Dad, our relationship lasted 42 years. You died March 18, 1988 at 7:25 P.M.. The attending physician from Calvary Hospital said you were at peace.
Our relationship began December 23, 1945 at 2:00 in the afternoon. What I was doing being born in Tientsin, China I never got perfectly straight, although I know you fled Siberia, Russia in order to protect your private enterprise of fur trading from the Communists. You were Jewish and believed in Free Trade, a double whammy for the Communists.
When I was five, we left China for the same reasons that you left Russia: the Communists were in control. They confiscated your business. But China was bliss for me for the five years we were there. We had a big house with servants and I was free to be myself all those years, which were crucial to my surviving the future. I am certain that, because my first five years were as healthy as could be, I was then able to withstand the upcoming onslaught of trauma.
Afte leaving China, we arrived at a German refugee camp of all places. There we were: four Russian Jews in the land that had just butchered our people. We had to stay a year before you, me, Mother, and Judy were allowed to travel to the States. It was the year that marked the beginning of my character trait of flight. Conditions were horrendous in that camp, and one day I just walked away into the valley. I was found on a railway track, picking flowers. The story has it that I said I was picking the flowers for Mother. I was an early believer in flower power. I also believed in getting away from a problem, the problem of over-crowdedness, limited rations, and disease.
But we got out of Germany. To this day I thank God we’re not in Germany. So where did we wind-up? In Brooklyn. You’d gone from Siberia to China to Germany to Brooklyn. What I remember about Brooklyn is the Yeshiva I had to go to. I was the foreigner that was way behind in Hebrew. I did not like Brooklyn, and saw little difference between Germans and Jews.
We finally got to Forest Hills in 1952. You lived the rest of your life here, and I lived the majority of my life here. I’m still here in the apartment you left me in your Will. Thank you. I would be up the river without a paddle if I did not own this apartment.
But the refugee camp and Brooklyn had done some damage. When I entered Forest Hills I had a huge inferiority complex based on my foreigner status.
And this low down feeling was reinforced my first day in Forest Hills. When I approached our front door for the first time, an Italian boy-thug named Joe ambushed me and punched me in the stomach. He did his damage and immediately ran away. Fear set the tone for my first few years in Forest Hills.
Dad, our story is not about victimization through childhood trauma. Like you, I was resilient. I took defeat but bounced back. Somehow, I always managed to rise to a new occasion no matter how depressed and fearful I may have been. But a pattern emerged from my childhood: I would often flee from problems and I would often be depressed.
I was a tough kid with many accomplishments, but everytime I got the high of an achievement, it was followed by lowly depression. By my Junior year in High School I was in a full-blown depression due to the debilitating effect of extreme highs and lows. As of yet, I had not taken any drugs, but I was a prime canidate.
