As You Like It: Control Issues

Last week we spent the better part of a day going through the boxes that my mom had shipped here from Israel. There were only 13 boxes left of the household that she had dissolved last summer. I wonder if there’s some sort of mathematical life equation for this, as in 40 years divided by 13 boxes equals the ratio of Mom’s old life to her current one?

There we sat, a mirror image of what we had been doing a few months ago. But this time Mom was deciding what she wanted to take to her apartment and what she wanted to store in our attic. The movers had written just one word on every carton and it seemed that when they didn’t know an English equivalent they just wrote books or clothes. That meant we had to open them all.

As I took out a beautiful blue vase, or a picture or a book, Mom would gaze at it, lost in thought. I was wondering what was going through her mind as she saw all her things come to light and was about to ask when she said, “Why did I bring all of this? Why did I think it was all so important that I had to pack it up and ship it thousands of miles? Now it all looks like a bunch of junk!”

I was stunned. I never expected her to say that. I remembered the arguments we had over what to ship and what to leave. She saw memories, but I saw things that could be easily replaced. Not the photographs, letters or one-of-a-kind remembrances — those were going of course — but household items and clothing. Mom would show me something with a wistful look and I would say, “Absolutely not! We can buy a better, newer, cheaper one in the States instead of paying a fortune to ship it!” I guess I was being practical, but in retrospect I was also heartless. My only excuse is that there seemed to be so much to organize in too short a time and every little thing became too much.

Most of the time Mom gave in, but every now and then she would hand me something and say, “This is going!” and I wouldn’t argue because I hated being the gatekeeper of her memories.

So hearing her say that everything we had shipped so carefully meant so little to her now, I was shocked. And so was Mom. She was confused. “Why do I feel this way, I don’t understand? I wanted to bring all of it and now I see it and I don’t want it at all. How could I have changed in a few months?”

When I thought about it, though, it made sense.

“Mom, when we were leaving Israel you were sad and angry and definitely feeling out of control of your life. Even though Shatz and I told you that there was a lovely home waiting for you in the States, you hadn’t seen it so you couldn’t imagine it. All you knew was that you had been so happy here and if you had a choice, if you were in control of your life, you wouldn’t be leaving. And so you wanted to bring everything you could of your old life with you. But now, you’ve settled in, you love your apartment, you’ve made friends, you’re enjoying yourself, and so all these things that seemed so precious before have become just things.”

After thinking a bit she agreed that it was true. So we compromised: I asked her not to get rid of anything. We had plenty of room in the attic. She could go through it little by little — keeping some things, giving things to her granddaughters, getting rid of others, but she would take her time. And that’s how we left it.

We all long to be in control of our lives. There are even heady times when we think we are. I spend most of my time uselessly thinking that I can control what happens even though I am endlessly proven wrong. This fall has been a perfect example. I have spent the last few months filling student slots in my GED program. I have tested and assessed and interviewed scores of applicants, placed them in classes and written lesson plans.

And then reality appears: A student’s brother is shot in Mattapan. Another student loses a friend to a machine gun while shopping in her neighborhood convenience store. I have listened to my students describe a life where gun shots are as common as rain, where the simple act of shopping at the corner store means taking your life in your hands, where they cannot allow their children to play in the street for fear that they will be slaughtered.

We have lost students to murder, addiction, cancer, homelessness and even lack of money for bus fare.  One of our top students cannot find a place for his family to live and is facing eviction. Others live in shelters facing all the difficulties involved in living what we simply take for granted — a “normal” life.

Despite all this, or rather because of all this, we do our best one student at a time. And I will have to learn the hard lesson that I can’t control a damn thing — except perhaps my attitude.

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Posted by Joan Florek Schottenfeld on Nov 18 2010. Filed under As You Like It, Opinion. Both comments and pings are currently closed.