Thankful for Mothers. . .and My Daughter

When my daughter and I were reunited, we marveled at the ways in which we looked alike . . . and the ways we didn’t. It wasn’t until several hours after my flight landed in Oklahoma City and we rushed into one another’s arms that I realized, as I shared with her photos of her Nemoy family, that she was the stunning image of my mother as a young woman.

This blessed my soul with another layer to our reunion, because my mother was gone by the time I found my daughter. Yet I could still see her beauty in my child.

My mother’s closest friend was her sister Miriam, my Aunt Mary. When their family in Poland was stopped from entering the U.S. legally by the Immigration Act of 1924 (intended to keep out Jews), they put the two youngest children, my mother and Aunt Mary, on a ship to cousins in Canada, From there, hidden under the backseat of a car, the little girls were driven across the border to be raised by their older sisters who had already made it in.

Nothing seemed to stop my Aunt Mary. She drove a racy convertible and had several birth certificates (and husbands). My mother processed things differently. Fear defined much of her life—and not unjustifiably. My father was targeted as a possible Communist by the FBI. and his wife’s status prompted a letter in 1951 from the INS saying she would be deported back to Poland. Somehow this got resolved, but the roots of fear never left our house. Void of explanation or discussion, it produced endless conflict between my mother and her free-spirited 1960s daughter.

When my mother died in 1985, Aunt Mary stepped in. Inviting me for dinner, eager to go on road trip adventures, and telling me stories I needed to hear about our family's past. We became close in ways that my mother and I had been unable to. It was an incredible gift.

So I honor them both this Happy Mother’s Day.

And I honor my beautiful daughter, who gave me the gift of being her mother.