My Mom

My mother was smart and funny. She was needy and prone to emotional blackmail. She could be fierce and vulnerable. Once, after breaking up with her long-term partner, she basically disappeared for about six months. My mother made mistakes – many of them – and had few triumphs. She had three serious relationships in her life: one with my father, one with the abusive woman she left my father for, and one, the last one, with a woman who she loved and who loved her.

She was born one generation too soon. As a young person, she thought she’d like to be a lawyer but women of her generation didn’t normally go to law school and she didn’t have the self-confidence or support to buck the system and get herself there. After her divorce from my father, she spent many years working at the Social Security Administration, a job she disliked, until she and her partner opened a small gift and stationery store. Neither of them had any experience in business, and the store failed. After that, she and her partner fled New Jersey for Florida in order to escape their creditors. In Florida, she worked for a short time stocking Hallmark greeting cards.

She had three children: myself, my older brother, and younger sister, who has Down Syndrome. When Susan was born, her family advised my parents to put her in an institution. So they did. For about a week. But my mother couldn’t bear to leave her child in the care of strangers, and so she brought Susan home where she belonged. My mother fought the state of New Jersey for Susan’s right to an education, eventually winning a lawsuit that mandated the state provide her with one. The public schools in our little hometown couldn’t accommodate her, so my Jewish sister spent years attending a Catholic school presided over by a warm nun named Sister Helen.

After my father died when we were still kids, his life insurance went to the three of us. We two boys agreed to give the vast bulk of it to Susan so that she would have funds to take care of her as she aged, only keeping enough for ourselves to get us through college.

This is the part of my mother’s story that is difficult for me to write. After she and her long-term partner split, my mom stopped working. This is the period of her disappearance, when she wouldn’t return phone calls or communicate with anybody. When she started communicating with us again, she seemed transformed. Always heavy as an adult, she lost a tremendous amount of weight and began seeing the woman who would eventually become her last partner. During this time, it was unclear to my brother and myself how she was supporting herself. The only explanation we could find is that she was siphoning money from Susan. I don’t know how much she stole, but I think the sum was considerable.

By this time, Susan was in the twenties and had a good place to live near Mom.  Between the Social Security checks and state aid she received, she never lacked. But that doesn’t erase the fact of my mother’s theft. I want to say this act was unforgiveable, but the truth is, I did forgive her.

Why?

For all of her faults, and the one betrayal, I never doubted her love for us kids. She loved us intensely and did the best that she could to understand us. She supported my decision to become an actor even if she didn’t understand how anybody could support themselves in such an occupation. She came to see me in my first New York theater role, as a corpse. And she told me I had been a very good corpse.

Yes, she made some terrible mistakes: keeping herself, and by extension us, in an abusive household was one. Obviously stealing from Susan was another. But she also cherished us and told us she loved us every time we spoke. Her love for us was always evident, in every visit and phone call. She loved her grandkids and, even in her declining health, wanted nothing more than to sit with them and spoil them. She knew how to love, sometimes too much. That love could feel stifling, the way a duvet can get so hot that you have to eventually throw it off. But I never wished for her to love me less.

As her health declined over the last decade of her life, she would repeatedly ask my brother and me if we were happy. By then, we were both married, both fathers, and succeeding well enough in our careers. But were we happy? Yes, we told her. We were happy. In the end, I think that was enough for her. No matter what we do in this life, the thing that matters most to any parent is the answer to that one question – are our children happy?

The great gift that she gave to her children was the security that we had her love. Unconditionally. I’ve made mistakes, too, plenty of them. But I never doubted I deserved love. That surety is because of her. Every day, I try to pass on my mother’s gift to my own kids in the hopes that they will do the same for the people they love. I think love is the only thing that transcends this life. My mother loved me. I love my own children. And I still love my mom.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, Jill Phyllis Rivkin (1944-2017)