it as a catalyst for health issues (I was diagnosed with asthma that year) and budding co-dependent tendencies. I didn’t want to be an additional burden on my parents in the wake of that loss. They would never have thought of me that way, but I created that narrative in my own kid’s mind.
Many people I speak with in my therapy practice will say that they emotionally resemble one parent more than the other which is why they often butt heads. I am a rare combination of both parents. From my first generation America born of Russian immigrant parents, father I developed my solid (if excessive) work ethic, my undiagnosed ADHD fidgets, my deep spiritual faith, my dog with a bone persistence in the face of challenge, my goofy sense of humor, my emotional range (the erstwhile South Philly kid who was a Golden Gloves boxer in the Navy, was really a marshmallow who could cry at the drop of a hat) and my ability to connect with people everywhere I go. Do you know the Six Degrees of Separation concept? In our lives, there were/are zero degrees since he and I would either run into someone we knew anywhere we went or who knew people we knew. It happened to me yesterday when I met up with a woman my age whose mother had just died. Her mother and I were friends and had some adventures that I shared with her over tea. Turns out we have many friends in common in what I refer to as overlapping soul circles.
From my mother, I learned how to be resilient and bounce back from any challenge. Her father died of Leukemia when she was 18 and she went to work to support herself and my grandmother. Not sure if my grandmother ever worked outside the home. She had a huge love of family and had many aunts, uncles, and cousins in the neighborhood. My grandmother was one of 13, the last of whom died at 103. My mother was the rock of the family, the go-to person for family and friends throughout her life. She would often say that she would be strong in the midst of crises and then fall apart afterward. Oddly, I never saw her fall apart. In my adulthood, I would remind her that rocks crumble. Would that I remembered that myself since I took on that mantle. When I had a few bouts of kidney stones in the past few years, I shook my head ruefully since rocks were indeed crumbling. Music was part of our home environment, as she enjoyed singing, with a beautiful voice. What my father may have lacked in formal training or talent, he more than made up for in enthusiasm. Blessedly, my voice more closely resembles my mother’s.
From both of them, I inherited a love of learning, even though neither had formal education once they graduated high school. They did, however, engage in adult enrichment classes in topics that interested them and used travel as a means of learning about other cultures. They modeled how to love fiercely with a mama bear protectiveness when I have witnessed injustice. They reminded me and my younger sister that we needed to appreciate what we had since others may not have been as blessed. What was said about my father was that he would take the shirt off his back to help others; a real mensch (good man, in Yiddish), but he would add, “Charity begins at home,” so he made sure our needs were met. A hardworking milkman and then bus driver, he provided well, if not extravagantly for us.
When I contemplated a career, they told me I could do whatever I wanted, as long as it made me happy and I could support myself. I imagine that is why I have so many overlapping career paths since I discover happiness along the way.
My father died in 2008 and my mother joined him in 2010. I honor their memory each day by emulating these lifelong lovers.
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