Bea Lewis

Whenever I present a program on parent/adult child relationships, I learn  from the members of the audience about the problems they are facing, the difficulties they are feeling. Sometimes members will tell the audience  how they resolved these issues and thus begins a sharing of ideas which often takes them talking well after they leave the meeting hall.  

At  a recent Hadassah meeting at Majestic Isles community in Boynton Beach, an attractive, well-spoken mother of two, told the group how she learned  never to talk about one daughter to another.  

The woman said she learned the hard way; you know, how, with good intentions, you tell one child about another child's problems, hoping they will be of help. But it boomeranged, the mother said.  "My daughter found out I was talking to her sister about her problems.'' 

Shortly after, the woman explained, her daughter called to say she had lost trust in her and would no longer share her problems with her.  
 

" What I tell you is for your ears only,'' said the daughter, and with that she hung up the phone.

 " It took time for my daughter to talk to me again,'' said the woman who now  makes sure to keep whatever she is told  under her hat - after all, hats can blow off in the wind!

There are days that I wish my daughters lived closer to me ( like maybe in the next room or even back in my womb.) Those are the days I feel lonely and need the connection to them - to have them be by my side so I can reach out and touch them, know that my nearness to them will keep them safe and secure.  On those days my heart actually aches from wanting them by my side. (Could be the lyrics to a love song, maybe?) 

Just the other day, when I was getting some lunch in Panera's, a little eatery near an elementary school on Boynton Beach Blvd. when  I notiiced a group of young mothers at a table enar by having lunch with their first grade children. My heart sprung a leak - it was crying to have my daughter Kimberly sitting there with her young daughters who are about the same age. For the moment I wondered how they were doing and what they were having for lunch. For the moment I wished they were sitting there in Panera's and in my fantasy I walked over and said hello and sat down and had coffee with them and asked them what was happening in their school that day. Just for the moment.

To ease my sadness, I opted for a croissant instead of whole wheat toast to go with my salad ( no dressing) When I left, my heart still sniffling  from wanting so to be with them, I went looking for my car. I coulnd't remember where I had parked it. Or for that matter, which car did I take- the red one or the SUV?  The midday sun was out in full force and the sweat trickled down my face as I walked up and down the aisles. The more I looked, the more I couldn't remember. That's when I had a change of heart about my daughters living so near to me.

What if, Kimberly was really there and we walked out to the parking lot and she would ask where I was parked and I wouldn't remember?

Where did you park, MOM? I could hear her say in my head. The tone of her voice would be like WHERE DID YOU PARK< MOM??? It would have a little edge to it, like are you getting so old you don't remember where you parked, or maybe it would sound like HOW COULD YOU NOT REMEMBER WHERE YOU PARKED THE CAR? HOW CAN I EVER LEAVE YOU ALONE ANYMORE?? 

Then I found my car. The red one. It was just where I left it. I got in, turned on the air conditioning and radio. Wrapped myself in the seat belt and suddenly I felt so much better. because living with the old folks  who also can't remember where they parked their car - is where I should be. 

And Kimberly is living where she should be - among young  families who have so much in common - like never forgetting where their cars are parked.   

Laurie just left a message on my telephone voice mail, asking for a holiday recipe she loved so much growing up. "Please e-mail me the Passover mandelbread recipe,''

I was so thrilled she wanted to recreate some of the dishes I made while she and her sisters were growing up.

I scurried through my old recipe file, many of the recipes there were ones I had published in Newsday when I was a food writer a million (or so it seems) years ago.

Her request came at a particularly bad day: a very good friend died, he literally dropped dead in the street.  He was someone younger than me who seemed in perfect health. That scared me because I'm never sick. Like a teenager, I feel invincible.

So Laurie asking for a recipe made me feel no matter what will happen to me someday, my mandelbread recipe will continue to be made - and hopefully, the grandchildren will be told that this is what grandma made every Passover.

Food can serve as a link between generations. The aroma whafting through the house can set a memory in motion - good or bad. With that Passover mandelbread on my children and grandchildren's Passover seder table, I know I will be remembered, long after I am gone.  

I don't have good memories of Passover growing up. My mother died when I was six - and the following year  my dad took my sister, Evelyn and me, to a communal seder for German immigrants someplace in Manhattan where you had to climb up a long, dark staircase to get to the catering hall.  Many of the people there had the tattoos on their arms from when they were in Nazi concentration camps. It was so depressing. No one seemed to be smiling.

I remember the awful smell of brisket  as I entered the very large dining hall, with long tables stretching from one end to the other.  I remember fearing I would vomit, keeping my lips tightly sealed as a protection. To this day, brisket evokes an unhappy Passover memory and I have never made it. I don't even have a recipe for it.

I guess, it's not only the aroma of the potted meat simmering for hours that evokes a sad memory, but the connection of that aroma with the loss of my mother.

But cooking for Passover should not only be about looking back, it should be about enjoying the present and making memories for the future. That reminds me, I have all the ingredients in the house to prepare the Passover mandelbread for this year's seder, but I forgot to get the chocolate chips. How can I expect a happy memory be made without them?    

 While talking on the phone with one of my daughters the other night, I felt she sounded a little down in the dumps. "Are you OK?" I asked. "Fine," she answered.

But without saying so, I projected that she might be feeling lonely as both her daughters are off to college or visiting friends during Spring Break .  Her house must be amazingly quiet. . No hair dryers going full tilt. No computers hard at work text messaging or skyping.  No dirty dishes piled hig in the sink or half eaten bags of chips leaving a trail of crumbs from one room to another. Whatever was in the fridge the night before is still in there today. 

The good news is how clean the house stays.The sad news, however,  is the realization that the chickens have flown the coop and mama is sitting there wondering where the years went. How did time - and the chicks - get away in a blink of an eye? 

My daughter denied she felt down, but as I  scrolled back to the days when she and her sisters were off to college,  I remember the ache in my heart that signaled how deeply I missed them.  But on the other side, I relished my new- found freedom..

I still get that heart ache whenever any one of my three daughters leave after visiting with us in Florida. Since they fly thousands of miles to be with us , we usually spend 24/7 with each other. The bonding is wonderful, but the good-byes for me are painful. 

 But then again, ache in my heart dissipates, when, after they leave, my house is clean and neat once more and I can get back to MY routine again.

That's life. The chicks gotta fly. For if they don't, they will stay stuck in the coop forever. So a little sadness is woth the joy of seeing them grow into their own - and for me to have a life apart, yet together.