By Cliff Simon

In November 1985 a few weeks after my boyfriend (now husband) Julian and I moved in together, we were in the kitchen talking and I started to tell him some funny stories of my intense Jewish mother Lil. He quietly listened and said to me, Until you accept your mother, you’ll never be happy. 

Julian didn’t mean what he said to be anything but the simple truth. But my relationship with my mother was anything but simple.

It was close, for sure. She guided my ship through troubled waters, was my biggest advocate, cheerleader, friend and role model, and also, if one were to ask me, my greatest critic. Whereas my father was hardly there, she was rarely gone. We were inseparable, and as such, there came a time when I began to notice cracks in her armor, but was too young to understand what I do now.

She suffered from nagging jealousies that tore at her heart, and having to face emotional realities she wasn’t equipped to deal with. She resented other people who were better off than we were, but wasn’t taught how to fend off her anger. I blamed her for not being perfect, while she expected me to be just that. It wasn’t that we didn’t understand each other. The difficulty was we were so much alike.

When I saw her weak spots, I became angry and scared, as if mine were exposed too. Guided by our tender dynamics, she was my security, and when she faltered, I felt betrayed by what I perceived as her lack of strength; my mother, the cause of my problems, a villainess in maternal clothing. For years, not even realizing I felt that way, it hibernated deep in my mind beneath my charming surface.

In the spirit of these revelations, I am taking a new look at life with my mother Lil, previously Version 1.0, which now includes updated selected highlights of some of our time on earth together, retold, rethought, revisited: Introducing Version 2.0, the update.

I will say right off the bat that she was not the easiest person to live with. She made lots of demands and was very verbal, often acerbically so. My mother could be nasty too, was unable to control her emotional extremes, and she was plagued by allowing herself to hate people.

She didn’t hate me, but I irritated her, a mirror to her indignation. When we would argue/fight, she told me that if I was so upset I could go and knock my head against the wall. I frustrated her fastidious sense of order, and when I broke something (which, granted was often) she would chide me, Everything you touch turns to shit. One time after she said that, I looked her in the eye, took my hand and placed it meaningfully on her shoulder. She didn’t find that funny.

Not to say she didn’t have a sense of humor, sometimes inadvertently so: Once, my cousins and I were at the kitchen table, and Auntie Syl, my mother’s sister-in-law, with her arm around her purse on her lap, was sitting right next to my mother. In the middle of the table-wide conversation, out of the blue, my mother threw my aunt’s arm off of her purse, grabbed it and screamed at her, What are you holding onto that bag for? You think someone’s gonna steal it in my house?

That was funny. Other times, not so much.

Two months after my Bar Mitzvah, my father suddenly died at age 54. A couple of weeks later, my mother, distraught and lost, seated on the beige leather ottoman in her bedroom, while my sister, on the edge of the bed near my mother, held her hand, while I knelt on the floor, my head resting on my mother’s lap. With glazed and unfocused eyes, staring into space, she whispered, Now I have nothing.

Often, she had no idea of the impact of her words. I remember her expressing her disappointment, Why can’t you be normal like all the other boys?

I have blamed her for my discomfort and unhappiness all of my life, retelling these stories, over and over ad nauseum, and with great humor, to soothe my sadness. But now, understanding humanity and my mother (and me)  a little better, I reconsider.

The truth is, there were not many moments in my life when I doubted her love for me. Her loyalty to my father, sister and me was part of her genetic makeup, and if she let out her wrath anytime, it would be if someone threatened our safety, by word or action.

Her life was focused on family and values, and taught us to be honest, respectful and responsible. Did she make demands that we resented? Oh god, yes! As a kid, I was spoiled, and regularly battled with my mother, trying to gain power over her sheer determination. I never won. She was a force of nature with an iron will that could frustrate every particle of your being, but who, when I think back, was a woman difficult not to admire.

And though she said things that hurt me back then, when I think of them now, they’re just faint scars. For instance, I can definitely, and gleefully report, that no, I was never normal like the other boys, thank the lord; that what she said after daddy died, now I have nothing, today I understand how she must have felt, two children to take care of, financial fears, suddenly the man she loved, vanished, leaving her alone; and everything you touch turns . . .?  Well, maybe there was some truth to that, but I was proud of my curiosity in any case.

Her damaging words, in the end, did not destroy my life, though I held onto them well past their due date. She definitely had issues. A little crazy sometimes, assuredly so. But any strong-minded person, by nature, has ‘stuff.’ I know I do. And after so long, I realize I don’t need to forgive her or myself either. Compassion is forgiveness. Julian realized that 35 years ago. Finally, I do too.

Sorry it’s taken so long for the Version 2.0 revise to come out. Everything takes time.

Cliff Simon has baked, painted (and eaten) cakes since the ‘70s, while his love of theatre has brought him to a career designing sets and teaching students how to, too. He first discovered a love of words from hearing the lyrics of composer Stephen Sondheim, whose work he’s found to be so totally on target. Cliff is obsessed with whatever he does, and writing is definitely no different. http://www.cliffcakes.com