THE DORCHESTER YEARS 1950-1964

THE THREE FACES OF SHIRLEY:
The 'Good' Shirley and The 'Bad' Shirley (The Medicated Shirley comes later)

Angry + Terrified

I sat in my therapist's office two weeks ago and said I don't understand how she was able to keep it together all those years in Dorchester, when she worked to support us and then to see her spiral down  during and after the Malden years - she became a different person. Tough to watch. She told me one of her boyfriends, Mock, told her not to marry Julius Silverman- "he's a tough guy..." Turned out, he was.

There were at least three different 'Shirleys'...the 'good' shirley who everyone liked, beautiful, funny, fun to be around. That was her 'public' self. I lived with her, alone, during those years. Behind closed doors, another story played out. After divorcing my father, Stanley Miller before I was two, Shirley remained a single woman for 12 years, becoming "a single, working mother, ahead of her time" as she was fond of saying. When I got old enough to go to school, she worked full time. Interesting that she chose not to remarry all those years. I now realize, she did not like anybody to tell her what to do. It was not due to lack of options. She dated many guys who liked her over the years including Harold Berman, truck driver, nice, Mock, always came with chinese food and games for me, and Ozzie. She chose Julius Silverman. One day while shopping in the supermarket, a woman came up to Shirley and they talked. Afterwards, she said "your father is dead." I was eight. Then we continued on shopping. When I asked about my father, i.e. what was his name, she slapped me across the face and said, "he was rotten. He would not pay for child support.

STANLEY MILLER, 1950

He was rotten." She went to court to prevent him from seeing me because he did not pay child support. Exit my biological father. (Years later I met his brother, my uncle Frank,  more on that later)

During the Dorchester years, her mantra to me was: "you have to get good marks so you can go to college, you have to get good marks so you can go to college!  No TV unless you get on the honor roll. You have to get on the honor roll so you can get into Girls Latin School, (a public college prep high school in Codman Square). " I did it. I had to. In the seventh and eighth grades I was taking: Latin, English, Math, History and French. She said I did not have to go to Hebrew school anymore because I would have so much more  homework to do. Femina, feminae, feminae....yes I did have a lot more work to do.


Brace yourself. This is tough stuff, even for me! I had to do what she said - you never knew when she was going to explode or why- any little thing could set her off. And then her rage, anger and frustration came out in violent, emotionally + physically abusive episodes; she would fly into a rage and sweep everything off shelves and tables, sending books and papers and lamps flying. In the eighth grade I had to make two mythology reports because she destroyed the first one. It was like living in a war zone. This was the 'wire-mother monkey' or the 'bad' Shirley.*

No one else saw 'the bad shirley.' Only me. I was terrified of her and I was angry. I became the punching bag. That began a pattern of my not listening to any 'authority figures.' I still have trouble with that but after five years of EMDR therapy, I can 'hear' people better.You do not 'forget' the trauma. The sound of breaking glass reminds me of my childhood.

Julius did not know anything about the 'bad' Shirley when he married her. He did not know she threw his diamond engagement ring down the incinerator at 104 American Legion Highway and that Shirley and Ruth Goldin had to sort through the trash to find it.

After years and years of therapy, I realize, our relationship was doomed. She was never going to be the mother I wished for, and I was not going to be the 'perfect' daughter she wished for. Tough stuff.

*Wire mother monkey: Harry F. Harlow, Monkey Love Experiments.
http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~adoption/studies/HarlowMLE.htm
When I read about these experiments in various Psychology classes I took, I began to think of her as 'the wire-mother monkey'; a piece of terrycloth over a wire monkey - hard to love...it hurt to love her. 

POSTSCRIPT: Many years after these events, while talking to her on the phone in Berkeley, I confronted her about her abusive behavior (from a nice safe distance of 3,000 miles away); she was taking medication then, Stelazine, an anti-psychotic drug. She said, "I know, I am sorry, do you forgive me?"

During these years, my 'safe haven' was Bubbe's house. I never told her what was going on. I was there on friday nights and all school vacations. It was SAFE; unconditional love from Bubbe which is how I started this blog. 

SAFE: Bubbe + Zaidy, 1962ish