"No good deed goes unpunished." There's a lot of speculation about who said it first, but I suspect it was someone (probably female) who was dealing with a family and an elderly parent at the same time. I'm feeling a bit like the bug on the windshield today.
My mom is 82 and a baseball fanatic. Specifically, she is a Toronto Blue Jays fanatic. It's a good thing that Cito Gaston has been brought back, because I was becoming concerned about her blood pressure last year when the team was playing so abysmally. This year, there was a delay in the broadcast of the games, and mom was distraught. She couldn't watch "her boys" play.
My mom has basic, plug into the back of the television cable. Since analog will be going to way of the edsel in the not so distant future, I did some checking, and found out that she could subscribe to digital cable for a few dollars more than she was already paying, and have instant access to more channels, and more importantly, more baseball games.
She's been on digital cable since Tuesday. Problem was, she needed to learn a new remote for the system. To say my mom is techno-challenged is like saying that the Titanic had a small leak. Anything new that is technical sends her into a tailspin. I set the system up for her on Tuesday, and synchronized the cable remote with the television so that she would only have to deal with 1 remote. Or so I thought. I've walked her through it twice since Tuesday, and my husband has dropped in to fix it for her once, and will be going there again this afternoon after this morning's phone call.
Phone rings.
Mom: "I can't get the television on."
Lisa: (while smearing almond butter on a tortilla for child's breakfast) "Did you try turning it on and off again?"
Mom: "yes."
Lisa: "what's on the television screen?"
Mom: "02 and snow. I told you I couldn't cope with this and I don't know why you did this."
Lisa: (taking deep breath) "Okay, mom, you've got the television off channel 3. We need to put it back on channel 3. Get the little remote for the television and try putting it on channel 3."
Mom: (after pause) "I have sound now. But I don't have a picture. Why isn't it staying on the channel I left it on? It always used to. I'm too old to cope with this. I don't like it. We're taking it back."
Lisa: (another deep breath) "what does the screen say now?"
Mom: "Aux. 1"
Lisa: "Okay, I know what you did, but I can't see the remote to know how to fix it. Read the buttons on the little remote."
Mom: starts reading buttons.
Lisa: "Mom, I'll have to come over to fix it. I can't see the buttons."
Mom: "Better send Dave. You've done enough."
And so my husband has been dispatched to go solve the television crisis...again.
It's not the first time that something I tried to do to help my mom has come back to bite me in the butt. I'm a fixer by nature. My mom doesn't ask for help often, and doesn't LIKE having to ask for help. She therefore tends to accept it grudgingly. She broke her hip a few ago, and although she stayed in her apt, she needed help. I had just started a new job, and in fact, she broke her hip at my apt when she was over taking care of my cats while I was in Winnipeg on training. When I returned, I was going over every night to cook her dinner and do whatever needed to be done for her. Her best friend came up to stay, and I made a pot roast in the crock pot for our dinner at my apt. I went home, prepared to mix the flour and water for gravy and it exploded all over my kitchen and me. After cleaning up the mess, I finished making the gravy, sliced the roast, arranged the potatoes etc and transported it to mom's house. She had called in the interim because they were hungry and she was wondering where I was. I told her I was cleaning the mess..."I knew you should have cooked it here." was the response. Oh, and I didn't slice the meat nicely...
The digital cable is just another in a long line of things that I didn't do well enough. I suspect the digital cable will be returned this afternoon, and I hope my husband is up for the arguement with Rogers about the fee that may result. I'm staying out of this one. As my mother has said, "I've done enough."
So is it wrong that I try to fix things? Is it wrong that I try to make things better? Is it my expectations that are too high? I just don't know anymore. What I do know is that I'm stressed and upset and feeling discouraged and useless. Time for chocolate.
