Momma and the Meaning of Life

"Momma and the Meaning of Life"

Dusk. Perhaps I am dying. Sinister shapes surround my bed: cardiac monitors, oxygen canisters, dripping intravenous bottles, coils of plastic tubing-the entrails of death. Closing my lids, I glide into darkness.

But then, springing from my bed, I dart out of the hospital room smack into the bright, sunlit Glen Echo Amusement Park, where, in decades past, I spent many summer Sundays. I hear carousel music. I breathe in the moist, caramelized fragrance of sticky popcorn and apples. And I walk straight ahead--not hesitating at the Polar Bear Frozen Custard stand or the double-dip roller coaster or the Ferris wheel--to take my place in the ticket line for the House of Horrors. My fare paid, I wait as the next cart swivels around the corner and clanks to a halt in front of me. After stepping in and pulling down the guard rail to lock myself snugly into place, I take one last look about me--and there, in the midst of a small group of onlookers, I see her.

Even as I lift my head from the pillow and try to shake off the dream, the words clot in my throat: "How'd I do, Momma? Momma, how'd I do?"

But Momma is six feet under. Stone-cold dead for ten years now in a plain pine casket in an Anacostia cemetery outside Washington, D.C. What is left of her? Only bones, I guess. No doubt the microbes have polished offevery scrap of flesh. Maybe some strands of thin gray hair remain--maybe some glistening streaks of cartilage cling to the ends of larger bones, the femur and the tibia. And oh yes, the ring. Nestled somewhere in bone dust must be the thin silver filigree wedding ring my father bought on Hester Street shortly after they arrived in New York, steerage class, from the Russian shtetl half a world away.

Yes, long gone. Ten years. Croaked and decayed. Nothing but hair, cartilage, bones, a silver filigree wedding ring. And her image lurking in my memories and dreams.

Why do I wave to Momma in my dream? I stopped waving years ago. How many? Maybe decades. Perhaps it was that afternoon over half a century ago, when I was eight and she took me to the Sylvan, the neighborhood movie theater around the corner from my father's store. Though there were many empty seats, she plunked herself down next to one of the neighborhood toughs, a boy a year older than I. "That seat's saved, lady," he growled.

"Yeah, yeah! Saved!" my mother replied contemptuously as she made herself comfortable. ""He's "saving seats, the big shot!" she announced to everyone within earshot. Momma ruined the Sylvan Theater for me. It was now enemy territory. Off limits, at least in daylight. If I wanted to keep up with the Saturday serial--"Buck Rogers, Batman, The Green Hornet, The Phantom"--I had to arrive after the show started,take my seat in the darkness, at the very rear of the theater, as close to an escape door as possible, and depart just before the lights went on again. In my neighborhood nothing took precedence over avoiding the major calamity of being "beaten up. "To be punched--not hard to imagine: a bop on the chin, and that's it. Or slugged, slapped, kicked, cut--same thing. But "beaten up--ohmygod. "Where does it end? What's left of you? You're out of the game, forever pinned with the "got beat up" label.

And waving to Momma? Why would I wave now when, year after year, I lived with her on terms of unbroken enmity? She was vain, controlling, intrusive, suspicious, spiteful, highly opinionated, and abysmally ignorant (but intelligent--even I could see that). Never, not once, do I remember sharing a warm moment with her. Never once did I take pride in her or think, I'm so glad she's my momma. She had a poisonous tongue and a spiteful word about everyone--except my father and sister. Momma's speech was abominable, her English heavily accented and larded with Yiddish terms. She never came to my school for parents' day or for PTA meetings. Thank God! I cringed at the thought of introducing my friends to her. I fought with Momma, defied her, screamed at her, avoided her, and, finally, in my midadolescence, stopped speaking to her altogether.

In six enthralling stories drawn from his own clinical experience, Irvin D. Yalom once again proves himself an intrepid explorer of the human psyche as he guides his patients--and himself--toward transformation. With eloquent detail and sharp-eyed observation Yalom introduces us to a memorable cast of characters. Drifting through his dreams and trampling through his thoughts are Paula, Yalom's "courtesan of death"; Myrna, whose eavesdropping gives new meaning to patient confidentiality; Magnolia, into whose ample lap Yalom longs to pour his own sorrows, even as he strives to ease hers; and Momma--ill-tempered, overpowering, and suffocating her son with both love and disapproval. A richly rewarding, almost illicit glimpse into the therapist's heart and mind, Momma and the Meaning of Life illuminates the unique potential of every human relationship.