Q

Dear Ruth,

My family is growing up and, for the first time, one of my children will be away from home. My eldest daughter is going to learn in a Seminary in another country. I know it is the best thing and a great opportunity for her.

Obviously we are all going to miss her terribly. Being my eldest daughter, she has been a great help to me around the house and with my other children. I am not really asking advice about that. I am, rather, asking another question:

We have always been very close, and I am afraid that now that she is going away, that closeness will disappear. She has always talked to me about all kinds of things and now this won’t be possible. I feel, in a way, that I am losing my daughter and I don’t know what to do about it. Obviously I still want her to go to Seminary, but I just don’t want to lose contact with her.

Could you please give me some sort of advice?

Sincerely,
Beverly

Dear Beverly,

You don’t want to lose contact with your daughter and I don’t blame you. You surely know, however, that many, many mothers have lost contact with their daughters while they are still at home, living in the same house with them.

Distance is difficult and I see that you are approaching it bravely. Of course you will miss her, but you don’t have to lose contact with her; and here I am sure you are talking about losing contact on an emotional level, not just on a “Will you please write once a week?” level. Writing once a week is important, but it is no guarantee against emotional distance, especially if there was an emotional distance before. To maintain emotional closeness with someone means that we have to work at it, that we have to open new (and old) channels of communication and keep them open.

Today we have all kinds of ways of communicating: e-mail, fax, telephone, letter...sending odd little caring things parcel post. These can be used to enrich the relationship just as other forms of communication do when we are living together. The secret is to do it with warmth, love, mutual respect and interest. It is important to keep up very regular, meaningful communication, even if it is not lengthy. It is easy to find things to say if you are writing to someone once or more a week. It becomes more difficult to find things to say if you are writing once a month, and very difficult if you are writing once a year. Each of these timeframes fosters a certain level of “sharing.” Interestingly, I know of some mothers who find themselves becoming even closer to their children once they leave home.

Dear Ruth,

I feel very badly writing this, and though I don’t doubt that you can help some people, I see no way that you can help in this case. Anyway, I will try. I won’t sign my real name in case anyone can identify me. There is someone I really hate; someone I can never forgive. This person has hurt me in a way that I will never forget, and then just acts towards me as if “they” have done nothing and as if everything is all right; as if I have no feelings.

Rosh Hashanah is coming up and I know a person is not supposed to have these feelings. What can I do?

Signed,
Perplexed

Dear Perplexed,

I don’t know how long you have had these feelings about this person; but the fact that you are writing to me, and the fact that you are aware that it is something which shouldn’t go past Rosh Hashanah, means that in some way you don’t really want to hold onto something so negative and destructive.

I have a notice stuck up on a board in my office:

“Anger and bitterness do far more harm to the vessel in which they are stored than the vessel over which it is poured.”

It is something which is not good for you in any way; physically (health-wise), emotionally, socially and as you describe, spiritually. Anger builds up stress and tension and turns us into people we don’t want to be.

By the way you describe the reaction of the person who has hurt you, it seems highly possible that he or she (we will use “he” just for clarity) doesn’t even realize what he has done, or at least how much he has hurt you.

It is important to speak to him, important for all sorts of reasons. You can approach it this way: “Did you mean to hurt me when you said this and this?” or “Do you realize what an effect it had on me when you did this and this?” Depending on his reaction, you can say, “I am finding it hard to forgive you, hard not to be really angry with you. Could you please explain to me why you did what you did?”

What you say is not all that important. What is important is that you are opening the channels for discussion and for explanation and reconciliation.

Again, depending on the reaction, this may or may not affect the relationship, but at least you have “gotten it off your chest” and are no longer seething over it. You might even find that your anger melts and you are able to forgive him even if he has not really understood what you are talking about.

There is no positive reason for holding onto anger. You have to tell the person what is bothering you and then try to put the whole thing out of your mind as unnecessary garbage that is clogging up your being. You will surely feel better once you can forgive him, far better in every way than if you nurse revenge for years and years as some people do.

Perhaps you should speak to your Rav about this, but to sort it out is essential!

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Dr. Ruth Benjamin
The Jewish Homemaker
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