Showing posts with label mothers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mothers. Show all posts
Friday, May 22, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Book Review-Becoming my Mother's Daughter
I just finished reading an interesting book by Erika Gottlieb. With Mother's Day in the not too distant future, I thought I would post the book review for you. The book is available on Chapters, Amazon and your independent book stores...which you should support ALWAYS!
Book Review
“Becoming My Mother’s Daughter
A Story of Survival and Renewal”
By Erika Gottlieb
Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Life Writing Series
March 2008
$24.95, 188 pp. Paper
ISBN10 1-55458-030-7
ISBN13 978-1-55458-030-9
The search for personal identity is as old as time itself. Who we are, how we have been influenced or molded is a journey that each person undertakes at one point or another in the course of life. In “Becoming My Mother’s Daughter, A Story of Survival and Renewal” Erika Gottlieb frames her search in a fictionalized account of her childhood in Budapest, Hungary during the latter days of World War II. Her search for identity is framed both by her Jewish faith and by her relationship with the women in her family. It is a dichotomy of simple and complex themes enveloped in the recollections of a 6 year old child surviving the Holocaust.
The author assumes the persona of “Eva”, who acts as narrator through the story. Her story and that of her Grandmother, Ethel, her mother, Eliza and her sisters Sandy and Ada is a powerful story of survival. Beginning and ending in the present, the premise of the book is simple: life is mourning. In coming to terms with the losses in life, we come to terms with our life itself. As she comes to terms with her mother’s death, Eva comments: “I know that to keep on living I have to leave her behind. I know that to keep on living I cannot leave her behind. I heed both voices. I am my mother’s daughter.”
Eva’s family runs a successful furniture business. They are respected in the community, fluent in German and lead a comfortable, upper middle class existence. All that changes when the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Hungarian wing of the Nazi party, takes over in 1944. Overnight the family’s home is seized, the Jewish families are forced to flee or live in ghettos, or are marched to the train station for transport to concentration camps, or to the river bank where they are shot and thrown in the Danube River. Ms. Gottlieb, in the persona of the six year old child, Eva, is not concerned with historical accuracy, and recounts her life in hiding and in the ghetto in the matter of fact and unemotional way of a child. This lack of emotion strengthens the narrative because it allows the reader to be an observer rather than an interpreter of the events. There is no time to mourn the loss of property, materials, or even friends and family members. Survival leaves no time for mourning.
The story is interwoven with symbols of bridges, tunnels and streetcars, but one of the most powerful images that Erika Gottlieb uses is also one of the most simple: a purse. Her mother’s purse is the source of food and medicine, and other things that determine their survival in a barely survivable time: “…Of course…I can hold those fears at bay because on the sidewalk, we’re walking in the shelter of Mummy, our walking shelter…with her heavy yellow handbag, she is our live shelter. In the bag she carries all our food and money ¾everything we can call our own on this earth.” When Eva’s family eventually escape communist Hungary and emigrate to Canada, the battered yellow purse becomes the bridge between the family’s past and present, as it arrives loaded with all the family photos, documents and memorabilia of their life before World War II. After her mother’s death, the purse becomes the key to understanding her mother, and through that understanding, the author comes to terms with how she has been shaped by her mother. “The tie, the lifeline to the past, the tie between the present and past, the present and future. Mother’s oversize handbag, her heavy burden…her daughter’s lifeline. The bag with its old-and-new treasure without which Eva could not continue her journey.” She states further: “Whether or not I want to continue my journey, I was born and gave birth. How can I then deny it? I have to go on…With a child cradled in my arms, I follow my mother, who in turn is following her own mother.”
The strength of “Becoming My Mother’s Daughter, A Story of Survival and Renewal” lies in the contrast between the writing of Eva as adult and Eva as child. The stark, factual descriptions of life in the latter days of war-torn Hungary provide a perfect foil for the more introspective writing of a woman coming to terms with her legacy, her life and her place within it. In Eva, women find a kindred spirit as all daughters struggle to live up to and live apart from their mothers. Eva’s daughter has much to live up to, and Eliza would be proud.
