Transcriber: Tra My Ho Reviewer: Annet Johnson
I’m not a mother,
I’m not a partner or soul mate,
I’m no longer a daughter,
I’m not a sister,
I’m not a widow or divorced,
I’m not a next of kin,
and I’ll never be a grandmother.
Who am I then?
Do I need an acceptable identity label to be validated?
Six years ago,
the person I loved dearly, who I had supported,
nursed and cared for through his battle with cancer,
passed away at home in my arms.
Adele singing, “Make You Feel My Love,” softening the room.
I looked at the clock.
It was 10:06 a.m.
It was as if God had waited for the track to finish
before hitting stop on Chris’s life.
There’s a particular silence in the moment as you wait for another breath
and it doesn’t come.
It was like nothing I've ever experienced.
I had lost the person who knew as much of my story as I did,
my constant companion and confidant.
Because we were not married or in a de facto relationship
at the time of his death,
neither the law nor his adult daughters
recognized me as a valid identity to his estate.
There was no label for who I was.
Over the days, weeks, months that followed,
my identity and sense of self was collapsing.
Life unraveled.
My professional identity collided with my personal life.
One day, grief and frustration entered the room
and finally derailed a meeting with a client.
She quietly and respectfully asked,
“Do you think it’s time you spoke with someone?
I can recommend a wonderful therapist.”
A personal branding coach for 25 years and I no longer knew who I was.
Without an acceptable label,
no one saw that I was awash with grief.
“Oh gosh, I just want them to know what it’s like to walk in my shoes for one day”
and repeat it over and over.
What was my identity?
Who was I now?
This sad, miserable person longing for others to be witness to the grief
hidden behind the polished exterior
and away from friends with periods of quite deliberate isolation?
Well, I have a story of how I came to be who I am now.
You see, I wanted my grief at losing Chris validated.
I wanted the world to acknowledge that I was still worthy and capable,
despite never birthing a child.
So I made that call to Sarah
and it was to be the beginning of accepting my identity.
There were three key phases to my awakening.
Sarah picked up that Chris’ death had triggered systemic grief deep within
and urged me to uncover and face the details of who I was,
where I’d come from,
what I’d experienced.
But phase one was no easy feat.
I was an adult orphan
and my parents had never revealed the truth of their life before I arrived.
My life was quite normal,
so I thought.
I didn’t believe I had a particularly dramatic backstory.
You know, those stories that social media and reality TV feed off?
What I do have was the absence of a story.
There was no backdrop.
Beyond facts, shared memories,
which give color and movement and create life’s rich tapestry,
were empty spaces in my heart and mind.
So I needed to become a detective.
I was forced to open a Pandora’s box of secrets, hidden documents, and old photos.
All my life,
I assumed identity began with my birth.
We were either like one or both parents.
In my case, I looked like a clone of my father
and like him, I felt very different.
I preferred aloneness and I wrote very sad poetry.
I didn’t have any immediate anchors.
No grandparents, when other kids had grandparents.
No siblings, when others had siblings,
and only one family of mum’s relations.
And quite frankly, I didn’t look, sound, or act like any of my cousins.
Pandora’s box was a trail of historical breadcrumbs,
leading me to finally meet the source of my melancholy.
Parental grandparents, victims of the Holocaust.
My father escaping the Holocaust
only to be persecuted by Nazi detainees,
and then having a breakdown whilst in an internment camp in Australia.
And finally, a brother sent away to an institution shortly after his birth
because he had Down syndrome.
And I was the replacement baby.
One day, Sarah asked,
“Imagine how afraid and anxious your mother must have been
throughout her pregnancy with you whilst still mourning your brother.”
She went on to explain genetic imprinting and my brain lit up.
Had mum’s fear really crossed the placenta to me?
Could this explain why my life choices left me with empty spaces
where others had labels?
I needed to explore and understand more.
And so phase two was my curiosity crusade.
I read,
I learned,
I investigated.
But I still needed hard evidence,
because I’ve been raised an Anglican.
Could genetic imprinting really explain my internal dialogue of fear,
anxiety, and uncertainty?
What had gone on?
I wanted evidence that my paternal story was valid,
that I wasn’t making this up or clinging to some Hollywood movie script.
I know:
I'll get my DNA tested.
I jumped online,
I ordered it,
the pack arrived,
I spat into the vial,
posted it off,
and, all the time, feeling anxiously optimistic.
I clearly remember the day the email with results popped into my inbox.
I held my breath with excitement.
(Inhales)
“Oh, what will I do?”
My heart raced with trepidation.
Because once I’d opened that file,
I couldn’t turn back.
“Just open it!”
my brain screamed
and I did.
And there it was
in bold, uppercase, large font:
I was 57 percent European Jew.
Proof that an aspect of cultural identity had been denied to me.
So what else was missing?
Internally, I was beginning to feel the stirrings of validation
that fueled my crusade.
I wanted to keep going.
And then I found and trained with Mark Wolynn,
author of the book, “It Didn’t Start With You.”
His work has uncovered the impact of inherited family trauma
and what it can have in our present life.
Well, could this offer me answers?
Mark found that when a first child is sent away
and parents get pregnant again quickly,
there’s a greater chance of that child identifying with the missing
or rejected baby.
Had I unconsciously identified with my absent brother
and the other missing family members?
Had the life choices I made ensure I did not have a family either?
What my brother couldn’t have,
I would not have?
Unintentionally being single and childless became a part of my identity
and I was very skilled at hiding it,
fearing others, well, would judge me,
deem me a failure.
But here comes the massive revelation:
this curiosity crusade forced me to ask myself,
“Why am I doing this?
What fear is driving this need for external validation?”
So I started journaling,
and one day the words that had been swirling around in my head
each syllable so emotionally charged;
“When I die,
it will be like I never existed.”
This fear was the clue:
the persistent drive to be validated was for my invisible brother.
Silence and secrets had stolen my identity.
His legacy had become mine.
I’m in phase three of this new understanding.
By reframing and telling my story,
I honor those generations
and the social history of times past.
The silence and maintenance of secrets was their learned method of protection.
It was dangerous to be Jewish.
It was unacceptable to give a child away.
I now understand the melancholy I’d felt all my life
had no basis in my lived experience.
It belonged to my parents and grandparents.
And with the greatest respect and love, I leave it with them.
I also honor my parents.
In giving my brother away and withholding the truth,
they believed they were protecting me from their pain and shame
and the obligation and responsibility for his care.
And I found the baby, expected to die before school age.
He had outlived both his parents by more than two decades,
remaining isolated from our family system.
Standing firmly and proudly in my identity as his sister,
I honored his membership of our family
by bringing his ashes home to rest with our parents,
so ending his isolation.
Look, it hasn't been easy.
It took courage to uncover, to explore, to honor my past,
but it has connected me to my identity story.
I now consider my Jewish heritage,
gave me great strength.
And I value and celebrate
my capacity to get up every day
despite not having the lungs that breathe life into other familial communities.
Labels are where I started this marathon,
but the finishing line has a very different ending.
Labels no longer have power over me.
It is in the telling of my story that I find self-acceptance.
In honoring my heritage, I find healing and validation.
And I can now stand in a public arena without apology and without shame
and say,
“I am enough.”
In telling my story, I create a new legacy.
My story gives me a unique identity,
and this is more valuable to me than external acceptance.