Below is Part 4 of the Hegelian Series. Originally, I wrote this paper for a graduate level class -- Culture and Counseling. At the time, I was working towards earning a MA in Counseling and Mental Health. The assignment was for us to talk about our own cultural heritage. My professor was not pleased with my attempt to infuse Hegel into the assignment. He gave me no credit for the paper. Nevertheless, I'm still proud of this writing and will share it on this blog.
In this portion of the paper, I discuss how empathy and kindness helped integrate my family.
The Dialectic of N and Nana
N now holds one of the most powerful positions in the world, but in his utter inability to use that power to affect positive change he reveals his utter impotence. He is like a wannabe artist who obtains the finest tools but still can’t produce anything. He then flies into an infantile rage and destroys the works of all the other artists he so envies. N and folks like him are the toxin in the soup.
At the other end of the dialectic stands my maternal grandmother, Myrtle – Nana as I called her. I’m sure if N had known my grandmother, he would have held her in utter contempt. Nana was not interested in accruing power, and she was not gifted in making money. As a child, she struggled in school. My family believes that she had a learning disorder, but there was no such diagnosis back then. Instead, the school labeled her as stupid – a label that she accepted for the rest of her life.
As N would have most likely seen it, Myrtle was a person of no power and no worth. To him, she would have been a lowly clerk in her husband’s store and a simple homemaker. Despite her seemingly inferior position to N, she exercised great power as a family unifier and cultural integrator.
When my parents (Dorothy and Lawrence) announced their plans to marry, my paternal grandparents were horrified. Lawrence had grown up in a small town in Western Pennsylvania. His parents were protestant, and they expected their son would be as well. They told my father that if he married a Jew, they would disown him and never talk to him again. My father had grown up an only child and was devastated that he had to make such a choice. Eventually, he informed his parents that if they forced him to choose, he would choose Dorothy.
Myrtle stated lightheartedly that my parents’ biggest marital problems would be how they kept the heat. I can verify that Myrtle had great insight on this issue. I have many memories about my parents arguing about the heat, but none of them were serious. Myrtle had always told my mother not to be swept away by someone’s party manners. She told my mother that it was how someone behaved in the home behind closed doors that counts. That was fortunate that Myrtle had given my mother that advice, because my father does have lousy party manners. His strength is in how he treats people behind closed doors.
One particular story that highlights Myrtle’s accepting and open nature occurred about 40-50 years ago – a time when people were much less tolerant of folks who didn’t fit the typical mold of sexuality. She was sitting on a park bench with my aunt. Also sitting on the bench was a transvestite (now outdated term replaced by cross-dresser). Without a thought, she turned to him and stated that she really liked his dress. To my aunt’s horror, she and the transvestite began to have a friendly conversation.
Afterwards, my aunt said to Myrtle, “Mother, you don’t talk to people like that.” Myrtle was genuinely confused at my aunt’s reaction. She stated that she really liked the man’s dress, so she didn’t understand why she couldn’t tell him that.
Out of everyone in my family, one could argue that she most embodied the American spirit. While she is special to me, I’m sure that there are people like her in most family backgrounds. Myrtle, and the people like her are the ones who make America great. They are the ones who have the power in American and enrich the soup. They are the ones who facilitate diversity and integration. It is not N and the people marching in Charlottesville chanting “the Jews will not replace us.”
Empathy and kindness are two qualities that I hold in high esteem and are especially prevalent on my mother’s side. Morty, my maternal grandfather was also Jewish, and he was accepting of my father as well. If my maternal grandparents had reacted to my parents wedding in the same manner as my paternal grandparents, my parents’ marriage may have never happened. At the very least, it would have created a toxic situation that would have had a poisoning effect on my entire family. My five siblings and I could have all become corrupt real estate moguls.
Morty’s father Nathan was known for his fiery temper. In his early thirties, he impulsively gave chase to a man who had robbed his store. The man pulled out a gun and shot him dead. Left without a father, Morty had to work full time to support his mother. At the same time, he managed to earn a degree in Law. Unable to attract enough clients, he left the law business after six months. Around 1936, he borrowed some money from a wealthy uncle and opened a store in Mattapan square. With hard work, the store became very profitable and he was able to pay his uncle back.
I have five siblings, and Morty used his financial success to finance the education of his grandchildren. With Morty’s help, my siblings and I were all able to attend private school and go to college.
Empathy and kindness seem to be especially prevalent on my mother’s side of the family. My mother still has memories of Maurice – her great Grandfather on her mother’s side. Maurice was a Jewish Immigrant who had left Poland to escape the pogroms. Throughout his community he was loved and well-known for his kindness. My mother remembers that at the age of five she used to run into the sun room of her maternal grandmother’s house to visit him. My mother informed me that Maurice used to tell his daughter to make lots of soup. He would then take buckets of soup on the Boston subway to give to the poor in Dorchester and Roxbury.
He would also buy items for poor people who needed them. One story that sticks out in particular was that he wanted to get underwear for an impoverished woman with a large derriere. When he saw a woman with similar proportions, he went up to her and put his hands on her hips (Nope, not appropriate for today's standards). Startled, the woman jumped up. Maurice informed her that she need not worry,because he was only trying to buy underwear for an indigent woman of her proportions. The woman told him her size, and Maurice was then able to buy the correct sized-underwear .
Maurice had a daughter named Lena, who I knew as Nana Bloom. Lena married a Russian Jew by the name of Moses, but family members referred to him as Pom Pom. Apparently, his family nickname was the result of my mother mispronouncing Pa Pa as an infant. Everyone thought this was so cute that Pom Pom stuck.
Moses hated his real name. As a child, his classmates at East Boston had teased him mercilessly about his Jewish sounding name. When he was old enough, Moses went to a judge and requested permission to legally change his name to Maurice. The judge stated, “Moses you were born, and Moses you shall die. Regardless of what the judge had decreed, Moses went by the name Maurice. He even signed documents that way.
Pom Pom married Lena around the age of twenty. To make a living, Pom Pom ran a shoe store in Central square Cambridge. His wife Lena stayed at home and ran a boarding house. When she made dinner, she often would cook extra, so she could give her borders a free meal.