Book Review
“Becoming My Mother’s Daughter
A Story of Survival and Renewal”
By Erika Gottlieb
Published by Wilfrid Laurier University Press
Life Writing Series
March 2008
$24.95, 188 pp. Paper
ISBN10 1-55458-030-7
ISBN13 978-1-55458-030-9
The search for personal identity is as old as time itself. Who we are, how we have been influenced or molded is a journey that each person undertakes at one point or another in the course of life. In “Becoming My Mother’s Daughter, A Story of Survival and Renewal” Erika Gottlieb frames her search in a fictionalized account of her childhood in Budapest, Hungary during the latter days of World War II. Her search for identity is framed both by her Jewish faith and by her relationship with the women in her family. It is a dichotomy of simple and complex themes enveloped in the recollections of a 6 year old child surviving the Holocaust.
The author assumes the persona of “Eva”, who acts as narrator through the story. Her story and that of her Grandmother, Ethel, her mother, Eliza and her sisters Sandy and Ada is a powerful story of survival. Beginning and ending in the present, the premise of the book is simple: life is mourning. In coming to terms with the losses in life, we come to terms with our life itself. As she comes to terms with her mother’s death, Eva comments: “I know that to keep on living I have to leave her behind. I know that to keep on living I cannot leave her behind. I heed both voices. I am my mother’s daughter.”
Eva’s family runs a successful furniture business. They are respected in the community, fluent in German and lead a comfortable, upper middle class existence. All that changes when the Hungarian Arrow Cross, the Hungarian wing of the Nazi party, takes over in 1944. Overnight the family’s home is seized, the Jewish families are forced to flee or live in ghettos, or are marched to the train station for transport to concentration camps, or to the river bank where they are shot and thrown in the Danube River. Ms. Gottlieb, in the persona of the six year old child, Eva, is not concerned with historical accuracy, and recounts her life in hiding and in the ghetto in the matter of fact and unemotional way of a child. This lack of emotion strengthens the narrative because it allows the reader to be an observer rather than an interpreter of the events. There is no time to mourn the loss of property, materials, or even friends and family members. Survival leaves no time for mourning.
The story is interwoven with symbols of bridges, tunnels and streetcars, but one of the most powerful images that Erika Gottlieb uses is also one of the most simple: a purse. Her mother’s purse is the source of food and medicine, and other things that determine their survival in a barely survivable time: “…Of course…I can hold those fears at bay because on the sidewalk, we’re walking in the shelter of Mummy, our walking shelter…with her heavy yellow handbag, she is our live shelter. In the bag she carries all our food and money ¾everything we can call our own on this earth.” When Eva’s family eventually escape communist Hungary and emigrate to Canada, the battered yellow purse becomes the bridge between the family’s past and present, as it arrives loaded with all the family photos, documents and memorabilia of their life before World War II. After her mother’s death, the purse becomes the key to understanding her mother, and through that understanding, the author comes to terms with how she has been shaped by her mother. “The tie, the lifeline to the past, the tie between the present and past, the present and future. Mother’s oversize handbag, her heavy burden…her daughter’s lifeline. The bag with its old-and-new treasure without which Eva could not continue her journey.” She states further: “Whether or not I want to continue my journey, I was born and gave birth. How can I then deny it? I have to go on…With a child cradled in my arms, I follow my mother, who in turn is following her own mother.”
The strength of “Becoming My Mother’s Daughter, A Story of Survival and Renewal” lies in the contrast between the writing of Eva as adult and Eva as child. The stark, factual descriptions of life in the latter days of war-torn Hungary provide a perfect foil for the more introspective writing of a woman coming to terms with her legacy, her life and her place within it. In Eva, women find a kindred spirit as all daughters struggle to live up to and live apart from their mothers. Eva’s daughter has much to live up to, and Eliza would be proud.
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